Elsie Howey as Joan of Arc, who rode at the head of the procession formed to celebrate Mrs. Pethick Lawrence's release from prison
On Friday, March 19th, the Bill came up for Second Reading and Mr. Howard, in explaining its provisions, said that he had no hope of carrying it into law, but merely wished to "clear the air" for the Reform Bill promised by the Government. Sir Charles M'Laren said that he hoped this Bill might help the Government to come to some decision as to the manner in which they would deal with the Women's Suffrage question next year, but when Mr. Asquith arose to make the expected Government pronouncement, he declared that the opinion of the Government was unchanged and entirely unaffected by the introduction of this Bill. He added, however, that there were certain proposals contained in the measure of which he approved, but carefully explained that his approval only extended so far as the Bill referred to men. Though he was aware that the measure would not be pressed beyond a Second Reading, he stated that the members of the Government would abstain from voting either for or against it. The whole debate, therefore, ended in fiasco, and had been merely a wasted opportunity. After Mr. Asquith's pronouncement the House divided and there voted,
| For the Bill | 157 |
| Against the Bill | 122 |
| Majority for the Bill | 35 |
It will be thus seen that this Bill of Mr. Howard's secured a very much smaller measure of support than that which had been accorded to the equal Women's Enfranchisement Bill in the previous year, for the figures had then been: For the Bill 271, against 92. Majority for the Bill 179.
The Women's Social and Political Union now decided that another deputation should attempt to obtain an interview with Mr. Asquith, and an eighth Women's Parliament was held on March 30th. Mrs. Saul Solomon, widow of the Governor General of South Africa, an elderly, motherly figure, volunteered to lead its deputation of thirty women who were to carry the usual resolution to the House, whilst Miss Dora Marsden, B.A., of Manchester, looking exactly like a Florentine angel, marched before with a purple-white-and-green standard announcing the arrival of the deputation. As soon as the women reached the street, the usual pushing and hustling by the police began, and after an hour's brave struggle, eleven of them were arrested. Next day nine of those who had not been taken again returned to the charge, and eventually the twenty women were sent to prison at Sir Albert de Rutzen's orders, nineteen of them for one month and Patricia Woodlock, because she had served several sentences already, for three.
On April 16th, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, our dear treasurer, was released, and we were able to tell her that no less than £8,000 had been collected by the sacrifice of our members during self-denial week. A great procession was formed in her honour and marched from the Marble Arch to the Aldwych Theatre, where she was to speak. What a day it was to welcome anyone from prison! The trees were just bursting into leaf, and the brilliant April sunshine glistened on the silver armour of Elsie Howey, who represented Joan of Arc, the warrior maid, whose Beatification was taking place that very day, and rode at the head of the procession, astride her great white charger, with the brisk wind blowing back her fair hair, and gaily fluttering the purple-white-and-green standard which she bore. Then came women and girls with flowers and banners, and Mrs. Lawrence's own carriage covered with flags, and everywhere were the purple-white-and-green colours, except at one point where the American delegates to the International Women's Suffrage Congress, then sitting in London, rode in a carriage draped with their own stars and stripes. Inside the theatre the platform was covered with flowers sent by hundreds of members and friends, and there too the American delegates had added their tribute, a little silk copy of their national flag.
It was a wonderful speech that Mrs. Lawrence then delivered, full, not only of enthusiasm and deep feeling, but of logic and common sense, and of unanswerable arguments for the women's cause. She reminded us that she and her fellow Suffragists had gone to prison in support of the old English Constitutional maxim that taxation and representation should go together. Before she had gone to prison, she told us, a birthday book had been shown to her that had been got out for a Church bazaar. In that book Mr. Asquith had been asked to write his favourite quotation with his signature, and this favourite quotation of Mr. Asquith's had turned out to be, "Taxation without representation is tyranny." Many stories she told us of what she had seen and heard in prison. One morning the Chaplain had come into the hospital where she was, and had called up an old woman to speak to him. Everyone there had heard the conversation that passed between them, and had learnt in reply to his peremptory questioning her name, her age, the length of her sentence, and so on. She was seventy-six, unmarried, and for the first time in her long life she was now imprisoned because she could not pay her rent and taxes £3 16s. "I keep a lodging house for workingmen," she said. "It has been a very bad winter for my lodgers, and they have not been able to pay me." "This woman was quite good enough to pay taxes," said Mrs. Lawrence, "this old woman of seventy-six, and to go to prison when she could not meet the taxes, and yet she was not counted fit to exercise a vote."
SHALL DOUBTLESS
COME
AGAIN WITH
REJOICING
A part of the decoration of the Exhibition held in the Prince's Skating Rink, May, 1909
Mrs. Lawrence also told us of a conversation between herself and the chaplain. "I have heard a great deal of you, Mrs. Lawrence," he had said. "You have started holiday homes for girls. I wish you would start a holiday home for wardresses. You see they work very hard—twelve hours a day. They very often break down, and then they have not enough money to go away for a holiday." "I looked at him in amazement," Mrs. Lawrence told us, "to think that a Government servant should come to me, a voteless woman, and suggest that I should supply a deficiency created because our legislators do not pay their women servants enough." So argument followed argument, and there were many Suffragettes who joined the Union on that day.