In the weeks following the disgraceful events before Buckingham Palace
the Government made several last, desperate efforts to crush the
W. S. P. U., to remove all the leaders and to destroy our paper, the
_Suffragette_. They issued summonses against Mrs. Drummond, Mrs. Dacre
Fox and Miss Grace Roe; they raided our headquarters at Lincolns Inn
House; twice they raided other headquarters temporarily in use, not to
speak of raids made upon private dwellings where the new leaders, who
had risen to take the places of those arrested, were at their work for
the organisation. But with each successive raid the disturbances which
the Government were able to make in our affairs became less, because we
were better able, each time, to provide against them. Every effort made
by the Government to suppress the _Suffragette_ failed, and it continued
to come out regularly every week. Although the paper was issued
regularly, we had to use almost super-human energy to get it
distributed. The Government sent to all the great wholesale news agents
a letter which was designed to terrorise and bully them into refusing to
handle the paper or to sell it to the retail news agents. Temporarily,
at any rate, the letter produced in many cases the desired effect, but
we overcame the emergency by taking immediate steps to build up a
system of distribution which was worked by women themselves,
independently of the newspaper trade. We also opened a "Suffragette
Defence Fund," to meet the extra expense of publishing and distributing
the paper.
Twice more the Government attempted to force me to serve the three
years' term of penal servitude, one arrest being made when I was being
carried to a meeting in an ambulance. Wholesale arrests and hunger
strikes occurred at the same time, but our women continued their work of
militancy, and money flowed into our Protest and Defence Fund. At one
great meeting in July the fund was increased by nearly L16,000.
But now unmistakable signs began to appear that our long and bitter
struggle was drawing to a close. The last resort of the Government of
inciting the street mobs against us had been little successful, and we
could see in the temper of the public abundant hope that the reaction
against the Government, long hoped for by us, had actually begun.
Every day of the militant movement was so extraordinarily full of events
and changes that it is difficult to choose a point at which this
narrative should be brought to a close. I think, however, that an
account of a recent debate which took place in the House of Commons will
give the reader the best idea of the complete breakdown of the
Government in their effort to crush the women's fight for liberty.
On June 11th, when the House of Commons had gone into a Committee of
Supply, Lord Robert Cecil moved a reduction of 100 pounds on the Home
Office vote, thus precipitating a discussion of militancy. Lord Robert
said that he had read with some surprise that the Government were not
dissatisfied with the measures which they had taken to deal with the
violent suffragists, and he added with some asperity that the Government
took a much more sanguine view of the matter than anybody else in the
United Kingdom. The House, Lord Robert went on to declare, would not be
in a position to deal with the case satisfactorily unless they realised
the devotion of the followers to their leaders, who were almost fully
responsible for what was going on. Ministerial cheers greeted this
utterance, but they ceased suddenly when the speaker went on to say that
these leaders could never have induced their followers to enter upon a
career of crime but for the serious mistakes which had been made over
and over again by the Government. Among these mistakes Lord Robert cited
the shameful treatment of the women on Black Friday, the policy of
forcible feeding and the scandal of the different treatment accorded
Lady Constance Lytton and "Jane Warton." There were Opposition cheers at
this, and they were again raised when Lord Robert deplored the terrible
waste of energy, and "admirable material" involved in the militant
movement. Although Lord Robert Cecil deemed it unjust as well as futile
for Suffragist Members to withhold their support from the woman suffrage
movement on account of militancy he himself was in favor of deportation
for Suffragettes. At this there were cries of "Where to?" and "Ulster!"
Mr. McKenna replied by first calling attention to the fact that in the
militant movement they had a phenomenon "absolutely without precedent in
our history." Women in numbers were committing crimes, beginning with
window breaking, and proceeding to arson, not with the motives of
ordinary criminals, but with the intention of advertising a political
cause and of forcing the public to grant their demands. Mr. McKenna
continuing said:
"The number of women who commit crimes of that kind is extremely small,
but the number of those who sympathise with them is extremely large. One
of the difficulties which the police have in detecting this form of
crime and in bringing home the offence to the criminal is that the
criminals find so many sympathisers among the well-to-do and thoroughly
respectable classes that the ordinary administration of the law is
rendered comparatively impossible. Let me give the House some figures
showing the number of women who have been committed to prison for
offences since the beginning of the militant agitation in 1906. In that
year the total number of commitments to prison was 31, all the persons
charged being women. In 1909 the figure rose to 156; in 1911 to 188 (182
women and six men); and in 1912 to 290 (288 women and two men). In 1913
the number dropped to 183, and so far this year it has dropped to 108.
These figures include all commitments to prison and rearrests under the
Cat and Mouse Act. What is the obvious lesson to be drawn? Up to 1912
the number of offences committed for which imprisonment was the
punishment was steadily increasing, but since the beginning of last
year--that is to say, since the new Act came into force--the number of
individual offences has been very greatly reduced. On the other hand, we
see that the seriousness of the offences is much greater."
This statement, that the number of imprisonments had decreased since the
adoption of the Cat and Mouse Act, was of course, incorrect, or at best
misleading. The fact was that the number of imprisonments decreased
because, where formerly the militants went willingly to prison for their
acts, they now escaped prison wherever possible. A comparatively small
number of "mice" were ever rearrested by the police.
Mr. McKenna went on to say that he realised fully the growing sense of
indignation against the militant suffragists and he added, "Their one
hope is, rightly or wrongly, that the well advertised indignation of the
public will recoil on the head of the Government."
"And so it will," interpolated a voice.
"My honourable friend," replied Mr. McKenna, "says so it will. I believe
that he is mistaken." But he gave no reasons for so believing. Referring
to what he called the "recent grave rudenesses which have been committed
against the King," Mr. McKenna said: "It is true that all subjects have
the right of petitioning His Majesty, providing the petition is couched
in respectful terms, but there is no right on the part of the subjects
generally to personal audience for the purpose of the presentation of
the petition or otherwise. It is the duty of the Home Secretary to
present all such petitions to the King, and further to advise His
Majesty what action should be taken. It was therefore ridiculous for any
Suffragist to assert that there had been any breach of constitutional
propriety on the part of the King in refusing, on the advice of the Home
Secretary to receive the deputation."
Also, said Mr. McKenna, in view of the fact that the petition for an
audience was sent by a person under sentence of penal
servitude--myself--it was the plain duty of the Home Secretary to advise
the King not to grant it. He referred to the incident, he said, only
because it was illustrative of the militant's methods of advertising
their cause. He gave them credit, he was bound to say, for a certain
degree of intelligence in adopting their methods. "No action has been so
fruitful of advertisement as the recent absurdities which they have
perpetrated in relation to the King."
Coming down to the question of methods of meeting and overcoming
militancy, Mr. McKenna said that he had received an almost unlimited
correspondence on the subject from every section of the public. "Four
methods were suggested," said he. "The first is to let them die. (Hear,
hear.) That is, I should say, at the present moment, the most popular
(laughter), judging by the number of letters I have received. The second
is to deport them. (Hear, hear.) The third is to treat them as lunatics.
(Hear, hear.) And the fourth is to give them the franchise. (Hear, hear,
and laughter.) I think that is an exhaustive list. I notice each one of
them is received with a certain very moderate amount of applause in this
House. I hope to give reason why at the present time I think we should
not adopt any one of them."
The first suggestion was usually, not always, based on the assumption
that the women would take their food if they knew that the alternative
was death. Mr. McKenna read to the House in opposition to that view "the
opinion of a great medical expert who had had intimate knowledge of the
Suffragettes from the first." "We have to face the fact, therefore, that
they would die," continued Mr. McKenna.
"Let me say, also, with actual experience of dealing with suffragists,
in many cases they have got in their refusal of food and water beyond
the point when they could help themselves, and they have clearly done
all that they could do to show their readiness to die.... There are
those who hold another assumption. They think that after one or two
deaths in prison militancy would cease. In my judgment there was never a
greater delusion. I readily admit that this is the issue upon which I
stand and upon which I feel I would fight to the end those who would
adopt as their policy to let the prisoners die. So far from putting an
end to militancy, I believe it would be the greatest incentive to
militancy which could ever happen. For every woman who dies, there would
be scores of women who would come forward for the honour, as they would
deem it, of earning the crown of martyrdom."
"How do you know?" called out an Opposition member.
"How do I know?" retorted the Home Secretary. "I have had more to do
with these women than the honourable member, much more. Those who hold
that opinion leave out of account all recognition of the nature of these
women. I do not speak in admiration of them. They are hysterical
fanatics, but, coupled with their hysterical fanaticism, they have a
courage, part of their fanaticism, which undoubtedly stands at nothing,
and the honourable member who thinks that they would not come forward,
not merely to risk death, but to undergo it, for what they deem the
greatest cause on earth is making, in my judgment, a profound
mistake.... They would seek death, and I am sure that however strong
public opinion outside might be to-day in favour of allowing them to
die, when there were twenty, thirty, forty, or more deaths in prison,
you would have a violent reaction of public opinion, and the honourable
gentleman who now so glibly says 'Let them die' would be among the first
to blame the Government for what he would describe as the inhuman
attitude they had adopted.
"That policy," continued Mr. McKenna, "could not be adopted without an
Act of Parliament. For the reason I have given I have not asked
Parliament to remove from prison officials the responsibility under
which they now rest for doing their best to keep those committed to
their charge alive. But, supposing this legal responsibility were
removed from the prison officials, let honourable members for a moment
transport themselves in imagination to a prison cell and conceive of a
prison doctor, a humane man, standing by watching a woman slowly being
done to death by starvation and thirst, knowing that he could help her
and that he could keep her alive. Did they think that any doctor would
go on with such action, or that we should be able to retain medical men
under such conditions in our service? I do not believe it.
"The doctor would think, as I should think if I saw a woman lying there,
'What has been this woman's offence?' It may have been obstructing the
police, coupled with the obstinacy derived from fanaticism which leads
her to refuse food and water. Obstructing the police and she is to die!
I could not distinguish, and no Home Secretary could ever say, that this
woman should be left to die and that that woman should not. Once we were
committed to a policy of allowing them to die if they did not take their
food we should have to go on with it, and we should have woman after
woman whose only offence may have been obstructing the police, breaking
a window, or even burning down an empty house, dying because she was
obstinate. I do not believe that that is a policy which on consideration
will ever recommend itself to the British people, and I am bound to say
for myself I could never take a hand in carrying that policy out."
(Cheers.)
Lord Robert Cecil's favourite remedy of deportation Mr. McKenna
dismissed on the grounds that this would be merely removing the
difficulty to some other country than Great Britain. If the suggested
distant island were treated as a prison the women would hunger strike
there as they did in English prisons. If the island were not treated as
a prison, the Suffragettes' rich friends would come and rescue them in
yachts.
The suggestion that the militants be treated as lunatics was also
dismissed as impossible. Admitting that he had tried to get them
certified as lunatics and had failed because the medical profession
would not consent to such a course, Mr. McKenna said that he could not,
contrary to the advice of the doctors, get certification by Act of
Parliament. "There remains," said Mr. McKenna, "the last proposal, that
we should give them the franchise."
"That is the right one," exclaimed Mr. William Redmond, but the Home
Secretary replied:
"Whatever may be said as to the merits or demerits of that proposal, it
is clearly not one I can discuss now in Committee of Supply. I am not
responsible, as Home Secretary, for the state of the law on the
franchise, nor is there any occasion for me to express or conceal my own
opinions on the point; but I certainly do not think, and I am sure the
Committee will agree with me, that that could be seriously treated as a
remedy for the existing state of lawlessness."
Coming at last to the constructive part of his speech Mr. McKenna told
the House of Commons that the Government had one last resort, which was
to take legal proceedings against subscribers to the funds of the
W. S. P. U. The funds of the society, he said, were undoubtedly beyond
the arm of the British law. But the Government were in hopes of stopping
future subscriptions. "We are now not without hope," he concluded, "that
we have evidence which will enable us to proceed against the
subscribers" (loud cheers) "in civil action, and if we succeed the
subscribers will become personally liable for all the damage done."
(Cheers.) "It is a question of evidence.... I have further directed that
the question should be considered whether the subscribers could not be
proceeded against criminally as well as by civil action." (Cheers.) "We
have only been able to obtain this evidence by our now not infrequent
raids upon the offices, and such property as we can get at of the
society.... A year ago a raid was made on the offices of the society,
but we obtained no such evidence. If we succeed in making the
subscribers personally responsible individually for the whole damage
done I have no doubt that the insurance companies will quickly follow
the example set them by the Government, and in turn bring actions to
recover the cost which has been thrown upon them. If that is done I have
no doubt the days of militancy are over.
"The militants live only by the subscriptions of rich women" (cheers)
"who themselves enjoy all the advantages of wealth secured for them by
the labour of others" (cheers) "and use their wealth against the
interests of society, paying their unfortunate victims to undergo all
the horrors of a hunger and thirst strike in the commission of a crime.
Whatever feelings we may have against the wretched women who for 30s.
and L2 a week go about the country burning and destroying, what must our
feelings be for the women who give their money to induce the
perpetration of these crimes and leave their sisters to undergo the
punishment while they live in luxury?" (Cheers.) "If we can succeed
against them we will spare no pains. If the action is successful in the
total destruction of the means of revenue of the Women's Social and
Political Union I think we shall see the last of the power of Mrs.
Pankhurst and her friends." (Cheers.)
In the general debate which followed the Government were obliged to
listen to very severe criticisms of their past and present policy
towards the militant women. Mr. Keir Hardie said in part:
"We may not to-day discuss the question of the franchise, but surely it
was possible for the Home Secretary, without any transgression on the
rules of the House, to have held out just a ray of hope for the future
as to the intentions of the Government in regard to this most urgent
question. On that point, may I say that I am not one of those who
believe that a right thing should be withheld because some of the
advocates of it resort to weapons of which we do not approve. That note
has been sounded more than once, and if it be true, and it is true, that
a section of the public outside are strongly opposed to this conduct, it
is equally true that the bulk of the people look with a very calm and
indifferent eye upon what is happening so long as the vote is withheld
from women."
Mr. Hardie concluded by regretting that the House, instead of discussing
Woman Suffrage, was discussing methods of penalising militant women.
Mr. Rupert Gwynne said: "Nobody is in a more ridiculous position than
the members on the Treasury Bench. They cannot address a meeting, or go
to a railway station, or even get into a taxicab, without having
detectives with them. Even if they like it, we, the public do not,
because we have to pay for it. It is not worth the expense that it costs
to have a detective staff following Cabinet Ministers wherever they go,
whether in a private or a public capacity.
"Further," said Mr. Gwynne, "if the Home Secretary is correct in saying
that these women are prepared to die, and invite death, in order to
advertise their devotion to their cause, does he really think they are
going to mind if their funds are attached?"
Another friend of the Suffragists, Mr. Wedgwood said: "We are dealing
with a problem which is a very serious one indeed. To my mind, when you
find a large body of public opinion, and a large number of people
capable of going to these lengths, there is only one thing for a
respectable House of Commons to do, and that is to consider very closely
and clearly whether the complaints of those who complain are or are not
justified. We are not justified in acting in panic. What it is our duty
to do is to consider the rights and wrongs of these people who have
acted in this way. I attribute myself no value to the vote, but I do
think that when we seriously consider the question of Woman Suffrage,
which has not been done by this House up to the present, we should
remember that when you see people capable of this amount of
self-sacrifice, that the one duty of the House of Commons is not to
stamp the iron heel upon them, but to see how far their cause is just,
and to act according to justice."
When such a debate as this was possible in the House of Commons, it must
be plain to every disinterested reader that militancy never set the
cause of suffrage back, but on the contrary, set it forward at least
half a century. When I remember how that same House of Commons, a few
years ago, treated the mention of woman suffrage with scorn and
contempt, how they permitted the most insulting things to be said of the
women who were begging for their political freedom, how, with indecent
laughter and coarse jokes they allowed suffrage bills to be talked out,
I cannot but marvel at the change our militancy so quickly brought
about. Mr. McKenna's speech was in itself a token of the complete
surrender of the Government.
Of course the promise of the Home Secretary that subscribers to our
funds should, if possible, be held legally responsible for damage done
to private property by the Suffragettes, was never meant to be adhered
to. It was, in fact, a perfectly absurd promise, and I think that very
few Members of Parliament were deceived by it. Our subscribers can
always remain anonymous if they choose, and if it should ever be
possible to attack them for our deeds, they would naturally take refuge
behind that privilege.
Our battles are practically over, we confidently believe. For the
present at least our arms are grounded, for directly the threat of
foreign war descended on our nation we declared a complete truce from
militancy. What will come out of this European war--so terrible in its
effects on the women who had no voice in averting it--so baneful in the
suffering it must necessarily bring on innocent children--no human being
can calculate. But one thing is reasonably certain, and that is that the
Cabinet changes which will necessarily result from warfare will make
future militancy on the part of women unnecessary. No future Government
will repeat the mistakes and the brutality of the Asquith Ministry. None
will be willing to undertake the impossible task of crushing or even
delaying the march of women towards their rightful heritage of political
liberty and social and industrial freedom.
THE END