are "secondary sexual characters" (and therefore as irremediable as
"racial characters"); or whether they are "acquired characters" (and
as such theoretically remediable) they are relevant to the question of
the concession of the suffrage just so long as they continue to be
exhibited.[1]

[1] This is a question on which Mill (vide _Subjection of Women_, last
third of Chapter I) has endeavoured to confuse the issues for his
reader, first, by representing that by no possibility can man know
anything of the "nature," _i.e._, of the "secondary sexual
characters" of woman; and, secondly, by distracting attention from the
fact that "acquired characters" may produce unfitness for the
suffrage.

The primordial argument against giving woman the vote is that that
vote would not represent physical force.

Now it is by physical force alone and by prestige--which represents
physical force in the background--that a nation protects itself
against foreign interference, upholds its rule over subject
populations, and enforces its own laws. And nothing could in the end
more certainly lead to war and revolt than the decline of the military
spirit and loss of prestige which would inevitably follow if man
admitted woman into political co-partnership.

While it is arguable that such a partnership with woman in government
as obtains in Australia and New Zealand is sufficiently unreal to be
endurable, there cannot be two opinions on the question that a virile
and imperial race will not brook any attempt at forcible control by
women.