I have been fighting faults all my life, and although I have overcome some of them—and I shan’t tell you what they are—a vast crop still remain to be mowed down by the scythe of Time.
The question of women and the suffrage is now so important that it is impossible for any thinking man or woman not to have an opinion on the subject. What a curious thing it is that Liberals who stand for Progress fear this onward movement. Is it because they think women in the main are conservative?
On the 6th of February, 1907, at the time when the Women Suffragists were being marched in scores to prison, and big processions were being organised, and endless fusses and excitements were in the air, Punch wrote an amusing article, sweeping away the House of Lords, and substituting for it a House of Ladies.
My name happened to be among the half-dozen elected Peeresses, and a funny crew we were. Miss Christabel Pankhurst was chosen because she was then considered the only good-looking suffragette. Madame Zansig because of her thought-reading propensities. Clara Butt because she could reduce chaos to harmony, and so on.
Anyway, the article was commented on tremendously in the Press, and was the subject of much amusement among my friends. It brought me many quibs, telegrams, and telephones of congratulation on my elevation to the Peerage.
The following letter is from a notable woman, written about two years later:
“Edinburgh,
“November 26th, 1909.
“My dear Mrs. Alec Tweedie,
“I am very pleased to hear that you are disposed to take a more active part than heretofore in demonstrating your support of Women’s Suffrage. The London Society, of which Lady Frances Balfour is the President, is non-party in character and is opposed to stone-throwing, whip-lashing, and other methods of violence. The London Society is one of more than a hundred Societies, which together form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies of which I am President. I have asked Miss Strachey, the Secretary of the London Society, to send you a membership form, and if you approve of our methods and policy, we shall be most grateful if you will join us. I am away here in Scotland for a round of meetings, therefore please excuse a hasty line.