THE TURN OF THE TIDE
"Yet die not: do thou
Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow.
Live and take comfort.... Thou hast great allies."
After the Pilgrimage, but whether because of it or not we could
not judge, we began to receive much more general support from the
public and from the Press than ever before. This process was probably
accelerated by the character of some of the legislation which had
recently passed through Parliament. The National Insurance Act,
for instance, in 1912, caused a great stir, some of it extremely
nonsensical, such as a huge meeting got up mainly by antisuffrage women
to protest that they would perish rather than stick the insurance
stamps on their servants' policies. The Society for Opposing the
Extension of the Parliamentary Suffrage to Women, however, presented
to Mr. Lloyd George a really excellent memorial on the subject of the
Insurance Bill as it affected women, in the course of which they asked
whether it would not be better if the Bill provided for women the kind
of insurance they wanted rather than the kind which they did not want.
We suffragists, of course, did not fail to point the moral that the
way to get the legislation women wanted was to let women have votes.
Mr. Lloyd George, who had charge of the Bill throughout, was, however,
very accessible to suggestions about it, and received deputations in
which women of all kinds took part, mistresses and maids, as well as
women in industrial occupations. He said he had learnt much from them,
and that their point of view had not occurred to him before he had had
the opportunity of meeting them. The suffragists again were not slow to
point the moral: If women had been voters, their point of view would
have been ascertained and considered from the outset.
One almost ludicrous feature of the Insurance Bill as it first passed
through Parliament was the payment of the maternity benefit granted
under it to the father and not to the mother. One of our Conservative
supporters, Mr. R. Prothero (now Lord Ernle), said, in reference to
this: "It is a small detail. But it is impossible to imagine that a
Parliament elected by women would have allowed the maternity benefit to
be paid to the husband, and would have given the woman the remedy of
prosecuting the man, with whom she must continue to live, if he does
not spend it properly." The improper use of the maternity benefit by
the husband probably was quite exceptional; but there were cases known
in which the husband had spent it in the public-house or to buy himself
a gramophone; and in such cases it was poor comfort to the wife to tell
her that she could protect herself by prosecuting her husband, and get
him fined or sent to prison.
As far as argument was concerned our battle was won. The
antisuffragists, when they pulled themselves together sufficiently
to have a great meeting, continually fell back, even in the case of
their more distinguished speakers, on the undeniable statement that
men were men, and women were women. Another speaker at the Albert Hall
antisuffrage meeting gravely reproached the suffragists for wilfully
misleading industrial women by persuading them that women's wages
would be favourably affected by the possession of political power. His
words were: "It is a heartless and cruel deception to tell poor women
that the possession of a vote would enable them to raise their wages.
Parliament has never attempted such a thing for men." This was on
February 28th, 1912. Within less than a month the Government, of which
he remained a member, did regulate the minimum rate of wages for men
and boys in coal-mines. We believed that the triumph of the miners was
in part due to their electoral power.
The antisuffragists were greatly elated by the success of their Albert
Hall meeting, and their monthly organ, _The Antisuffrage Review_, for
March triumphantly exclaimed: "The great demonstration has been held,
and the woman's suffrage bubble has been pricked." Mrs. Humphry Ward,
however, took a different and a more subdued line. Speaking at Oxford
a little later, she said that "the real fight was only beginning,
and would probably last a long time." As pricked bubbles are not of
a very durable character, she thus virtually disowned the exuberant
metaphor of her paper. But the small fry in the antisuffrage movement
were about this time more than usually offensive and inept. One of
them, a woman writer with a tolerably well-known name, published the
following: "For social purposes, now and always, man is superior to
woman. Organized society rests on him. It would go on quite comfortably
if every woman retired to her own particular wigwam and did nothing
but breed." Another writer, probably male, not to be left behind
in offensive rubbish, wrote in the _Liverpool Courier_: "Votes for
women! Why, the matter is in a nutshell. If married, she exercises the
franchise through her husband. If a widow, she is a past-partner in a
joint concern, and should rest content with the achievement of other
days. If single, she is, or ought to be, too busily engaged in trying
to capture 'John Henry Charles' to think about votes." Degrading and
vulgar nonsense of this kind was nauseating to every decent-minded
man or woman, whether for or against suffrage; but it made many who
had previously been indifferent turn with sympathy to those who were
claiming political freedom for women and trying to preach and live the
gospel of a nobler and truer relationship between the sexes.
"Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other ev'n as those who love."
These coarse and foolish attacks upon our whole movement did it not one
ounce of harm.
It was in the spring of 1914 that Lord Selborne raised the question
of women's suffrage in the House of Lords. It was the first time that
suffrage ground had been broken in any serious sense in the Upper
Chamber. A Bill was introduced on the lines of the Conciliation Bill,
and came on for Second Reading on May 5th. Eleven peers spoke in its
favour, and seven in opposition. Among the speeches on our side Lord
Lytton's rose to the level of the very highest excellence. The House,
so proverbially difficult to move in any emotional sense, was obviously
and deeply moved by his earnestness, transparent sincerity, and closely
reasoned argument. Gossip said that as he concluded Lord Curzon threw
himself back in his seat and exclaimed, _sotto voce_, to his next
neighbour: "What a tragedy that such talent should be wasted upon
women!" Another peer who took the antisuffrage side, and used language
comparable to the specimens quoted on the previous page, caused an
old-fashioned country gentleman type of antisuffrage peer sitting on
the Conservative side to exclaim: "I shall go. If I listen to this
fellow any longer I should be driven to vote for the Bill." Lord Curzon
moved its rejection, and it was defeated by 104 votes to 60. The
suffragists were more than gratified by this result, and by the debate
and the general reception given to the subject.
A number of other things were happening month by month which indicated
the growing strength of our movement. The Labour Party, preparing
its programme for the next General Election, placed in the forefront
of its demands "a Government Reform Bill, which must include the
enfranchisement of women." Within the Women's Liberal Federation a
Liberal Women's Suffrage Union was formed, pledging its members to
undertake no work in support of antisuffrage Liberal candidates. A
Liberal Men's Association for Women's Suffrage was also formed, under
the chairmanship of Mr. W. Barton, M.P. for Oldham. Mr. Barton had
recently claimed the right of Liberal women in his constituency to
attend a party meeting to be addressed by Mr. Asquith, and this not
as guests accompanying the speakers, but as political workers in the
constituency. The extraordinary attitude adopted by many Liberal
Associations towards women at this time may be gauged by the fact that
Mr. Barton had to threaten to resign his seat before he could induce
the Oldham Liberal Association to admit women Liberals to their meeting.
Contemporaneously with this, women's suffrage was making way within
the Conservative Party. At the annual conference of the National
Conservative and Unionist Associations at Norwich, Lord Robert Cecil
moved "that it is expedient to extend the franchise to all citizens,
regardless of sex, who have the qualifications at present required
of men for the exercise of the suffrage." The opponents did not
venture on a direct negative, but moved "that it is not expedient
to grant the parliamentary franchise to women on any terms until
this great constitutional change has received the express sanction
of the electors." This amendment was carried by a large majority;
but Lord Robert Cecil had made a deep impression on the association
in connection with this and other subjects debated by them, and his
present very leading position in politics was from this date distinctly
indicated.
Support for suffrage came at this time from another and a much less
expected quarter. The Ulster Unionist Council in September, 1913,
approved the draft articles of the Ulster Provincial Government which
it was intended to set up in the event of the Home Rule Act coming
into operation, and these articles embodied the enfranchisement of
women on the basis of the Local Government register. Indeed, the
Ulster Unionist Council went further than this. For, writing to the
Ulster Women's Unionist Association, the secretary of the U.U. Council
asked for "names of women willing to act upon the various committees
which will on that date (the date of the creation of a Nationalist
Parliament) be established. This ensures that those who have so
heartily supported us in the past will immediately be co-opted with
a view to taking their proper share in the management of the affairs
of Ulster whilst we are holding the province on trust for the British
nation, in which matter we fully realize that their interests are as
much at stake as those of the men."
This attitude on the part of the Ulster Unionist Council was all the
more satisfactory to us because up to that time we had reason to
believe Sir Edward Carson to be among our most determined opponents.
About the same time the Church Congress, meeting in Southampton under
the presidency of the Bishop of Winchester, arranged a debate on the
Ideals of Manhood and Womanhood. The Bishop ruled that the political
aspects of the subject would not be out of order. Miss Royden spoke,
and made so deep an impression that her speech was referred to a
year later by the Bishop of Lichfield, preaching in Hull, "as the
epoch-making address of Miss Maude Royden." The Bishop of Winchester
wrote to the Press, replying to attacks made upon him in defence of
his attitude on women's suffrage at the Church Congress. He pleaded
for truce and amnesty between the Government and the suffrage party,
and urged as a necessary preliminary to this the definite prospect
of the introduction by the Government of a Women's Suffrage Bill as
a first-class measure. From that meeting of the Church Congress at
Southampton dates, I believe, the very strong and undivided support
given to our movement by the Bishops in the House of Lords.
We also had evidence at this time of the support of another religious
body, the Society of Friends, who this year, in their _Annual Epistle_,
issued from the London yearly meeting, made a very sympathetic
reference to the women's movement. We valued this all the more because
of their fine record in the matter of sex equality in religious matters
from the foundation of their society. They had from the first practised
as well as preached the doctrine of equality as between men and women,
and had again and again been pioneers in matters of education and
social reform, besides giving us many of our most valued colleagues and
leaders.
In 1913 also the National Union of Women Workers (now the National
Council of Women) had the last of a series of tussles with Mrs. Humphry
Ward. The point at issue between the suffragists and antisuffragists
in the N.U.W.W. was the necessary majority required on any particular
subject before the executive committee was justified in taking action
upon it. A committee for revising the constitution had been at work,
and had presented a report recommending, among other things, that no
action should be taken on any controversial point unless such action
were supported by a three-fourths majority; this was by way of an
olive-branch, as the necessary majority under the old constitution had
been one of two-thirds. To this proposed compromise the antisuffragists
presented a solid opposition. Some desired that the council should be
deprived of the power of passing resolutions at all. Mrs. Ward proposed
that no resolution should be binding unless passed unanimously—a
reminiscence, apparently, of the _liberum veto_ which contributed so
much to the ruin of the old Polish Constitution. Driven from this
position, she then proposed to give to any five branches and five
affiliated societies an absolute veto upon the proceedings of the
council. In each of these efforts Mrs. Ward was unsuccessful, and in a
gathering of over 400 she could not rally sufficient votes to carry any
of her points. The Antisuffrage Society in consequence withdrew from
the N.U.W.W., and figuratively shook its dust from their feet.
At the opening of this chapter I referred to the more favourable
tone in the Press upon women's suffrage and allied questions. For
quite a number of years we had had true and faithful friends in the
_Manchester Guardian_, the _Aberdeen Free Press_, and in _Punch_, and
other papers. The latter gave us a series of first-rate pictures and
cartoons, which I hope one day may be reproduced as _Punch's_ "History
of Women's Suffrage." Its occasional verses were also very crisp and
to the point. A couple of specimens are here reproduced. The first
was apropos of Mr. Asquith's frequent statement in the course of his
struggle with the House of Lords that "the will of the people must
prevail."
"You speak, Mr. Asquith, the suffragist said,
Of the Will of the People wholesale;
But has the idea never entered your head
That the People are not wholly male?"
Another, which was headed "Any Premier to any Suffragist," ran thus:
"So, lady, it is plain,
While at your claim one man shies,
Until you have the vote 'tis vain
To ask us for the franchise."
About this time the editor of the _Daily Telegraph_ allotted space in
his paper once a week, under the heading of "Women in Public Life,"
for the discussion of all kinds of women's activities, including
suffrage. It also gave good telegraphic summaries of events bearing on
the women's cause in foreign countries, and sometimes even printed the
speeches of suffrage leaders verbatim. As our struggle for suffrage
became more and more a struggle with Mr. Asquith it not unnaturally
followed that those papers were naturally estranged from us which
lived, and moved, and had their being in believing that he was the
first of men, and that everything he said and did was perfect. They
did not go back definitely, and in so many words, upon their former
record in support of free representative institutions, but they gave
us many a back-hander, published everything conspicuously which they
thought likely to be damaging to us, and suppressed such events as
told in our favour. I give an instance. In a copy of an evening
paper in 1913 I saw in one column, apropos of some House of Commons
incident, that "Mrs. Fawcett was in despair"; in another that "Mr.
Birrell had finished with women's suffrage for ever"; and that "Mr.
Wilfred Ashley had felt compelled to vote against it." As I knew I
was not in despair, and had never given any justification for the
assertion that I was, I contemplated with some calm the assertions
about Mr. Birrell and Mr. Ashley. We did not complain of this sort
of treatment. The tactics it revealed were too transparent to do our
movement any real harm. The papers which we familiarly referred to as
"the three _Posts_"—the _Morning Post_, the _Birmingham Post_, and the
_Yorkshire Post_—remained out-and-out antisuffrage all through down to
the very end of our struggle. But the _Standard_, which at one time
had refused even to insert colourless paragraphs of suffrage news,
passed to new editorship, and became much more favourable. It referred
sympathetically to our by-election campaigns in 1912 and 1913, saying
that suffragists "were displaying energy of the first order"; and
after the procession in the Coronation year, which had attracted much
favourable notice, it arranged for the daily appearance of a special
page, entitled "Woman's Platform," in which facts and arguments for
and against suffrage were inserted. This was of great use to us, and
we welcomed the publication of the antisuffrage copy, because this
gave the paper an entry into the strongholds of our opponents, and
also enabled us to judge of their policy and tactics. For instance,
it was in the "Woman's Platform" of the _Standard_, in 1913, that Mr.
MacCallum Scott called upon his Liberal friends in the House of Commons
to break their suffrage pledges in order to save Mr. Asquith from the
humiliation of keeping the promises he had made to us.
In 1913 the Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association,
of which the Countess of Selborne had become President, had the happy
thought of instituting through the medium of a joint committee of
suffragists and antisuffragists a systematic and careful enquiry into
the results of women's suffrage in those States of the U.S.A. where it
had been put into operation. A _questionnaire_ was drawn up and sent to
men and women occupying positions of authority and influence in these
States. Of the sixty-three replies received, forty-six were wholly
favourable, eight neutral, five vaguely unfavourable, and only four
wholly adverse.
The late Hon. Robert Palmer, Lady Selborne's son, tabulated the
replies, and published an explanatory comment on them from the suffrage
point of view, while the same task on behalf of the antisuffragists was
performed by Mr. MacCallum Scott, M.P.
Both reports appeared in the form of articles in the _Nineteenth
Century and After_ of February, 1914. Mr. Palmer's article was later
published as a small volume, and formed a valuable handbook for
suffrage speakers. The supporters of suffrage in the U.S.A. frequently
expressed themselves as convinced by experience that the women voters
strengthened the forces which made for good government, using such
expressions as this: "I do not think we could have cleaned up the
city without the women's vote"; or, "At that time I was opposed to
woman suffrage ... but since I have had experience of it I have become
favourable." Mr. MacCallum Scott did not, of course, deny that by an
immense majority the replies had supported the women's vote, or that
it had been followed, in California, for example, by the immediate
passing of much long-sought-for social legislation; but he concluded
his article with the words: "I have tried to sum up the evidence as
impartially as possible, but I have not tried to conceal my own views,
and I have found nothing in the evidence to modify them."
Another very significant breach in the antisuffragist Press stronghold
was revealed when on the last day of 1913 _The Times_ published one of
its American Supplements "On the Pacific Coast," and, to the amazement
and joy of suffragists, wrote most warmly in praise of the complete
success of women's suffrage on the whole Pacific seaboard. Suffragists
had won the State of Washington in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon and
Arizona in 1912. We had expected nothing from _The Times_ but flouts,
and gibes, and sneers, and lo! it blessed us altogether. The concluding
paragraph sufficiently indicates the general character of the article.
It ran thus:
"One-fifth of the United States Senate, one-seventh of the House of
Representatives, and one-sixth of the Presidential electoral vote
of the United States comes now from States where women exercise
suffrage just as men do. Homes have not been disrupted, marriages
have not lessened, children have not failed because of the political
enfranchisement of women. Instead, there has come a more solemn
feeling of obligation, a greater feeling of responsibility on the
part of men and women, a higher moral tone in candidates and in
measures, and an effort to make the city streets and the country at
large a safer place for children when they leave the precincts where
maternal love reigns supreme. The women of the suffrage States care
not only for their own children, but for the children of women not so
fortunately placed."
What a change this represented from the time, three years earlier, when
every day for nearly a fortnight _The Times_ in its leading articles
and correspondence columns fulminated on the unmeasured national
misfortunes which must necessarily result from the enfranchisement of
women.
Immediately all our group wrote for as many copies of this blessed
supplement as our newsagents could supply. The stock from this source
was quickly exhausted; then I wrote officially to _The Times_ office,
asking for more, only to receive the reply that no more copies could
be obtained. Then we applied for leave to reprint, but the request was
declined on the ground that it was the intention of the management to
publish the whole supplement in book form. On enquiring the probable
date and price, the first question was unanswered, and the reply to the
second mentioned what we considered a prohibitive sum.
But we never saw that book. Of course, I carefully preserved my own
copy, and quoted it continually when I was speaking. The evidence it
gave coincided entirely with what we had learned from our American
friends at the Congress of the International Women's Suffrage Alliance
held the previous June at Buda Pest, when ladies from the newly
enfranchised State of California had told us that, after winning the
vote, they had gained in six months legislative reforms for which
(without the vote) they had been labouring in vain for twenty years.
Twenty months of suffrage, our American friends told us, were worth
more than twenty years of "influence."
Another of the signs of the great progress of our cause was the
continual increase of the support given to it in modern drama. At this
time nearly all the really telling plays by up-to-date writers were
practically suffrage plays. Some—like _How the Vote was Won_, by Miss
Cecily Hamilton; _Votes for Women_, by Miss Elizabeth Robins; and
_Press Cuttings_, by Mr. Bernard Shaw—were propaganda plays pure and
simple, and very good propaganda, too, extremely witty and amusing.
Others, even more telling because a good deal more subtle in method,
were by Sir James Barrie, Mr. Arnold Bennett, and many by Mr. Bernard
Shaw. These were of very great service to our cause, as well as a sign
of its progress; while the plays on the moral aspects of our movement,
such as _Les Trois Filles de M. Dupont_ and _Les Avariés_, by M.
Brieux, brought our message to thousands whom we could not have reached
unaided.
No wonder that, with all the influences enumerated in this chapter
working in our favour, we felt we were on the eve of victory. We
quoted, with an application to ourselves, Cavour's prophetic saying,
"La cosa va." Seldom has a political movement had such a various army
of allies: the Trades Union Congress, the Labour Party, the Church
Congress, the annual meeting of the Society of Friends, the Ulster
Unionist Council, the Press, the Pulpit, and the Theatre. But a great
catastrophe was at hand, which for four and a half years concentrated
all thoughts on national safety, and, above all, on the preservation of
the principles of free representative government, not merely in our own
country, but throughout the world.