My own story
in a form rendering it capable of free amendment, it would be given full
facilities for becoming law; these conditions were met in 1911, and we
saw how the bill, after receiving the increased majority of 167 votes,
was torpedoed by the introduction of a Government manhood suffrage bill.
Mr. Asquith this time had pledged himself that the bill would be so
framed that a woman suffrage amendment could be added, and he further
pledged that in case such an amendment was carried through its second
reading, he would allow it to become a part of the bill. Just exactly
how the Government would manage to wriggle out of their promise was a
matter of excited speculation.
All sorts of rumours were flying about, some hinting at the resignation
of the Prime Minister, some suggesting the possibility of a general
election, others that the amended bill would carry with it a forced
referendum on women's suffrage. It was also said that the intention of
the Government was to delay the bill so long that, after it was passed
in the House, it would be excluded from the benefits of the Parliament
Acts, according to which a bill, delayed of passage beyond the first two
years of the life of a Parliament, has no chance of being considered by
the Lords. In order to become a law without the sanction of the House
of Lords, a bill must pass three times through the House of Commons. The
prospect of a woman suffrage bill doing that was practically nil.
To none of the rumours would Mr. Asquith give specific denial, and in
fact the only positive utterance he made on the subject of the Franchise
Bill was that he considered it highly improbable that the House would
pass a woman suffrage amendment. In order to discourage woman suffrage
sentiment in the House, Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. Lewis Harcourt again
busied themselves with spreading pessimistic prophecies of a Cabinet
split in case an amendment was carried. No other threat, they well knew,
would so terrorize the timid back bench Liberals, who, in addition to
their blind party loyalty, stood in fear of losing their seats in the
general election which would follow such a split. Rather than risk their
political jobs they would have sacrificed any principle. Of course the
hint of a Cabinet split was pure buncombe, and it deceived few of the
members. But it established very clearly one thing, and this was that
Mr. Asquith's promise that the House should be left absolutely free to
decide the suffrage issue, and that the Cabinet stood ready to bow to
the decision of the House was never meant to be fulfilled.
The Franchise Bill unamended, by its very wording, specifically denied
the right of any woman to vote. Sir Edward Grey moved an amendment
deleting from the bill the word male, thus leaving room for a women's
suffrage amendment. Two such amendments were moved, one providing for
adult suffrage for men and women, and the other providing full suffrage
for women householders and wives of householders. The latter postponed
the voting age of women to twenty-five years, instead of the men's
twenty-one. On January 24th, 1913, debate on the first of the amendments
was begun. A day and a half had been allotted to consideration of Sir
Edward Grey's amendment, which if carried would leave the way clear for
consideration of the other two, to each of which one-third of a day was
allotted.
We had arranged for huge meetings to be held every day during the
debates, and on the day before they were to open we sent a deputation of
working women, led by Mrs. Drummond and Miss Annie Kenney, to interview
Mr. Lloyd-George and Sir Edward Grey. We had asked Mr. Asquith to
receive the deputation, but, as usual, he refused. The deputation
consisted of the two leaders, four cotton mill operatives from
Lancashire, four workers in sweated trades of London, two pit brow
lassies, two teachers, two trained nurses, one shop assistant, one
laundress, one boot and shoe worker and one domestic worker, twenty in
all, the exact number specified by Mr. Lloyd-George. Some hundreds of
working women escorted the deputation to the official residence of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer and waited anxiously in the street to hear
the result of the audience.
The result was, of course, barren. Mr. Lloyd-George glibly repeated his
confidence in the "great opportunity" afforded by the Franchise Bill,
and Sir Edward Grey, reminding the women of the divergence of view held
by the members of Cabinet on the suffrage question, assured them that
their best opportunity for success lay in an amendment to the present
bill. The women spoke with the greatest candour to the two ministers and
questioned them sharply as to the integrity of the Prime Minister's
pledge to accept the amendments, if passed. To such depth of infamy had
English politics sunk that it was possible for women openly to question
the plighted word of the King's chief Minister! Mrs. Drummond, who
stands in awe of no human being, in plain words invited the slippery Mr.
Lloyd-George to clear his own character from obloquy. In the closing
words of her speech she put the whole matter clearly up to him, saying:
"Now, Mr. Lloyd-George, you have doggedly stuck to your old age
pensions, and the insurance act, and secured them, and what you have
done for these measures you can do also for the women."
The House met on the following afternoon to debate Sir Edward Grey's
permissive amendment, but no sooner had the discussion opened than a
veritable bombshell was cast into the situation. Mr. Bonar Law arose and
asked for a ruling on the constitutionality of a woman's suffrage
amendment to the bill as framed. The Speaker, who, besides acting as the
presiding officer of the House, is its official parliamentarian, replied
that, in his opinion, such an amendment would make a huge difference in
the bill, and that he would be obliged, at a later stage of the debates,
to consider carefully whether, if carried, any woman suffrage amendment
would not so materially alter the bill that it would have to be
withdrawn. In spite of this sinister pronouncement, the House continued
to debate the Grey amendment, which was ably supported by Lord Hugh
Cecil, Sir John Rolleston, and others.
During the intervening week-end holiday two Cabinet councils were held,
and when the House met on Monday the Prime Minister called upon the
Speaker for his ruling. The Speaker declared that, in his opinion, the
passage of any one of the woman suffrage amendments would so alter the
scope of the Franchise Bill as practically to create a new bill, because
the measure, as it was framed, did not have for its main object the
bestowal of the franchise on a hitherto excluded class. Had it been so
framed a woman suffrage amendment would have been entirely proper. But
the main object of the bill was to alter the qualification, or the basis
of registration for a Parliamentary vote. It would increase the male
electorate, but only as an indirect result of the changed
qualifications. An amendment to the bill removing the sex barrier from
the election laws was not, in the Speaker's opinion, a proper one.
The Prime Minister then announced the intentions of the Cabinet, which
were to withdraw the Franchise Bill and to refrain from introducing,
during that session, a plural voting bill. Mr. Asquith blandly admitted
that his pledge in regard to women's suffrage had been rendered
incapable of fulfilment, and he said that he felt constrained to give a
new pledge to take its place. There were only two that could be given.
The first was that the Government should bring in a bill to enfranchise
women, and this the Government would not do. The second was that the
Government agree to give full facilities as to time, during the next
session of Parliament, to a private member's bill, so drafted as to be
capable of free amendment. This was the course that the Government had
decided to adopt. Mr. Asquith had the effrontery to say in conclusion
that he thought that the House would agree that he had striven and had
succeeded in giving effect, both in letter and in spirit, to every
undertaking which the Government had given.
Two members only, Mr. Henderson and Mr. Keir Hardie had the courage to
stand up on the floor of the House and denounce the Government's
treachery, for treachery it unquestionably was. Mr. Asquith had pledged
his sacred honour to introduce a bill that would be capable of an
amendment to include women's suffrage, and he had framed a bill that
could not be so amended. Whether he had done the thing deliberately,
with the plain intention of selling out the women, or whether ignorance
of Parliamentary rules accounted for the failure of the bill was
immaterial. The bill need not have been drawn in ignorance. The fount of
wisdom represented by Mr. Speaker could have been consulted at the time
the bill was under construction quite as easily as when it had reached
the debating stage. Our paper said editorially, representing and
perfectly expressing our member's views: "Either the Government are so
ignorant of Parliamentary procedure that they are unfit to occupy any
position of responsibility, or else they are scoundrels of the worst
kind."
I am inclined to think that the verdict of posterity will lean towards
the later conclusion. If Mr. Asquith had been a man of honour he would
have reframed the Franchise Bill in such a way that it could have
included a suffrage amendment, or else he would have made amends for his
stupendous blunder--if it was a blunder--by introducing a Government
measure for women's suffrage. He did neither, but disposed of the matter
by promising facilities for a private member's bill which he knew, and
which everybody knew, could not possibly pass.
There was no chance for a private member's bill, even with facilities,
because of a number of reasons, but principally because the torpedoing
of the Conciliation Bill had destroyed utterly the spirit of
conciliation in which Conservatives, Liberals and Radicals in the House
of Commons, and militant and non-militant women throughout the Kingdom
had set aside their differences of opinion and agreed to come together
on a compromise measure. When the second Conciliation Bill, of 1911, was
under discussion, Lord Lytton had said: "If this bill does not go
through, the woman suffrage movement will not be stopped, but the spirit
of conciliation of which this bill is an expression will be destroyed,
and there will he war throughout the country, raging, tearing, fierce,
bitter strife, though nobody wants it."
Lord Lytton's words were prophetic. At this last brazen piece of
trickery on the part of the Government the country blazed with bitter
wrath. All the suffrage societies united in calling for a Government
measure for women's suffrage to be introduced without delay. The idle
promise of facilities for a private member's bill was rejected with
contumely and scorn. The Liberal women's executive committee met, and a
strong effort was made to pass a resolution threatening the withdrawal
from party work of the entire federation, but this failed and the
executive merely passed a feeble resolution of regret.
The membership of the Women's Liberal Federation was, at that time,
close to 200,000, and if the executive had passed the strong resolution,
refusing to do any more work for the party until a Government measure
had been introduced, the Government would have been forced to yield.
They could not have faced the country without the support of the women.
But these women, many of them, were wives of men in the service, the
paid service of the Liberal Party. Many of them were wives of Liberal
members. They lacked the courage, or the intelligence, or the insight,
to declare war as a body on the Government. A large number of women, and