THE ELECTION FIGHTING FUND
"My centre is giving way, my right wing is falling back. The situation
is excellent. I am attacking."—MARSHAL FOCH TO G.H.Q.
The change of policy indicated at the end of the last chapter was
adopted after full deliberation and discussion at a council meeting at
which our 411 societies were represented, and at which, as was to be
expected, there was an important minority who objected to it. For at
this council we resolved on a change of rules. The general objects of
the N.U.W.S.S. in by-elections were defined as follows:
1. To shorten the term of office of the Cabinet as at present
constituted, especially by opposing antisuffrage Ministers.
2. To strengthen any party in the House of Commons which adopts
women's suffrage as part of its official programme.
At by-elections we decided that the N.U. should support those
candidates whose return would best promote the foregoing objects,
provided that:
(_a_) No Government candidate should be supported.
(_b_) No candidate shall be supported who does not answer all the
National Union questions in the affirmative.
Another clause provided for the exemption of "tried friends" from
these regulations. It would, of course, have been an absurdity for
suffragists to oppose such men as the late Mr. Walter McLaren or Lord
Robert Cecil, who had shown through the stress and strain of many years
of parliamentary life that they were prepared to act independently of
party in cases where electoral justice to women was involved.
But our change of policy was in effect a declaration of war against the
official Liberal Party and of support of the Labour Party, which was
the only party which had made women's suffrage part of its programme.
This not unnaturally laid us open to the charge of having abandoned our
non-party attitude; but I thought at the time, and I think still, that
it was the only possible attitude for a truly non-party association
such as ours to adopt. We were making no break with our non-party
professions so long as we were prepared to give our whole-hearted
support to any party which made the enfranchisement of women part of
its programme. We found analogies in the attitude of other non-party
organizations, and also in what was happening in the suffrage work in
Sweden. In our own country we were so far fortunate that none of the
political parties had officially identified itself with opposition
to suffrage. Men of unrivalled distinction in the Conservative Party
for many years past had supported women's suffrage; the names of Lord
Beaconsfield, Lord Salisbury (the great Prime Minister), Mr. Arthur
Balfour, Lord John Manners, Lord Robert Cecil, need only be mentioned
to show that it was an absolute impossibility for the Conservative
Party, as a party, to oppose women's suffrage. The same could be said
for the Liberals, past and present: The Hon. Charles Villiers, Mr. J.
S. Mill, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Lloyd George,
Mr. Acland, and Sir John Simon, held the antisuffragists in their own
party in check; moreover, the rank and file of Liberals were largely in
our favour, and all the Liberal catchwords could be cited _ad nauseam_
in our support. There could therefore be absolutely no question of
opposition to women's franchise becoming an item in the Liberal
programme.
In Sweden, however, the Conservative Party had definitely identified
itself with antisuffragism; and the Swedish Suffrage Society, non-party
like our own, had been obliged by force of circumstances to put itself
into opposition to the party in their own country which definitely
opposed the one object for which their society existed.
We no doubt occupied an analogous position with regard to our own
political situation; but we had a very important advantage in the
existence of one party, the Labour Party, which had officially accepted
women's suffrage, and had shown the sincerity of its support by being
willing to record its votes in the House in favour of a limited form
of enfranchisement for women, although its own inclinations, and
probably also its party interests, were in favour of a much more
extended measure. The Swedish suffragists opposed the one party which
had made hostility to their enfranchisement part of its programme; the
N.U.W.S.S. supported the one party which had taken the opposite course
by definitely adopting women's suffrage as part of its programme. I
maintain that by so doing neither the Swedish nor the British suffrage
societies forfeited their claim to describe themselves as "non-party."
We welcomed members of all parties into our ranks, and were prepared to
give impartial support to any party which made our object its own.
It is interesting now to look back at the N.U.W.S.S. report in the
year 1912, and to see the care with which we defined our position.
No Government candidate was to be supported, because the Government,
under Mr. Asquith, had shown the most determined opposition to our
enfranchisement. When a Conservative candidate was supported, it
was because we deemed this the best way of securing the defeat of
a Government candidate; when the Labour candidate was supported, it
was made clear that this was done because the Labour Party was the
only party which had made women's suffrage part of its programme, and
had, moreover, rendered us the signal service of calling upon its
parliamentary representatives to oppose any Franchise Bill which did
not include women.
A society which disregarded such signal services as these could only
be described as abandoning its non-party attitude and identifying
itself with opposition to those who had shown themselves the strongest
supporters of our movement.
It was not enough for us to put on record our intention of doing our
best to strengthen the position of the Labour Party at by-elections;
we also made plans to help Labour members to defend their seats at the
time of a general election. A special committee was formed to organize
the support of Labour candidates, and to raise a sum of money for this
purpose. It was thus that the Election Fighting Fund was inaugurated
in May, 1912. Two thousand pounds was at once subscribed in the room,
before any special appeal had been made; and during the short time
between the starting of the fund and the outbreak of the European War
it was sufficiently replenished by constant gifts from our own members
to enable us to keep up the work with vigour and efficiency. The fund
had not been a month in existence before it was used in support of the
Labour candidate at the Holmfirth by-election; and there were shortly
afterwards three other by-elections—at Hanley, Crewe, and Midlothian—at
which the Election Fighting Fund and its band of organizers and
speakers were used in support of Labour candidates. We were
authoritatively assured that the Liberals knew that they would have
held the seats at Crewe and Midlothian had the attitude of their party
been satisfactory on women's suffrage. In 1913 the E.F.F. work was put
into operation at Houghton-le-Spring, Keighley, and Lanark; and in 1914
in North-West Durham, Leith Burghs, and North-East Derbyshire. There
were therefore ten elections in all during the almost exactly two years
in which the E.F.F. policy was vigorously worked by the N.U.W.S.S.,
and during which six seats, counting for twelve votes in a division,
were transferred from the Liberal to the Conservative side of the
House. We were very well satisfied by these results, although of course
disappointed that no Labour candidate had won a seat: in every case,
however, the number of votes recorded for Labour had greatly increased.
We had a splendid band of first-class speakers and organizers to
work in each constituency; and at each successive election the whole
place rang with women's suffrage and our meetings were crowded and
enthusiastic—very often much more crowded and enthusiastic than
those of the candidates. In the first election the Liberal against
whom we had worked got in, but his majority was reduced to less than
half what it had been at the last contest. The next election was less
satisfactory; but at the third, a seat formerly held by a Liberal
by a majority of 1,704 was gained by a Conservative supporter of
suffrage, and it was generally acknowledged in the district that the
vigorous help of the N.U.W.S.S. was the deciding factor in defeating
the Liberal candidate. The Labour candidate polled nearly double the
number of votes which his party had secured at the last three-cornered
contest, and consequently was the means of securing the defeat of the
Government candidate. Our success at Crewe was followed by a still more
notable victory in Midlothian, the famous seat won by Mr. Gladstone in
1879, and from that date looked upon as an impregnable stronghold of
Liberalism. In September, 1912, the former Liberal majority of 3,157
was converted into a Conservative majority of 32, the Labour candidate,
who stood for the first time, polling 2,413 votes.
It is unnecessary to go in detail through the rest of the elections in
which the N.U. in 1913, and up to June, 1914, worked the E.F.F. policy
for all they were worth; the specimens of which I have given details
are indicative of the remainder. When we were originally discussing
our change of election policy, Mr. H. N. Brailsford, who had warmly
pressed it upon us, said to us, "The moment that you are able by your
election work to transfer seats from one side of the House of Commons
to the other, the Whips and the wire-pullers will begin to treat you
with respect"; and we certainly found that this was the case. In every
election in which the E.F.F. committee took part, women's suffrage was
the main topic of the contest, and in every case, although we did not
succeed in winning the seats for Labour candidates, the value of our
work in their behalf was most warmly recognized. We never in any case
subsidized the Labour candidates. Their independence was jealously
preserved by their own party, and correspondingly respected by us;
any attempt to infringe it would have been deeply resented. Our work
in the constituency was strictly our own; we held meetings, organized
processions and other demonstrations, and paid our own way with the
funds our own members had subscribed for the purpose. We had nothing to
conceal, nor had the Labour men for whom we worked.
The N.U.W.S.S. had always interpreted "non-party" to mean that the
N.U. included members of all parties within its ranks. We therefore
naturally chose as our speakers and organizers to carry out our E.F.F.
work from among those of our members whose personal sympathies were
with the Labour Party.
The whole movement had been a source of strength to our Union, and
we were looking forward to further developments when all schemes for
this object were cut short by the outbreak of war on August 4th, 1914.
A special meeting of the E.F.F. committee was held immediately, and
decided at once that during the war the Election Fighting Fund should
be used to employ the E.F.F. staff for the time being on relief work
only. This will be further described in a future chapter, which will
deal with the general activities of the N.U.W.S.S. during the war.