Meanwhile other Suffragettes were leading a great charge of people to the door of the hall, but they too were arrested. This was the second time that women had been arrested in Scotland in connection with Cabinet Ministers' meetings. In Glasgow, as we have seen, the officials had escheated the bail and allowed the prosecution to fall to the ground. Here in Dundee Miss Kelley and Miss Fraser Smith who had also succeeded in getting into the hall, were released, whilst the women who had been arrested outside were sent to prison for from ten to seven days in default of paying fines varying from £5 to £3. They all refused to obey the prison rules and carried out the hunger strike, and were released on Friday, the 17th of September, at 10:30 P. M. after having gone without food since the time of their arrest on the Monday.
As soon as it had been announced that Mrs. Pankhurst and those arrested with her were to go free until after their case had been discussed by the High Court, she had made her way to Cleveland in Yorkshire where a by-election was taking place owing to Mr. Herbert Samuel's elevation to the Cabinet as Post Master General. Mr. Samuel had hitherto acted as Under-Secretary at the Home Office, the Governmental Department which was responsible for the treatment of the Suffragettes in prison. Mr. Samuel began by scoffing at the opposition of the Suffragettes, referring to them as "wild women from Westminster"; but the people of Cleveland soon became ardent supporters of the Women's cause and flocked eagerly to their meetings. He then found it necessary to devote large parts of his speeches to combating the Suffragette arguments. He declared that it was a "wicked calumny" to say that the Government had sent women to prison for asking for votes and specially dissociated himself from any part in the responsibility. At one moment he stated that Mr. Asquith had already promised to give women the vote and at another that the present Parliament could not do it, and again and again he accused the women of fighting with "Tory Gold."
All this betrayed his fear that the women were turning votes. Even The Times, that anti-Suffragist newspaper which had always condemned the Suffragette tactics and minimised the effect of their work, acknowledged now that their attack was damaging the Government candidates' chances, and, on July 6th, the special correspondent of this paper wrote:
The women suffragists have made a favourable impression upon the electorate and the miners specially appear to have been thoroughly converted by the new propaganda.... Some miners with whom I have talked would even vote for the candidate who was in favour of Women's Suffrage without respect to his opinions upon other subjects. To put it more emphatically, a Women's Suffrage candidate, pure and simple, as a third candidate, would probably have endangered Mr. Samuel's re-election quite as much as a candidate of the Labour party.
Finally on the eve of the poll Mr. Herbert Samuel found it necessary to draw up a special leaflet against the women, the only one on any subject which was sent out in a similar way. The result of the contest was, as the Liberals admitted, "disappointing" from their point of view, for, although Mr. Samuel was returned, in spite of his added prestige as a Cabinet Minister, his majority was enormously decreased.
The figures were:
| Mr. H. Samuel, Liberal | 6,296 |
| Mr. Windsor Lewis, Conservative | 5,325 |
| Liberal majority | 971 |
At the General Election of 1906 Mr. Herbert Samuel had been returned unopposed.
| Mr. H. Samuel, Liberal | 5,834 |
| Mr. Jeffrey Drage, Conservative | 3,798 |
| Liberal majority | 2,036 |