Since 1869 women who are householders have enjoyed the municipal franchise, and as Poor Law guardians and members of school boards, they have been freely elected to sit side by side with men.

In 1907 women were declared eligible by Parliament for membership on county and borough councils, and for the chairmanship of county councils and the mayoralty of boroughs.

Since this Act was passed we have seen women elected to the councils of great cities--Manchester and Liverpool, for instance--and chosen as mayors in several towns.

No political movement in recent years has been of greater public interest or importance than the agitation for "Votes for Women." The demand for enfranchisement is based on the old constitutional ground of the Parliamentarians of the seventeenth century--that those who are directly taxed by Government must have some political control of the public expenditure--and it is supported by the present leader of the Conservative Party[86] on the ground that government can only be carried on in England by consent of the governed.
The demand for the parliamentary franchise is with us the expression of that deep dissatisfaction at the unequal relations of the sexes that is felt by many men, and by far more women, all over the civilised world.

As the middle-class man and the workmen of Great Britain were sure that they could not get from Parliament an understanding of popular grievances, still less fair treatment, until they possessed the right to choose their own parliamentary representatives, so women are convinced that there can be no adequate adjustment of these unequal relations until they too enjoy the same privilege of citizenship; for enfranchisement and representation are the two chosen instruments of democratic government in our day.
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