"It is true they cannot fight in the sense of going out with rifles and so forth, but they fill our munition factories; they have aided in the most effective way in the prosecution of the war. What is more—and this is a point which makes a special appeal to me—they say, when the war comes to an end, and when these abnormal, and of course to a large extent transient, conditions have to be revised, and when the process of industrial reconstruction has to be set on foot, have not the women a special claim to be heard on the many questions which will arise directly affecting their interests, and possibly meaning for them large displacements of labour? I cannot think that this House will deny that, and I say quite frankly that I cannot deny that claim."
We anxiously scanned these words, looking for loopholes from which the Prime Minister might escape from giving his support in future to the principle of women's suffrage; but we found none. This speech in effect made the Liberal Party into a Suffrage Party; it therefore indicated an enormous advance in the parliamentary history of our movement.
Our future course at the time was not all quite such plain sailing as it may appear now to those who only look back upon it. The skill of the parliamentary leader consists in providing steps or ladders from which his followers can advance from a more backward to a less backward position without personal humiliation, and without calling for moral courage as great as Mr. Garvin had shown when, in the leading article already quoted, he said in so many words, "I formerly thought so-and-so, and so-and-so; I was wrong." There were, accordingly, conferences within the precincts of the House of Commons between representatives of the suffrage societies and our leading parliamentary supporters on such points as the most we could safely ask for, and the least we could be induced to accept. At these conferences Sir John Simon took a very leading part. When he was present we felt we had as our ally a man of an extraordinarily alert intelligence, capable at once of appreciating our point of view, and with unequalled readiness in showing how it could be carried out. I remember his coming in late at one of these conferences in a committee-room of the House of Commons; we had been expounding a particular point to a group of M.P.'s who seemed neither to understand its significance nor capable of offering any suggestion as to its realization. The atmosphere changed directly Sir John Simon took his seat at the table. "Yes, I see the importance of your point," he said at once; "and you can give effect to it," he added, taking the current Special Register Bill in his hand, "by an amendment in line 5, clause 2. I will speak to the Prime Minister about it this evening." It was an immense relief to our anxieties to have a man of this practical and capable type working for us. On August 22nd he handed in to the clerk at the table of the House of Commons the following resolution; it never materialized, but it indicated the line which an important group of our friends in the House were taking, and the general agreement that had been arrived at by the great majority of suffrage societies:
"That, in the opinion of the House, the Parliament to deal with industrial and social reconstruction after the war should be elected on a wide and simple franchise exercised by both men and women, and therefore legislation establishing such franchise is urgently required and should be passed during the war."
From this point onwards it is no exaggeration to say that Sir John Simon was, from a parliamentary point of view, the organizer of victory. The only real obstacle which now confronted us was the plausible plea that, however desirable women's suffrage was in itself, it was not the time during the most gigantic war in history to raise this great question of constitutional reform. It was our business to show that now was the time when such a reform was not only desirable, but absolutely necessary. The new register and the new qualification were needed without delay unless millions of the best men in the country were to be disfranchised on account of their national services. Women should be included in the new register on the grounds given by Mr. Asquith in the speech just quoted. When we were attacked, as we were, by antisuffragists for our lack of patriotism for raising our question during the war, we had an easy answer. We had not raised it. It had raised itself as a consequence of the war and of the peculiar character of the qualification laid down by former Parliaments for the occupation franchise.
It was some time, however, before the Government itself grasped the situation from this point of view. Before Parliament adjourned for a short vacation in August, 1916, Mr. Walter Long, a typical English country gentleman, then Colonial Secretary, a Conservative and antisuffragist, made it clear that he too had withdrawn his opposition to the enfranchisement of women. It was to him we owed the suggestion that the whole question of the parliamentary register and the qualifications for voting should be referred to a non-party conference, consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament, and presided over by the Speaker of the House of Commons. He said, after reciting the difficulties of the situation: "It is our duty, one and all ... to set ourselves to find a solution which will be a lasting settlement of a very old and difficult problem." Mr. Asquith concurred, and, answering by anticipation those who argued that it was unpatriotic during the war to be considering questions of franchise reform, said that it was "eminently desirable" that those not actually absorbed in the conduct of the war should work out a general agreement as regards these difficult questions of parliamentary reform. The Electoral Reform Conference, with the Speaker as chairman, was appointed in October, 1916, on the reassembling of both Houses after the recess. Of course it was not only women's suffrage which it was asked to consider, but the whole franchise question, including adult suffrage, plural voting, proportional representation, etc. The Speaker, Mr. J. Lowther, had a high reputation for fairness, for great personal tact and courtesy, for humour, and all which it stands for in the management of men, but he was believed to be a strong antisuffragist. The question of women was not emphasized in Parliament when the conference was appointed, but there can be no doubt that it was the real motive power which had created it. The members of the conference were of all parties and of both Houses, and, according to the Speaker's knowledge and belief, suffragists and antisuffragists were given an equal number of representatives on it. I always said that it was an illustration of the intense strength and vitality of our movement that, though the conference was proposed by one antisuffragist (Mr. Long), supported by another (Mr. Asquith), and presided over by a third (the Speaker), yet, as a result of its deliberations, some measure of women's enfranchisement was recommended by a large majority of its members. The conference, in fact, provided one of those ladders, referred to on a previous page, which enable men to escape gracefully from an untenable position. It held its first meeting on October 12th, 1916. Sir John Simon was a member of it, and a remarkably skilful leader on our side. He was ably supported by Mr. (now Sir) W. H. Dickinson, Mr. Aneurin Williams, Sir William Bull (Conservative), and Mr. Goldstone (Labour). The deliberations were kept absolutely secret. The N.U.W.S.S. asked to be allowed to give evidence. The request was declined. We then drew up a memorandum emphasizing the chief points on which we had desired to give evidence. A copy of this was sent to every member of the conference. A large number of resolutions from political associations, town councils, women's societies, trade unions, trade and labour councils, etc., supporting the claims of women to representation were also sent to the Speaker as chairman of the conference. The report was not published until January 28th, 1917. But the mere existence of the conference began to influence the action of Parliament much earlier than this. On November 12th, the last of the Government's Special Register Bills was withdrawn. The Bill was condemned by the House because the Speaker ruled all widening amendments out of order, and as the House desired widening amendments the Bill collapsed.
In the interval, before the conference had reported, the whirligig of time brought about another Cabinet crisis, which was eminently favourable to us. Mr. Asquith's Government fell, and in mid-December Mr. Lloyd George became Prime Minister. On Christmas Day, 1916, I received a letter from a very important public man, who told me that now was the psychological moment for taking a forward step in the direction of the immediate enfranchisement of women. He had angered me by assuming that, because we had not rioted, and had throughout the war only sought to serve our country, we had done nothing. So I told him in outline what we had done, and why we had done it. He replied: "I am going to read your letter at the Prime Minister's to-morrow." On December 27th I heard from him again. "I talked for some time last night with the Prime Minister, who is very keen on the subject [of women's suffrage], and very practical too." After this I knew our victory in the immediate future was secured, however the Speaker's conference reported.
It was at first questioned whether the Cabinet crisis and the formation of a new Government would not mean the suspension of the work of the Speaker's conference. But in answer to a specific enquiry the new Prime Minister emphatically expressed his desire that the conference should continue its labours. After three and a half months' work the report of the conference was placed in Mr. Lloyd George's hands. It unanimously recommended thirty-three very drastic reforms in the franchise, the most important of which were to base the parliamentary franchise for men on residence and not on "occupation," the adoption of proportional representation, and a great simplification of the Local Government Register. On women's suffrage the conference was not unanimous, but by a majority, which we were privately assured was considerable, it recommended that some form of women's suffrage should be conferred.[8] This was hailed with almost universal enthusiasm by the Press. There was a general chorus of approbation and congratulation.
The changes in the franchise for men amounted in effect almost to manhood suffrage; but the suffrage for women which was recommended amounted practically to household suffrage for women, with a higher age limit than that fixed for men. For purposes of the franchise women were to be reckoned as "householders," not only when they were so in their own right, but also when they were the wives of householders. There was some outcry against this on the part of ardent suffragists as being derogatory to the independence of women. While understanding this objection, I did not share it; I felt, on the contrary, that it marked an important advance in that it recognized in a practical political form a universally accepted and most valuable social fact—namely, the partnership of the wife and mother in the home. We did object to, and strongly protested against, the absurdly high age limit for women (thirty to thirty-five) suggested by the Speaker's conference, especially on the ground that a very large proportion of the women working industrially would be thereby disfranchised. It is only fair, however, to mention the motive which had prompted this recommendation. One main objection of the antisuffragists to our enfranchisement was that the number of women in this country was about one and a half million in excess of the number of men. It was therefore plausible, although fallacious, to say that women's suffrage would result in making over the government of the country to women. What was desired by the friends of women's suffrage in the Speaker's conference was accordingly the creation of a constituency in which women, though substantially represented, would not be in a majority. The changes in the representation of men would, it was believed, raise the number of men on the register from eight to ten millions; while the number of women enfranchised, as householders and wives of householders, would not, as it was thought, be more than six or seven millions. This, it was correctly anticipated, the House of Commons would accept with practical unanimity, whilst the fate of a wider franchise would be, to say the least, doubtful. The thirty years age limit for women was quite indefensible logically; but it was practically convenient in getting rid of a bogie whose unreality a few years' experience would probably prove by demonstration. We remembered Disraeli's dictum, "England is not governed by logic, but by Parliament."