THE PILGRIMAGE AND THE DERBY DAY, 1913
"Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof."—LEV. xxv. 10.
The Pilgrimage was a piece of work which could only have been
undertaken successfully by a powerful organization, and such the
N.U.W.S.S. certainly was. We had divided the whole area of Great
Britain into nineteen federations; in each federation there was
a working committee meeting regularly, whose aim was to form a
non-militant, non-party women's suffrage society in every parliamentary
borough in its area. Each federation and each society aimed at being
self-supporting; but the large sums, amounting to many thousands of
pounds, collected at our big Albert Hall demonstrations in London
enabled the executive committee of the whole N.U.W.S.S. to make
grants for special work to specified societies or federations. Our
organization was thoroughly democratic, the executive committee and
all the officers being subject to election at our annual council
meetings, where each society could claim representation in proportion
to its numbers. No new departure in policy could be undertaken without
the authority of the council. In 1913 we had over 400 societies, and
they were constantly increasing; in 1914, just before the war, there
were over 600. We calculated that, adding together the central funds,
the Election Fighting Fund, and the funds raised and expended by our
societies locally, the National Union at this time was using over
£45,000 a year for the furtherance of the enfranchisement of women.
We were giving full time employment to scores of organizers, mostly
highly intelligent young women of University education, who not
only did admirable propaganda work throughout the country, but kept
headquarters informed of all important local developments and incidents
bearing on our movement.
The Pilgrimage was a march of bands of our societies, all non-militant
suffragists, from every part of Great Britain, converging on London,
and so arranged as to reach their goal on the same day. Eight
routes were selected: the great North Road, the Fen Country, the
East Coast, Watling Street, the West Country Road, the Portsmouth
Road, the Brighton Road, and the Kentish Pilgrims' Way. In each case
the Pilgrimage procession started at the point most distant from
London, carrying banners, and accompanied, where possible, by music.
The pilgrims were prepared to stop and hold meetings, distribute
literature, and collect funds in towns and villages _en route_. As
they proceeded their numbers rolled up; friends lent motor-cars for
conveying luggage, and the most wonderfully generous hospitality was
extended to them all along the route, especially in the towns where we
had powerful societies. This we might have been said to expect; but
what surprised us was the extraordinarily warm welcome we received from
the villages we passed through. Once their inhabitants understood that
we were non-militant, and had no desire to injure anybody or anything,
they gave us the most cordial reception; indeed, we were often stopped
as we were passing through villages which we had deemed hardly large
enough for a meeting with the remonstrance, "You are surely never going
to pass us by without saying a word!"
The meetings in the towns were not so uniformly friendly. Hooligans
sometimes declined to believe that we were non-militant, and
demonstrated their enthusiasm for law and order by throwing dead
rats, potatoes, rotten eggs, and other garbage, at our speakers. No
real harm was done to any of us, but occasionally the services of
the police were needed to protect our speakers. This, however, was
exceptional, and had reactions in our favour. For instance, one lady,
well on her way towards old age, who had started on our Pilgrimage at
Land's End, originally intended to break off her march at Plymouth,
but, being roughly treated by a band of disorderly youths at Camborne,
resolved that she would accompany the pilgrims all the way to London,
which she did. The start was made in each case from the points most
distant from London on June 18th, and the Pilgrimage in all its eight
branches arrived in London on July 25th, the final demonstration being
held in Hyde Park on July 26th. Here there were nineteen platforms,
representing the nineteen federations of the N.U.W.S.S. There was
a huge and an entirely sympathetic crowd in the Park. When a bugle
sounding from the central platform announced the putting of the
resolution, there was hardly a hand held up against it.
On the next day—Sunday, July 27th—many hundreds of the pilgrims,
wearing their badges and colours, assembled in Trafalgar Square and
walked in procession, but without banners, to St. Paul's to attend
the afternoon service. A large number of seats had been courteously
reserved for them under the dome, and a sermon appropriate to the
occasion was preached by Canon Simpson. We thought it just like
our good luck that the first Psalm for the evening service on the
twenty-seventh day of the month was the absolutely appropriate one:
"When the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion, then were we like
unto them that dream.... They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He
that goeth on his way weeping, and bearing forth good seed, shall
doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him." A deep
sense of peace and of absolute confidence in our ultimate triumph came
upon us. We were as certain of it as if it had already been in our
grasp.
It may not be inappropriate here to add a few words about Mrs. Harley,
who originated the Pilgrimage. She was a woman of great originality
and imagination. The widow of a soldier, and sister of General French,
she had lived most of her life among military people and in a military
atmosphere. She was the life and soul of the suffrage movement in
Shrewsbury and the neighbourhood, where her fine character has left a
lasting impression. In December, 1914, she joined the first unit of the
Scottish Women's Hospitals for foreign service under Dr. Elsie Inglis,
and acted as administrator of the great hospital, afterwards so famous,
which was opened in the Abbaye de Royaumont. Mrs. Harley took her young
daughter with her as one of her orderlies. On one occasion, when this
gently nurtured girl was scrubbing a ward, a sick French soldier asked
her if it were true that she was the niece of Lord French. When she
replied in the affirmative, the poilu rejoined: "I don't think General
Joffre's niece would scrub our ward." These little things made a deep
impression, and, I am told, puzzled our French friends not a little.
When the French Government asked the S.W.H. for a second hospital, one
was opened at Troyes, and Mrs. Harley accompanied it, again acting as
administrator. It was the first open-air hospital ever seen in France.
The soldiers nursed in it were enthusiastic in their praise. When the
French Expeditionary Force was sent to Salonica the French Government
asked the Scottish Women's Hospitals Committee to allow this unit to go
with it, a request which was, of course, willingly granted. While at
Salonica Mrs. Harley received from the French military authorities the
Croix de Guerre avec Palme, a decoration which she brought to show us
at our suffrage office in the summer of 1916, when she was in London
for a short time arranging for the transport to Serbia of a couple of
motor ambulances. This was the last time we saw her, for she was killed
by Bulgarian shell-fire at Monastir on March 7th, 1917. Her works do
follow her. A very fine tribute to her memory was paid by the Serbian
authorities on the occasion of the unveiling of a memorial to her. "To
die for one's country," said one of the Serbs, "that is fine, but that
we understand; but to die for another country, that is superb—that is
something beyond us."
Returning to the Pilgrimage and its results. Petitions to Parliament
in favour of women's suffrage had been sent up from the very
numerous meetings which the pilgrims had held while on their march
towards London. These were presented by our friends in the House in
batches, with short speeches, not just dropped silently into the bag
behind the Speaker's chair, as in the old days. A number of M.P.'s
received deputations from their constituents who had taken part in
the Pilgrimage. At the end of July the Home Secretary, Mr. McKenna,
received a deputation from some of the pilgrims, who wished to bring
to his notice the inadequacy of police protection given at some of
the meetings they had addressed. One of the speakers said there was
an impression abroad that women's suffrage meetings were fair game,
and that disorder and hooliganism could take place at these without
disagreeable consequences to those who indulged in them. In his reply
there was a notable change for the better in Mr. McKenna's attitude
towards the N.U.W.S.S. He asked for a list of the meetings of which
complaint was made, and promised enquiry, adding that he would do his
utmost to give suffragists protection as complete as that extended to
other citizens holding peaceful political meetings. He even added: "I
sincerely admire the courage with which you have carried on your work
... and I honestly believe that your method of action has assisted your
cause." This was a great improvement compared with the time, not many
months earlier, when he was so long in making up his mind whether or
not to prosecute us for promoting the sale of an "obscene" book.
The Pilgrimage also led to a deputation from the N.U.W.S.S. being
received by Mr. Asquith. We noted, too, in his attitude and language
a notable improvement; we felt that his education in the principles
of representative government was progressing. Mrs. Harley, Miss
Margaret Robertson, Mrs. Rackham, and Miss Royden spoke chiefly of
the widespread interest in and sympathy with our movement which had
been demonstrated during the Pilgrimage. It fell to me, as leader of
the deputation, to try to wring from him some acknowledgment that he
had not fulfilled the pledges he had given the suffrage deputation
in November, 1911. I reminded him of these pledges, and maintained
that they had not been fulfilled, and reviewed the series of events
which had led suffragists to the unanimous conclusion that the only
way in which their fulfilment was now possible was by means of a
Government Bill. I reminded Mr. Asquith that several of his colleagues
had repeatedly assured us that the opportunity offered them by him
in November, 1911, was far better than any chances afforded by a
private Member's Bill. Mr. Asquith at this point interjected, "So they
were. It was the truth." This enabled me again to emphasize our main
point—namely, that the offer of time for a private Member's Bill was a
totally inadequate substitute for what we had lost by the Government's
mishandling of their own measure. Proceeding, I recalled two
comparatively modern instances in which Liberal Governments had been
divided on the question of franchise reform. Lord Palmerston, leader
of the Liberals in the early sixties, opposed the extension of the
franchise to working men just as Mr. Asquith now opposed its extension
to women. The result was that it was left to a Conservative Government
to carry the needed reform. Lord Goschen, in 1880, had stood aside
from active participation in party politics because of his opposition
to the enfranchisement of the agricultural labourer. I pressed Mr.
Asquith to follow the example of Lord Goschen rather than that of Lord
Palmerston, and not to allow his own views to stand in the way of what
he himself had acknowledged to be the desire of the majority of his
colleagues in the Government and the House of Commons. Finally, I urged
him not to shut his eyes to the fact that the women's demand to share
in self-government was a vital and living movement, a development of
the basic principle of democracy, and was founded on the growth of
education and the wider industrial and professional opportunities which
women had won for themselves during the last two generations. "We have
ceased to have the serf's mind and the serf's economic helplessness,
and it follows that the serf's political status no longer contents us.
The Government is now meeting the demand of women for free institutions
with coercion, and nothing but coercion. It is not thus that the
victories of Liberalism have been won. I readily admit that the
maintenance of order is one of the first duties of every Government.
But another is to redress the grievances from which disorder has
sprung."
In reply, Mr. Asquith confessed himself to have been greatly impressed
by the Pilgrimage and its reception in the country; but though he
admitted that we were in a position of great hardship, and virtually
acknowledged that what he had offered us in January, 1913, was no
equivalent for what he had promised us in November, 1911, he declined
to say what steps his Government were prepared to take in the future
on the suffrage question. But he said: "Proceed as you have been
proceeding. Continue to the end;" and that it would be quite impossible
for a minority in the Liberal Party to obstruct or prevent the
realization of our hopes. Parliament would yield, as it had always
hitherto done, and as it was bound to do, to the opinion of the country
... it was a matter which in the final resort must be decided by the
people themselves. Asked how he expected the judgment of the people to
express itself, Mr. Asquith replied: "I think, in the long run, there
is only one way of finding out what people think, and that is by an
election." But under present conditions, as we did not fail to remind
him, those most concerned in the present matter would not possess
one single vote. Members of the Government favourable to women's
suffrage also received a deputation from the N.U.W.S.S. on the same
day. The interview was private, but when members of both deputations
compared notes, we agreed that the antisuffrage Prime Minister was less
discouraging than his prosuffrage colleagues. They plentifully douched
us with cold water. Only one of them, Sir John Simon, made any helpful
suggestion.
One part of the remarks made by me to the Prime Minister seems to call
for some further explanation: it is that in which I had referred to the
existence of disorder, and that the Government's one and only remedy
for disorder was coercion, and again coercion, ever more and more
harshly and relentlessly applied, unaccompanied by any statesmanlike
effort to redress the grievances from which disorder had sprung. This,
of course, had reference to militantism, which was at its height in
1913. Liberals all over the country were quite willing to endorse John
Bright's wise saying, "Force is no remedy"; but they seemed absolutely
incapable of finding the real remedy—the extension to women of free
institutions. Mr. Asquith had proclaimed that the object of his
Government was "to set upon an unshakable foundation the principles
of Representative Government," while maintaining that its application
to women would be a political mistake of a disastrous nature. Quite
recently, at a Lord Mayor's banquet, he had referred with well-founded
complacency to the rapid reconciliation of the Boer population of South
Africa, and had exclaimed, "Great is the magic of free institutions!"
What we demanded was not the repetition of these mouth-filling phrases,
but their application in our own case. The N.U.W.S.S. had consistently
and persistently opposed militantism from the moment when the so-called
militants attempted to promote their political aims by the use of
personal violence. At the outset they had suffered violence, but used
none; but this policy had, from 1908 onwards, been abandoned, and
they openly took up the weapon of physical force, and in retaliation
physical force was used against them brutally and unscrupulously.
Forcible feeding, the Cat and Mouse Act, were the weapons of the
Government. "Frightfulness" in the German sense had been used on
both sides, and the frightfulness of the Government was as sincerely
deprecated by all of us as the frightfulness of the militants. Again
and again, on all possible occasions, we urged that the redress of
grievances was the true remedy for disorder. We recognized, along with
very large numbers of people hitherto uninterested in our movement, the
courage and power of self-sacrifice of the militants, but we felt that
the use of the weapon of physical force was the negation of the very
principle for which we struggled; it was denying our faith to make our
faith prevail.
In the early summer of 1913 an incident occurred which deeply touched
the popular imagination, and placed the principle of self-sacrifice as
illustrated by the militants on a hill-top from which it was seen not
only all over our own country, but throughout the world. Courage calls
to courage everywhere, and its voice cannot be denied.
The race for the Derby was held on the last Wednesday of May. The
King's horse was the favourite. Crowds even more enormous than
usual gathered to witness it; among them a young woman, a militant
suffragist, Emily Davidson, of Morpeth, in Northumberland, had managed
to place herself close to the winning-post against the rope barrier
which kept the crowd off the actual track. As the King's horse swept
by at a tremendous speed, Emily Davidson threw herself in front of
it. Down came the horse with fearful violence; the jockey was, of
course, thrown, and seriously injured; and there lay Emily Davidson,
mortally injured. She had deliberately sacrificed her life in order,
in this sensational way, to draw the attention of the whole world to
the determination of women to share in the heritage of freedom which
was the boast of every man in the country. The King enquired for the
jockey; the Queen enquired for the injured woman. In a day or two it
was announced that she was dead. She never recovered consciousness.
She had died for her cause. After one of the military disasters which
accompanied the early development of the Risorgimento in Italy, the
historian writes that young Italy had, at least, shown that it knew
how to die. Emily Davidson had shown that she, too, knew how to die. I
happened to be in Vienna at the time, and I shall not easily forget the
awed solemnity with which a Viennese with whom I had had some halting
conversation in German on the suffrage question came to me and said,
"Miss Davidson ist todt."
It is said that the urgency of the suffrage problem in Great Britain
was one reason which induced the ex-Kaiser and his advisers to consider
England a decadent power; if this is true, it is only an example
of the way in which he misread every sign of the times and totally
misunderstood this country. That a woman was capable of throwing away
her life on the chance that it might serve the cause of freedom might
have taught him to expect what happened about fourteen months later,
when over 5,000,000 young Englishmen voluntarily joined the army
in order to preserve the principles of liberty and self-government
throughout the world.