The Catholic Suffragist. Vol. 1, no. 1

              THE 
CATHOLIC SUFFRAGIST
Organ of the Catholic Women's Suffrage Society, 55, Berners Street, London.
Vol. I., No. 1.   January 15th, 1915.   Price One Penny.
Daughter of the ancient Eve, 
We know the gifts ye gave and give; 
Who knows the gifts which you shall give, 
Daughter of the newer Eve.
— Francis Thompson.
THE CATHOLIC SUFFRAGIST.
By Alice Meynell.
The production in war time of a new paper dedicated to the cause of Votes for Women should remind us that though thousands are suffering acutely, splendidly, and conspicuously, millions are suffering chronically, inconspicuously, and with little hope, evils against which the whole Suffrage movement has set its face. Crime has been lessened by the War, we hear; but we cannot hope that sin has been lessened. And the difficult and arduous work of the women reformers is essentially and fundamentally a moral work. A Catholic suffragist woman is a suffragist on graver grounds and with weightier reasons than any other suffragist in England.
In a time of war ours is a cause of peace. It cannot ultimately be otherwise, inasmuch as we come to ask for what we cannot seize, and have to beg law-makers to make another law. Our appeal is to law and to the reason that dictates law : "Come, let us reason together" ; and that is an act of peace, of quiet thinking, and deliberate speech. Moreover, the demand of judicious women for full citizenship is a proffer of help. The world is generally difficult to govern, and especially are matters of law affecting questions between men and women most intricate. It would be useful, we think, to hear one side (not necessarily in a quarrel, but oftener in concurrence) as well as the other; to hear the contention of women immediately, and not any longer mediately by means of their "influence." Influence without responsibility does not make for good and careful judgment; it encourages, at the least, haste and impulse, and a confidence in that illusion, feminine "intuition'' (I wish I might never hear that word again, denoting, as it does, vanity, rashness, unreason, and presumption); at the worst it makes light of the stringent duties of conscience.
The function of full citizenship will arouse all that is now inactive, or rather ignorant, in the collective conscience of women. And a collective conscience is needed. Women have too long been content to be good individually. They will now, sister for sister, acknowledge such a responsibility as no brother can own strictly towards a brother; they will be the " keepers " of one another. For no class, no caste, nor race has the obligation of such mutual duty as sex imposes upon women. That duty has been for centuries fulfilled in one way — let us call it a theoretic or academic way: that is, women have asserted a high standard of morality and have made that standard a social rule, and have enforced it by social sanctions. These sanctions have now passed out of fashion, and perhaps are not greatly to be regretted, in so much as they were not precisely charitable; they worked chiefly by social exclusions; the erring, or even the suspected, woman was not "received." We may hope now to keep up the same standard by wisdom, sympathy and all methods purely religious. We shall moreover have reason on our side, because our standard will be, as Christianity would have it, equal for women and men. No, considering the old inequality, we need not greatly mourn the passing of the old severity.
That men need the special knowledge, help,