But for filling sh.e.l.ls and felling trees, for turning lathes and driving motors, ploughing fields and lighting street-lamps--all valuable duties, it is true, in the crisis we have pa.s.sed through, and indispensable to carrying on the nation"s business. Yet what a drop from the supreme and tender to the trite and ba.n.a.l, from the vital and essential to the merely incidental, is seen in this belated recompense.
Not woman, Generatrix of Humanity and inspiration of all that is fairest in Humanity, has been now honoured--but woman the bus-conductor, ticket-clipper, clerk and agricultural labourer, woman in breeches and workman"s overall, woman whom German frightfulness had dislocated for a s.p.a.ce from her high lot and labours; twisting her powers awry to fit a hideous revulsion of barbarism.
How, if the G.o.ds ever laugh at the fantastic tricks of poor mankind, they must now have laughed (or wept) over the opportunity that one s.e.x had--and forfeited--to requite the other"s finest merit.
How deeply-moving and far-reaching in its impulse and its inspiration would have been the tribute, had it been made in reverent grat.i.tude to the mothers-of-men who had saved the world by mothering the men who saved the Empire--For achievement stamped with the high and unique quality of service that woman alone could have rendered. And not because, when tested by men"s standards, she proved herself a worthy second-best in doing things that men have always done.
The G.o.ds must long have wept, I think, that men had thought so lightly of the women living every day beside them, surrendering their lives and powers, their interests, desires and individuation; toiling over cooking-pans and wash-tubs, tied for years to children"s cots, for life to some or another person"s sick-bed; smothering talents, impulse, hopes, impatiences, to find the soft and simple word; solacing, inspiring, making-believe above an aching spirit and a breaking heart that all was fair and well with the world. And, moreover, in every generation making these beautiful fictions ever a fraction more truth and less fiction. For the G.o.ds alone know how that kindlier, purer and more tender Home-environment which women have created in men"s stony-hearted cities involves the most laborious, heart-wearing, complex and widest exercise of faculty of any human task.
Women themselves had long been tiring of it; stung to the soul and mortified by centuries of man"s ingrat.i.tude--when not contempt.
Nevertheless, where love and duty did not, chains of custom and tradition bound them faithful to their oars.
Till German Frightfulness releasing them, the cry is now:
Since you can do something better and more profitable than merely to row the old Galley of Life--since you can do men"s work, forsooth, come out into the market-place and help us pay our big War-Bill!
And yet--Whither will drift the Galley of Life when its rowers put their strength elsewhere?
II
In the haze of false sentiment exaggerating--not the value of masculine work done by the s.e.x during War, because this was, of course, invaluable and indispensable, but exaggerating, absolutely, the values of this work as compared with the woman"s work it had been doing previously, the decision to admit women to Parliament was a precipitate and an ill-considered measure, by no means innocent of party motive.
Threatening, as it does, a drastic sweep of all political, economic and every other difference between the standards, training, and employment of the s.e.xes, it was pressed forward, nevertheless, not only with characteristic masculine failure to recognise the vital significance of the other s.e.x in Human Things, but in utter blindness to social and racial consequences, immediate and remote, which make it possibly the most momentous decision ever arrived at in the history of human progress.
Showing how little it was known for the turning-point in our great destiny, the question was debated with unseemly levity, while less than half the parliamentary members troubled (or had hardihood) to record their votes; the abstention of the others proving which way blew the straws of their faint wills. And of those voting in favour, half, perhaps, did so (as some confessed) under intimidation of otherwise losing their seats. (What would be said of the soldier who should turn his back upon the enemy for fear of losing life even?)
No more than twenty-five found courage to say their "No"s" like honest gentleman.
Yet far from Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt having been a burning need blazing in the hearts of women, their newly-awarded vote required to be spurred and whipped out of all but a small minority. Or coaxed from them by abandoning appeal on all the wider issues of Imperial and national policy, and, in so far as their interest was sought, by reducing the programme to personal and domestic issues--electric lighting in their parlours, hot-water taps in their kitchens, and so forth.
And here was seen, at once, the threat of a grave and an increasing diversion from that purely political outlook of men, which should be impersonal in issue, broad in enterprise. Not that the human and domestic side is a whit less momentous than the more abstract and national. But appealing to a different order of mind, it demands that different order of mind which characterises the woman-s.e.x, to deal with it effectively.
The plea that women will acquire in time the masculine political view-point threatens, on the other hand, the loss in them of their own highly-specialised and invaluable interests, morale and qualities; which, being womanly of impulse and of trend, make for the individual welfare, happiness and elevation of the nation"s members.
III
As with every other human function, there are two departments of politics. And the House of Commons represents man"s.
It stands for all that is best accomplished politically by his highly-specialised order of brain; by his concrete energy and initiative, his justice and rationalism, his power of administration, and his uncompromising sternness--pitilessness, if need be--to deal with and to punish crime and aggression, national and international. It stands, in a word, for that virile outlook and the virile grip in Statesmanship which are indispensable to materialise a people"s prosperity and to pioneer its progress. These are the functions of _men_. Just as the Army and Navy, Science and Commerce, are the functions of men. Because the male bent and intellect are those best fitted to raise these developments to their highest and most effective issues, just as the male physique and energy are best fitted to achieve these issues in material results.
Had anything been needed to emphasise the values of such virile characteristics in the administration of a nation"s policy, the War furnished it. And the many blunders and vacillations marring the conduct of the War emphasised the lack of these invaluable masculine qualities in the concurrent House of Commons. Army, Navy, and Air-Services proved their manhood doughtily in their respective provinces. Had they been supplemented by an equally virile Statesmanship, the War, having begun, would have been brought to a speedy termination. In point of fact, it would never have begun.
If now, our British politics are already so lacking in the manly ability and grip indispensable to national permanence and progress, the presence of women in Parliament can but further emasculate these. It may be said that some women outside the House are more male of mind and mode (not to speak of muscle) than are some men inside. But this is reason, surely, for replacing these weak males by stronger ones, rather than for adulterating British statesmanship with Femaleness.
The presence of a masculine woman in a house--whether this be writ with a small or a capital letter--far from stiffening the manly calibre of weak men in it, only further enervates and paralyses them. To serve on a committee of mixed s.e.x is to realise this.
Women should be represented in the counsels of the nation--but not in the councils of men. They should have a House of their own, wherein to foster the interests of women and children mainly, as well as to further The Humanities and The Moralities; which are, at the same time, woman"s true political sphere and her chiefest concern--because she and the child most suffer from failures thereof. Thus, the House of Men would be relieved of problems their s.e.x is unqualified to deal with. While more time and energy would be left them to dispose of affairs they are best fitted to administer.
As already pointed out, the all-potent factor of s.e.x intervening, members of neither s.e.x are capable of doing their best work while in a.s.sociation with the other. s.e.x-rivalries are stirred, or s.e.x-antagonisms. Either of which range the s.e.xes on opposite sides; thus precluding amicable co-operation. Or they engender s.e.x-ascendancy.
Which, making one s.e.x dominate or defer to the other, precludes intelligent co-operation. Through all, moreover, only too often run threads of intrigue, to entangle and hamper the powers of both.
British politics have notably declined since woman"s incursion therein.
British commerce, once supreme among the nations, has notably declined since women entered business-houses. Good and thorough work demands, beyond all things, undivided concentration of the powers upon it. And for nine persons out of ten, this concentration is impossible while in the presence of members of the opposite s.e.x. And emphatically this is true of the male, since woman exercises a hypnotic, and, accordingly, an enervating influence upon him. Worse still, he poses for her: becoming meretricious and insincere. It is held by some that women in Parliament might elevate the codes and modes of latter-day politics, many of our best men withholding themselves therefrom because of bad odour imparted by self-seeking and unscrupulous politicians.
But let us keep our House of Commons a House of men, and make it representative of the nation"s finest manhood. It is the first and foremost function of the s.e.x, the way of national success and progress.
And just as the presence of women would blunt the pioneering spirit and cripple the action of a party of Arctic explorers, so women in the House must blunt the enterprise and hamper the exploits of Statesmanship.
So far, the good sense alike of women as of men has declared against the innovation; rejecting, by large majorities, all but one of women Parliamentary candidates. It remains to be seen, however, whether men outside the House will later endorse the new departure, by electing members of the other s.e.x to represent them. A thing impossible for one s.e.x to do for the other, of course, seeing that not only do men and women arrive at their different conclusions by wholly different routes, but all questions bear wholly different values for them.
It may be argued that the existence of dual departments of politics, and dual points-of-view is argument for electing representatives of both s.e.xes to The Commons. Not so, however. Each s.e.x is specialist in its own domain. And an aurist wastes time, and most likely blunders, when he applies himself to treat eye-diseases. An oculist wastes time, and probably blunders, when delicate ear-operations are required of him.
Since by his dual const.i.tution, moreover, man possesses, by inheritance from his mother, the quotum of woman-apprehension, foresight, and altruism required to present the woman-bent and view-point in his outlook and conduct of political and civic affairs, woman"s personal intervention in these is as superfluous as it would be harmful.
Further, there are two orders of men: An order strictly male in trend and talent, and an order whose mentality is tinctured with a higher than average proportion of womanly conservatism, sympathy and intuition. And these two orders of male--typified, respectively, by the Conservative and the Radical parties--perpetually struggling to secure the measures prompted by their respective orders of mind, and intermittently gaining ascendancy, sustain a poise, or mean, between the unduly conservative and traditional, and the unduly radical and transitional in our political administration.
These two orders of mentality are found again in Youth and Age. All healthy and vigorous-minded young men are radical of bias; hot-headed, precipitate and intolerant of crusted orthodoxy, keen to demolish old inst.i.tutions and established methods. While maturity makes for conservatism. It _knows_. And having learned by experience the values of inst.i.tutions which have become inst.i.tutions because of their values, it is prudent in its counsels of slow and stable reform, in its distrust of drastic, precipitate change, and, beyond all, in its wise mis...o...b..ings of the world in general as being better than it is, and ripe, accordingly, for the best things.
For the present, there are numberless problems and questions of women"s industrial employment, of children"s employment, of the industrial supervision of young girls and their moral protection; problems of female drunkenness and prost.i.tution, crimes of children, crimes against infants and children; questions of health, of the education and upbringing of the young, of dress and conduct, and of the general moral purification and the mental elevation of the Race--with all of which women are essentially qualified to deal; and the vital national importance whereof men have proved themselves as incapable of apprehending as they have shown themselves powerless to administer them.
The two cla.s.ses of national problems, or the two departments into which most of these problems might be advantageously sub-cla.s.sed, should be recognised as being the functions, respectively, of the one or of the other s.e.x, and should be deputed for consideration to the House of Men or to the House of Women. With the result that in both, every problem of reform would be dealt with by the s.e.x specialised by nature, by sympathy, and by training, best to understand and best to legislate for it.
As with The Lords, either House should have power to question or to reject the conclusions of the other.
We need urgently, indeed, such a House of Women to employ its native wisdom, its intuitive apprehension, and its moral and emotional impulse, and, moreover, to bring its experience and tact to bear upon a hundred-and-one tangled and neglected issues of moral and social reform.
In order to remedy evils that have come, from long neglect, to be a cancer, slowly and surely sapping and vitiating our national life and endangering our racial supremacy.
IV
That women may do useful work in male departments of politics and economics is quite beside the question. Far more valuable work is needed and is possible from them in their own especial fields of apt.i.tude. In these latter, moreover, they would be fostering, in place of sacrificing, that morale and those distinctive talents Nature has specialised in them. While their withdrawal _in toto_ from male political and economic functions would put men on their mettle, and stimulate their efforts and achievement therein.
Woman"s influence, like that of Religion, is most potent when it is indirect and inspirational. Like the Church, when she exchanges her indirect and devotional ministrations for direct and material ones, temporal or militant, she destroys herself or the peoples she dominates.
Or she destroys both.
It is common fallacy that so long as the world"s work is done and its affairs tolerably well conducted, it is of no significance whatsoever by which s.e.x these ends are attained.
Sight is lost of the intrinsic truth that Life exists for Man--not Man for Life; its purpose being the evolution of the human Species by way of the evolution of human Faculty. The world"s work has no slightest value save as spur and instrument of human education. And the evolution of the dual orders of human Faculty having differentiated the human Species into two s.e.xes, each representing a wholly different order of Faculty--obviously the perfection of both orders of Faculty and, accordingly, the further evolution of both s.e.xes wherein these orders are respectively specialised, can be attained only by the exercise, by each order, of the role and the functions that best evoke its powers.
If, therefore, the male s.e.x repudiates its allotted role and functions, and forfeits, in consequence, the education of its distinctive talents and moral, by shelving its responsibilities upon the other s.e.x, howsoever capable a subst.i.tute this other s.e.x may prove itself, man acts as foolishly and fatuously as the schoolboy who shirks his schooling and the discipline thereof, by enlisting his capable sister to do his lessons for him.
It is, at the same time, man"s duty and his privilege manfully to shoulder and ably to perform his own allotted part in Life"s affairs.
Evading this, or from a false conception of chivalry allowing woman to usurp a share therein, he degenerates inevitably; in default of his natural spur to development. Moreover he obliges--or connives at woman doing likewise, in respect of her allotted part.
That he has already grown so slack, his virile pride and enterprise have so far lapsed, as to reconcile him to woman"s usurpation of his masculine functions and prerogatives should warn him of incipient dry-rot in him. As too, the portentous fact that had he not declined in physical and mental calibre, she could never so readily and efficiently have taken his place as we have seen her doing. So efficiently, indeed, that he will be hard put to it to regain and to retain his lost professional and industrial footing, by proving himself appreciably the better man.
As Dr. Havelock Ellis says, if they are to cope with the new Feminism, men must needs look to their laurels and produce a new Masculinism. For truly these weak-chinned, neurotic young men of the rising generation are no match at all for the heavy-jawed, sinewy, resolute young women Feminist aims and methods are giving us.