public morality is affronted when senile, infirm, and bedridden men are brought to the poll to turn the scale in hotly contested elections.
For electoral decisions are felt to have moral prestige only when the electoral figures quantitatively represent the physical forces which are engaged on either side. And where vital interests are involved, no class of men can be expected to accept any decision other than one which rests upon the ultima ratio.
Now all the evils which are the outcome of disparities between the parliamentary power and the organised physical force of contending parties would "grow" a hundredfold if women were admitted to the suffrage.
There would after that be no electoral or parliamentary decision which would not be open to challenge on the ground that it was impossible to tell whether the party which came out the winner had a majority which could enforce its will, or only a majority obtained by the inclusion of women. And no
