Meanwhile Caxton Hall was kept open all the afternoon and on into the evening, and the disabled women were constantly returning thither. They brought with them the news that numbers of women had been arrested, and that though Lady Harberton had at last got into the House of Commons, her petition had been ignored. Christabel Pankhurst then advised any who might succeed in entering Parliament to take sterner measures,—to rush, if they could, into the sacred Chamber of debate itself, to seat themselves upon the Government bench and demand a hearing. "If possible," she cried, "seize the mace, and you will be the Cromwells of the twentieth century!" The women rushed back with renewed zeal.
It was now dark, and, as the crowds grew denser and denser and the police turned on them more angrily, many Members of Parliament, including Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. Lloyd George, came out to watch the scene. Some showed distress at the way in which the women were being treated, but others regarded it as a joke. Many of the women were roughly handled and some were seriously hurt, but, speaking generally, the violence used against them was not so great as on the previous February 13th. It was said that no fewer than a thousand extra police were especially drafted into Parliament Square to guard the House of Commons.
Amongst those who had been arrested were Dr. Mabel Hardy, Miss Naici Peters, a Norwegian painter and a friend of Ibsen, Miss Cemino Folliero, a portrait painter from Rome and Miss Constance Clyde, a well known Australian journalist and novelist.
Next day when the women were brought up before Mr. Horace Smith at the Westminster Police Court, Mr. Muskett, who appeared to prosecute on behalf of the police, protested that the Suffragettes had hitherto been treated with "the utmost indulgence," and begged that they should in future be dealt with "as ordinary law-breakers." Therefore the magistrate gave to most of the women exactly the same sentences—varying from twenty shillings or fourteen days to forty shillings or one month's imprisonment—that had been meted out to their comrades on the last occasion. Miss Patricia Woodlock and Mrs. Ada Chatterton, the former having only left Holloway on the expiration of her previous month's imprisonment one week before, were, as "old offenders," sentenced to one month's imprisonment without the option of a fine. Mrs. Mary Leigh though this was her first arrest, also received a month's imprisonment because, by hanging a Votes for Women banner over the edge of the dock, she annoyed the magistrate, who said that he did not think it "a decent thing to wave a flag in a court of justice."
Thus as a result of two attempts within the short space of five weeks to carry Resolutions to the Prime Minister from meetings of women held in the Caxton Hall, one hundred and thirty women, who were agitating for an eminently just and absolutely simple reform, had been imprisoned. Even to the next generation this state of things will appear monstrous, how much more so to those that are to follow in the dim future.
Footnotes:
[20] When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, introduced a Resolution dealing with the Veto of the House of Lords, three months afterwards, Lord Robert Cecil, introduced a Dummy Bill for the abolition of the House of Lords' Veto in order to prevent Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's motion being discussed, and thus to teach the anti-Suffragists that their own blocking tactics could be used against themselves. As Lord Robert Cecil came forward with his Bill, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, knowing what he was going to do, begged him not to introduce it, in order that the Government's Resolution might not be delayed. If Lord Robert Cecil would not agree, the Prime Minister threatened to call a sitting of the House for the next Saturday—the day which had been fixed for the King's garden party—in order to pass a special motion to allow the Government's Resolution to be proceeded with. Still Lord Robert Cecil protested that the Government must draw up the proposed Standing Order or he would insist upon introducing his Bill and Mr. Balfour supported him saying, "You can cook up a land Bill in three days, yet you cannot draft a Standing Order in three months." In the end the Government again promised to make such action as Mr. Levy's impossible, and Lord Robert Cecil withdrew his Bill, but the promise has not yet been redeemed.
[21] So far from exercising pressure upon Mr. Levy, the Liberal Government shortly afterwards gave him a knighthood. The failure to carry out their pledge, which I have referred to in the previous note, clearly shows that the Government did not in any way disapprove of Mr. Levy's action and were anxious that the possibility of its being repeated should remain.
[22] Shortly after this Second Women's Parliament, a proposal was raised that the Westminster City Council should prevent the Hall being let to the Women's Social and Political Union. The Chairman of the General Purposes Committee then stated that this course would be adopted if any damage were done to the hall itself. Up to the present time no further attempt has been made to prevent the holding of the Women's Parliament in the Hall.