BRITISH CONSERVATISM AND THE PRIMROSE LEAGUE ... - ideals

147
A Grand Council Precept was issued in 1889 forbidding
Habitations to take part in suffrage meetings or to pass resolutions on
the subject.
Nevertheless, the executive found it necessary to reissue
warnings repeatedly because of action taken at the local levels in
violation of official policy.34
The Council's position was further
undermined by the nominal
support given by both Balfour and Salisbury
to the cause of women's suffrage.
In true Disraelian fashion, both men
realized the potential gains which could be achieved by the party by
enfranchising property holding women, deemed to be staunch supporters.
In speaking to the House of Commons in 1892, Balfour vigorously
defended extending the parliamentary franchise to women as an action
generally consistent with his support of the Primrose League.
Endorsing their right to vote over the objections of Liberal member
Asquith and Liberal Unionist representative Henry James, he stated
I should think myself grossly inconsistent and most
ungrateful if I supported that argument in this House,
for I have myself taken the chair at Primrose League
meetings, and urged to the best of my ability the women
of this country to take a share in politics, and to do
their best in their various localities to support the
franchise to property holding women. It was passed as were similar
measures sponsored in 1889, 1891, and 1894. "National Union Annual
Conference Minutes," 22-23 November 1887, NUA 2/1/7; "National Union
Annual Report to the Conference," 1909, NUA 2/2/4.
p. 10.
34
Ibid., p. 126.
The Primrose League Gazette, 1 August 1899,