The annual meeting of the Bar tomorrow provides a recurrent and well-worn occasion for discussing the admission of women to the legal profession. That the discussion has never made much headway in the past is due partly, no doubt, to the natural conservatism of lawyers, but also to a certain “crankiness” and want of weight in the women’s advocates. They are too apt to confuse their case with resolutions about the Parliamentary vote and the suppression of vivisection and a number of other topics outside the province of the meeting. And, like every other women’s cause, it is handicapped by the vagaries of some of the feminist leaders themselves. But it gains in strength nevertheless, and we hope that present conditions may at least increase the dignity with which it is treated.
The present position is that both branches of the Law remain closed to women. It is not a satisfactory state of affairs, and we should rejoice to see these barriers abandoned. It would be infinitely better that women should find their own level in any profession where there is no reason in principle against them. There is no stronger theoretical case against a woman lawyer than against a woman doctor or a woman journalist, and the result of admitting them would probably be much the same. Here and there an exceptional woman might climb high on the ladder at the Bar. A larger number would probably achieve a substantial position as solicitors.
Some thousands of women have qualified in the United States, and they have nowhere “swamped” the profession. We have never been able to see any valid objection to conceding the same freedom of opportunity in England. Moreover, there are special reasons just now why the Law, which is the oldest and most distinguished of trade unions, should set this particular example to the rest. The war is changing many things, and nothing more profoundly than the position of women in the national industries. The replacement of men by women in skilled occupations which have hitherto been barred to them has gone to very great lengths. If, as we hold, our strength as a nation depends on a proper distribution of the energies of all our men and women then it is not too soon to give practical expression to the principle wherever it is found.