Life's ironies beset us whichever way we turn. The very day that Woodrow Wilson signed the tariff bill, I discovered that Emmeline is a Protectionist.

Thrice in the course of the evening I alluded, with pretended calm, to the signing of the bill, without awakening the least response in Emmeline. The tariff apparently had no meaning to her. Thereupon I reproached her openly.

"It is characteristic of your sex," I said, "not to betray the slightest interest in a matter that comes so intimately home to you. Here is a bill which is bound to affect the problem of high prices. Every woman who carries a market basket, every woman who shops, every woman who has the management of a household on her hands, is directly concerned in the question of lower tariff duties. Yet I dare say you haven't read two lines on the subject in your newspaper."

"What have we been paying duties on?" she said.

"On everything," I replied with spirit. "Anchors, for instance. We have been paying one cent a pound on them. That means twenty dollars a ton. You know what the average anchor weighs, so you can figure out for yourself what we have been paying out all these years for this commodity alone. We have been paying 85 per cent. on bunion plasters, 10 per cent. on animals' claws, and 85 per cent. on teazels."

"But we hardly ever use any of these things," she said.

"I was simply illustrating the iniquitous extremes to which our tariff advocates were prepared to go," I said. "It may seem natural to put a duty on beef, and shoes, and cotton goods. But the tariff barons were not content. Insatiable greed demanded that a tax be put on teazels."

"What is a teazel?" she said.

"I am not sure that I know," I replied. "But that just illustrates one of the favourite methods of the tariff plunderers. It consisted in slapping a stiff duty on articles people did not know the meaning of and so would pay without protest. I say teazels, but, of course, I mean meat, and sugar, and cotton, and woollen goods, all of which things will soon be within the reach of all. I should imagine that women would be grateful for what has been done to make the living problem so much easier."

"Under the new tariff bill," she said, "will there still be only twenty-four hours to the day?"

"The new tariff doesn't repeal the laws of astronomy," I replied.

"That is what I was thinking when you spoke of the living problem being made easier for us," she said. "Putting twelve more hours into the day would be a help. Did the old tariff have a big duty on hanging up pictures?"

"I don't know what you are driving at," I said, but in my heart I thought I knew.

"I mean," she said, "around moving time. I have always thought there must be a very heavy tax on every picture that a man hangs up; or rugs—"

I decided that frivolity was the best way out of a situation that had suddenly become menacing. "Usually we don't hang up rugs," I said.

"That may be an oversight on our part," she replied. "Perhaps, if we hung up rugs and put pictures on the floor it might appeal to your passion for romance. You might even find it exhilarating."

The idea seemed to fascinate her.

"There are a great many things," she went on, "that I should like to see on the free list. Seats in the Subway, for instance. I stood up all the way from Twenty-third Street this afternoon, but I suppose the duty on a man's giving up his seat to a woman is prohibitive. Then there's Mrs. Flanagan who comes in by the day. She has a baby who is teething and cries all night. I wish there was a lower duty on babies' teeth, so that they came easier; and on sleep for mothers who have to go out by the day. I also wish there was a lower duty on the whisky that her husband consumes. She could possibly afford to stay at home more than she does."

"He'd only drink himself to death," I said.

But she was not paying attention. "There might be a lower duty on efficient domestic help. It would be a relief."

"Foreign household help are not under the tariff law at all," I said. "They come in free."

"That's what the girl said yesterday when she decided to quit, an hour before dinner. And from the way she spoke to me I imagine that her language also came in free. The more I think of it the fewer advantages I can see for us women under your new tariff bill." And then the bitter truth came out. "I think that on the whole I am in favour of a high tariff on most things."

"You are in favour of Protection," I stammered, hardly believing my senses.

"I am in favour of protecting domestic industry," said Emmeline, and I saw that she had been reading the newspapers more carefully than I imagined.

The protective system which Emmeline outlined to me that evening would have made Senator Penrose sob for joy. One of the first things she demanded was a heavy duty on tobacco. She said she would be satisfied with a flat rate of 100 per cent. on the nasty article, with a super tax of 100 per cent. on all half-smoked cigars left lying around the house, and another 100 per cent. on cigar ashes and half-burnt matches. Alcoholic spirits should be totally excluded. She wanted a pretty heavy duty on raincoats left lying on chairs when they should be hung up on the proper hook. She was also in favour of a prohibitive tax on all arguments tending to prove that woman's natural sphere is the home. Lodge dues, club dues, and the practice of reading newspapers at the breakfast table should be heavily taxed. There were a great many other schedules she proposed, carrying a minimum duty of seventy-five per cent. I cannot pretend to remember all, but my impression is that plays dealing with the social evil and eugenics were among them.

By this time it will be apparent that Emmeline's views on tariff legislation were somewhat confused. She evidently made no distinction between import duties, internal revenue taxes, and the police power of the State. Before continuing our discussion I therefore insisted that we restrict debate to the specific question of import duties and the cost of living. The simple fact was that we had now changed from a high-tariff nation to a low-tariff nation. How would this affect ourselves and our neighbours?

Thereupon I was subjected to a severe examination as to tariffs and prices in other countries. My answers were, in a general fashion, correct, though possibly I may have confused the British tariff system with that of Germany.

"From your statements, so far as I can make head or tail out of them," said Emmeline, "I gather that in protection countries the cost of food and clothing and rent is always just a little ahead of wages and salaries."

"You have followed me perfectly," I said.

"Whereas in low-tariff countries people's wages and salaries are always just a little behind the cost of food, clothing, and shelter.

"That is due to quite a different set of causes," I said.

"I imagined," she said, "that the causes must be other than those you mentioned. But the fact remains that the choice which confronts most of us is between having a little less than we need, or needing a little more than we have. If that is so, it seems to me rather a waste of time to spend—did you say seventy-five years?—in revising the tariff. I prefer my own kind of tariff."

"And the cost of living?" I said.

"My kind of tariff gets much nearer to solving that problem," she said.

"But then, why Mrs. Pankhurst?" I said. "If the making of laws has nothing to do with the comfort of life, why do you want to vote?"

"Because we want to assert our equality by sharing your illusions. Besides, we can use the vote to bring about a state of things when voting won't be necessary."

On further thought, Emmeline is not a Protectionist; she is an Anarchist.