The Suffragette

by Sylvia Pankhurst

  Local Government was the earliest form of government in this country; it has been the most persistent and staple. Government from the centre was of later growth, and has many times been interrupted. The Municipal Franchise as it exists to-day is chiefly dependent on the Municipal Corporations Acts of 1835 and 1839. Before the passing of the first of these Acts women possessed and exercised equal voting rights with men in regard to matters of local Government, but the act of 1835 deprived them of these rights in all towns incorporated under it. In 1865, however, Women’s Suffrage societies, demanding the admission of women to both national and local franchises, sprang into being, and when the Municipal Corporation’s Act of 1869 was before Parliament, Mr. Jacob Bright succeeded in carrying an amendment to restore to women the rights of which the Act of 1835 had deprived them. It was a Liberal Government that framed and carried the Municipal Corporation’s Act of 1869, and that Government accepted the amendment to extend its provisions to women. There was no suggestion then, nor has any since been made, that that franchise, when exercised either by men or women, is undemocratic when applied to municipal purposes.

  Therefore, following the lines of the existing municipal franchise, the Conciliation Committee proposed to extend the Parliamentary vote to women householders and to women occupiers of business premises paying ten pounds a year and upwards. It was estimated that ninety-five per cent, of the women who would be enfranchised under this Conciliation Bill would be householders. To the householder franchise no monetary qualification whatsoever is attached, and every one who inhabits even a single room over which he or she has full control is counted as a householder.

  As soon as this bill had been decided upon by the members of Parliament, who formed the Conciliation Committee, it was submitted to the various suffrage and other women’s organisations, with a request to adopt it. Many of the societies, including the militants, at first demurred on the ground that though the number of women enfranchised would not differ greatly, the principle of equality between men and women, which the Women’s Enfranchisement Bill had laid down, would be sacrificed by the new measure. Mr. Braitsford and others urged, however, that the Conciliation Bill was the only one to which the various sections in the House who supported Women’s Suffrage would agree. They also pointed out that, as the women whom it was proposed to enfranchise were already upon the Municipal Register, no difficulty would be experienced in adding the lists of their names to the Parliamentary Register also before the next General Election, even should this take place within the year. Therefore, on condition that it should be passed during the session, all the various women’s organisations worked wholeheartedly for the measure.

  On June 18 the W. S. P. U. organised in support of the Conciliation Bill a greater procession of women than had ever yet been held, in which joined numbers of organisations, both national and international. Headed by a company of six hundred and seventeen women in white dresses carrying long gleaming silver staves tipped with broad arrows, each representing an imprisonment, the massed ranks with their gay banners took more than an hour and a half to pass a given point. The Great Albert Hall was able to contain but a section of the processionists.

  No place for Women’s Suffrage had been obtained in the private Members’ ballot. The Conciliation Bill had been drafted in the hope that the Government would provide time for its discussion, and five days after the great procession, the Prime Minister, in reply to an influentially signed petition of Members of Parliament, promised to give facilities for the second reading of the Bill. At the same time he stated that he could not provide an early date for this, but, just as the militant forces were preparing for action, he agreed to fix Monday and Tuesday, July the 11th and 12th, for the discussion of the Bill.

  The object of the Conciliation Bill’s promoters was, of course, not merely to secure the passage of the second reading by a substantial majority, but also that it should be sent for discussion to one of the standing committees instead of being referred to a Committee of the whole House; because, if the latter course were pursued no further progress could be made unless the Government were prepared to provide more time.

  As usual the attitude of the Government was anxiously awaited. It was rumoured that Mr. Lloyd George would speak in opposition to the bill, but those who believed his professions of friendship for the women’s cause hoped against hope that he would not do so. Mr. Winston Churchill had been several times in conference with the officials of the Conciliation Committee and had expressed sympathy with their object. They counted confidently upon his help. It is true that some days before the debate, they had received a letter from him criticising the terms of the Bill, but they still regarded him as a friend to the measure. Nevertheless early in the second days’ debate he rose to make a bitter and uncompromising attack upon it. He began by seeking to prove that the grievance of excluding women from the franchise was greatly exaggerated, that they did not suffer any legislative disability therefrom, and that neither the mass of the women themselves nor of the male electorate desired the enfranchisement of women. He went on to speak vaguely of the danger of creating “a vast body of privileged and dependent voters who might be manipulated, manœuvred in this division or in that.” Then, having elaborately striven to build up a case against the granting of votes to women on any terms, he proceeded with an air of considerable magnanimity to admit that a slight grievance existed because all women were disfranchised. He was of the opinion that this grievance could only be redressed in one or two ways; either by giving the vote “to some of the best women of all classes” or by giving the vote to every woman. The former method he described as “the first way,” and he said, “I always hoped the Conciliation Committee would travel along that road.” In particularising his favourite method of proceeding by means of his proposed special franchises he admitted that no doubt these would be “disrespectfully called ‘fancy franchises,’” and explained that they would give the vote to “a comparatively small number of women of all classes on considerations” of “property,” “earning capacity” or “education.” These special franchises would, he said, “be fairly balanced, one against the other, so as not on the whole to give an undue advantage to the property vote as against the wage earning vote.” “That,” he said, “would not be a Democratic proposal … “It would provide for the representation of the sex through the strongest, most capable and most responsible women in every class and that would meet the main grievance in my humble judgment.”

  Thus the loudly professing democrat, Mr. Churchill, proposed to enfranchise only those women whom the members of the Conciliation Committee, in the earnest and patient effort to comply with Mr. Asquith’s proviso that their Bill must be democratic, had gradually weeded out. They had excluded the property owners as such in favor of their poorer sisters, the graduates, because only the comfortably circumstanced can go to college, and the lodgers, because the majority of women wage earners, to the shame of our country, cannot afford to pay four shilling a week for their rooms. These three classes, the women who own property, those who have graduated at college and those who earn comparatively high wages, were surely those whom Mr. Churchill had intended to indicate. The women had agreed to their exclusion because, as compared with the householders, their numbers were small. This was the very reason for which Mr. Churchill had selected them for inclusion, for he described the Conciliation Bill as “an enormous addition to the Franchise,” though it would only enfranchise one million women as against seven million men.

  He went on to attack the terms of the Conciliation Bill describing it as “anti-Democrat,” and declaring that it gave representation to property as against persons. “The more I study the Bill,” he said, “the more astonished I am that such a large number of respected Members of Parliament should have found it possible to put their names to it.” He complained that the bulk of married women would not be able to qualify, but that a man who owned a house and stable would be able to qualify his wife for the former and himself for the
latter, as though that would not also be the case under his own proposed “fancy franchises.” He asserted that the young inexperienced girl of twenty-one would be enfranchised under the Conciliation Bill, whilst “the woman who keeps by her labour an invalid husband and his family” would get no vote. Yet in practice we all know that girls of twenty-one are not usually qualified either as householders or occupiers, and in justice, and let us hope in its practice also, the woman who works to maintain her husband and family, is counted as the responsible householder and would vote instead of the husband she maintains.

  He ended with a final appeal to Members to vote against the Bill, saying that a vote on the Second Reading of this Bill was equivalent to that on the Third Reading of any other, and that those who cast their votes for it, should be able to say, “I want this Bill passed into law this session regardless of all other consequences. I want it as it is; and I want it now.”

  Mr. Asquith spoke against the principle of Women’s enfranchisement in general, and against the Conciliation Bill in particular. He began by saying that a franchise measure ought not to be sent to a standing committee but to one of the Whole House. He declared also that his conditions that proof must be shown that the majority of the women desired any proposed measures for their enfranchisement and that the measure should be democratic in its character, had not been complied with.

  Towards the end of the debate Mr. Lloyd George also threw the weight of his influence into the scale against the Bill. He stated that he agreed with every word both relevant and irrelevant that had been uttered by Mr. Churchill. Nevertheless he refrained from depreciating the abstract principle of Women’s Suffrage as the Home Secretary had done, and directed his attack wholly against the terms of the Bill. In defiance of the fact he persistently declared that the Conciliation Committee which had drafted the Bill was “a committee of women meeting outside the House,” and that they had come to the House saying, “not merely must you vote for Women’s Suffrage, but you must vote for the particular form upon which we agree, and we will not even allow you to deliberate upon any other form.” He said that this was a position which “no self-respecting legislature could possibly accept;” yet the Government had all the Parliamentary year at their disposal to introduce what measures they chose, and for years and years the women had been calling upon them to formulate a Women’s Suffrage measure of their own. It had been urged, he said, that this Bill was better than none at all.

  “Why should that be the alternative?” he asked. But when a member called out, “What is the Other?” he answered evasively, “Well I cannot say for the moment; but allow me, I am trying to concentrate for the sake of others who desire to follow me in this debate.”

  Later he said: “If the promoters of this Bill say that they regard the Second Reading merely as an affirmation of the principle of Women’s Suffrage, and if they promise that when they reintroduce the Bill it will be in a form which will enable the House of Commons to move any Amendment either for restriction or for extension I shall be happy to vote for this Bill.”

  “Will the Government give time?” asked Mr. Roch, a Liberal member, but the only answer was: “That is a question for the Prime Minister.”

  Mr. Snowden, winding up the debate for the promoters of the Bill, replied to Mr. Lloyd George’s challenge. He said: “We will withdraw this Bill, if the Right Hon. gentleman on behalf of the Government or the Prime Minister himself, will undertake to give to this House the opportunity of discussing and carrying through its various stages another form of franchise Bill. If we cannot get that, then we shall prosecute this Bill.” Mr. Lloyd George and the other members of the Government sat silent. They well knew the difficulties under which the Conciliation Committee laboured, and they knew, too, that the women were striving at great cost and sacrifice to obtain for their sex the largest possible measure of representation; but with the power to speedily bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion, they preferred to hamper the efforts of both with obstructive criticism. As Mr. Snowden aptly put it:

  “It would pass the wit of man to put that principle into a Bill which would meet with the approval of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary.”

  Mr. Balfour Mr. Haldane, and Mr. Runciman were amongst those who spoke in support of the Bill, but the two Ministers urged that it should not be allowed to pass to one of the standing Committees.

  After thirty-nine speeches had been delivered the division was taken. The Second Reading was then found to have been carried by 299 votes to 190, giving a favourable majority of 109, a majority larger than that cast during the Parliament for any measure and even for the Government’s vaunted Budget and House of Lords Resolutions.

  A division was next taken on a resolution to refer the Bill to a Committee of the Whole House. The Anti-Suffragists, in the hope of shelving the Bill, those who feared to anger the government and those who genuinely believed that so important a measure should be considered by the Whole House in each of its stages combined to carry this resolution by 320 votes to 175.

  The question was now whether the Government would allow the few days necessary for the Committee and other final stages. Practically all other important legislative work was hanging fire because of the deadlock in regard to the House of Lords controversy. The Conference between the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal parties, which, after King Edward’s death, had been set up to discuss this matter, was still sitting and until its deliberations were at end no progress towards a settlement would be made. Therefore for the moment Parliament had plenty of time on its hands, and urgent pressure was brought upon the Government to give out of this abundance to the Women’s Bill.

  On July 17th the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Suffrage, the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage and the Conciliation Committee held a joint meeting in Hyde Park, in support of the Bill. On July 23rd, the Anniversary of the day in 1867 on which the pulling down of the Hyde Park Railings won the vote for the working men in the towns, the Women’s Social and Political Union held another great demonstration there for which a space of half a square mile was specially cleared. There were forty platforms, many societies co-operated and two fine processions — one from the East and the other from the West — marched to the meeting. The older Suffragists had also demonstrated in Trafalgar Square, but on the very day of the W. S. P. U.’s big Hyde Park meeting the Prime Minister wrote to Lord Lytton refusing to allow any further time for the Bill that session.

  But Parliament was to meet again in the Autumn. It was still hoped that the Government might concede the time then. Resolutions urging them to do so were sent in from numbers of popularly elected bodies including the Corporations of Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford, Nottingham, Glasgow, Dundee, Dublin, Cork, and thirty others.

  There were signs that the truce of the militants, which had lasted for nine months, would soon be at an end. This time it was men friends to the cause who gave the first warning. On October 17th young Mr. Victor Duval, now secretary of the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Suffrage was arrested for seizing Mr. Lloyd George by the lapel of his coat and rebuking him for his hostility to the Women’s Bill as he passed into the City Temple where he was to speak. Mr. George Jacobs, an elderly man saw that the police were treating Duval roughly and called out to them, “Do not hurt him.” He also was arrested and both men were imprisoned for a week.

  Mr. Lloyd George had been speaking against the Conciliation Bill in Wales, and numbers of Welsh women Liberals plainly showed their disapproval of his action. The women constituents of several other Cabinet Ministers were pressing to be received in deputation, and in view of the General Election they could scarcely be denied. On October 27th, Mr. Asquith consented to see the women of East Fife. He told them that facilities could not be granted before the close of the year and even when asked what of next year he merely answered, “Wait and see.” Other Ministers seconded him. They were all agreed in refusing to allow the Bill to pass into law that year.

 
; Therefore at a great meeting in the Albert Hall on November 10th the truce broke — war was once more declared. Mrs. Pankhurst announced that another deputation would march to the House of Commons to carry a petition to the Prime Minister. She herself would lead the deputation, “If I were to go alone,” she said, “still I would go,” but at that hundreds of women’s voices cried out from all parts of the Hall: “Mrs. Pankhurst, I will go with you,” “I will go!” “I will go!” Then Mrs. Pethick Lawrence called for funds for the campaign, and nine thousand pounds was immediately subscribed.

  The Autumn Session lasted but a few days, for on November 18, Mr. Asquith announced that Parliament would be dissolved on November 28th, and that a general election would take place. Even whilst he spoke, the women,— 450 of them, divided into companies of less than twelve to keep within the law,— were marching from the Caxton Hall and Clement’s Inn. Mrs. Pankhurst, Dr. Garrett Anderson, founder of Girton College and one of the medical women pioneers now over seventy years of age, Mrs. Hertha Ayrton, the scientist, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, and Miss Neligan and Mrs. Brackenbury, both of whom had reached the great age of seventy-eight, were amongst the first little band. They soon learnt that the Prime Minister had refused to see them. Some of their number were hurled back into the crowd. The remainder were kept standing on the porch for hours with the shut door before them and a surging crowd behind.

  The companies of women who came after were torn apart, felled to the ground, struck again and again, bruised and battered, and tossed hither and thither with a violence that perhaps excelled anything that had gone before. One hundred and fifteen women and four men were eventually arrested. But the full story of that day’s happenings belongs to another, and, let us hope, to the last chapter of this long fight.

  Meanwhile the Prime Minister forgot to reply to Mr. Keir Hardie’s question as to the fate of the Conciliation Bill. Lord Balcarries then moved a resolution which was practically a vote of censure upon the Government for their treatment of the women. Fifty-two Members voted for it, but it was lost. Eventually Mr. Lloyd George said the Prime Minister would make a statement on the following Tuesday.