CHAPTER X_The Women's Victory—and After: Personal Reminiscences, 1911-1918

THE DIFFERENCE THE VOTE HAS MADE

"In the United States the grant of women's suffrage has made no

difference whatever ... the mere fact that women have a right to

vote makes no difference at all."—Viscount Bryce, in House of Lords,

December 17th, 1917.

The words quoted above come strangely from the lips of any man who

believes in the principles of free representative government. If the

vote makes no difference, why have our race all over the world attached

such enormous importance to it? It is bred in our bone, and will never

come out of the flesh, that the possession of the franchise is the

very foundation-stone of political freedom. Our fifty years' struggle

for the women's vote was not actuated by our setting any extraordinary

value on the mere power of making a mark on a voting paper once in

every three or four years. We did not, except as a symbol of free

citizenship, value it as a thing good in itself; we valued it, not as

a ribbon to stick in our coat, but for the sake of the equal laws, the

enlarged opportunities, the improved status for women which we knew it

involved. We worked for it with ardour and passion because it was stuff

of the conscience with us that it would benefit not women only, but

the whole community; this is what we meant when we called our paper

the _Common Cause_. It was the cause of men, women, and children. We

believe that men cannot be truly free so long as women are held in

political subjection.

We have at present—November, 1919—only a very short experience of the

actual results of women's suffrage. It is less than two years since

the parliamentary battle was won, and less than one year since women

voted for the first time, but already the practical results of women's

suffrage have surpassed our expectations. It is no exaggeration to say

that those most closely in touch with work in Parliament on subjects

affecting the welfare and status of women were conscious of a change in

the atmosphere of the House immediately after the passing of the Reform

Bill of 1918.

One instance of the working of this change will suffice to prove my

point. In 1902, after twelve years of hard spade work undertaken by a

group of very able and experienced women, an Act was passed to secure

that those women habitually practising as midwives should receive

adequate training for their calling. The case for such legislation

was overwhelming. In over 70 per cent. of the births in this country

the mothers were attended by midwives. The death percentage was

unnecessarily high, especially from puerperal fever. Remedial

legislation on such a matter called forth no party passions; so the

case for the training of midwives was extremely simple and free from

complication. But a certain amount of opposition was manifested by the

least enlightened section of the medical profession; and this for a

long time was the chief barrier in the way of getting any Government

to adopt the Bill and use their power to pass it. As I said just now,

it took twelve years to overcome this obstacle. But the Act was passed

in 1902; experience proved that there were many weak places in it. No

provision had been made for the payment of doctor's fees where, in

difficult cases, it was desirable that the midwife should have the aid

of a medical practitioner. Neither had any provision been made for the

payment of travelling expenses for members of the Central Midwives

Board, and other expenses incidental to the efficient carrying out of

the Act. No doubt the promoters of the legislation of 1902 were well

aware of these "weak places," but dared not raise a discussion on them

for fear of jeopardizing the whole Bill. So matters stood until the

passing of the Reform Act in February, 1918. Then, that same year,

before any woman had voted, the Government produced the Midwives

Amending Act, 1918. Mr. Hayes Fisher, now Lord Downham, was in charge

of it in the House of Commons, and explained its object as being not

only to amend the "weak places" already referred to, but added that it

also aimed at "attracting to this great profession ... a high class of

midwives.... We want them more in quantity ... and we want to improve

them in status." No one had ever spoken in this tone in Parliament of

midwives and their occupation before women were enfranchised. Words of

this kind would probably have wrecked the Bill of 1902, as many doctors

were extremely jealous of midwives acquiring any professional status at

all. But the amending Bill went through rapidly and quietly. The lives

of women in childbirth were taken account of by Parliament in quite a

different spirit directly women acquired the status of citizens.

It would be easy to give other examples, and I am tempted to add

an appendix to this chapter, giving a list of Acts of Parliament

specially dealing with the welfare and status of women passed year

by year between 1902 and 1919. There are many more entries in the

shorter period than in the longer. This in itself indicates some of the

difference which women's suffrage has made.

As soon as might be after the Royal Assent had been given to the

Reform Bill in February, 1918, the various suffrage societies held

their several council meetings to discuss their future action. Some

societies dissolved and formed themselves into women citizens'

associations. But many resolved to go on working for objects closely

allied with their original purpose. The N.U.W.S.S., meeting in council

in March, 1918, by a practically unanimous vote resolved to extend

its "objects," including in the new programme what had formerly been

its sole object—"to obtain the parliamentary franchise for women on

the same terms as it is or may be granted to men"; but adding to this

two more objects—namely, "to obtain all other such reforms, economic,

legislative, and social, as are necessary to secure a real equality

of liberties, status, and opportunities between men and women"; and

"to assist women to realize their responsibility as voters." The last

of these was an indication of the sympathy of the N.U.W.S.S. with

the women citizens' associations which were quickly springing into

existence.

We should have acted more logically if at the same time that we

enlarged our objects we had also adopted a corresponding change in our

name. However, on this matter being put to the vote, the old name was

retained by a large majority. Many of our members regarded our name as

soldiers regard their flag or regimental badge, and were, from motives

of sentiment, averse to giving it up.

However, a year's experience proved that it would be really useful and

tend to prevent misunderstandings if we changed our name in accordance

with the extension of our objects. Therefore, by formal vote of the

council in 1919, as stated on p. 155, the N.U.W.S.S. ceased to bear

its old name and became the National Union of Societies for Equal

Citizenship. We hope that the letters N.U.S.E.C. will soon become as

well known and be as much beloved by its members as the N.U.W.S.S.

At this same council meeting of 1919 changes were adopted in our

method of attacking what had now become our principal work—viz., the

achievement of a real equality of status, liberties, and opportunities

between men and women. We had learned in the last twelve months that

the field thus covered was so vast that success was jeopardized if we

scattered our energies over the whole of it. We therefore resolved

henceforth at our annual council meetings to select a limited number of

subjects deemed ripe for immediate action, and to concentrate on these,

so far as practical work was concerned. The first selection for the

year 1919-1920 was thus indicated:

1. We demand _equal pay for equal work_. And we demand an open

field for women in industrial and professional work.

2. We demand the immediate reform of the _divorce law_ and the

laws dealing with solicitation and prostitution. An _equal

moral standard_ must be established.

3. The Government is in favour of _widows' pensions_ in

principle. By constant pressure we mean to make the

House of Commons turn principle into practice. We demand

_pensions for civilian widows_.

4. Women must speak for themselves as well as vote. We want to

extend the _women's franchise_, and we are determined that

_women candidates_ holding our equality programme shall be

returned to Parliament at the next election.

5. At present women are not legally recognized as the

guardians of their children. We are working to secure

_equal rights of guardianship_ for both parents.

6. Lastly, we are demanding the _opening of the legal

professions to women_. We wish to enable women to become

_solicitors, barristers, and magistrates_.

The walls of our Jericho have not fallen at the first blast of our

trumpet, but we have made great progress in promoting the principle of

equal pay for equal work, and with the familiarizing of the British

public with women as candidates for Parliament. Since the General

Election two or three women have been candidates, and one, Lady Astor,

has been returned by an immense majority.

Another important success in 1919 remains to be chronicled. It is

the inclusion in the Charter of the League of Nations of a clause

rendering women, equally with men, eligible to all appointments in

connection with the League, including the Secretariat. This clause

was inserted during the Paris negotiations after deputations of

suffragists from the Allied Nations and the U.S.A. had waited upon all

the Plenipotentiaries. They were most cordially and sympathetically

received; but the definite success of their efforts was in the main

due to the active and whole-hearted support of President Wilson, Lord

Robert Cecil, and M. Venizelos.

In the passing by the Government of their Sex Disqualification Removal

Act more has been done than we ventured to ask for in the sixth item

on our programme—not a bad harvest for one Session, when we remember

the twelve years' work necessary to get the Midwives Bill of 1902

passed into law, or the thirty-two years' hard labour before a Nurse's

Registration Bill was turned into an Act.

I do not propose in this brief chronicle to enter into a detailed

description of the differences between the Government Bill and the

Women's Emancipation Bill introduced by the Labour Party, and carried

through all its stages in the House of Commons, notwithstanding

Government opposition. The Labour Party's Bill after this triumph was

torpedoed in the House of Lords, and the Government Bill was pushed

forward in its place, and eventually carried into law. The Bill of the

Labour Party was much more comprehensive and sweeping; it did what

it professed to do, and removed completely every legal inequality

between men and women, including placing women on the parliamentary

the Government objected to its passing into law, and got it defeated

in the House of Lords. For, according to all precedent, a large

extension of the electorate should be followed as soon as possible by

a General Election; and it is not very wonderful that the Government

did not desire this under present circumstances, and while the new

Parliament had been less than a year in existence. In some respects the

Government Bill goes beyond No. 6 in the demands of the N.U.S.E.C. It

opens to women, whether married or unmarried, the duty, within certain

limits, of sitting on juries and acting as magistrates. It makes it

clear to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge that they have the

power, when they choose to use it, of admitting women to membership.

It opens the legal profession to women. But its most disappointing

provision relates to the entry of women in the Civil Service. It opens

the Civil Service to them, but with certain restrictions. It does not

proceed on the lines of the Government promise of November, 1918, "_to

remove all existing inequalities in the law between men and women_."

The Government reserve for themselves the right in this matter to

proceed by Orders in Council. It is true the Solicitor-General said

in the House on October 28th, 1919, that he wanted to "have the power

to differentiate somewhat in favour of women in order to give them a

better and more equal opportunity than they have at the present time."

We are frankly suspicious of these offers of something better than

equality. Equality before the law is a hundred times more stable

guarantee for justice than favouritism. Women over and over again have

said they are not out for privilege, but for equality of opportunity.

Major Hills, who was in charge of the amendments to the Bill promoted

by the women's societies, said with brutal frankness that the meaning

of the clauses promoted by the Government was "that all the higher-paid

posts in the Civil Service will continue to be reserved to men." These

Orders in Council will have to be closely scrutinized.

Nevertheless, when we remember that between 1902 and 1914 only two

really important Acts bearing specially upon the welfare and status of

women had been passed—namely, the Midwives Act, 1902, and the group of

Acts, dating from 1907 to 1914, dealing with the qualification of women

as candidates in local elections—and that since the passing of the

Reform Act of 1918 at least seven important measures effecting large

improvements in the status of women have rapidly gone through all their

stages in both Houses of Parliament, we shall not be slow to appreciate

the fact that the women's vote has made a very big difference indeed.

The Act which rendered women eligible for Parliament, introduced in the

Commons late in the autumn Session of 1918, went through both Houses in

about a fortnight. In the Lords it was adopted without opposition.

Not of great importance in itself, but significant in its implications,

was the quiet removal of the heavy grille of the Ladies' Gallery of

the House of Commons in the summer of 1918, and the opening to women

on equal terms of the Strangers' Gallery. Part of the grille has been

preserved for the London Museum, and part will be kept in the House

itself. It may be hoped that it will be put up in some appropriate

place, with waxen dummies behind it revelling in the Oriental seclusion

which recommended it to the Commons for about seventy years. One great

discomfort of the grille was that the interstices of the heavy brass

work were not large enough to allow the victims who sat behind it to

focus it so that both eyes looked through the same hole. It was like

using a gigantic pair of spectacles which did not fit, and made the

Ladies' Gallery a grand place for getting headaches.

Suffragists are not labouring under the impression that because women

now have votes no further reform is needed in our representative

system. A large proportion of suffragists are probably in favour of

proportional representation, and would favour its adoption mainly on

the ground that it would secure a much fairer reflection of the whole

nation than the present system, which may, and frequently does, result

in the practical exclusion from representation of large masses of

the voters. A good deal of education and spade work in spreading the

principles of proportional representation are necessary on this and

other important reforms, but now that women form a very considerable

portion of the electorate they have at least the satisfaction of

knowing that their views on this and other important political issues

count for something, and are actually studied and considered, so that

things work out much more rapidly than ever before in the direction

they desire.

The enfranchisement of women, especially the immense addition to the

women municipal electors, has put the position of women in local

elections on quite a new footing. Formerly, when there were only

about a million women voters on the municipal registers of the three

kingdoms, and these, in considerable numbers, were either aged or

on the brink of old age, they were a negligible quantity. They were

neither admitted to the men's organizations nor consulted by them; the

candidature of women for locally elected councils was cold-shouldered

or opposed by all the party organizations; but the situation is quite

different now. The women local electors have increased from one million

to eight and a half millions, and, besides this, women are also

parliamentary electors; the result is that all the parties encourage

the candidature of women, and are pleased to have one or more women's

names on their own tickets. Thus the number of women elected in the

recent borough council elections in London bounded up on November 1st,

1919, to nearly two hundred. Chelsea, which never returned a woman

before, now returns ten; Westminster returns seven; Marylebone returns

four, and so on; and the results in many of the country towns were

equally remarkable. (See the _Common Cause_, November 7th, 1919.)

Some time ago, in one of my controversies with Mrs. Humphry Ward,

she lamented the very small number of women offering themselves as

candidates in local government elections. I pointed out that the

qualification for candidature was such as to exclude, in a large

degree, the mass of the younger and more vigorous women; also, that the

small number of women holding the local government franchise, coupled

with the fact that they had no parliamentary vote, rendered them

negligible from the party point of view, and I suggested to Mrs. Ward

that the best way of increasing the number and improving the status of

women concerned in local government would be to secure the abolition of

their political disabilities. Events since February, 1918, have more

than justified my argument.

Besides the positive gains to women and to the whole country which

women's suffrage has brought about, it satisfactory to note that none

of the disasters so freely prophesied by the antisuffragists have

materialized. The prophets themselves seem to recognize that they

were the baseless fabric of a vision now utterly vanished even from

remembrance.

APPENDIX

A LIST OF ACTS OF PARLIAMENT SPECIALLY AFFECTING THE WELFARE, STATUS,

OR LIBERTIES OF WOMEN PASSED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM BETWEEN 1902 AND

1919 (BOTH INCLUSIVE).

1902. _The Midwives Act._—This Act aimed at securing for women

in childbirth attended by midwives a reasonable security

that these should have received a proper training. The Act

was in many ways imperfect, but, such as it was, it took

twelve years' hard and absorbing work from a group of able

women to get it passed.

1905. _Married Women's Property Amendment Act._—This Act

rendered a married woman capable of disposing of a trust

estate without her husband, as if she were a _femme sole_.

1907. _Qualification of Women (County and Borough Councils)

Act._—A similar Act was passed for Scotland in the same

year, and for Ireland, with modifications, in 1911. These

Acts removed the disqualification of sex and marriage,

and rendered eligible on local councils married women

living with their husbands, and daughters living with

their parents. Fourteen years' strenuous work up to 1907

was necessary to secure their adoption. The necessary

legislation was announced in the King's Speech as part of

the Government programme of that year. It was the first

time in the 700 years of British parliamentary history that

an extension of the civil liberties of women had occupied

such a position.

1914. _County and Borough Councils Qualification Act_, and

similar Act for Scotland in the same year. These Acts

provide for men and women alike a residential as distinct

from the rate-paying qualification.

1914. _Affiliation Orders Act_ sought to improve the position

of the unmarried mother, but was very imperfect on account

of its failure to provide any proper machinery for carrying

it out.

1918. _The Representation of the People Act_ (passed in

February, 1918).—It placed nearly eight and a half million

women upon the registers of voters in parliamentary

elections. It also multiplied the number of women local

government electors from one million to over eight and a

half millions. It applies equally to every part of the

United Kingdom.

1918. _Eligibility of Women Act_ (November, 1918) rendered the

election of women to the House of Commons a possibility.

No work was required to get the Act passed. It was all

but unopposed. Owing to the very short time between the

passing of the Act and the General Election the opportunity

for women to select constituencies and work up their

candidature was very inadequate. Nevertheless, there were

seventeen women candidates, one of whom, in Ireland, was

elected.

1918. _Affiliation Orders (Increase of Maximum Payment) Act_,

1918, amends the Bastardy Laws Act of 1872, which fixed

five shillings a week as the maximum which the father could

be made to pay towards the maintenance of an illegitimate

child, raising this sum to ten shillings a week.

1918. _Midwives Amending Act_, 1918, removes some of the

weaknesses of the Act of 1902, and is sufficiently

described in the foregoing chapter.

1919. _Sex Disqualification Removal Act._—This Government Act

has already been sufficiently described. The wider and more

sweeping measure introduced by the Labour Party passed

all its stages in the House of Commons, notwithstanding

Government opposition.

1919. _The Intestate Moveable Succession (Scotland) Act_

enlarges a Scottish mother's rights of succession to the

intestate moveable estate of her children.

1919. _Nurses' Registration Act_, 1919.—Trained nurses without

the vote had been working for registration for thirty-two

years. The principle of registration was accepted by the

Government, and the Act embodying it carried into law the

year following the enfranchisement of women.

1919. _The Industrial Courts Act_ was improved by the

Government accepting the amendment of the Labour Party that

one or more members of these courts should be women.

It will be seen from the foregoing survey of the legislative activity

of Parliament in the eighteen years under review that they divide

themselves into two unequal portions, 1902-1914 and 1918-1919. The war

years are omitted for obvious reasons. In the first and longer period

of fifteen years we find five measures of varying importance—that is,

at the rate of one to every three years. By far the most important

of these measures are the Midwives Act, 1902, and the series of

Acts dealing with the qualifications of women for local government

elections; both of these were due to years of hard work—twelve in

one case, and fourteen in the other—of very active and efficient

women's societies. In the second, and far shorter, period, of less

than two years—February, 1918, to November, 1919—we find seven Acts of

value and importance slipping through Parliament without any trouble

at all; ministerial swords leaping from their scabbards to remove

impediments from the path of the free citizenship of women. This is the

"difference" the vote has made.

FOOTNOTES

[1] This pointed to the probable application of the Parliament Act to

the proposed Reform Bill.

[2] In view of the promise which had just been exacted of me not to

use violence towards the Chancellor, the presence of his wife and

daughter might have been explained on the hypothesis that in the event

of assault and battery on our part they could have flung their persons

between their husband and father and his assailants. But this possible

explanation of the presence of these ladies did not occur to me at the

time.

[3] Antisuffragists in the country had taken up the campaign of calumny

against us, and had spoken of suffragists as "purveyors of vile

literature," disseminators of "pestilential doctrines," and had used

other flowers of rhetoric of the same description.

[4] See correspondence in the _Morning Post_, January 14th to 21st,

1918.

[5] The Bill was named the Franchise and Registration Bill, not a Bill

to Amend the Representation of the People.

[6] Of these 8,654,467, more than 7,000,000 were white men enlisted

within the British Empire. (See Report of War Cabinet published in

August, 1919.)

[7] In March, 1919, the Council of the N.U.W.S.S. changed the name of

our society to the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship,

and elected Miss Rathbone as its president.

[8] The report of the Speaker's conference was dated January 27th,

1917. The clause recommending woman suffrage ran as follows:

VIII. WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

The conference decided by a majority that some measure of woman

suffrage should be conferred. A majority of the conference was also of

opinion that if Parliament should decide to accept the principle, the

most practical form would be to confer the vote in the terms of the

following resolution:

"Any woman on the Local Government Register who has attained a

specified age, and the wife of any man who is on that register, if she

has attained that age, shall be entitled to be registered and to vote

as a parliamentary elector."

Various ages were discussed, of which thirty and thirty-five received

most favour. The conference further resolved that if Parliament decides

to enfranchise women, a woman of the specified age who is a graduate of

any University having parliamentary representation shall be entitled to

vote as a University elector.

INDEX

Aberconway, Lord, 151-152

Acland, Mr. F. D., 32-48

Alberta, province of, returns a woman member of L.A., 119

Anderson, Dr. L. G., 97

Antisuffrage press, 71

Antisuffragist Association, 11, 41, 43

—— —— meeting, 70

_Antisuffragist Association Review_, 71

Antisuffragists, calumnies of, 26 _n._

—— rapid conversion of, 117-118

Archbishops, the, support women's suffrage, 149

Asquith, Mr. H. H., rooted hostility to women's suffrage, 1, 11, 12,

13, 14, 27, 44

—— becomes Prime Minister, 2

—— announces intention of bringing in a Reform Bill, 2, 39, 49

—— characteristic blow from, 7, 8

—— speech on second reading of Reform Bill, 1912, 27

—— _Punch's_ pictures of, 16, 52

—— promises regarding women's suffrage, 5, 49

—— deputations to, of suffragists, 8, 17, 18, 61

—— —— of antisuffragists, 11

—— questions addressed to him by N.U.W.S.S., 9

—— forms Coalition Government, 124

—— compares himself to Orpheus, 15

—— —— —— to Stesichorus, 144

—— ceases to be Prime Minister, 139

—— contrasted with the third Duke of Devonshire, 52, 53

—— conversion of, to women's suffrage, 133, 144

—— speech on the death of Edith Cavell, 115

—— moves women's suffrage resolution in House of Commons, 144

—— speech on Women's Clauses of Representation of the People Bill, 144

—— Miss Violet (now Lady Bonham Carter), 17

—— Mrs., 17

Astor, Lady, returned as M.P. for Plymouth, 162

Balfour, Mr. A. J., 32, 114, 121-122, 124

—— of Burleigh, Lord, 148

Bath, Mr. Lloyd George speaks on women's suffrage at, 1912, 24

Beaconsfield, Earl of, 32, 143.