If ever the question as to whether the will of Ulster or that of the
Nationalists is to prevail is brought to the arbitrament of physical
force, it will be due to the inequalities of parliamentary
representation as between England and Ireland, and as between the
Unionist and Nationalist population of Ulster.

The general lesson that all governmental action ought to be backed by
force, is further brought home to the conscience when we take note of
the fact that every one feels that 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 measure of redistribution could ever set that right.

There may find place here also the consideration that the voting of