CHAPTER XI
THE THIRD WOMEN'S PARLIAMENT, AND MORE MILITANT TACTICS
Calls Upon Cabinet Ministers. The Third Women's Parliament. The Pantechnicon Van Stratagem. Mrs. Pankhurst's First Arrest. Mr. Dickinson's Bill, the First Albert Hall Meeting and the By-Election at Peckham.
Incidents in the Votes for Women campaign now followed each other with such rapidity that they defy the chronicler who wishes to note them down. Because vigorous militancy was the order of the day, the Press teemed with articles upon the abstract question of Votes for Women and with notices of the doings of the Suffragettes. "SUFFRAGETTES IN DOWNING STREET," "CABINET BAITING AS THE LATEST RUSE," "SUFFRAGETTES IN CHAINS." These and others of the same nature, were the startling headlines that one saw in the evening papers on January 17th and in the morning papers of the following day. It was merely that Mrs. Drummond and a number of other members of our Union, knowing that the Cabinet was sitting to decide upon the questions which should find a place in the legislative programme of the forthcoming session had made an attempt to urge upon them the necessity of dealing with the women's claim.
Whilst Press representatives were congregating in Downing Street, to snapshot the Ministers and to gain material for foolish paragraphs describing their appearance and manner of arrival at the first Cabinet Council of the Season, and whilst police were assembling to dance attendance upon the Prime Minister and his colleagues, three or four of the Women appeared to demand an interview. The police pulled them aside and the Cabinet Ministers brushed past as they tried to speak, and when they applied at the door of the official residence, no notice was taken. Then Miss New, well knowing that her words would be heard both inside the House and by the crowd that was collecting in the street, began to make a speech explaining what she and her friends had come for. Before beginning, she chained herself to the railings beside the Prime Minister's front door, both symbolically to express the political bondage of womanhood, and for the very practical reason that this device would prevent her being dragged speedily away. Her example was followed by Nurse Olivia Smith and, whilst the police were struggling to break the double set of chains, a taxicab drove up and stopped on the opposite side of the street. Suspecting more Suffragettes, some of the constables rushed to the door of the cab which opened on to the pavement. At the same moment, Mrs. Drummond (for it was she who had devised this stratagem), opened the cab door on the road side and bounded across to the sacred Residence, where, as there was no one to bar her progress and as she now possessed the secret of the little knob in the centre of the door, she was inside and very near to the Council Chamber itself, before a number of men, some of whom she believed to be Cabinet Ministers, though owing to the violent and hurried nature of her ejection it was impossible to make quite sure, rushed upon her, and she was flung out and hurled down the steps. She was then arrested, and shortly afterwards she and four of her comrades found themselves before Sir Albert de Rutzen at Bow Street Police Court, charged with disorderly conduct. They were found guilty and on refusing to be bound, were sent to prison for three weeks. Instead of placing them in the first division, as had been done in the case of all the Suffragettes since the transfer of Mrs. Cobden Sanderson and the rest of us had taken place in October, 1906, the authorities reverted to the old plan of putting them in the second class.
On January 29th the King opened Parliament in great state, and four members of the Women's Freedom League rushed in to the Royal Procession and attempted to present him with a Petition, but were dragged back and hustled aside by the soldiery and police. The King's speech did not contain any mention of Votes for Women, and the Women's Social and Political Union was already preparing to confer upon the subject at a Women's Parliament to be held in the Caxton Hall on February 11th, 12th, and 13th. In the meantime the Members of the Women's Freedom League had determined to make an immediate protest, and the day after the opening of Parliament they set out to interview six members of the Cabinet. Three of the ladies, Dr. Helen Bourchier, Mrs. Kennindale Cook, a well known novelist, and Miss Munro, a Scotchwoman from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's constituency, visited Mr. Haldane at his house at Queen Anne's Gate at 9:30. They agreed with the butler to wait outside until Mr. Haldane could see them, but the Secretary of State for War telephoned to the police, who soon appeared in force and placed the women under arrest. The same sort of thing happened at the houses of Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Harcourt and Captain Sinclair. Altogether seven women were arrested and sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying from two to six weeks.
In the afternoon of the same day Mr. Asquith received a deputation from the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. He then definitely said that the Government would not introduce a Vote for Women measure on their own account and also refused to hold out any hope that the Government would allow of the passage of a private Member's Bill. As they left the Treasury offices the so-called "Constitutional" Suffragists agreed that Mr. Asquith's remarks would merely serve to incite the Suffragettes to further militancy.
They judged rightly, for the next day nine members of the Women's Freedom League called at Mr. Asquith's house at No. 20, Cavendish Square, and, on being refused an interview with him, decorated his area railings with "Votes for Women" banners and bills, and, using his topmost doorstep as a platform, proceeded to address a crowd of some seventy persons that had collected. Four arrests were the result. The women were brought up before Mr. Plowden at Marylebone Police Court and claimed the right to speak in their own defence, but Dr. Helen Bourchier, the first who uttered a word, was stopped by the would-be witty Mr. Plowden, who said rudely "Behave yourself! You are the bell-wether of the flock." He then declared all the women guilty of obstruction, and ordered them either to pay fines of forty shillings or to undergo one month's imprisonment in the Second Division, saying that he wanted them to understand that if they thought the punishment light, it was because it was all that the Law allowed him to give them, and adding "I do not consider it by any means a fair measure of your deserts."
Meanwhile the reversion to the policy of treating the Suffragettes as ordinary criminals instead of according to them the treatment usually meted out to political prisoners, was being raised in both Houses of Parliament. Earl Russell and others urged the Government that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," but the Government were deaf alike to appeal and warning.