In the background, behind the moral compulsion of expressed public
opinion, there is, in the case of a Parliamentary State, also another
instrument of control. I have in view that periodical settlement of
the contested rulership of the State by the force of a majority of
electors which is denoted a general election.

The control exercised by the suffrages of the electors in a general
election is in certain important respects less effective than that
exercised by the everyday public expression of opinion. It falls short
in the respect that its verdicts are, except only in connexion with
the issue as to whether the Government is to be retained in office or
dismissed, ambiguous verdicts; further, in the respect that it comes
into application either before governmental proposals have taken
definite shape, or only after the expiration of a term of years, when
the events are already passing out of memory.

If we now consider the question of woman's franchise from the wider
point of view here opened up, it will be clear that, so far as
concerns the control which is exercised through public opinion on the
Government, the intelligent woman, and especially the intelligent
woman who has made herself an expert on any matter, is already in
possession of that which is a greater power than the franchise. She
has the power which attaches to all intelligent opinion promulgated in
a free State. Moreover, wherever the special interest of women are
involved, any woman may count on being listened to if she is voicing
the opinions of any considerable section of her sex.

In reality, therefore, woman is disfranchised only so far as relates
to the confirmation of a Government in office, or its dismissal by the
_ultima ratio [ultimate reason]_ of an electoral contest. And when we