My own story
they have not always been people who have acted so honourably towards
us.
"We have assaulted no one; we have done no hurt to any one; and it was
not until 'Black Friday'--and what happened on 'Black Friday' is that we
had a new Home Secretary, and there appeared to be new orders given to
the police, because the police on that occasion showed a kind of
ferocity in dealing with the women that they had never done before, and
the women came to us and said: 'We cannot bear this'--it was not until
then we felt this new form of repression should compel us to take
another step. That is the question of 'Black Friday,' and I want to say
here and now that every effort was made after 'Black Friday' to get an
open public judicial inquiry into the doings of 'Black Friday,' as to
the instructions given to the police. That inquiry was refused; but an
informal inquiry was held by a man, whose name will carry conviction as
to his status and moral integrity on the one side of the great political
parties, and a man of equal standing on the Liberal side. These two men
were Lord Robert Cecil and Mr. Ellis Griffith. They held a private
inquiry, had women before them, took their evidence, examined that
evidence, and after hearing it said that they believed what the women
had told them was substantially true, and that they thought there was
good cause for that inquiry to be held. That was embodied in a report.
To show you our difficulties, Lord Robert Cecil, in a speech at the
Criterion Restaurant, spoke on this question. He called upon the
Government to hold this inquiry, and not one word of that speech was
reported in any morning paper. That is the sort of thing we have had to
face, and I welcome standing here, if only for the purpose of getting
these facts out, and I challenge the Attorney General to institute an
inquiry into these proceedings--not that kind of inquiry of sending
their inspectors to Holloway and accepting what they are told by the
officials--but to open a public inquiry, with a jury, if he likes, to
deal with our grievances against the Government and the methods of this
agitation.
"I say it is not the defendants who have conspired, but the Government
who have conspired against us to crush this agitation; but however the
matter may be decided, we are content to abide by the verdict of
posterity. We are not the kind of people who like to brag a lot; we are
not the kind of people who would bring ourselves into this position
unless we were convinced that it was the only way. I have tried--all my
life I have worked for this question--I have tried arguments, I have
tried persuasion. I have addressed a greater number of public meetings,
perhaps, than any person in this court, and I have never addressed one
meeting where substantially the opinion of the meeting--not a ticket
meeting, but an open meeting, for I have never addressed any other kind
of a meeting--has not been that where women bear burdens and share
responsibilities like men they should be given the privileges that men
enjoy. I am convinced that public opinion is with us--that it has been
stifled--wilfully stifled--so that in a public Court of Justice one is
glad of being allowed to speak on this question."
The Attorney General's summing up for the prosecution was very largely a
defence of the Liberal Party and its course in regard to woman suffrage
legislation. Therefore, Mr. Tim Healey, in his defence of Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence, did well to lay stress on the political character of the
conspiracy charge and trial. He said:
"It is no doubt a very useful thing when you have political opponents to
be able to set the law in motion against them. I have not the smallest
doubt it would be a very convenient thing, if they had the courage to do
it, to shut up the whole of His Majesty's Opposition while the present
Government is in office--to lock up all the men of lustre and
distinction in our public forum and on our public platforms--all the
Carsons, F. E. Smiths, Bonar Laws, and so on. It would be a most
convenient thing to end the whole thing, as it would be to end women's
agitation in the form of the indictment. Gentlemen of the jury, whatever
words have been spoken by mutual opponents, whatever instructions have
been addressed, not to feeble females, but to men who boast of drilling
and of arms, they have not had the courage to prosecute anybody, except
women, by means of an indictment. Yet the Government of my learned
friend have selected two dates as cardinal dates, and they ask you to
pass judgment upon the prisoners at the bar, and to say that, without
rhyme or reason, taking the course suggested without provocation, these
responsible, well-bred, educated, University people, have suddenly, in
the words of the indictment, wickedly and with malice aforethought
engaged in these criminal designs.
"Gentlemen of the jury, the first thing I would ask in that connection
is this: What is there in the course of this demand put forward by women
which should have excited the treatment at the hands of His Majesty's
Ministers which this movement, according to the documents which are in
evidence before me, has received? I should suppose that the essence of
all government is the smooth conduct of affairs, so that those who enjoy
high station, great emoluments, should not be parties against whom the
accusation of provoking civic strife and breeding public turmoil should
be brought. What do we find? We find that, in regard to the treatment of
the demand which had always been put forward humbly, respectably,
respectfully, in its origin, by those who have received trade unionists,
anti-vaccinators, deceased wife's sisters, and all other forms of
political demand, and who have received them humbly and yielded to them,
we find that when these people advocating this particular form of civic
reform request an audience, request admission, request even to have
their petitions respectfully received, they have met, judicially, at all
events, with a flat and solemn negative. That is the beginning of this
unhappy spirit bred in the minds of persons like the defendants, persons
like those against whom evidence has been tendered--which has led to
your being empanelled in that box to-day. And I put it to you when you
are considering whether it is the incitement of my clients or the
conduct of Ministers that have led to these events--whether I cannot ask
you to say that even a fair apportionment of blame should not rest upon
more responsible shoulders, and whether you should go out of your way to
say that these persons in the dock alone are guilty."
In closing Mr. Healey reverted to the political character of the trial.
"The Government have undertaken this prosecution," he declared, "to
seclude for a considerable period their chief opponents. They hope there
will be at public meetings which they attend no more inconvenient cries
of 'Votes for Women.' I cannot conceive any other object which they
could have in bringing the prosecution. I have expressed my regret at
the loss which the shopkeepers, tradesmen and others have suffered. I
regret it deeply. I regret that any person should bring loss or
suffering upon innocent people. But I ask you to say that the law has
already been sufficiently vindicated by the punishment of the immediate
authors of the deed. What can be gained? Does justice gain?
"I almost hesitate to treat this as a legal inquiry. I regard it as a
vindictive political act. Of all the astonishing acts that have ever
been brought into a public court against a prisoner I cannot help
feeling the charge against Mr. Pethick Lawrence is the most astonishing.
He ventured to attend at some police courts and gave bail for women who
had been arrested in endeavouring, as I understand, to present petitions
to Parliament or to have resort to violence. I do not complain of the
way in which my learned friend has conducted the prosecution, but I do
complain of the police methods--inquiring into the homes and the
domestic circumstances of the prisoners, obtaining their papers, taking
their newspaper, going into their banking account, bringing up their
bankers here to say what is their balance; and I do say that in none of
the prosecutions of the past have smaller methods belittled a great
State trial, because, look at it as you will, you cannot get away from
it that this is a great State trial. It is not the women who are on
trial. It is the men. It is the system of Government which is upon its
trial. It is this method of rolling the dice by fifty-four counts in an
indictment without showing to what any bit of evidence is fairly
attributable; the system is on its trial--a system whereby every
innocent act in public life is sought to be enmeshed in a conspiracy."
The jury was absent for more than an hour, showing that they had some
difficulty in agreeing upon a verdict. When they returned it was plain
from their strained countenances that they were labouring under deep
feeling. The foreman's voice shook as he pronounced the verdict, guilty
as charged, and he had hard work to control his emotion as he added:
"Your Lordship, we unanimously desire to express the hope that, taking
into consideration the undoubtedly pure motives that underlie the
agitation that has led to this trouble, you will be pleased to exercise
the utmost clemency and leniency in dealing with the case."
A burst of applause followed this plea. Then Mr. Pethick Lawrence arose
and asked to say a few words before sentence was pronounced. He said
that it must be evident, aside from the jury's recommendation, that we
had been actuated by political motives, and that we were in fact
political offenders. It had been decided in English Courts that
political offenders were different from ordinary offenders, and Mr.
Lawrence cited the case of a Swiss subject whose extradition was refused
because of the political character of his offence. The Court on that
occasion had declared that even if the crime were murder committed with
a political motive it was a political crime. Mr. Lawrence also reminded
the judge of the case of the late Mr. W. T. Stead, convicted of a crime,
yet because of the unusual motive behind the crime, was allowed first
division treatment and full freedom to receive his family and friends.
Last of all the case of Dr. Jameson was cited. Although his raid
resulted in the death of twenty-one persons and the wounding of
forty-six more, the political character of his offence was taken into
account and he was made a first division prisoner.
They were men, fighting in a man's war. We of the W. S. P. U. were
women, fighting in a woman's war. Lord Coleridge, therefore, saw in us
only reckless and criminal defiers of law. Lord Coleridge said: "You
have been convicted of a crime for which the law would sanction, if I
chose to impose it, a sentence of two years' imprisonment with hard
labour. There are circumstances connected with your case which the jury
have very properly brought to my attention, and I have been asked by you
all three to treat you as first class misdemeanants. If, in the course
of this case, I had observed any contrition or disavowal of the acts
you have committed, or any hope that you would avoid repetition of them
in future, I should have been very much prevailed upon by the arguments
that have been advanced to me."
No contrition having been expressed by us, the sentence of the Court was
that we were to suffer imprisonment, in the second division, for the
term of nine months, and that we were to pay the costs of the
prosecution.
CHAPTER III
The sentence of nine months astonished us beyond measure, especially in
view of certain very recent events, one of these being the case of some
sailors who had mutinied in order to call attention to something which