helped. The beggar in the streets may have neglected to avail himself of many opportunities, or may have brought himself to beggary through drink, but the first cause is unknown and he ought to be helped. The fallen women may be at heart an impure woman who has chosen her own life, but nobody can be sure of this, so she has a claim upon the regard of all. The last word in the feminist programme is the first essential of real progress in any cause—how to reconstruct society so that all who will work may have work and be honourably remunerated for it. Individuals here and there have risen above their circumstances and have climbed to the greatest heights, but they are comparatively few in number. The bulk of their associates have gone down to their graves after lives of half-famished obscurity, and the relentless machine of a grinding commercialism is for ever supplying more and more of these poor victims.
The feminist understands this thing right down to its depths. It is this fact which distinguishes her from the suffragist. The suffragist demands only equality in politics; though she desires to use her vote to help the poor, she has not always, nor even generally, a clear idea of how this is to be done. The feminist knows both what she wants to see accomplished, and the way in which it has
