The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI

by Unknown

More important in many ways than the "militant" movement was the emergence at the General Election in 1906 of the Labour Party. Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. Philip Snowden and others of its leaders were very strong supporters of women's suffrage and it was not long before the party definitely made the enfranchisement of women on the same terms as men a plank in its platform. In anticipation of the first General Election of 1910, the N.U.W.S.S. addressed the leaders of the three British parties, Conservative, Liberal, and Labour, asking them what they were prepared to do for Women's Suffrage. Mr. Asquith gave his answer at an Albert Hall meeting in December, 1909. He reiterated his intention, if returned to power, of bringing in a Reform Bill, and he promised to make the insertion of a Women's Suffrage amendment an open question for the House of Commons to decide. He added: "The Government ... has no disposition or desire to burke the question; it is clearly an issue on which the new House ought to be given an opportunity to express its views." This meant that the Government whips would not be put on to oppose the enfranchisement of women. Mr. Balfour replied to our memorial that it was a non-party question on which members of the Unionist Party could exercise individual freedom of action. Mr. Arthur Henderson, for the Labour Party, told us that it had already placed the enfranchisement of women on its programme. The Labour Party was not large but it was an important advantage to us to have even a small party definitely pledged to our support. There were two General Elections in 1910, in January and December. The Liberal, Labour and Nationalist group lost heavily in the second of these elections, their majority being reduced from 334 to 124.

The Labour Party between these two elections had lost six seats but they were still forty strong, all definitely pledged to Women's Suffrage in the new Parliament which assembled in January, 1911. Our Bill had been carried on its second reading in 1910 by a majority of 110 but after the second General Election of 1910 it secured on May 5, 1911, a majority of 167; there were 55 pairs, only 88 members of Parliament going into the Lobby against us. The Bill on each of these occasions was of a very limited character; it proposed to enfranchise women-householders, widows and spinsters and would only have added about a million women to the Parliamentary register. It was called the Conciliation Bill, because it sought to conciliate the differences between different types of suffragists in the House of Commons, from the extreme Conservative who only cared for the representation of women of property, to the extreme Radical who demanded the enfranchisement of every woman. A committee was formed to promote the success of this bill in Parliament of which the Earl of Lytton was Chairman and Mr. H. N. Brailsford Hon. Sec. It was believed that the bill represented the greatest common measure of the House of Commons' belief in women's votes. The Labour Party were strongly in favour of a much wider enfranchisement of women but generously waived their own preferences in order, as they believed, to get some sort of representation for women on the Statute Book. Almost immediately after this large majority for the second reading of the Conciliation Bill in May, 1911, an official announcement was made by the Government that Mr. Asquith's promise of the previous November that an opportunity should be afforded for proceeding with the bill in all its stages would be fulfilled in the session of 1912.

We were then in the most favourable position we had ever occupied; the passing of the Women's Suffrage Bill in the near future seemed a certainty. The "militants" had suspended all their methods of violence in order to give the Conciliation Bill a chance, and, as just described, it had passed its second reading debate with a majority of 167 and time for "proceeding effectively" with a similar Bill in all its stages had been promised. All the suffrage societies were working harmoniously for the same Bill and the Women's Liberal Federation were cooperating with the suffrage societies, when suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, Mr. Asquith dealt us a characteristic blow. In reply to a deputation from the People's Suffrage Federation early in November he announced his intention of introducing during the coming session of 1912 the Electoral Reform Bill which he had foreshadowed in 1908; he said that in this Bill all existing franchises would be swept away, plural voting abolished and the period of residence reduced. The new franchise to be created was, he added, to be based on citizenship and votes were to be given to "citizens of full age and competent understanding," but no mention was made of the enfranchisement of women. On being asked what he intended to do about women's votes, he dismissed the subject with the remark that his opinions on the subject were well known and had suffered no change, but he reiterated the promise of "facilities" for the Conciliation Bill in the 1912 Session.

The situation, therefore, was briefly this: An agitation of ever-growing intensity and determination had for some years been carried on by women for their own enfranchisement and no agitation at all had been manifested by men for more votes for themselves; the Prime Minister's response to this situation was to promise legislation giving far larger and wider representation to men and none at all to women. No wonder that he provoked an immediate outburst of militancy! Stones were thrown and windows smashed all along the Strand, Piccadilly, Whitehall and Bond Street, and members of the Government went about in perpetual apprehension of personal assault.

The indignation of the Constitutional suffragists and of the Women's Liberal Federation with Mr. Asquith was quite as real as that of the "suffragettes" but it sought a different method of expression. Some knowledge of this probably reached him, as for the first time in our experience all the suffrage societies and the W.L.F. were invited by the Prime Minister to form a deputation to him on the subject. What we were accustomed to was sending an urgent demand to him to receive us in a deputation and to get his reply that he believed "no useful purpose would be served" by yielding to our request; but now, in November, 1911, he was inviting us to come and see him! Of course we went. His whole demeanor was much more conciliatory than it had ever been before. He acknowledged the strength and intensity of the demand of women for representation and admitted that in opposing it he was in a minority both in his Cabinet and in his party; finally he added that, although his personal opinions on the subject prevented him from initiating and proposing the change which women were pressing for, he was prepared to bow to and acquiesce in the considered judgment of the House of Commons, and he stated that this course was quite in accordance with the best traditions of English public life. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, of which I was the mouthpiece, then put the following questions:

(1) Is it the intention of the Government that the Reform Bill shall go through all its stages in 1912?

(2) Will the Bill be drafted in such a way as to admit of amendments introducing women on other terms than men?

(3) Will the Government undertake not to oppose such amendments?

(4) Will the Government regard any amendment enfranchising women, which is carried, as an integral part of the Bill be defended by the Government in all its later stages?

To all these questions, as they were put severally, Mr. Asquith replied "Yes, certainly."