CHAPTER IV

I had called upon women to join me in striking at the Government through

the only thing that governments are really very much concerned

about--property--and the response was immediate. Within a few days the

newspapers rang with the story of the attack made on letter boxes in

London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, and half a dozen other cities.

In some cases the boxes, when opened by postmen, mysteriously burst into

flame; in others the letters were destroyed by corrosive chemicals; in

still others the addresses were rendered illegible by black fluids.

Altogether it was estimated that over 5,000 letters were completely

destroyed and many thousands more were delayed in transit.

It was with a deep sense of their gravity that these letter-burning

protests were undertaken, but we felt that something drastic must be

done in order to destroy the apathy of the men of England who view with

indifference the suffering of women oppressed by unjust laws. As we

pointed out, letters, precious though they may be, are less precious

than human bodies and souls. This fact was universally realised at the

sinking of the _Titanic_. Letters and valuables disappeared forever, but

their loss was forgotten in the far more terrible loss of the multitude

of human lives. And so, in order to call attention to greater crimes

against human beings, our letter burnings continued.

In only a few cases were the offenders apprehended, and one of the few

women arrested was a helpless cripple, a woman who could move about only

in a wheeled chair. She received a sentence of eight months in the first

division, and, resolutely hunger striking, was forcibly fed with unusual

brutality, the prison doctor deliberately breaking one of her teeth in

order to insert a gag. In spite of her disabilities and her weakness the

crippled girl persisted in her hunger strike and her resistance to

prison rules, and within a short time had to be released. The excessive

sentences of the other pillar box destroyers resolved themselves into

very short terms because of the resistance of the prisoners, every one

of whom adopted the hunger strike.

Having shown the Government that we were in deadly earnest when we

declared that we would adopt guerrilla warfare, and also that we would

not remain in prison, we announced a truce in order that the Government

might have full opportunity to fulfil their pledge in regard to a woman

suffrage amendment to the Franchise Bill. We did not, for one moment,

believe that Mr. Asquith would willingly keep his word. We knew that he

would break it if he could, but there was a bare chance that he would

not find this possible. However, our principal reason for declaring the

truce was that we believed that the Prime Minister would find a way of

evading his promise, and we were determined that the blame should be

placed, not on militancy, but on the shoulders of the real traitor. We

reviewed the history of past suffrage bills: In 1908 the bill had passed

its second reading by a majority of 179; and then Mr. Asquith had

refused to allow it to go on; in 1910 the Conciliation Bill passed its

second reading by a majority of 110, and again Mr. Asquith blocked its

progress, pledging himself that if the bill were reintroduced in 1911,

in a form rendering it capable of free amendment, it would be given full

facilities for becoming law; these conditions were met in 1911, and we

saw how the bill, after receiving the increased majority of 167 votes,

was torpedoed by the introduction of a Government manhood suffrage bill.

Mr. Asquith this time had pledged himself that the bill would be so

framed that a woman suffrage amendment could be added, and he further

pledged that in case such an amendment was carried through its second

reading, he would allow it to become a part of the bill. Just exactly

how the Government would manage to wriggle out of their promise was a

matter of excited speculation.

All sorts of rumours were flying about, some hinting at the resignation

of the Prime Minister, some suggesting the possibility of a general

election, others that the amended bill would carry with it a forced

referendum on women's suffrage. It was also said that the intention of

the Government was to delay the bill so long that, after it was passed

in the House, it would be excluded from the benefits of the Parliament

Acts, according to which a bill, delayed of passage beyond the first two

years of the life of a Parliament, has no chance of being considered by

the Lords. In order to become a law without the sanction of the House

of Lords, a bill must pass three times through the House of Commons. The

prospect of a woman suffrage bill doing that was practically nil.

To none of the rumours would Mr. Asquith give specific denial, and in

fact the only positive utterance he made on the subject of the Franchise

Bill was that he considered it highly improbable that the House would

pass a woman suffrage amendment. In order to discourage woman suffrage

sentiment in the House, Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. Lewis Harcourt again

busied themselves with spreading pessimistic prophecies of a Cabinet

split in case an amendment was carried. No other threat, they well knew,

would so terrorize the timid back bench Liberals, who, in addition to

their blind party loyalty, stood in fear of losing their seats in the

general election which would follow such a split. Rather than risk their

political jobs they would have sacrificed any principle. Of course the

hint of a Cabinet split was pure buncombe, and it deceived few of the

members. But it established very clearly one thing, and this was that

Mr. Asquith's promise that the House should be left absolutely free to

decide the suffrage issue, and that the Cabinet stood ready to bow to

the decision of the House was never meant to be fulfilled.

The Franchise Bill unamended, by its very wording, specifically denied

the right of any woman to vote. Sir Edward Grey moved an amendment

deleting from the bill the word male, thus leaving room for a women's

suffrage amendment. Two such amendments were moved, one providing for

adult suffrage for men and women, and the other providing full suffrage

for women householders and wives of householders. The latter postponed

the voting age of women to twenty-five years, instead of the men's

twenty-one. On January 24th, 1913, debate on the first of the amendments

was begun. A day and a half had been allotted to consideration of Sir

Edward Grey's amendment, which if carried would leave the way clear for

consideration of the other two, to each of which one-third of a day was

allotted.

We had arranged for huge meetings to be held every day during the

debates, and on the day before they were to open we sent a deputation of

working women, led by Mrs. Drummond and Miss Annie Kenney, to interview

Mr. Lloyd-George and Sir Edward Grey. We had asked Mr. Asquith to

receive the deputation, but, as usual, he refused. The deputation

consisted of the two leaders, four cotton mill operatives from

Lancashire, four workers in sweated trades of London, two pit brow

lassies, two teachers, two trained nurses, one shop assistant, one

laundress, one boot and shoe worker and one domestic worker, twenty in

all, the exact number specified by Mr. Lloyd-George. Some hundreds of

working women escorted the deputation to the official residence of the

Chancellor of the Exchequer and waited anxiously in the street to hear

the result of the audience.

The result was, of course, barren. Mr. Lloyd-George glibly repeated his

confidence in the "great opportunity" afforded by the Franchise Bill,

and Sir Edward Grey, reminding the women of the divergence of view held

by the members of Cabinet on the suffrage question, assured them that

their best opportunity for success lay in an amendment to the present

bill. The women spoke with the greatest candour to the two ministers and

questioned them sharply as to the integrity of the Prime Minister's

pledge to accept the amendments, if passed. To such depth of infamy had

English politics sunk that it was possible for women openly to question

the plighted word of the King's chief Minister! Mrs. Drummond, who

stands in awe of no human being, in plain words invited the slippery Mr.

Lloyd-George to clear his own character from obloquy. In the closing

words of her speech she put the whole matter clearly up to him, saying:

"Now, Mr. Lloyd-George, you have doggedly stuck to your old age

pensions, and the insurance act, and secured them, and what you have

done for these measures you can do also for the women."

The House met on the following afternoon to debate Sir Edward Grey's

permissive amendment, but no sooner had the discussion opened than a

veritable bombshell was cast into the situation. Mr. Bonar Law arose and

asked for a ruling on the constitutionality of a woman's suffrage

amendment to the bill as framed. The Speaker, who, besides acting as the

presiding officer of the House, is its official parliamentarian, replied

that, in his opinion, such an amendment would make a huge difference in

the bill, and that he would be obliged, at a later stage of the debates,

to consider carefully whether, if carried, any woman suffrage amendment

would not so materially alter the bill that it would have to be

withdrawn. In spite of this sinister pronouncement, the House continued

to debate the Grey amendment, which was ably supported by Lord Hugh

Cecil, Sir John Rolleston, and others.

During the intervening week-end holiday two Cabinet councils were held,

and when the House met on Monday the Prime Minister called upon the

Speaker for his ruling. The Speaker declared that, in his opinion, the

passage of any one of the woman suffrage amendments would so alter the

scope of the Franchise Bill as practically to create a new bill, because

the measure, as it was framed, did not have for its main object the

bestowal of the franchise on a hitherto excluded class. Had it been so

framed a woman suffrage amendment would have been entirely proper. But

the main object of the bill was to alter the qualification, or the basis

of registration for a Parliamentary vote. It would increase the male

electorate, but only as an indirect result of the changed

qualifications. An amendment to the bill removing the sex barrier from

the election laws was not, in the Speaker's opinion, a proper one.

The Prime Minister then announced the intentions of the Cabinet, which

were to withdraw the Franchise Bill and to refrain from introducing,

during that session, a plural voting bill. Mr. Asquith blandly admitted

that his pledge in regard to women's suffrage had been rendered

incapable of fulfilment, and he said that he felt constrained to give a

new pledge to take its place. There were only two that could be given.

The first was that the Government should bring in a bill to enfranchise

women, and this the Government would not do. The second was that the

Government agree to give full facilities as to time, during the next

session of Parliament, to a private member's bill, so drafted as to be

capable of free amendment. This was the course that the Government had

decided to adopt. Mr. Asquith had the effrontery to say in conclusion

that he thought that the House would agree that he had striven and had

succeeded in giving effect, both in letter and in spirit, to every

undertaking which the Government had given.

Two members only, Mr. Henderson and Mr. Keir Hardie had the courage to

stand up on the floor of the House and denounce the Government's

treachery, for treachery it unquestionably was. Mr. Asquith had pledged

his sacred honour to introduce a bill that would be capable of an

amendment to include women's suffrage, and he had framed a bill that

could not be so amended. Whether he had done the thing deliberately,

with the plain intention of selling out the women, or whether ignorance

of Parliamentary rules accounted for the failure of the bill was

immaterial. The bill need not have been drawn in ignorance. The fount of

wisdom represented by Mr. Speaker could have been consulted at the time

the bill was under construction quite as easily as when it had reached

the debating stage. Our paper said editorially, representing and

perfectly expressing our member's views: "Either the Government are so

ignorant of Parliamentary procedure that they are unfit to occupy any

position of responsibility, or else they are scoundrels of the worst

kind."

I am inclined to think that the verdict of posterity will lean towards

the later conclusion. If Mr. Asquith had been a man of honour he would

have reframed the Franchise Bill in such a way that it could have

included a suffrage amendment, or else he would have made amends for his

stupendous blunder--if it was a blunder--by introducing a Government

measure for women's suffrage. He did neither, but disposed of the matter

by promising facilities for a private member's bill which he knew, and

which everybody knew, could not possibly pass.

There was no chance for a private member's bill, even with facilities,

because of a number of reasons, but principally because the torpedoing

of the Conciliation Bill had destroyed utterly the spirit of

conciliation in which Conservatives, Liberals and Radicals in the House

of Commons, and militant and non-militant women throughout the Kingdom

had set aside their differences of opinion and agreed to come together

on a compromise measure. When the second Conciliation Bill, of 1911, was

under discussion, Lord Lytton had said: "If this bill does not go

through, the woman suffrage movement will not be stopped, but the spirit

of conciliation of which this bill is an expression will be destroyed,

and there will he war throughout the country, raging, tearing, fierce,

bitter strife, though nobody wants it."

Lord Lytton's words were prophetic. At this last brazen piece of

trickery on the part of the Government the country blazed with bitter

wrath. All the suffrage societies united in calling for a Government

measure for women's suffrage to be introduced without delay. The idle

promise of facilities for a private member's bill was rejected with

contumely and scorn. The Liberal women's executive committee met, and a

strong effort was made to pass a resolution threatening the withdrawal

from party work of the entire federation, but this failed and the

executive merely passed a feeble resolution of regret.

The membership of the Women's Liberal Federation was, at that time,

close to 200,000, and if the executive had passed the strong resolution,

refusing to do any more work for the party until a Government measure

had been introduced, the Government would have been forced to yield.

They could not have faced the country without the support of the women.

But these women, many of them, were wives of men in the service, the

paid service of the Liberal Party. Many of them were wives of Liberal

members. They lacked the courage, or the intelligence, or the insight,

to declare war as a body on the Government. A large number of women, and

also many men, did resign from the Liberal Party, but the defections

were not serious enough to affect the Government.

The militants declared, and proceeded instantly to carry out,

unrelenting warfare. We announced that either we must have a Government

measure, or a Cabinet split--those men in the Cabinet calling themselves

suffragists going out--or we would take up the sword again, never to lay

it down until the enfranchisement of the women of England was won.

It was at this time, February, 1913, less than two years ago as I write

these words, that militancy, as it is now generally understood by the

public began--militancy in the sense of continued, destructive, guerilla

warfare against the Government through injury to private property. Some

property had been destroyed before this time, but the attacks were

sporadic, and were meant to be in the nature of a warning as to what

might become a settled policy. Now we indeed lighted the torch, and we

did it with the absolute conviction that no other course was open to us.

We had tried every other measure, as I am sure that I have demonstrated

to my readers, and our years of work and suffering and sacrifice had

taught us that the Government would not yield to right and justice, what

the majority of members of the House of Commons admitted was right and

justice, but that the Government would, as other governments invariably

do, yield to expediency. Now our task was to show the Government that it

was expedient to yield to the women's just demands. In order to do that

we had to make England and every department of English life insecure and

unsafe. We had to make English law a failure and the courts farce comedy

theatres; we had to discredit the Government and Parliament in the eyes

of the world; we had to spoil English sports, hurt business, destroy

valuable property, demoralise the world of society, shame the churches,

upset the whole orderly conduct of life--

That is, we had to do as much of this guerilla warfare as the people of

England would tolerate. When they came to the point of saying to the

Government: "Stop this, in the only way it can be stopped, by giving

the women of England representation," then we should extinguish our

torch.

Americans, of all people, ought to see the logic of our reasoning. There

is one piece of American oratory, beloved of schoolboys, which has often

been quoted from militant platforms. In a speech now included among the

classics of the English language your great statesman, Patrick Henry,

summed up the causes that led to the American Revolution. He said: "We

have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have

prostrated ourselves at the foot of the throne, and it has all been in

vain. We must fight--I repeat it, sir, we must fight."

Patrick Henry, remember, was advocating killing people, as well as

destroying private property, as the proper means of securing the

political freedom of men. The Suffragettes have not done that, and they

never will. In fact the moving spirit of militancy is deep and abiding

reverence for human life. In the latter course of our agitation I have

been called upon to discuss our policies with many eminent men,

politicians, literary men, barristers, scientists, clergymen. One of the

last named, a high dignitary of the Church of England, told me that

while he was a convinced suffragist, he found it impossible to justify

our doing wrong that right might follow. I said to him: "We are not

doing wrong--we are doing right in our use of revolutionary methods

against private property. It is our work to restore thereby true values,

to emphasise the value of human rights against property rights. You are

well aware, sir, that property has assumed a value in the eyes of men,

and in the eyes of the law, that it ought never to claim. It is placed

above all human values. The lives and health and happiness, and even the

virtue of women and children--that is to say, the race itself--are being

ruthlessly sacrificed to the god of property every day of the world."

To this my reverend friend agreed, and I said: "If we women are wrong in

destroying private property in order that human values may be restored,

then I say, in all reverence, that it was wrong for the Founder of

Christianity to destroy private property, as He did when He lashed the

money changers out of the Temple and when He drove the Gaderene swine

into the sea."

It was absolutely in this spirit that our women went forth to war. In

the first month of guerilla warfare an enormous amount of property was

damaged and destroyed. On January 31st a number of putting greens were

burned with acids; on February 7th and 8th telegraph and telephone wires

were cut in several places and for some hours all communication between

London and Glasgow were suspended; a few days later windows in various

of London's smartest clubs were broken, and the orchid houses at Kew

were wrecked and many valuable blooms destroyed by cold. The jewel room

at the Tower of London was invaded and a showcase broken. The residence

of H. R. H. Prince Christian and Lambeth Palace, seat of the Archbishop

of Canterbury, were visited and had windows broken. The refreshment

house in Regents Park was burned to the ground on February 12th and on

February 18th a country house which was being built at

Walton-on-the-Hill for Mr. Lloyd-George was partially destroyed, a bomb

having been exploded in the early morning before the arrival of the

workmen. A hat pin and a hair pin picked up near the house--coupled with

the fact that care had been taken not to endanger any lives--led the

police to believe that the deed had been done by women enemies of Mr.

Lloyd-George. Four days later I was arrested and brought up in Epsom

police court, where I was charged with having "counselled and procured"

the persons who did the damage. Admitted to bail for the night, I

appeared next morning in court, where the case was fully reviewed.

Speeches of mine were read, one speech, made at a meeting held on

January 22nd, in which I called for volunteers to act with me in a

particular engagement; and another, made the day after the explosion, in

which I publicly accepted responsibility for all militant acts done in

the past, and even for what had been done at Walton. At the conclusion

of the hearing I was committed for trial at the May Assizes at

Guildford. Bail would be allowed, it was stated, if I would agree to

give the usual undertaking to refrain from all militancy or incitement

to militancy.

I asked that the case be set for speedy trial at the Assizes then in

progress. I was entirely willing, I said, to give an undertaking for a

short period, for a week, or even two weeks, but I could not possibly do

so for a much longer period, looking at the fact that a new session of

Parliament began in March, and was vitally concerned with the interests

of women. The request was refused, and I was ordered to be taken to

Holloway. I warned the magistrate that I should at once adopt the hunger

strike, and I told him that if I lived at all until the summer it would

be a dying woman who would come up for trial.

Arriving at Holloway I carried out my intention, but within twenty-four

hours I heard that the authorities had arranged that my trial should

take place on April 1st, instead of at the end of June, and at the

Central Criminal Court, London, instead of the Guildford Court. I then

gave the required under-takings and was immediately released on bail.