Procession to welcome Mrs. Pankhurst, Christabel and Mrs. Leigh on their release from prison, December 19th, 1908
There exists also the right of every section of the people to carry resolutions embodying their opinion in regard to matters of Government, which may either be published broadcast or presented in the form of petitions for redress of grievances to those in power. But what usually happens to resolutions and petitions put forward by those who have no political power is aptly expressed in the words of Mr. Serjeant Hullock, the Counsel who spoke for the Coercionist Government in one of the cases arising out of the massacre of Peterloo, which took place in 1819, prior to the passing of the first reform Act. "If deliberation had been their object," he said, "could they not have settled their petition in a private room and then have sent it to the House of Commons, where it would have been laid on the table and never heard of again?" Nevertheless the old right of the by-standers, the right of the whole people to express their opinion in regard to suggestions put forward by powerful folk and to receive them either with shouts of approval or equally loud cries of dissent still exists and it exists—if it has not been altogether destroyed by the Public Meeting Bill—not merely for men, but for women. This right is constantly exercised when a member of the Government, and, to a lesser extent, a private Member of Parliament appears before a public meeting of the people to make proposals for fresh legislation and to give an account of his stewardship in the past. When he comes forward thus, the people, women as well as men, have the right to express assent or dissent with what he has done or with what he has left undone, with what he proposes and what he has omitted to propose. They have the right to question him and to demand an answer, to heckle him during his speech if they will, and if they will to cry out and refuse to let him speak until he has dealt with the thing which they have at heart, and if they believe that he has not dealt justly with that thing they have the right to decide that he shall not be heard. How else can he know the mind of the country? How else can those who are without the Parliamentary franchise express their will? There is no other way and this right is one of those upon which the people of these Islands have always insisted. Those who have said that if this right be exercised the right of free speech will be endangered do not realise what the right of free speech is. The right of free speech is the right of everyone to speak publicly and without penalty or restraint, of what seems important, and this old right to question and to express assent and dissent is included in it. It is the only refuge of those who have no political power. The right of members of the Government to speak freely can never be endangered, for they have Parliament to speak from, the police and military at their beck and call to protect them and enforce their wishes, and the Press of the country all waiting to note down their words and publish them broadcast throughout the land. The right of poor and voteless people to be heard has been endangered by this Bill and so long as it remains on the Statute Book it is a standing menace to our ancient popular liberties.
Happily, up to now, the Bill has been practically a dead letter, but none can be sure that an instrument of coercion which exists will not be put into force. Had the movement for Women's Enfranchisement been a movement solely of poor women with others dependent upon them, as might have been the case, the new Bill might have proved a serious menace to the movement, but, as it happened, there was fortunately no lack of women who were able and willing to risk imprisonment. Therefore this Bill could make no difference to us.
Nevertheless, though our members might not have left a crowd of starving children behind them, we well knew that their going to prison entailed many sacrifices and we always waited impatiently for their release and welcomed them back amongst us with the greatest joy. During the summer and autumn bands of women in white dresses had flocked to the gaol gates, had unhorsed the carriages provided to carry the prisoners to breakfast, and with purple, white and green ribbons had drawn them in triumph through the streets. With Scotch tartans and Scotch heather the Scotchwomen had been welcomed; four Irish colleens and an Irish piper and a jaunting car met Mrs. Tanner, an Irish woman, and women in prison dress marched from the station with Mrs. Baines on her return to London. When Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Leigh and Christabel were released, earlier than had been expected, on December 19th, women on white horses drew their carriage, and behind and before there marched long lines of W. S. P. U. members wearing white jerseys, purple skirts, and gaiters, green caps, and "votes for women" regalia.
In the evening a meeting of welcome was held in Queen's Hall, and as Mrs. Pankhurst, Christabel, and Mrs. Leigh appeared all the organisers of the Union in their white dresses lined up and saluted them with tricolour flags, whilst the great audience of women sprang to their feet and cheered and waved and cheered again as few but Suffragette audiences can. Then Annie Kenney stepped forward holding in her hand a purple, white and green silk standard with an aluminum staff, bearing a gilt shield inscribed with the great dates in Christabel's career.
When Christabel spoke she recalled the many thousands of Women's Suffrage meetings that had been held in this country and the work of the pioneers who had begun the agitation more than forty years before. These women had laboured well and devotedly, yet they had not succeeded in gaining for women the Parliamentary vote. She believed the reason for this to be that they had relied too much upon the justice of their cause and not enough upon their strong right arm, for an idea had only life and power in it when it was backed up by deeds. What had been wanted was action and it was for this reason that the militant tactics had achieved so much already and would in the end succeed. The old methods of asking for the vote had proved futile, and not only were they futile, but they were humiliating and unworthy of women. "I say to you," she said, "that any woman here who is content to appeal for the vote instead of demanding and fighting for it is dishonouring herself." The women who came into the militant movement did not fear suffering and sacrifice; they felt, not that they gave up anything for the movement, but that they gained everything by it. "Why," she cried, "the women of this Union are the happiest people in the world. We have the glorious pride of being made an instrument of those great forces that are working towards progress and liberty."
That note was struck again and again, and it was upon that note that the whole meeting rested. Loyalty, enthusiasm, courage, belief in a great cause, the joy of fighting for it, these things filled the air. No one could fail to be impressed by them. When Mrs. Pankhurst rose to speak someone stepped forward and pressed into her hand a replica of a medal struck to commemorate the fall of the Paris Bastille in the French Revolution, because she had been born on the anniversary of that day. She was weakened and worn by her imprisonment, but her speech, brief and somewhat hesitating as it was, contained a pronouncement heralding important events, for it foreshadowed the hardest and bitterest struggle to secure the rights of Political Offenders to British women political prisoners that had yet been fought.
Two further events must be chronicled before closing the story of the year 1908. The first is the fight of the Scottish women graduates for the recognition of their claim to vote under the Scottish University Franchise which they carried right through to the House of Lords. Though they failed to establish their claim, they yet brought to light many valuable new facts in regard to the rights and privileges of their countrywomen in ancient times. One of their contentions was that the question as to whether they might vote should be decided according to the actual wording of the University Franchise Act and not according to the known, or supposed, intentions of Parliament, for that is the rule which the British Courts have agreed to be always the just and proper one to adopt. There was nothing in the words of the Act to prevent women graduates from voting on equal terms with men, and even if it were held that this had happened because when the Act was passed the legislature had not foreseen the possibility of there ever being women graduates, the right course to pursue (because it was the accepted course when such questions in regard to Acts of Parliament arose) was for the women to be allowed to vote until Parliament, if it chose to do so, should carry an amending statute. The graduates pointed out that this had been done in the case of the first woman who had graduated in medicine, in the Netherlands where, as in England, graduation carried with it the right to vote. This lady had claimed her right and not being allowed to exercise it had taken her case to the Courts. For technical reasons the case had been postponed and during the postponement the Legislature had brought in a repealing enactment to prevent women graduates voting and had succeeded in carrying it. The reason for the refusal of the English authorities to take this course is clearly apparent, for it would have been difficult indeed for our Parliament to carry such a repealing measure in the face of the tremendous Suffragette and Suffragist agitation.
The second of these two important happenings and perhaps the most auspicious one of the whole year, was the granting of votes to women in Victoria where, after struggling for many years, the Suffragists had at length succeeded in inducing their Government to take the matter up and had secured their enfranchisement on November 18th, 1908.