Under the heading " The Cabinet, the House, and the
Women " the Daily Chronicle of Thursday gives special prominence to a remarkable article urging resort to the Referendum on the question of woman suffrage. If, as the Chronicle points out, an amendment is carried on a wider basis than the Conciliation Bill, the position of the Cabinet will become illogical and impossible. " We cannot have one Cabinet on Home Rule and two Cabinets on women's suffrage. We cannot have some Cabinet Ministers campaigning in favour of women's suffrage and others leading a counter attack." The only solution of the tangle—in other words, the only way to save the Liberal Government—is the Refer- endum. The Chronicle suggests that municipal women voters should be included, though it would prefer to see a larger number of women consulted. If the Referendum goes for the women "the Government of the day will have to bow to this decision. If, on the other hand, the decision is against the granting of votes in any form to women, that does not by any means settle the question. It will only make sup- porters of the movement all the more determined to convince the people of the justice of their claim." This is rather acme° of "heads I win, tails you lose "; but even on these terms we are glad to welcome the Chronicle as a reluctant convert to the Referendum. Even the British Weekly goes so far as to say that, though " the Referendum is to us an odious instrument in all circumstances, certainly there is something to say for it when the question to be referred is not a question of party."
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