The violence of the rowdies met with little rebuke from political leader writers and under the heading, "Sparrows for Suffragettes," the Westminster Gazette stated, "Essex has just provided two amusing Suffragist Incidents," and described in the same spirit the letting loose of a flight of sparrows inside a hall where the women were speaking and the breaking up of a Suffragist meeting by boys who had rushed the speakers, and cast carbide on the wet roads.
Consider the action of a body of women who, in order to obtain a share in the constitution, deliberately decide to attend the meetings addressed by the members of a Government that has the power to grant them what they desire but withholds it. Consider also that these women are deprived by their sex of the principal constitutional means of pressing their claim and that their action is taken at great personal risk. Then contrast the action of these women with that of a crowd of men who, absolutely careless of injuring either persons or property, and merely because they imagine that their victims are unpopular or opposed to those whom they believe to be their own political friends, deliberately set out with the intention of breaking up the meetings of women who are withholding no man's rights from him and who have no power to give rights to anyone, but who are merely struggling to obtain the franchise which their assailants themselves possess. Surely no one with an unprejudiced mind could consider that there is a parallel between the case of those particular women and those particular men. Party politicians had before them frequent examples of the two cases and they decided that there was no parallel. They decided that the action of the men was excusable, but that the action of the women must be condemned in the most emphatic terms and must be sternly repressed at any cost.
The human letters dispatched by Miss Jessie Kenney to Mr. Asquith at No. 10 Downing Street, Jan. 23, 1909
A measure called the Public Meeting Bill providing that any person who acted in a disorderly manner in order to prevent the transaction of the business for which a meeting had been called together should be rendered liable to a fine not exceeding £5 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one month, was therefore laid before Parliament by Lord Robert Cecil. As the slightest interjection or the most pertinent question by a Suffragette had now become the signal for a scene of disturbance, it was clearly apparent that they would not be able to raise their voices at the meetings of Cabinet Ministers without rendering themselves liable to the suggested penalties. Though the Bill was introduced but a few days before the end of the Session, the Government at once provided for it the facilities which had been denied to that equally short measure to enfranchise the women of the country, and it was quickly rushed through the two Houses and became law before the end of the year.
Party feeling on the one hand, and public indifference on the other, veiled for the time being the serious and revolutionary nature of this measure and allowed it to be placed on the statute book with scarcely a word of discussion or protest. Nevertheless it struck at one of our most ancient and fundamental national customs. Describing the ancient governmental assemblies of the Saxon peoples Tacitus explains that though, as a rule, only the more distinguished members of the community put forward new proposals, all had a right to be present and the by-standers at once expressed their opinion in regard to all suggestions. He says:
The eldest opens the proceedings, then each man speaks according as distinguished by age, family, renown in war or eloquence. No one commands, only the personal dignity residing in him exercises its influence. No distinction of rank exists; the Assembly determines and its determination is law. Proposals, when deemed acceptable, are hailed with loud acclaim and clash of arms. A loud shout of dissent rejects what appears to be unacceptable.
Our present system of Government is, after all, the direct descendant of these ancient assemblies. Largely owing to the distinctions of class which have sprung up and have grown more and more complex and at the same time more deeply marked because of the constant struggling of those who already possess advantages of property and of education to add to these advantages a greater political power than their fellows by restricting the rights of those who are poorer and weaker than themselves many changes have been wrought. It has come about that our modern Parliament is elected by only a section of the people; and that almost the whole of the business transacted by Parliament is carried on by a small Cabinet of persons nominated by one man, himself pitch-forked into power by a possibly transient wave of popularity. Moreover, our existing system of party Government renders this small Cabinet almost all-powerful during its term of office and the strong party prejudice, obtaining both amongst Private Members of Parliament and the Press of the country, secures that the Cabinet shall remain almost exempt from criticism, except by the followers of the opposing party. This criticism loses in influence and value because, for party purposes, it is directed almost without exception against every act of the Cabinet, whether the act be in itself worthy or unworthy. The section of the people who are entitled to vote and who elect the majority that makes the power of the Cabinet possible may, it is true, dismiss them at the next general election if they disapprove of the way in which their stewardship has been fulfilled; but they cannot insist upon an election when they will and they have no power to decide that their representatives have done well in one respect and badly in another. It is only possible either entirely to accept what the representatives have done or to reject them altogether.
