| Mr. C. A. Gooch (C) | 6,970 |
| Mr. T. Gautrey (L) | 4,476 |
| Majority | 2,494 |
The figures at the General Election had been:
| Mr. Charles G. Clarke (L) | 5,903 |
| Sir F. G. Banbury (C) | 3,564 |
CHAPTER XII
APRIL AND MAY, 1908
Mr. Asquith Becomes Prime Minister. Defeat of Mr. Winston Churchill in North West Manchester and His Election at Dundee; Mr. Asquith's Offer and the Women's Reply.
Owing to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's continued illness, Mr. Asquith had been acting as his deputy for many months past, and the Easter Holidays were scarcely over when it was announced that he had become Prime Minister in fact, for the state of Sir Henry's health had compelled him to resign. The Ex-Premier did not live long afterwards. Though he had been converted to Women's Suffrage late in life when his fighting powers were always seriously impaired, there is little doubt that he spoke truly when he declared his disappointment at not being able to do anything for the Suffragists when they waited upon him in deputation on the 19th of May, 1906; and, if ever the secret history of the Government during that time comes to be written, we shall probably learn that, had he possessed the strength to enforce his will upon his colleagues, votes would have been granted to women that very year. Once when Annie Kenney and Mary Gawthorpe were travelling with Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence to Bordighera, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and they chanced to enter the same train and afterwards Sir Henry happened to seat himself at the very table where Annie and Mary were taking tea. They at once introduced themselves to him and all three had a long talk together in the course of which Annie naïvely assured him, "You have no one in the Cabinet so clever as Miss Christabel Pankhurst." Other things, too, she must have told him out of her loyal, earnest heart for, as she explained to us later, "he looked so much happier afterwards," and we have been told by some who knew him that, when criticisms of the Suffragettes were subsequently made in his hearing, he would invariably protest, "Oh, you must not say anything against my little friend, Annie Kenney."
Mr. Asquith who had come to take his place, was a man of very different metal. He was one whom nobody seemed to like and the only reason for his having become Prime Minister appeared to be that he had the reputation of being what is called "a strong man," and what generally turns out to be an obstinate one. It was a significant fact that it was whilst he had held the reins of power during Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's illness, that the practice of treating the Suffragettes as first class misdemeanants had been abandoned. On the promotion of Mr. Asquith, a general move up to better paid and more important posts took place in the Cabinet. According to the Constitutional Law of the country, the newcomers into the Cabinet were obliged to vacate their seats and to offer themselves for re-election. At the same time there were three elevations from the lower to the upper House, curtailing a choice of new representatives in the Commons by the constituencies for which the new peers had sat. Two vacancies also occurred owing to deaths, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's own seat at Stirling Burghs was soon vacant. Something almost like a miniature General Election was therefore sprung upon the country, and the Suffragettes were compelled to marshal their forces simultaneously in no fewer than nine constituencies.
The election at North West Manchester, where a vigorous campaign was organised in opposition to Mr. Winston Churchill, who was endeavouring to obtain the people's sanction to his appointment as President of the Board of Trade, was the most hardly fought, and aroused the greatest interest. It was the scene of the first anti-Government struggle during which Mr. Churchill had angrily declared that he was being "henpecked"; but the women had no need to go round to his meetings now, as they had done then, in order to attract public attention to their cause, for all Manchester was now wanting to hear about it. The Suffragettes had but to arrange their own meetings and the Manchester Guardian itself was ready to publish a detailed list of them in its columns.