The Suffragette

  “We are anxious to know by what statute it is illegal to go to the House of Commons, walk up the steps and make our way to the Strangers’ Entrance? We should like to know whether that is an illegal thing to do, and, if it is not illegal to go at a slow pace, we should like to know whether it is illegal to go at a quick pace, because that is what the word ‘rush’ means. ‘To rush the House of Commons’ is to go with all possible speed inside the House of Commons, and I hope that we shall be told what statute we have contravened by doing it ourselves, or by sending or inviting others to do it.”

  Miss Pankhurst next referred to the speeches made in Trafalgar Square on October 11th. She was glad that the prosecution had raised this point because it was all in the defendant’s favor. The speeches made at that meeting were made in interpretation of the famous handbill and all the witnesses who had heard those speeches, not excepting Mr. Lloyd George himself, were agreed that they contained nothing inflammatory and no incitement to violence whatsoever. Christabel continued:

  “It is not because of anything serious that occurred on October 13th, or was expected to occur, that we are here; we are here in order that we may be kept out of the way for some months, and may cease from troubling the Government for as long a period as they can find it in them, or for which the public will allow them, to deprive us of our liberty.”

  Whilst hosts of witnesses had testified to the orderly character of the crowd, she pointed out that two police officers only had been put forward on the other side. The prosecution had been unable to bring forward a single impartial person. But police evidence appeared to be all that was considered in the Police Court, and she cried out passionately:

  It seems to me that the Prosecution, the witnesses, the authorities, the magistrates, are all on one side, they are all in the same box, and the prisoner charged with an offence is absolutely helpless whatever facts he may bring forward. It is indeed a waste of time to bring evidence. Over the doors of this court ought to be the motto, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” We do not care for ourselves, because imprisonment is nothing to us; but when we think of the thousands of helpless creatures who come into this monstrous place with nobody to help them, nobody to plead for them, and we know perfectly well that they are found guilty before they have a chance of defending themselves, the injustice that is done in these courts is almost too terrible to contemplate.

  We saw then those helpless creatures, as we had done so often, and as Christabel called up their image, her voice broke and there were tears on her face. “I am thankful to think,” she said triumphantly, “that we have been able, by submitting ourselves to the absurd proceedings that are conducted here, to ventilate this fearful wrong.”

  Christabel next developed the contention that in the course which they had taken the women had followed historical precedent and had been encouraged by statesmen and especially by Liberal statesmen. The Reform Acts had been obtained by disorder. Prior to 1832, the Mansion House, the Custom House, the Bishop’s Palace, the Excise Office, three prisons, four toll-houses, and forty-two private dwellings and warehouses had been burnt. Amongst other things, the breaking-down of the Hyde Park railings won the Reform Act of 1867. In 1884 there were the Aston Park riots. John Bright threatened to crowd the streets from Westminster Bridge to Charing Cross. Lord Randolph Churchill advised the voters of Ulster — and voters have other means of urging their opinions — to resort “to the supreme arbitrament of force.” He said, “Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right,” and as a result of his words dangerous riots almost amounting to warfare occurred, yet he was never prosecuted. Joseph Chamberlain threatened to march one hundred thousand men on London, but no proceedings were taken against him. “The Gladstone of those days,” Christabel declared, “was less absurd, hesitating, and cowardly than the present Gladstone and his colleagues, and therefore he took the statesmanlike action of pressing forward the Reform Bill instead of taking proceedings against Mr. Chamberlain. Even a vote of censure moved upon Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons, was defeated.” John Burns, whose language was far more violent than any that the women had used, was tried at the Old Bailey and acquitted. He said in his speech that he was a rebel, because he was an outlaw. Well, that fact will support us in all we have done. If we go to far greater lengths than we have done yet, we shall only be following in the footsteps of a man who is now a member of the Government. Following out this line of thought, Christabel went on:

  Mr. Herbert Gladstone has told us in the speech I read to him that the victory of argument alone is not enough. As we cannot hope to win by force of argument alone, it is necessary to overcome the savage resistance of the Government to our claim for citizenship by other means. He says: “Go on. Fight as the men did.” And then, when we show our power and get the people to help us, he takes proceedings against us in a manner which would have been disgraceful even in the old days of coercion, and which would be thought disgraceful if it were practised in Russia.

  Then there is Mr. Lloyd George, who, if any man has done so, has set us an example. His whole career has been a series of revolts…. He has said that if we do not get the vote — mark these words — we should be justified in adopting the methods which men had to adopt, namely, in pulling down the Hyde Park railings.

  Then, as a sign of the way in which men politicians deal with men’s interests, we have heard Lord Morley saying: “We are in India in the presence of a living movement, and a movement for what? For objects which we ourselves have taught them to think are desirable objects, and unless we can somehow reconcile order with satisfaction of those ideas and aspirations, the fault will not be theirs; it will be ours — it will mark the breakdown of British statesmanship.” Apply those words to our case. Remember that we are demanding of Liberal statesmen that which for us is the greatest boon and the most essential right. Remember that we are asking for votes, that we are demanding the franchise, and if the present Government cannot reconcile order with our demand for the vote without delay, it will mark the breakdown of their statesmanship. Yes, their statesmanship has broken down already. They are disgraced. It is only in this Court that they have the smallest hope of getting bolstered up.

  Turning finally from the Magistrate to the great world of public opinion outside, she finished on a defiant note, caring nothing whether the abuse which she had heaped upon his petty court and its unworthy procedure should cause him to increase her sentence ten or even a hundred fold. Mr. Curtis Bennett sat with brows knit and an angry flush on his face, and the whole court was wrought up to the most Intense excitement. But now it was Mrs. Pankhurst’s turn to speak and her clear even tones and absolute calm of manner created if possible an even deeper impression.

  Sir, I want to endorse what my daughter has said, that in my opinion we are proceeded against in this Court by malice on the part of the Government. [She began quietly and firmly.] I want to protest as strongly as she has done. I want to put before you that the very nature of your duties in this Court — although I wish to say nothing disrespectful to you — render you unfitted to deal with a question which is a political question, as a body of jurymen could do. We are not women who would come into this court as ordinary law-breakers.

  Mrs. Drummond here is a woman of very great public spirit; she is an admirable wife and mother; she has very great business ability, and, although a married woman, she has maintained herself for many years, and has acquired for herself the admiration and respect of all the people with whom she has had business relations. I do not think I need speak about my daughter. Her abilities and earnestness of purpose are very well known to you. They are young women. I am not, Sir. You and I are older, and have both had very great and very wide experience of life under different conditions. Before you decide what is to be done with us, I should like you to hear from me a statement of what has brought me into this dock this morning.

  I was brought up by a father who taught me that his children, boys and girls alike, had a duty towards their country; the
y must be good citizens. I married a man, whose wife I was, but also his comrade in all his public life. He was, as you know, a distinguished member of your own profession, but he felt it his duty, in addition, to do political work, to interest himself in the welfare of his fellow countrymen and countrywomen. Throughout the whole of my marriage I was associated with him in his public work. In addition to that, as soon as my children were of an age to permit me to leave them, I took to public duties. I was for many years a Guardian of the Poor. For many years I was a member of the School Board, and when that was abolished I was elected to the Educational Committee. My experience in doing that work brought me in contact with many of my own sex, who, in my opinion, found themselves in deplorable positions because of the state of the English law as it affects women. You in this court must have had experience of women who would never have come here if married women were afforded by law that claim for maintenance by their husbands which I think in justice should be given them when they give up their economic independence and are unable to earn a subsistence for themselves. You know how inadequate are the marriage laws to women. You must know, Sir, as I have found out in my experience of public life, how abominable, atrocious, and unjust are the divorce laws as they affect women. You know very well that the married woman has no legal right to the guardianship of her children. Then, too, the illegitimacy laws; you know that a woman sometimes commits the dreadful crime of infanticide, while her partner, the man, who should share her punishment, gets off scot free.

  Ever since my girlhood, a period of about thirty years, I have belonged to organisations to secure for women that political power which I have felt essential to bringing about those reforms which women need. We have tried to be what you call womanly, we have tried to use “feminine influence,” and we have seen that it is of no use. Men who have been impatient have invariably got reforms.

  I have seen that men are encouraged by law to take advantage of the helplessness of women. Many women have thought as I have and for many, many years have tried by that influence of which we have so often been reminded to alter these laws, but have found that that influence counts for nothing. When we went to the House of Commons we used to be told, when we were persistent, that Members of Parliament were not responsible to women, they were responsible only to voters, and that their time was too fully occupied to reform those laws, although they agreed that they needed reforming.

  We women have presented larger petitions in support of our enfranchisement than were ever presented for any other reform, we have succeeded in holding greater public meetings than men have ever held for any reform, in spite of the difficulty which women have in throwing off their natural diffidence, that desire to escape publicity which we have inherited from generations of our foremothers; we have broken through that. We have faced hostile mobs at street corners, because we were told that we could not have that representation for our taxes which men have won unless we converted the whole of the country to our side. Because we have done this, we have been misrepresented, we have been ridiculed, we have had contempt poured upon us, and the ignorant mob incited to offer us violence, which we have faced unarmed and unprotected by the safeguards which Cabinet Ministers have.

  I am here to take upon myself now, Sir, as I wish the Prosecution had put upon me, the full responsibility for this agitation in its present phase. I want to address you as a woman who has performed the duties of a woman, and, in addition, has performed the duties which ordinary men have to perform, by earning a living for her children, and educating them.

  I want to make you realise that it is a point of honour that if you decide — as I hope you will not decide — to bind us over, that we shall not sign any undertaking, as the Member of Parliament did who was before you yesterday. Perhaps his reason for signing that undertaking may have been that the Prime Minister had given some assurance to the people he claimed to represent that something should be done for them. We have had no such assurance. So, Sir, if you decide against us to-day, to prison we must go, because we feel that we should be going back to the hopeless condition this movement was in three years ago if we consented to be bound over to keep the peace which we have never broken. If you decide to bind us over, although the Government have admitted that we are political offenders, we shall be treated as pickpockets and drunkards and I want you, if you can, as a man, to realise what that means to women like us. We are driven to do this, we are determined to go on with this agitation, because we feel in honour bound. Just as it was the duty of your forefathers, it is our duty to make this world a better place for women than it is to-day.

  Members of the Women’s Freedom League attempting to enter the House after the taking down of the grille, October 28th, 1908.

  Now, Sir, we have not wished to waste your time in any way; we have wished to make you realise that there is another side to the case than that put before you by the Prosecution. We want you to use your power — I do not know what value there is in the legal claims that have been put before you as to your power to decide this case — but we want you, Sir, if you will, to send us to be tried in some place more suitable for the trial of political offenders than an ordinary police court. You must realise how futile it is to attempt to settle this question by binding us over to keep the peace. You have tried it; it has failed. Others have tried to do it, and have failed. If you had power to send us to prison, not for six months, but for six years, for sixteen years, or for the whole of our lives, the Government must not think that they could stop this agitation. It would go on.

  Lastly, I want to draw your attention to the self-restraint which was shown by our followers on the night of the 13th, after we had been arrested. It only shows that our influence over them is very great, because I think if they had yielded to their natural impulses, there might have been a breach of the peace. They were very indignant, but our words have always been, be patient, exercise self-restraint, show our so-called superiors that the criticism of women being hysterical is not true; use no violence, offer yourselves to the violence of others. We are going to win. Our women have taken that advice; if we are in prison they will continue to take that advice.

  Well, Sir, that is all I have to say to you. We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.

  The angry red had faded from Mr. Curtis Bennett’s face, and whilst Mrs. Pankhurst was speaking he kept his hand up to it, and at one point we saw it quiver and for a moment he hid his eyes. Some of the big burly policemen whom we knew so well and who, except in the “raids,” when they were obliged to do their duty, were always so kind and jovial towards us, were openly in tears. Then Mrs. Drummond, looking paler and more serious than is her wont, rose up to speak in her turn. Her voice was a few notes thinner and higher pitched and like her words, it seemed to be stripped of all emotion and to be instinct with the clearest and most logical commonsense. Not only what she said, but her whole personality was so honest, sincere and unaffected that she seemed to add the one thing lacking to the completeness of that presentment of the great unanswerable case for Woman’s Suffrage. Her concluding words were an assurance that the agitation, which was spreading and growing all over the country, would go on as before. “I can speak on good authority,” she said, “for we have left everything in working order and we shall find the movement stronger than when we left it because the action which the Government have taken has fired the bosoms of women, who are determined to take up the flag that we have had to lay down to-day.”

  When Mrs. Drummond had finished, Mr. Curtis Bennett began speaking quite cheerfully and as though the whole affair were an amusing discussion between friends and had no unpleasant side to it. During the first part of his speech he reviewed the arguments on both sides of the case, and as he referred meanwhile to the pages on which he had taken his notes he so frequently smiled as though they recalled amusing and rather pleasant memories to him, that many people made up their minds that he was either about to state a case for a higher cou
rt, as the defendants wished, or to discharge them altogether. All at once, however, his tone changed and he began to speak hurriedly, with lowered voice and increased severity of manner, and went on to say that there could be no doubt that it was for that court and that court alone to deal with the offence for which the defendants had been summoned; and that there could be no doubt but that the handbill which the defendants circulated was liable to cause something to occur which might and probably would, end in a breach of the peace. The Chief Commissioner of Police was bound to keep Parliament Square and the vicinity free and open, and the Commissioner of Police had felt that it would be impossible to do that if crowds assembled together in order to help and to see the women “rush” the House of Commons. Therefore each of the two older defendants would be bound over in their own recognisances of £100, and, they must find two sureties in £50 each to keep the peace for twelve months, or in default must undergo three months’ imprisonment. In the case of the younger defendant, her own recognisances would be £50, with two sureties of £25 each, the alternative being ten weeks’ imprisonment.

  * * *

  1This, as Mr. Jarvis afterwards admitted, was a mistake; Mrs. Pankhurst really said that women had no representation in the House of Commons.

  CHAPTER XVII

  OCTOBER TO THE END OF 1908

  THE TRIAL OF MRS. BAINES. THE MUTINY IN HOLLOWAY. THE TAKING-DOWN OF THE GRILLE.

  MRS. DRUMMOND was right, for though she and her companions had left a great blank in the work of the Union, as she had predicted at the dock at Bow Street, other women eagerly volunteered to raise up the flag that they had been compelled to lay down. In addition to the newcomers, every member of the staff cheerfully undertook some extra task, and the movement grew like a living flame. The office at Clement’s Inn was indeed fortunate in its abundance of willing and able workers. Beside Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and her husband, and charming Mrs. Tuke, Mrs. Pankhurst’s co-secretary, there were a host of others, amongst them dignified, business-like Miss Kerr, with her rosy face and pretty white hair, thoughtful, reliable Miss Hambling, Mrs. Drummond’s secretary, and Mrs. Sanders, who, though financial secretary, was now finding time to keep a list of Cabinet Minister’s engagements for us. There was also Jessie, the London organiser, earnest and serious like all the Kenneys, who, showing a grasp of the political situation and an organising capacity indeed remarkable in a girl of twenty-two, marshalled the force of women to ask of members of the Government those constant questions.