On November 7, 1911, Mr. Asquith announced to a deputation of the People’s Suffrage Federation that he was going to bring in a Manhood Suffrage Bill next Session. There was no agitation or demand for more votes for men; this was in answer to the widespread demand of votes for women. The majority already recorded for Woman Suffrage in the House of Commons was composed of members of all political parties. The Government’s present policy destroyed this composite majority by alienating Unionists and moderate Liberals. In other words, it rendered impossible the non-party solution of the Woman Suffrage question, towards which we had been working for months. We consented to the Conciliation Bill because it gave virtual equality to women with men, and because it made inevitable the equality of the sexes under any subsequent franchise measure. But we absolutely refused to accept the Conciliation Bill as the accompaniment of Manhood Suffrage Bill.
We and many other of the Suffrage Societies were received in deputation by Mr. Asquith, only to be told the case over again. He had not changed his opinion since 1908. The Manhood Suffrage Bill would make no difference to us, who could bring in an amendment!
The leaders of the W.S.P.U. determined to go on a deputation to the House of Commons on Tuesday, November 21, with Mrs. Pethick Lawrence to lead them. I intended to accompany them as a stone-thrower; the police on Black Friday (1910) had made the other way—that of going on a deputation—impossible for me, unless I were to see death, and this seemed useless. It was an understood thing that this time, if we were imprisoned, we should not hunger-strike.
CHAPTER XVI
HOLLOWAY REVISITED: MY FOURTH IMPRISONMENT
I determined that I would do my work alone. I was afraid that, if I combined with others, I might fail them, through illness, when they counted on me. Some days later Miss Lawless said she would come too, and, as she kindly chose to do the job with me, all was well. I selected a post office window in Victoria Street, on the left-hand side, facing Westminster. I went to buy some stamps there the day before to make sure of my bearings. I studied all the windows where it would be safe, and where not safe, to do the work of smashing without hurting anyone inside.
A friend, Mrs. MacLeod, came to see me the evening before, November 20, 1911. She brought me flowers, lovely lilies-of-the-valley and two bunches of violets. She told me she had bought them in Piccadilly from a girl that was sitting round the fountain. “They are for a friend of mine who is going to fight for the women to-morrow”; she wasn’t sure she had said it in a way the girl could understand. “Oh! May God bless her, God bless them all! Here, lady, take this extra bunch of violets for her.” She called this out enthusiastically, as she collected the flowers.
This time I had a small hammer as well as three stones wrapped in paper. The hammer, of course, was the safest as well as the most efficient of my tools, but one had to be quite near to the window in order to use it. Another dear friend, Dr. Alice Ker, came to me from Liverpool on the day, Tuesday, November 21. She was coming to the fray in Westminster, but she did not wish to get arrested. Towards six o’clock we took a taxi and went together to the beginning of Victoria Street. Then we got out and each went our own way. I walked up and down the street, first along one side, then along the other, and I inspected the side parallel streets. Victoria Street I had always supposed was rather a long one, but on this occasion it was infinitely short, and I seemed to pass the same people over and over again. Once I jumped into a ’bus to go up again towards Westminster, and there I came across many of my friends, who doubtless were going to the preliminary meeting at Caxton Hall. At last when standing, as it seemed to me, for the fiftieth time in front of a door with pillars, which was our trysting place, I met Miss Lawless and soon after Miss Douglas Smith, who had said she would join us for a little, as she had to go to all who were “active” in Victoria Street. We turned into a “Lyons” for some tea, the whole place was full of our friends and a detective or two. A cat was there; she came to lie on my lap and I had to turn her off when we left.
The time was getting near; we were to wait until the clock struck 8; we were none of us to move before and not much later. At last there was a noise of many people coming round the corner of a street; it was Mrs. Pethick Lawrence walking at the head of her Deputation. A large crowd surrounded them and cheered them on their way to Westminster. Miss Lawless and I had taken up our position already on the steps leading to the post office we had selected. As soon as the Deputation had passed, the clock of Big Ben began striking eight. I said, “I can wait no longer,” and I turned and smashed the glass of two doors and one window. I raised my arms and did it deliberately, so that every one in the street could see. Miss Lawless smashed the windows to my right. We were going down the steps and I was afraid no policemen had been near, when two came from over the way. All was peaceable and friendly. My policeman said to me with a smile, “I’ll take you this way, lady, see? And that won’t inconvenience you.” With that he adjusted his grasp at my elbow. I said to him: “Unless you are obliged, don’t hurry your pace more than you can help,” and he walked at my pace through Westminster to Cannon Row. He also disarmed me, taking my hammer. In Westminster the crowd was immense and at the bottom of Whitehall, but we got through all right, and Miss Lawless kept close behind me.