The Suffragette: The History of the Women's Militant Suffrage Movement, 1905-1910

by E. Sylvia Pankhurst

Mr. Herbert Gladstone has told us in the speech I read to him that the victory of argument alone is not enough. As we cannot hope to win by force of argument alone, it is necessary to overcome the savage resistance of the Government to our claim for citizenship by other means. He says: "Go on. Fight as the men did." And then, when we show our power and get the people to help us, he takes proceedings against us in a manner which would have been disgraceful even in the old days of coercion, and which would be thought disgraceful if it were practised in Russia.

Then there is Mr. Lloyd George, who, if any man has done so, has set us an example. His whole career has been a series of revolts.... He has said that if we do not get the vote—mark these words—we should be justified in adopting the methods which men had to adopt, namely, in pulling down the Hyde Park railings.

Then, as a sign of the way in which men politicians deal with men's interests, we have heard Lord Morley saying: "We are in India in the presence of a living movement, and a movement for what? For objects which we ourselves have taught them to think are desirable objects, and unless we can somehow reconcile order with satisfaction of those ideas and aspirations, the fault will not be theirs; it will be ours—it will mark the breakdown of British statesmanship." Apply those words to our case. Remember that we are demanding of Liberal statesmen that which for us is the greatest boon and the most essential right. Remember that we are asking for votes, that we are demanding the franchise, and if the present Government cannot reconcile order with our demand for the vote without delay, it will mark the breakdown of their statesmanship. Yes, their statesmanship has broken down already. They are disgraced. It is only in this Court that they have the smallest hope of getting bolstered up.

Turning finally from the Magistrate to the great world of public opinion outside, she finished on a defiant note, caring nothing whether the abuse which she had heaped upon his petty court and its unworthy procedure should cause him to increase her sentence ten or even a hundred fold. Mr. Curtis Bennett sat with brows knit and an angry flush on his face, and the whole court was wrought up to the most intense excitement. But now it was Mrs. Pankhurst's turn to speak and her clear even tones and absolute calm of manner created if possible an even deeper impression.

Sir, I want to endorse what my daughter has said, that in my opinion we are proceeded against in this Court by malice on the part of the Government. [She began quietly and firmly.] I want to protest as strongly as she has done. I want to put before you that the very nature of your duties in this Court—although I wish to say nothing disrespectful to you—render you unfitted to deal with a question which is a political question, as a body of jurymen could do. We are not women who would come into this court as ordinary law-breakers.

Mrs. Drummond here is a woman of very great public spirit; she is an admirable wife and mother; she has very great business ability, and, although a married woman, she has maintained herself for many years, and has acquired for herself the admiration and respect of all the people with whom she has had business relations. I do not think I need speak about my daughter. Her abilities and earnestness of purpose are very well known to you. They are young women. I am not, Sir. You and I are older, and have both had very great and very wide experience of life under different conditions. Before you decide what is to be done with us, I should like you to hear from me a statement of what has brought me into this dock this morning.

I was brought up by a father who taught me that his children, boys and girls alike, had a duty towards their country; they must be good citizens. I married a man, whose wife I was, but also his comrade in all his public life. He was, as you know, a distinguished member of your own profession, but he felt it his duty, in addition, to do political work, to interest himself in the welfare of his fellow countrymen and countrywomen. Throughout the whole of my marriage I was associated with him in his public work. In addition to that, as soon as my children were of an age to permit me to leave them, I took to public duties. I was for many years a Guardian of the Poor. For many years I was a member of the School Board, and when that was abolished I was elected to the Educational Committee. My experience in doing that work brought me in contact with many of my own sex, who, in my opinion, found themselves in deplorable positions because of the state of the English law as it affects women. You in this court must have had experience of women who would never have come here if married women were afforded by law that claim for maintenance by their husbands which I think in justice should be given them when they give up their economic independence and are unable to earn a subsistence for themselves. You know how inadequate are the marriage laws to women. You must know, Sir, as I have found out in my experience of public life, how abominable, atrocious, and unjust are the divorce laws as they affect women. You know very well that the married woman has no legal right to the guardianship of her children. Then, too, the illegitimacy laws; you know that a woman sometimes commits the dreadful crime of infanticide, while her partner, the man, who should share her punishment, gets off scot free.

Ever since my girlhood, a period of about thirty years, I have belonged to organisations to secure for women that political power which I have felt essential to bringing about those reforms which women need. We have tried to be what you call womanly, we have tried to use "feminine influence," and we have seen that it is of no use. Men who have been impatient have invariably got reforms.

I have seen that men are encouraged by law to take advantage of the helplessness of women. Many women have thought as I have and for many, many years have tried by that influence of which we have so often been reminded to alter these laws, but have found that that influence counts for nothing. When we went to the House of Commons we used to be told, when we were persistent, that Members of Parliament were not responsible to women, they were responsible only to voters, and that their time was too fully occupied to reform those laws, although they agreed that they needed reforming.

We women have presented larger petitions in support of our enfranchisement than were ever presented for any other reform, we have succeeded in holding greater public meetings than men have ever held for any reform, in spite of the difficulty which women have in throwing off their natural diffidence, that desire to escape publicity which we have inherited from generations of our foremothers; we have broken through that. We have faced hostile mobs at street corners, because we were told that we could not have that representation for our taxes which men have won unless we converted the whole of the country to our side. Because we have done this, we have been misrepresented, we have been ridiculed, we have had contempt poured upon us, and the ignorant mob incited to offer us violence, which we have faced unarmed and unprotected by the safeguards which Cabinet Ministers have.