THE FIASCO OF THE GOVERNMENT REFORM BILL
"If we can't win as fast as we could wish, we know that in the long
run our opponents cannot win at all."—JOHN BRIGHT.
We were at this time receiving a great deal of good advice from
suffrage members of the Cabinet. One of them, who ought to have known
better, advised us to rouse public opinion in our support. "Why," he
said, "do you not hold a few meetings, and get good speakers, like
Miss Royden, to address them?" We replied that we had held 4,000
public meetings in the last four months, filling the largest halls
again and again, and that Miss Royden, never very robust, had nearly
killed herself by fulfilling the constant demands that were made upon
her for speeches at our innumerable demonstrations. She had spoken
267 times in the last twelve months. We reminded him that there had
been no agitation at all by men for a wider franchise for themselves;
there had been a persistent and strenuous demand by women for their own
enfranchisement; and the only official reply of the Government was to
promise a Bill for more suffrage to men, and no suffrage at all for
women. All this was, of course, so much more grist to the mill at which
we had to grind out perpetual speeches. This, as we did not fail to
point out, illustrated the value of a vote: voters could get what they
wanted without even asking for it; whereas the voteless had to devote
years and generations, and to spend thousands of pounds, in order to
voice persistent demands on the part of women for representation,
demands which were as persistently and determinedly passed by
unnoticed, and we were asked why we did not hold a few meetings! The
House of Commons seems scarcely capable of giving intelligent attention
to any subject unless it is forced to undertake the excruciating pain
of thought by the demands made by voters in the constituencies. The
most remarkable social revolution had been taking place for the last
fifty years in the educational and professional and industrial status
of women; all we asked was that a corresponding change should be made
in their political status; but up to the present the only reply we
could get from the Government had been rightly described by one of its
members as "shuffling and delay."
At this time we derived a sort of sorry consolation by the articles
which appeared in the Press on the expiration of the twenty years
during which the development of motor travelling in this country had
been held back by ignorant legislation. The public were reminded that
the first Act passed by Parliament in regard to automobile traffic
enjoined that motors must not exceed the pace of four miles an hour,
and must be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag! The moral
for us was that if our legislators could so little read the signs
of the times in regard to a comparatively simple matter like the
development of motor transport, it was not astonishing that they were
at least as incapable of reading the signs of the times in regard to
a great human movement which was gradually, in almost every part of
the world, raising the position of women from absolute subjection to
free citizenship. Our spirits were raised, too, by the fact that,
though we were not winning in our own Parliament, we were winning in
other Parliaments and everywhere else. A Czech woman had been returned
to the Diet in Bohemia; and three new States were won for suffrage
in the U.S.A. Barriers in other directions were everywhere breaking
down. The very same papers which reported Mr. Asquith's reception
of the antisuffrage deputation in December, 1911, when he confessed
his unaltered and unalterable opposition to women's suffrage, also
contained the announcement of the election of the first woman to the
fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. The more intelligent
of the antisuffragists, such as Mrs. Humphry Ward, were constantly
proclaiming their sympathy with every step in the development of
women's freedom which had already been won, such as their share in, and
responsibility for, local government. In her society she was at the
labouring oar, and must have been conscious that no popular movement
could exist whose programme offered nothing but negatives. She felt
the need of a positive programme, and even announced her intention
of using the machinery of the Society for Opposing the Extension of
the Parliamentary Suffrage to Women for promoting their activity in
Local Government and the election of women to Local Government bodies.
But she was sharply pulled up for this by Lord Curzon, who said at a
meeting of the society, as reported in the _Antisuffrage Review_: "The
funds we collect are given primarily, _and I think exclusively_, for
resistance to the parliamentary vote for women. It is for that purpose,
and _that purpose alone_, that our organization exists.... I hope you
will be quite clear about that." Of course Mrs. Humphry Ward had to
give way. Had she not just said at this same meeting "how necessary was
the maintenance of the male hand upon the helm of English Government"?
But the male hand of the politician is capable of adaptability to
changed circumstances. Lord Curzon, twenty years earlier, had succeeded
in reversing the decision of the Royal Geographical Society to elect
women as Fellows—an innovation which he then considered "most
injurious to men and disastrous to women." Further experience must
have convinced him that this injury to men and disaster to women would
be a source of strength to the society; for when he found himself in
the position of President of the R.G.S., and responsible with others
for the increased cost of far larger and more commodious premises,
he himself promoted and, I believe, proposed the election of women
to the society. Council's opinion was taken, and was to the effect
that "on the true construction of the charter and by-laws women were
admissible." The noble President therefore had the solace of finding
that the law was on his side when he said, "Ay."
The difference between Mrs. Humphry Ward and her chief in 1912 may
have been the prototype of the greater difference which divided them
in 1918. But at the earlier date it was Mrs. Ward who wished to go
forward, and Lord Curzon who resolutely refused to follow; in 1918 the
rôles were reversed. It was Lord Curzon who bowed to the inevitable and
Mrs. Ward who vehemently protested that the "male hand" had betrayed
her.[4]
We now resume the thread of our story in 1912 after the defeat of the
Conciliation Bill by 14 votes on March 28th. One of its results was the
change in the election policy of the N.U.W.S.S. described in the last
chapter. Outside of this, our work was concentrated on securing all
possible support for the women's suffrage amendments to the Government
Franchise Bill. One important advantage was gained when Mr. Redmond
gave a definite promise that his party would be left free to vote on
women's suffrage according to their personal convictions. The Irish
Nationalists, who had in a body deserted the Conciliation Bill, had
been very severely criticized for this by their own supporters, both in
this country and in Ireland.
The women's suffrage amendments to be moved to the Government Bill
were four in number. The first stood in the name of the Foreign
Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. It was to delete the word "male" from the
first clause. It will be remembered that Mr. Asquith, in the previous
July, had said in reference to the Bill, "Whatever extensions of the
franchise it makes are to male persons only," and the Bill, therefore,
had been drafted in this sense. The deletion of the word "male" from
the first clause would not in itself have enfranchised a single woman,
but, if accepted by the House, it would have rendered the inclusion of
women by amendment a possibility. Three amendments to include women
were therefore drafted, representing three degrees of comparison,
corresponding, roughly, to the degrees of enthusiasm of different
sections of the House for the free citizenship of women.
The first amendment represented the views of the Labour Party, and
also corresponded with the aims of practically every suffrage society:
it demanded the vote for women on the same terms as men. Under the
new franchises contemplated in the Bill this would have enfranchised
about ten and a half millions of women. We had little hope that this
amendment would be carried, as our belief was that Parliament would
not consent to the creation of an electorate in which women decidedly
outnumbered men. Mr. Arthur Henderson, Chairman of the Parliamentary
Labour Party, undertook to move this amendment. He was a very stanch
friend of our movement, and could be relied on to support the other
amendments if his own were lost.
The second amendment was to create what was virtually household
suffrage for women, and proposed to give the franchise to all women
over twenty-five years of age who were householders or wives of
householders. It was believed that this amendment would enfranchise
about six and a half millions of women. It was to be moved by Mr. (now
Sir) W. H. Dickinson, also a very stalwart friend, whose tenacity had
been tested on many occasions.
The third amendment, to be moved by the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton if the
first and second were lost, was on the lines of the Conciliation Bill,
and would have enfranchised women householders only, of whom it was
known there were about one and a half millions in England and Wales.
Committees on party lines were organized in the House of Commons in
support of these amendments, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Stephen Walsh, and Mr.
Snowden, being especially active on behalf of the Labour Party; Mr.
Acland, Sir Alfred Mond, the Hon. H. D. McLaren, and Mr. Dickinson,
on behalf of the Liberals; Lord Robert Cecil, Mr. Goulding, Lord
Wolmer, and Sir W. Bull, on behalf of the Conservatives. Members of the
Government could not join these committees; but some, such as Sir John
Simon, gave very valuable help and advice. The great point to aim at
was to maintain the unity of the suffragists in all the parties, and
thus to secure a united vote in support of any suffrage amendment which
recommended itself to the House as a whole. We therefore endeavoured
to obtain promises, in the event of one amendment being defeated, that
those Members who had preferred it should transfer their support to the
next. The Labour Party, inside and outside the House, was particularly
firm and outspoken in support of this policy. "We intend to stand by
the women through thick and thin," said one of their leaders. "I will
fight for them, amendment by amendment, with all the strength that is
in me." The annual congress of the Labour Party backed us up by the
resolution recorded on p. 3. The Trade Union Congress also adopted a
very strong suffrage resolution.
But we soon found the parliamentary air thick with the intrigue and
gossip which had succeeded in defeating the Conciliation Bill. Rumours
and threats of resignation if any form of women's suffrage were carried
were rife. One "Right Honourable gentleman" would take an Irish
Nationalist on one side and remark casually that it was lamentable
to think, after the long struggle for Home Rule, that it would be
destroyed after all by the break up of the Government over women's
suffrage. Sir Edward Grey, intending to counteract these rumours,
rather intensified them by writing to a suffrage meeting in Glasgow
in December indicating that resignation was a game which two could
play at, and if antisuffrage Ministers resigned as a result of the
success of one or other of the suffrage amendments, then non-success
must equally be followed by the resignation of Ministers like himself
pledged to its support.
It has already been noted that the Session of 1912 had begun in
January; the Second Reading of the Government Reform Bill had been
taken in July; on the reassembling of Parliament for the autumn Session
October and November went by with no signs of any further progress with
the Bill. It was the constant subject of conversation and discussion
in the Lobbies, in the Press, and in general society, and many public
meetings were held, but no parliamentary progress was made; and when
this state of things continued over the Christmas recess, and the
lengthy Session of 1912 was prolonged into 1913, the more experienced
of suffragists were asking each other how it could be a physical
possibility to pass a controversial measure like a Reform Bill through
all its stages in both Houses of Parliament at the tail end of a
Session which had already lasted nearly thirteen months.
An influential meeting in support of the more democratic of the
suffrage amendments to the Reform Bill had been held in the Opera
House in Kingsway on December 4th. Important speeches were made by
Mr. F. D. Acland, Sir John Simon, leading Liberal women, and others;
but the difficulties and confusion inside the House caused by the
Prime Minister's statement in the Second Reading debate, that he
"could not suppose that the House would so far stultify itself as to
reverse the considered judgment it had already arrived at," continued
to darken the outlook, particularly by encouraging the rumours of the
resignation of antisuffrage Ministers and the consequent break up of
the Administration. It is to be noted that no official contradiction
was given to these very prevalent rumours of resignation _until the day
before the House expected to go into Committee on the Bill_, January
22nd, 1913. But the _coup de grâce_ for the Reform Bill and those who
were responsible for it came from an altogether unexpected quarter.
Three days, January 24th, 27th, and 28th, had been allotted to the
women's suffrage amendments under a special "guillotine" time-table.
This stage, however, was never reached, for on January 23rd Mr. Bonar
Law asked the Speaker to give a ruling on the point whether the
Government's own amendments to the Bill, regarding the occupation
franchise for men, would not so far alter the Bill from that which had
received a Second Reading in July as to necessitate its withdrawal
and reintroduction in an altered form. The implied argument was, "the
Bill which the House read a second time in July is not the same Bill
which it is now asked to consider in committee." The Speaker replied
that though he could not at that stage give a definite ruling, it
was, in point of fact, his opinion that the Bill was not the Bill to
which the House had assented in July, and he added that there were
"other amendments regarding female suffrage which, of course, would
make a huge difference in the Bill if they were inserted." The blow
to the whole Bill thus foreshadowed fell like a thunder-bolt on the
House, and on no portion of it more severely than on the Government,
especially on the Prime Minister. Ever since May, 1908, when first Mr.
Asquith had become Prime Minister, he had given various forecasts and
promises about this Bill, and especially on his attitude and that of
his Government to women suffrage amendments. Now all these promises
and forecasts were proved to be absolutely worthless, mere scraps of
paper; and this owing to the conduct of the Bill by the Government
itself. Whether the Speaker's ruling, which was given definitely a day
or two later, was based on the incorrect naming of the Bill,[5] or on
the fact that in the Second Reading debate Mr. Asquith had told the
House definitely, "This Bill does not propose to confer the suffrage
on women, and whatever extensions of the franchise it makes are to
male persons only," was never, according to my knowledge, made public.
What everybody knew was that the Government had blundered badly, that
its chief had given promises which by his own action he was powerless
to fulfil, and that the proposed Reform Bill promised by him in 1908,
1910, and 1911 was a complete fiasco. The new situation proved to every
suffragist that our measure could never be carried through all its
parliamentary stages unless it was brought forward by a united Cabinet
as a Government measure. The day for such success as could be attained
by a private Member's Bill was long passed.
A very considerable number of the general public were under the
impression that we had been "had"; and there were many among
suffragists who thought that a deliberate fraud or trick had been
practised upon us. I never shared this view. The blow was much more a
blow to the Government than to the suffrage movement. It did not harm
our movement in public opinion. On the contrary, public opinion was
with us; the prestige and authority of the Government were lowered;
and they did nothing to retrieve their position so far as we were
concerned. If the Prime Minister had sent for the representatives of
the suffrage societies, the Women's Liberal Federation, and other
bodies standing for suffrage which had formed the deputation in
November, 1911, and had said, "I have given you promises which it is
unfortunately out of my power to fulfil; will you suggest any course
which would be a reasonable substitute in fulfilment of my pledges?"
he would have put the onus of the acceptance or rejection of such an
offer upon us; but he did nothing of the sort. We asked him to receive
us, but he refused to meet us or to hold any communication with us on
the subject. His position, therefore, was that his promises remained
unredeemed, and he made no effort to redeem them. It is true that he
offered parliamentary time for the discussion of a Second Reading of a
private Member's Bill. But it needed not to be a Daniel or a Solomon
to see that a private Member's Bill, of which seven had passed Second
Reading in the last four years, and four of them in 1908, 1909, 1910,
and 1911, was no substitute for a place in a Government Bill, which,
if adopted by the House, would be regarded by the Government as an
integral part of the measure, and defended in all its stages in both
Houses of Parliament. We were furiously indignant. If a man who had
owed £1,000 suddenly became bankrupt, and declined any meeting with his
creditors, but offered them 1,000 gilded cardboard discs, he could not
expect this conduct to assuage their indignation or soften their anger
against him, for he would first have robbed them and then treated them
as if they were children. One of the papers which usually supported
the Government put the case thus: "If A and B arrange a deal, and A is
unavoidably prevented from delivering the goods for which B bargained,
it is not open to A to offer a different class of goods till he has had
B's consent to the substitution." We remembered how, when the militant
suffragists had said that Mr. Asquith's promises were worthless, Mr.
Lloyd George had indignantly and forcibly retaliated that such a doubt
was "an imputation of deep dishonour" which he absolutely repudiated.
We took pleasure in recalling Dr. Johnson's description of the Duke
of Devonshire of his time, and contrasting it with Mr. Asquith, to
the latter's disadvantage. "If," said the Doctor of the third Duke,
"he had promised you an acorn and none had grown in his woods that
year, he would not have contented himself with that excuse; he would
have sent to Denmark for it. So unconditional was he in keeping his
word, so high his point of honour." If that was the sort of man the
Duke of Devonshire was, it was the sort of man Mr. Asquith was not.
The N.U.W.S.S. decided at its council meeting in February, 1913, to
take no part in supporting by work in the constituencies or inside
the House this private Member's Bill. Our reasons were that we were
now convinced that nothing but a Government Bill, backed by a united
Cabinet, would be of any practical service to our cause. Of course the
N.U.W.S.S. could never, under any circumstances, oppose any Bill which
enfranchised any women, few or many; but we took no part whatever in
its support. It came on for Second Reading in May, 1913, and met with
the defeat to which from the beginning it had been foredoomed.
[Illustration: A PLEASURE DEFERRED.
_Suffragist_: "You've cut my dance!"
_Mr. Asquith_: "Yes, I know. The fact is the M.C. objected to the
pattern of my waistcoat, and I had to go home and change it. But
I'll tell you what! Let me put you down for an extra at our private
subscription dance next season!"
(Reproduced by special permission of the Proprietors of _Punch_.)
_Punch_, February 5, 1913.]
[Facing page 52.
]
The last four years had witnessed the steady advance of the suffrage
cause. It was now in the forefront of practical politics, and was a
question which had led to more than one serious Cabinet crisis, and was
capable of making or unmaking Governments. We held steadfastly to our
resolution to work for nothing in Parliament but a Government measure
backed by a united Cabinet. Our chief practical consideration was how
to do this on constitutional lines and by non-party means. Our friend
and colleague, Mrs. Harley, suggested what we afterwards called "The
Pilgrimage," and her idea was taken up and carried out with enthusiasm
by the whole National Union. An account of the Pilgrimage will form the
subject of the next chapter.