The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI

by Unknown

1900 - 1920.[215]

I consider it an honor to have been asked to take up the pen from the date 1900, when my dear friend and colleague, the late Helen Blackburn, laid it down after writing the chapter on Great Britain for Volume IV of the History of Woman Suffrage. I am particularly fortunate in that it falls to my lot to include the year 1918, when Victory crowned our fifty years' struggle in these islands to obtain the Parliamentary franchise for women.

Several circumstances entirely outside our power of control combined to promote the rapid growth of the movement at the beginning of the XXth Century. The chief of these were the South African war, 1899-1902, and the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. The war with the Transvaal was caused by the refusal of President Kruger and his advisers to recognize the principle that taxation and representation should go together. The so-called Uitlanders, who formed a large proportion of the population of the Transvaal and provided by taxation a still larger proportion of its revenue, were practically excluded from representation. This led to intense irritation and ultimately to war. It was, therefore, inevitable that articles in the press and the speeches of British statesmen dealing with the war used arguments which might have been transferred without the alteration of a single word to women's suffrage speeches.

I have described on pages 29 and 30 of Women's Suffrage, a Short History of a Great Movement, the strong impulse which had been given to the electorial activity of British women by the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883, which made paid canvassing illegal and otherwise reduced electorial expenses. Very soon after it came into operation both the chief political parties organized bands of educated women to act as canvassers, election agents, etc., in contested elections. The war stimulated this electorial activity of women. A general election was held in 1900 and in the absence of husbands, sons and brothers in South Africa, many wives, mothers and sisters ran the whole election on their behalf. Several of these were well known anti-suffragists. Even Mrs. Humphry Ward herself, on the occasion of an important anti-suffrage meeting in London, excused her absence on the ground that her presence was required by the exigencies of the pending election in West Herts, where her son was a candidate. Suffragists again were not slow to point the moral—if women were fit (and they obviously were fit) not only to advise, persuade and instruct voters how to vote but also to conduct election campaigns from start to finish, they were surely fit to vote themselves.

The death of Queen Victoria in January, 1901, called forth a spontaneous burst of loyal gratitude, devotion and appreciation from all parties and all sections of the country. Every leading statesman among her councillors dwelt on the extraordinary penetration of her mind, her wide political knowledge, her great practical sagacity, her grasp of principle, and they combined to acclaim her as the most trusted of all the constitutional monarchs whom the world had then seen. How could she be all that they justly claimed for her, if the whole female sex laboured under the disabilities which, according to Mrs. Humphry Ward, were imposed by nature and therefore irremediable? Nevertheless, it must not be supposed, genuine as were these tributes to Queen Victoria's political sagacity, that her example immediately cleared out of the minds of the opponents the notion that women were fitly classed with aliens, felons, idiots and lunatics, as persons who for reasons of public safety were debarred from the exercise of the Parliamentary franchise.

The Parliament returned in 1906 had an immense Liberal majority. There were only 157 Unionist members in the House of Commons against 513 Liberals, Labour men and Nationalists, all of whom were for Home Rule and therefore prepared to support in all critical divisions the new administration which was formed under the Premiership of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. The new House contained 426 members pledged to Women's Suffrage. The Premier was himself a suffragist but his Cabinet contained several determined anti-suffragists, notable among whom were Mr. Herbert H. Asquith, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. James Bryce, chief secretary for Ireland (now Lord Bryce), who became British Ambassador to the United States in 1907. The new Prime Minister received a large, representative suffrage deputation in May, 1906, in which all sections of suffragist opinion were represented, and their case was laid before him with force and clearness. In reply he told them that they had made out "a conclusive and irrefutable case" but that he was not prepared to take any steps to realize their hopes. When asked what he would advise ardent suffragists to do he told them to "go on pestering." This advice was taken to heart by the group (a small minority of the whole) who had lately formed in Manchester the organization known as The Women's Social and Political Union, led by Mrs. Pankhurst.

An unforeseen misfortune was the death in 1908 of Sir H. C. Bannerman and the fact that his successor was our principal opponent in the Government, Mr. Asquith. It was not very long before he revealed the line of his attack upon the enfranchisement of women. He informed his party in May, 1908, that his intention was to introduce before the expiration of the existing Parliament a Reform Bill giving a wide extension of the franchise to men and no franchise at all to women. In the previous February a Women's Suffrage Bill which removed all sex disability from existing franchises had passed its second reading in the House of Commons but this apparently had no effect on Mr. Asquith. There were, however, some cracks in his armour. He admitted that about two-thirds of his Cabinet and a majority of his party were favourable to Women's Suffrage and he promised that when his own exclusively male Reform Bill was before the House and had got into committee, if an amendment to include women were moved on democratic lines, his Government, as a Government, would not oppose it. This was at all events an advance on the position taken by Mr. Gladstone upon his Reform Bill of 1884, when he vehemently opposed a women's suffrage amendment and caused it to be defeated.

The emergence of what was afterwards known as "militancy" belongs to this period, dating from the General Election of 1906 and very much stimulated by Premier Bannerman's reply to the deputation in that year and by the attitude of Mr. Asquith. It will ever be an open question on which different people, with equal opportunities of forming a judgment, will pronounce different verdicts, whether "militancy" did more harm or good to the suffrage cause. It certainly broke down the "conspiracy of silence" on the subject up to then observed by the press. Every extravagance, every folly, every violent expression, and of course when the "militants" after 1908 proceeded to acts of violence, every outrage against person or property were given the widest possible publicity not only in Great Britain but all over the world. There was soon not an intelligent human being in any country who was not discussing Women's Suffrage and arguing either for or against it. This was an immense advantage to the movement, for we had, as Sir H. Campbell Bannerman had said, "a conclusive and irrefutable case." Our difficulty had been to get it heard and considered and this "militancy" secured. The anti-suffrage press believed that it would kill the movement and it was this belief which encouraged them to give it the widest possible publicity. The wilder and more extravagant the "militants" became the more they were quoted, described and advertised in every way. The sort of "copy" which anti-suffrage papers demanded was supplied by them in cartloads and not at all by law-abiding suffragists, who were an immense majority of the whole. This can be illustrated by an anecdote. The Constitutional suffragists had organized a big meeting in Trafalgar Square and had secured a strong team of first-rate speakers. The square was well filled and on the fringe of the crowd the following conversation was overheard between two press men who had come to report the proceedings. One said he was going away, the second asked why and the first answered: "It's no good stopping, there's no copy in this; these women are only talking sense!"

The earlier years of militant activity were in my opinion helpful to the whole movement, for up to 1908 the "militants" had only adopted sensational and unusual methods, such as waving flags and making speeches in the lobby of the House and asking inconvenient questions at public meetings. They had suffered a great deal of violence but had used none. From 1908 onwards, however, they began to use violence, stone throwing, personal attacks, sometimes with whips, on obnoxious members of the Government, window smashing, the destruction of the contents of letter-boxes—in one instance the destruction of ballot papers cast in an election. Later arson practised for the destruction or attempted destruction of churches and houses became more and more frequent. All this had an intensely irritating effect on public opinion. "Suffragist" as far as the general public was concerned became almost synonymous with "Harpy." This cause which had not been defeated on a straight vote in the House of Commons since 1886 was now twice defeated; once in 1912 and once in 1913. The whole spirit engendered by attempting to gain by violence or threats of violence what was not conceded to justice and reason was intensely inimical to the spirit of our movement. We believed with profound conviction that whatever might be gained in that way did not and could not rest on a sure foundation. The women's movement was an appeal against government by physical force and those who used physical violence in order to promote it were denying their faith to make their faith prevail.

The difference made a deep rift in the suffrage movement. The constitutional societies felt bound to exclude "militants" from their membership and on several occasions issued strongly-worded protests against the use of violence as political propaganda. The fact that men under similar circumstances had been much more violent and destructive, especially in earlier days when they were less civilized, did not inspire us with the wish to imitate them. We considered that they had been wrong and that "direct action," as it is now the fashion to call coercion by means of physical force, had always reacted unfavorably on those who employed it. While the constitutional societies freely and repeatedly expressed their views on these points, the "militants" not unnaturally retorted by attempting to break up our meetings, shouting down our speakers and provoking every sort of disorder at them. It was an exceptionally difficult situation and that we won through as well as we did was due to the solid loyalty to constitutional and law-abiding methods of propaganda of the great mass of suffragists throughout the country. We quoted the American proverb, "Three hornets can upset a camp meeting," and we determined to hold steadily on our way and not let our hornets upset us. Our societies multiplied rapidly both in numbers and in membership. For instance, the number forming the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies increased from 64 in 1909 to 130 in 1910 and went on increasing rapidly until just before the war in 1914 they numbered more than 600, with a revenue of over 42,000 pounds a year.