have previously traversed in dealing with the arguments of the
suffragists.

I may begin with what is fundamental. It is an axiom that we should in
legislating guide ourselves directly by considerations of utility and
expediency. For abstract principles--I have in view here _rights,
justice, egalitarian equity, equality, liberty, chivalry, logicality,_
and such like--are not all of them guides to utility; and each of
these is, as we have seen, open to all manner of private
misinterpretation.

Applying the above axiom to the issue before us, it is clear that we
ought to confine ourselves here to the discussion of the question as
to whether the State would, or would not, suffer from the admission of
women to the electorate.

We can arrive at a judgment upon this by considering, on the one hand,
the class-characters of women so far as these may be relevant to the
question of the suffrage; and, on the other hand, the legislative
programmes put forward by the female legislative reformer and the
feminist.

In connexion with the class-characters of woman, it will be well,
before attempting to indicate them, to interpolate here the general
consideration that the practical statesman, who has to deal with
things as they are, is not required to decide whether the characters
of women which will here be considered are, as the physiologist (who
knows that the sexual products influence every tissue of the body)
cannot doubt, "secondary sexual characters"; or, as the suffragist
contends, "acquired characters." It will be plain that whether defects