History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 6/Chapter 51
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 antisuffrage 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 stronglyworded 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.
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:
To all these questions, as they were put severally, Mr. Asquith replied "Yes, certainly."
Mr. Lloyd George, who was present, was pressed by the deputation to speak but did so only very briefly. He was known as an opponent of the Conciliation Bill but had voted for it in 1911 because it was so drafted as to admit of free amendment. He made no secret of his conviction that the wider enfranchisement afforded by amendment of the Government measure would, to use his own expression, "torpedo" the Conciliation Bill. Almost immediately after the deputation thus described he sent the following message to the N.U.W.S.S.: "The Prime Minister's pronouncement as to the attitude to be adopted by the Government towards the question seems to make the carrying of a Women's Suffrage Amendment to next year's Franchise Bill a certainty. I am willing to do all in my power to help those who are labouring to reach a successful issue in the coming session. Next year provides the supreme opportunity and nothing but unwise handling of that chance can compass failure." There was plenty of unwise handling, but not, as I am proud to think, from the constitutional suffragists. The first was the wild outburst of "militancy" already referred to. Mr. Lloyd George was pursued by persistent interruption and annoyance deliberately organised by the Women's Social and Political Union. A meeting he addressed at Bath, mainly devoted to advocacy of Women's Suffrage, on Nov. 24, 1911, was all but turned into a bear garden by these deliberately planned and very noisy interruptions. Not to be outdone in "unwise handling" Mr. Asquith next had his innings. He received an anti-suffrage deputation on Dec. 14, 1911, about three weeks after he had received the suffragists, and in the course of his remarks to them he said: "As an individual I am in entire agreement with you that the grant of the Parliamentary Vote to women in this country would be a political mistake of a very disastrous kind." This went far to invalidate the fair-seeming promises to us given about three weeks earlier. How could a man in the allimportant position of Prime Minister pledge himself to use all the forces at the disposal of the Government to pass in all its stages through both houses a measure which might include the perpetration of "a political mistake of a very disastrous kind"?
A member of Mr. Asquith's own party who took part in the
anti-suffrage deputation interpreted this expression of his chief as an S.O.S. call to his followers in the House to deliver him from the humiliation of having to fulfil the promises he had given us. Every kind of intrigue and trick known to the accomplished parliamentarian was put into operation. Every Irish Nationalist vote was detached from support of the Bill. A description of one of these discreditable devices, among them an attempt to hold up the N.U.W.S.S. to public contempt as purveyors of "obscene" literature, will be found in a book by myself called The Women's Victory and After, published in 1920.
The first result of these intrigues was the defeat of the Conciliation Bill, by 14 votes only, on March 28, 1912. This was hailed as an immense triumph by the anti-suffragists, as indeed in a sense it was, for exactly the same bill had been carried by the same House in 1911 by a majority of 167; but it was a triumph which cost the victors dear, especially when the tricks and perversions of truth came to light by which it had been achieved. From this time forward public opinion was more decided in our favour and the general view was that the Government had treated us shabbily.
The progress made by the Government in pressing forward their Electoral Reform Bill was not rapid. When it was at last introduced it was discovered to be not a Reform Bill, but in the main a Registration Bill. In the second reading debate Mr. Asquith described his Bill as one to enfranchise "male persons only," and said in regard to women that he could not conceive that the House would "so far stultify itself as to reverse the considered judgment it had already arrived at" earlier in the session. It was a "considered judgment" to defeat the Bill by 14 votes in 1912 but not a "considered judgment" to have it carried by 167 in 1911! Sir Edward Grey felt strongly that the House had placed itself in a very undesirable position, but the Conciliation Bill was defeated and Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Lloyd George and the leading suffragists in the Government continued to assure us that the inclusion of Women's Suffrage through an amendment of the Government Bill presented us with by far the best prospect of success we had ever had. We worked as we had never worked before to secure the success of this amendment or series of amendments. The session of 1912 had lasted from January to December without the committee stage of the Government Bill being reached. This interminable session overflowed into 1913 and the debate on the suffrage amendments of the Government Bill was dated to begin on January 24th of that year. On January 23rd, however, in reply to a question, the Speaker [Mr. Lowther] indicated that he would probably be compelled to rule that if the Bill were amended so as to include the enfranchisement of women, he might feel obliged to rule that in this form it was not the same bill of which the second reading had been carried in July, and it would, therefore, have to be withdrawn and re-introduced! This ruling he confirmed on the following Monday, January 27th. Therefore, every one of the fair promises which Mr. Asquith had given us in November, 1911, proved to be absolutely worthless.
I do not accuse Mr. Asquith of anything worse at this stage than blundering. He was manifestly confounded and distressed by the Speaker's ruling. Whether this were due to the naming of the Bill or to Mr. Asquith's own speech on the second reading, "This is a bill to enfranchise male persons only, etc.", we were not able to discover; but the net result was that he found himself in a position in which it was impossible for him to fulfil the promises he had given us. Under these circumstances he did not take the only honorable course open to him, i.e., of sending for us once more and asking us what we should consider a reasonable equivalent for these unredeemed promises. He had made these promises five years back and had repeated them from time to time ever since. Now they were null and void. The only reasonable equivalent would have been the introduction of a Government Reform Bill which included the enfranchisement of women. Probably Mr. Asquith knew that this was what we should urge; for he not only did not send for us but he refused to see us or consult us in any way. He tossed us, without our consent, the thoroughly worthless substitute of a day for a Private Member's Bill, such as we had had experience of time and again ever since 1870. The N.U.W.S.S. indignantly rejected this offer and took no interest in the proposed Bill, which was, however, introduced and given a day for second reading in May, 1913, when it was defeated by a majority of 47.
This discreditable series of incidents did far more harm to the Government than to the suffrage cause, as was very conclusively shown in the press. "Punch," for instance, had a cartoon on Feb. 5, 1913, representing a dance in which Mr. Asquith figured as a defaulting partner in a corner and trying to escape from an indignant woman who said, '"You've cut my dance!" This was indicative of the general trend of public opinion.
In the previous year the N.U.W.S.S. had placed a new interpretation on its election policy. This was to support in elections irrespective of party "the best friend of Women's Suffrage." After the defeat of the Conciliation Bill in 1912 when 42 so-called "friends" voted against it, we resolved in the future that the best friend was a man who was not only personally satisfactory but who also belonged to a party which had made Women's Suffrage a plank in its platform. This meant support for the Labour Party and for the development of this policy we raised a special fund called the Election Fighting Fund and took active steps in canvassing and speaking for Labour men whenever they presented themselves as candidates for vacant seats. Our movement had now become the storm centre of English politics. A well known labour leader wrote of the political situation in February, 1913, as follows: "The Women's Suffrage question will now dominate British politics until it is settled. It has within the last few weeks killed a great Government measure and it has done more than that. It has made it impossible for this or any succeeding Liberal Government to deal with franchise reform without giving votes to women. The Labour Party will see to that."
In 1913 the N.U.W.S.S. organised the greatest public demonstration it had ever made. We called it The Pilgrimage. It meant processions of non-militant suffragists, wearing their badges and carrying banners, marching towards London along eight of the great trunk roads. These eight processions, many of them lasting several weeks, stopped at towns and villages on their way, held meetings, distributed literature and collected funds. It was all a tremendous and unprecedented success, well organised and well done throughout. (Described in detail in The Women's Victory.) The Pilgrimage made a very great impression and was favourably commented on in the organs of the press which had never helped us before. We finished The Pilgrimage with a mass meeting in Hyde Park on July 26, where we had seventeen platforms, one for each of our federations. We asked Mr. Asquith and the leaders of other political parties to receive a deputation from The Pilgrimage the following week. They all accepted with the exception of Mr. John Redmond. When Mr. Asquith received us his demeanor was far less unfriendly than it had ever been before. He admitted that the offer of a Private Member's Bill was no equivalent for the loss of a place in a Government Bill. He said: "Proceed as you have been proceeding, continue to the end," and said if we could show that "a substantial majority of the country was favourable to Women's Suffrage, Parliament would yield, as it had always hitherto done, to the opinion of the country."
In May, 1914, suffrage ground was broken in the House of Lords by Lord Selborne and Lord Lytton, who introduced a bill on the lines of the Conciliation Bill, the latter making one of the most powerful speeches in our support to which we had ever listened. The Bill was rejected by 104 to 60, but we were more than satisfied by the weight of the speeches on our side and by the effect produced by them. Another important event which greatly helped our movement in 1914 was the protest of the National Trade Union Congress on February 12th against the Government's failure to redeem its repeated pledges to women and demanding "a Government Reform Bill which must include the enfranchisement of women." This was followed by resolutions passed at the annual conference of the National Labour Party re-affirming its decision "to oppose any further extension of the franchise to men in which women were not included."
There must, according to law, have been a General Election in 1915 and the remarkable progress of the women's cause made us feel confident that a Parliament would be elected deeply pledged to our support. Our friends were being elected and our enemies, including that worst type of enemy, the false friend and the so-called Liberal afraid of his own principles, were being rejected at by-elections in a manner that foreshadowed a great gain to suffrage forces at the General Election. Then suddenly, destroying all our hopes of success and jeopardizing the very existence of representative government and all forms of democracy throughout the world, came the outbreak of war; the entry of our own country and the resulting concentration of the vast majority of the British people, whether men or women, in the gigantic national effort which the successful resistance of such a foe demanded. August 4, 1914, was a heart-breaking day for us. Nevertheless, suffragists from the first faced the facts and saw clearly what their duty was. The "militants" instantly abandoned every sort of violence. A large number of the more active members of their societies formed the Women's Emergency Corps, who were ready to undertake all kinds of national work which the exigencies of the situation demanded. The N.U.W.S.S. Executive Committee meeting on August 3, the day before our own country was actually involved, resolved to suspend immediately all political propaganda for its own ends. Under normal circumstances we should have summoned a Council meeting to discuss the situation and to determine the course to be taken by the Union. This being impossible owing to difficulties connected with railway communication we consulted our societies, then numbering over 500, by post, placing them in possession of our own views, viz.: that ordinary political work would have to be suspended during the war and suggesting that our best course would be to use our staff and organising capacity in promoting forms of work designed to mitigate the distress caused by the war. We felt that our members would desire to be of service to the Nation and that the N.U.W.S.S. had in their organisation a special gift which they could offer to their country. This view was endorsed by our societies with only two dissenting.
On receiving this practically unanimous backing we further proceeded to recommend distinct forms of active service. The Local Government Board had addressed a circular to Lord Mayors and Mayors and Chairmen of Town and County Councils directing them at once to form Local Relief Committees to deal with any kind of distress caused by the war. We suggested to our societies that they should offer their services to help, each in its own district, in this national work. We also opened in different parts of the country forty workrooms in which women thrown out of work by the war found employment. We established bureaux for the registration of voluntary workers and gradually our work spread in all directions; help for the Belgian refugees, the starting of clubs and canteens for soldiers and sailors, clubs for soldiers' wives, work in connection with the Sailors' and Soldiers' Families Association, patrol work in the neighborhood of soldiers' training camps, Red Cross work, conducting French classes for our men in training. A very large number of our societies concentrated on maternity and child welfare work; others in country districts took up fruit picking and preserving in order to conserve the national food supplies. It is really impossible to mention all our various activities. These were included under a general heading adopted at a Provincial Council meeting held in November, 1914, urging "our societies and all members of the Union to continue by every means in their power all efforts which had for their object the sustaining of the vital energies of the Nation so long as such special efforts may be required."
The war work with which the name of the N.U.W.S.S. is most widely known was the formation of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service. This was initiated and organised by the Hon. Sec. of our Scottish Federation, Dr. Elsie. Inglis, and was backed by the whole of the N.U.W.S.S. (See Life of Dr. E. Inglis by Lady Frances Balfour.) Meeting at first with persistent snubbing from the Royal Army Medical Corps and the British Red Cross, Dr. Inglis formed her first hospital at the Abbaye de Royaument about thirty miles from Paris, officered entirely by women. Other units on similar lines quickly followed in France and Serbia. Their work was magnificent and was rapidly recognised as such by the military authorities and by all who came in contact with it. These hospitals probably produced by the example of their high standard of professional efficiency and personal devotion a permanent influence on the development of the women's movement in those countries where they were located. They received no farthing of government money but raised the 428,856 pounds, which their audited accounts show as their net total to August 3, 1919, entirely by private subscription from all over the world including, of course, the United States.
The N.U.W.S.S. were very early in the field of women's national work during the war because their members were already organised and accustomed to work together, but it is no exaggeration to say that the whole of the women of the country of all classes, suffragist and anti-suffragist, threw themselves into work for the nation in a way that had never been anticipated by those who had judged women by pre-war standards. Into munition work and all kinds of manufacturing activity they crowded in their thousands. They worked on the land and undertook many kinds of labour that had hitherto been supposed to be beyond their strength and capacity. By what was called the Treasury agreement of 1915 the Trade Unions were induced to suspend the operation of their rules excluding the employment of female labour. They bargained that women should be paid the same as men for the same output and the Government agreed not to use the women as a reservoir of cheap labour. Thus industrial liberty was ensured for women at least so long as the war should last.
All these things combined to produce an enormous effect on public opinion. Newspapers were full of the praises of women; financiers, statesmen, economists and politicians declared that without the aid of women it would be impossible to win the war. The anti-suffragism of Mr. Asquith even was beginning to crumble. In speaking of the heroic death of Edith Cavell in Belgium in October, 1915, he said: "She has taught the bravest men among us a supreme lesson of courage; yes ... and there are thousands of such women and a year ago we did not know it." Almost the whole of the press was on our side. The general tone was that it would be difficult to refuse woman a voice in the control of affairs after the splendid way in which she had justified her claim to it. We old suffragists felt that we were living in a new world where everyone agreed with us. Nevertheless, I do not believe we should have won the vote just when we did if it had not been that, through the action of the Government itself, it was absolutely necessary to introduce legislation in order to prevent the almost total disfranchisement of many millions of men who had been serving their country abroad in the Navy and Army, or in munition or other work which had withdrawn them from the places where they usually resided.
It may be necessary to explain to non-British readers that by far the most important qualification for the Parliamentary franchise in this country before 1918 was the occupation of premises, and before a man could be put on the register of voters it was necessary for its owner to prove "occupation" of these premises for twelve months previous to the last 15th of July. Seven out of every eight voters were placed on the register through this qualification. It was not a property qualification, for the tiniest cottage at a shilling a week could qualify its occupier for a vote if he had fulfilled the condition just described; and a man might be a millionaire without getting a vote if he were not in occupation of qualifying premises. Before the war the register of voters was kept up to date by annual revision. The war, however, made this difficult and the Government in 1915 gave directions that this annual revision should be abandoned. As the war went on, the existing register, therefore, rapidly became more and more out of date. Millions of the best men in the country had become disqualified through their war service by giving up their qualifying premises. The House of Commons again and again postponed the date of the General Election but the occasional by-elections which took place proved that there was no register in existence on which it would be morally possible to appeal to the country. The old, the feeble, the slacker, the crank, the conscientious objector would all be left in full strength and the fighting men would be disfranchised. A Parliament elected on such a register would, Mr. Asquith declared, be wholly lacking in moral authority. Therefore, by sheer necessity the Government was forced to introduce legislation dealing with the whole franchise question as it affected the male voter.
A Coalition Government of the Liberal, Conservative and Labour Parties had been formed in 1915. This improved suffrage prospects, for many of the new men joining the Government, more especially Lord Robert Cecil, the Earl of Selborne and the Earl of Lytton, were warm supporters of our cause; while in making room for these newscomers, Mr. Asquith found it possible to dispense with the services of men of the type of Sir Charles Hobhouse, Mr. A. J. Pease and others who were our opponents. The formation of a Coalition Government helped us in another way. Neither of the great parties, Conservative and Liberal, had been unanimous on the women’s question and the heads of these parties lived in terror of smashing up their party by pledging themselves to definite action on our side. Mr. Gladstone had broken up the Liberal Party in 1886 by advocating Irish Home Rule, and Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain had broken up the Conservative Party by advocating Protection in 1903-4. Each of these had, in consequence, a prolonged sojourn in the wilderness of Opposition. But now a Government was formed in which all the parties were represented except the Irish Nationalists, who had refused to join, and therefore our friends in both the old parties could give free rein to their disposition to make Women's Suffrage a reality without dread of bringing disaster on their organisations. The attitude of the N.U.W.S.S. and seventeen other Constitutional Suffrage Societies who had united to form a Consultative Committee, was quite clear as to the line we should take under these circumstances. In various ways and by repeated communications, letters, memorials and deputations we kept the Government informed that if their intentions with regard to the new register were limited simply to replacing upon it the names of the men who had lost their vote through their patriotic service, we should not press our own claim; but if on the other hand the Government determined to proceed by creating a new basis for the franchise, or changing the law in any way which would result in the addition of a large number of men to the register, without doing anything for women, we should use every means in our power within the limits of lawful agitation to bring the case for the enfranchisement of women before Parliament and the country.
Mr. Asquith answered a communication from us on these lines in May, 1916, with the greatest politeness but said that "no such legislation was at present in contemplation." However, within the next fortnight it was in contemplation and the Government' made repeated attempts to deal with the situation by the creation of a special register. All the attempts were rejected by the House of Commons, which evidently wanted the subject dealt with on broader and more comprehensive lines. On August 14 Mr. Asquith, in introducing yet another Special Register Bill, announced his conversion to Women's Suffrage! This was an advent of great importance to our movement, for it virtually made the Liberal Party a Suffrage Party, but the Parliamentary difficulty was not removed, for the Government was still nibbling at the question by trying to deal with it by little amendments to the law relating to the registration of voters. At last a way out was devised. Mr. Walter Long, president of the local government board, a typical conservative country gentleman and at that time an anti-suffragist, made the suggestion that the whole question of Electoral Reform, including the enfranchisement of women, should be referred to a non-party Conference, consisting of members of both Houses of Parliament and presided over by the Speaker. Mr. Asquith concurred and Parliament agreed. Women's Suffrage was only one of many subjects connected with Electoral Reform which had to be dealt with by the Conference but it is not too much to say that if it had not been for the urgency of the claim of women to representation the Conference would never have been brought into existence.
The members of this Conference were chosen by the Speaker, who was careful to give equal representation to suffragists and anti-suffragists. Sir John Simon and Sir Willoughby Dickinson, members of the Conference, were very active and skilful in organising the forces in our favour. The Conference was called into being in October, 1916, and began its sittings at once. A ministerial crisis which occurred in December resulted in the resignation of Mr. Asquith and the appointment of Mr. Lloyd George as his successor. The Speaker enquired of the new Prime Minister if he desired the Conference to continue its labours. The reply was an emphatic affirmative. The Conference reported on January 27, 1917. Everyone knows that it recommended by a majority, some said a large majority, the granting of some measure of suffrage to women. Put as briefly as possible the franchise recommended for women was "household franchise," and for the purposes of the bill a woman was reckoned to be a householder not only if she was so in her own right but if she were the wife of a householder. An age limit of thirty was imposed upon women, not because it was in any way logical or reasonable but simply and solely in order to produce a constituency in which the men were not out-numbered by the women.
Some few weeks earlier we had heard on unimpeachable authority that the new Prime Minister was '"very keen and very practical" on our question and was prepared to introduce legislation upon it without delay. He no doubt remembered how emphatically he had told us in 1911 of the extreme value of the promises which had been made to us by Mr. Asquith, and how in our meeting in the Albert Hall in the following March he had referred to the doubt which some suffragists had expressed upon the worth of these promises as "an imputation of deep dishonour which he absolutely declined to contemplate." He had in 1911 put into writing and sent as a message to the Common Cause, the official organ of the N.U.W.S.S., a statement of his conviction that Mr. Asquith's promises made the carrying of a Women's Suffrage amendment to next year's franchise bill a certainty and he had offered his personal help to bring this about. It has already been described how all these confident hopes had been brought to nought; but now, December, 1916, within a fortnight of becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George let us know that he was not only ready but keen to go forward on practical lines. When Parliament met we asked the Prime Minister to receive a large and representative deputation of women who had worked for their country during the war. Our object was to ask him to legislate at once on the lines recommended by the Speaker's Conference but we were pushing an open door.
The new Prime Minister had arranged to receive us on March 29, 1917, and on the 28th Mr. Asquith had moved a resolution in the House of Commons, and his motion had been agreed to by 341 votes to 62, calling for the early introduction of legislation based on the recommendations of the Speaker's Conference. When our deputation waited on Mr. Lloyd George the following day he was able to inform us that he had already instructed the Government draftsman to draw up a bill on these lines. The debate in the House on March 28 had turned mainly on Women's Suffrage and the immense majority in support of Mr. Asquith's motion was rightly regarded as a suffrage triumph. Every leader of every party in the House of Commons had taken part in the debate and had expressed his support of the enfranchisement of women. The Government whips had not been put on and throughout the debates which followed the Bill was not treated as a Government but as a House of Commons measure. The victory, therefore, was all the more welcome to us because it was the result of a free vote of the House. Mr. Asquith's retraction of his former errors was quite handsome. He said, among other things, that his "eyes which for years in this matter had been clouded by fallacies and sealed by illusions at last had been opened to the truth." It required a European War on the vastest scale that the world had ever known to shake him out of his fallacies and illusions, and many of us felt that it would have been better if a less terrible convulsion had sufficed to awaken him, but still, now he was awakened, he was prompt in owning he had been in the wrong and therefore no more was to be said. The subsequent stages of this Representation of the People Bill were a series of triumphs for the suffrage cause. The second reading debate was taken on May 22d and 23d and again turned almost entirely on the women's question; the majority was 329 to 40. When the Bill was in Committee and the clauses enfranchising women were taken up on June 19 the majority was 385 to 55, or exactly seven to one. On June 20 a last division was made, when the number of anti-suffragists was only 17.
Our friends in the Speaker's Conference had so often impressed on us the danger of departing, even in the direction of obvious improvement, from its recommendations that we had carefully abstained from urging any deviation from them; but when the immense majorities just quoted showed that the Bill and our clauses in it were safe beyond a peradventure, we did press very strongly that the same principle should be applied to Municipal suffrage for women which had already been sanctioned by the House for the Parliamentary Suffrage, namely, that the wives of householders should be recognized as householders, which would entitle them to vote. On November 15 an amendment to this effect was moved but was not accepted by the Government. There were vigorous protests in our favour from all parts of the House and the debate on it was adjourned. During the interval the N.U.W.S.S. and other societies with whom we were cooperating bombarded the leader of the House and the Minister in charge of the bill with letters and telegrams in support of the amendment. These produced a good effect and on November 20, Government opposition having been withdrawn, the amendment was agreed to without a division. Thus without the existence of a single. woman voter but on the strength of her coming into existence within the next few months, the women on the Municipal registers of Great Britain and Ireland were increased in number from about one million to over eight-and-a-half millions. And yet Lord Bryce and the other anti-suffragists assured us that the vote would make no difference!
In the House of Commons a third reading of the Representation of the People Bill was taken on December 7 without a division. The Bill was now safely through the Commons but its passage through the Lords had yet to be undertaken. The second reading debate began on December 17 and lasted two days. No one could predict what would happen; Lord Curzon, president of the Anti-Suffrage League, was leader of the House and chief representative of the Government. The Lord Chancellor [Lord Finlay], who is in the chair in House of Lords' debates, was an envenomed opponent. Among other influential Peers whom we knew as our enemies were Lord Lansdowne, Lord Halsbury, Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Lord Bryce. On the other hand we could count on the support of Lord Selborne, Lord Lytton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, Lord Courtney and Lord Milner. We looked forward to the debate and the divisions in the Lords with considerable trepidation. The Lords have no constituents, they have no seats to fight for and defend. It is therefore impossible to influence them by any electioneering arts but we sent to all the Peers a carefully worded and influentially signed memorandum setting forth the chief facts and arguments in our favour. The second reading of the Bill was taken in the Lords without a division, the most important speech against it being Lord Bryce's; he insisted again and again that the possession of a vote made no difference. Lord Sydenham had the courage (!) to assert that the suffrage movement had made no progress in America, and, while admitting that it had lately been adopted in the State of New York, no doubt thought that he was giving a fair description when he said: "In America{{{2}}}fourteen States have refused the franchise to women and two, Montana and Nevada, have granted it. The population of the fourteen States is 43,000,000 and that of the two States is 500,000." (Twelve States had fully enfranchised their women.)
The real fight in the House of Lords began on Jan. 8, 1918, when the committee stage was reached. The debate lasted three days and on Clause IV, which enfranchised women, Lord Selborne made an extraordinarily powerful and eloquent speech in its favour. The House was filled and the excitement on both sides was intense. As we were sitting crowded in the small pen allotted to ladies not Peeresses in the Upper House on January 10th we received a cable saying the House of Representatives in Washington had accepted the Women's Suffrage Amendment to the Federal Constitution by the necessary two-thirds majority. This we hailed as a good omen. No one knew what Lord Sydenham thought of it! The most exciting moment was when Lord Curzon rose to close the debate. The first part of his speech was devoted to a description of the disasters which he believed would follow from the adoption of women's franchise but the second part was occupied by giving very good reasons for not voting against it. He reminded their Lordships of the immense majorities by which it had been supported in the House of Commons, by majorities in every party "including those to which most of your Lordships belong.... Your Lordships can vote as you please; you can cut this clause out of the Bill—you have a perfect right to do so—but if you think that by killing the clause you can also save the Bill, 1 believe you to be mistaken.... The House of Commons will return it to you with the clause re-inserted. Will you be prepared to put it back? ... "Before he sat down Lord Curzon announced his intention of not voting at all, for the reason that if he had done otherwise he "might be accused of having precipitated a conflict from which your Lordships could not emerge with credit." The division was taken almost immediately after the conclusion of this speech. Both of the Archbishops and the twelve Bishops present voted for the bill. Our clause was carried by 134 votes to 71, and Women's Suffrage was, therefore, supported in the Lords by nearly two to one. The Lords inserted in it among other things Proportional Representation. It was on this and not on women's suffrage that the final contest took place when it was returned to the Commons, but at last the long struggle of women for free citizenship was ended, having continued a little over fifty years. The huge majorities by which we had won in the House of Commons had afforded our ship deep water enough to float safely over the rocks and reefs of the House of Lords. The Royal Assent was given on Feb. 6, 1918.
The first election at which women voted was held on December 14. Our friends in the Speaker's Conference had aimed at producing a constituency numbering roughly about 10,000,000 men and 6,000,000 women. The actual numbers of both sexes enfranchised by the Act of 1918 turned out to be considerably in excess of this calculation. A Parliamentary return published in November, 1918, showed the following numbers of men and women on the register.
| Men. | |
| 12,913,166 | |
| Naval and Military Voters | 3,896,763 |
| 16,809,929 | |
| Women. | |
| 8,479,156 | |
| Naval and Military Voters | 3,372 |
| 8,482,528 |
At the annual Council meeting of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies held in March, 1918, its object was changed by formal vote. It was no longer necessary to concentrate on Women's Suffrage and we adopted as our object "To obtain all such reforms as are necessary to secure a real equality of liberties, status and opportunities between men and women." No change of name was made until the following year when a revised constitution was adopted and the name was modified in accordance with our present object. We have now become the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship and we hope that the letters N. U. S. E. C. will soon become as familiar and as dear to our members as N. U. W. S. S. were in the old days. At the same meeting I retired from the presidency and my friend and colleague, Miss Eleanor Rathbone, was elected in my place.
[2]In 1907 Acts of parliament for England, Wales and Scotland (and one for Ireland in 1911) made women eligible as members of Town, County, Burgh and Borough Councils and as chairmen of these bodies, including the right to be Mayors and Provosts, Aldermen and Baillies, with the limitation that women appointed to an office carrying with it the right to be Justices of the Peace should be incapacitated from so acting. These Acts though noncontentious in the party sense required fourteen years' strenuous work to secure their adoption as Government measures. This was achieved during Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's premiership, the necessary legislation being announced in the King's Speech as part of the Government programme.
In 1918 the Qualification of Women Act for the United Kingdom made women eligible to the House of Commons. The Bill passed almost without opposition through both Houses and became law in the week ending November 16. As the General Election took place on December 14 there was little time for preparation, nevertheless, there were seventeen women candidates and one, the Countess Makievicz, a Sinn Feiner, was elected but refused to take her seat. The fact that her husband was a foreigner made it doubtful whether she would have been allowed to do so, though an Irishwoman by birth. In 1919 Viscountess Astor was elected for Plymouth.
In 1919 the Sex Disqualification Removal Act for the United Kingdom went some way but not the whole way towards the fulfilment of the pledge given by the Coalition Government of Mr. Lloyd George in December, 1918, "to remove existing inequalities in the law as between men and women." A much more complete bill had been introduced by the Labour Party early in the session, which passed through all its stages in the House of Commons notwithstanding Government opposition but was defeated in the House of Lords and the Government changeling substituted. This Act, though it did not give women the parliamentary vote on the same terms as men nor admit them to the civil service on equal terms, and though the clause specifically conferring on them eligibility to the House of Lords was cut out, contained, nevertheless, important provisions in the direction of equality. It allowed them to sit on juries, be Justices of the Peace, sworn in as police officers, enter the legal profession and made it possible for the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to admit women to membership and degrees on equal terms with men.
The only important advance in education after 1900 was the throwing open to women by the Governing Body of Trinity College, Dublin, of degrees, membership and all privileges pertaining thereto in 1903. All the universities in the United Kingdom, with the exception of Oxford and Cambridge, have been for many years open to women and in November, 1919, a Royal Commission was appointed to enquire into their financial resources and into the administration and application of these resources. On the commission, Miss Penrose of Somerville College, Oxford, and Miss B. A. Clough of Newnham College, Cambridge, the women's colleges, were appointed as members. An Act of Parliament later enabled both universities to grant membership, degrees and all privileges to women. Oxford availed itself of these powers without delay. Cambridge in December, 1920, refused to do so by a large vote, but it will ultimately have to open its doors.
- ↑ The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, J.P., LL.D., who has been prominently connected with the movement for women's suffrage in Great Britain for nearly fifty years and was President of the National Association from 1904, when it was re-organized, until after the victory was won in 1918.
- ↑ Accompanying this chapter was a complete list of laws in the interest of women enacted by the Parliament beginning in 1902, prepared by Miss Chrystal Macmillan, M.A., B.Sc. The lack of space which has compelled the omission of similar laws from all of the State chapters makes it necessary in this one. Three of importance politically are given.—Ed.