My own story
greatest cause on earth is making, in my judgment, a profound
mistake.... They would seek death, and I am sure that however strong
public opinion outside might be to-day in favour of allowing them to
die, when there were twenty, thirty, forty, or more deaths in prison,
you would have a violent reaction of public opinion, and the honourable
gentleman who now so glibly says 'Let them die' would be among the first
to blame the Government for what he would describe as the inhuman
attitude they had adopted.
"That policy," continued Mr. McKenna, "could not be adopted without an
Act of Parliament. For the reason I have given I have not asked
Parliament to remove from prison officials the responsibility under
which they now rest for doing their best to keep those committed to
their charge alive. But, supposing this legal responsibility were
removed from the prison officials, let honourable members for a moment
transport themselves in imagination to a prison cell and conceive of a
prison doctor, a humane man, standing by watching a woman slowly being
done to death by starvation and thirst, knowing that he could help her
and that he could keep her alive. Did they think that any doctor would
go on with such action, or that we should be able to retain medical men
under such conditions in our service? I do not believe it.
"The doctor would think, as I should think if I saw a woman lying there,
'What has been this woman's offence?' It may have been obstructing the
police, coupled with the obstinacy derived from fanaticism which leads
her to refuse food and water. Obstructing the police and she is to die!
I could not distinguish, and no Home Secretary could ever say, that this
woman should be left to die and that that woman should not. Once we were
committed to a policy of allowing them to die if they did not take their
food we should have to go on with it, and we should have woman after
woman whose only offence may have been obstructing the police, breaking
a window, or even burning down an empty house, dying because she was
obstinate. I do not believe that that is a policy which on consideration
will ever recommend itself to the British people, and I am bound to say
for myself I could never take a hand in carrying that policy out."
(Cheers.)
Lord Robert Cecil's favourite remedy of deportation Mr. McKenna
dismissed on the grounds that this would be merely removing the
difficulty to some other country than Great Britain. If the suggested
distant island were treated as a prison the women would hunger strike
there as they did in English prisons. If the island were not treated as
a prison, the Suffragettes' rich friends would come and rescue them in
yachts.
The suggestion that the militants be treated as lunatics was also
dismissed as impossible. Admitting that he had tried to get them
certified as lunatics and had failed because the medical profession
would not consent to such a course, Mr. McKenna said that he could not,
contrary to the advice of the doctors, get certification by Act of
Parliament. "There remains," said Mr. McKenna, "the last proposal, that
we should give them the franchise."
"That is the right one," exclaimed Mr. William Redmond, but the Home
Secretary replied:
"Whatever may be said as to the merits or demerits of that proposal, it
is clearly not one I can discuss now in Committee of Supply. I am not
responsible, as Home Secretary, for the state of the law on the
franchise, nor is there any occasion for me to express or conceal my own
opinions on the point; but I certainly do not think, and I am sure the
Committee will agree with me, that that could be seriously treated as a
remedy for the existing state of lawlessness."
Coming at last to the constructive part of his speech Mr. McKenna told
the House of Commons that the Government had one last resort, which was
to take legal proceedings against subscribers to the funds of the
W. S. P. U. The funds of the society, he said, were undoubtedly beyond
the arm of the British law. But the Government were in hopes of stopping
future subscriptions. "We are now not without hope," he concluded, "that
we have evidence which will enable us to proceed against the
subscribers" (loud cheers) "in civil action, and if we succeed the
subscribers will become personally liable for all the damage done."
(Cheers.) "It is a question of evidence.... I have further directed that
the question should be considered whether the subscribers could not be
proceeded against criminally as well as by civil action." (Cheers.) "We
have only been able to obtain this evidence by our now not infrequent
raids upon the offices, and such property as we can get at of the
society.... A year ago a raid was made on the offices of the society,
but we obtained no such evidence. If we succeed in making the
subscribers personally responsible individually for the whole damage
done I have no doubt that the insurance companies will quickly follow
the example set them by the Government, and in turn bring actions to
recover the cost which has been thrown upon them. If that is done I have
no doubt the days of militancy are over.
"The militants live only by the subscriptions of rich women" (cheers)
"who themselves enjoy all the advantages of wealth secured for them by
the labour of others" (cheers) "and use their wealth against the
interests of society, paying their unfortunate victims to undergo all
the horrors of a hunger and thirst strike in the commission of a crime.
Whatever feelings we may have against the wretched women who for 30s.
and L2 a week go about the country burning and destroying, what must our
feelings be for the women who give their money to induce the
perpetration of these crimes and leave their sisters to undergo the
punishment while they live in luxury?" (Cheers.) "If we can succeed
against them we will spare no pains. If the action is successful in the
total destruction of the means of revenue of the Women's Social and
Political Union I think we shall see the last of the power of Mrs.
Pankhurst and her friends." (Cheers.)
In the general debate which followed the Government were obliged to
listen to very severe criticisms of their past and present policy
towards the militant women. Mr. Keir Hardie said in part:
"We may not to-day discuss the question of the franchise, but surely it
was possible for the Home Secretary, without any transgression on the
rules of the House, to have held out just a ray of hope for the future
as to the intentions of the Government in regard to this most urgent
question. On that point, may I say that I am not one of those who
believe that a right thing should be withheld because some of the
advocates of it resort to weapons of which we do not approve. That note
has been sounded more than once, and if it be true, and it is true, that
a section of the public outside are strongly opposed to this conduct, it
is equally true that the bulk of the people look with a very calm and
indifferent eye upon what is happening so long as the vote is withheld
from women."
Mr. Hardie concluded by regretting that the House, instead of discussing
Woman Suffrage, was discussing methods of penalising militant women.
Mr. Rupert Gwynne said: "Nobody is in a more ridiculous position than
the members on the Treasury Bench. They cannot address a meeting, or go
to a railway station, or even get into a taxicab, without having
detectives with them. Even if they like it, we, the public do not,
because we have to pay for it. It is not worth the expense that it costs
to have a detective staff following Cabinet Ministers wherever they go,
whether in a private or a public capacity.
"Further," said Mr. Gwynne, "if the Home Secretary is correct in saying
that these women are prepared to die, and invite death, in order to
advertise their devotion to their cause, does he really think they are
going to mind if their funds are attached?"
Another friend of the Suffragists, Mr. Wedgwood said: "We are dealing
with a problem which is a very serious one indeed. To my mind, when you
find a large body of public opinion, and a large number of people
capable of going to these lengths, there is only one thing for a
respectable House of Commons to do, and that is to consider very closely
and clearly whether the complaints of those who complain are or are not
justified. We are not justified in acting in panic. What it is our duty
to do is to consider the rights and wrongs of these people who have
acted in this way. I attribute myself no value to the vote, but I do
think that when we seriously consider the question of Woman Suffrage,
which has not been done by this House up to the present, we should
remember that when you see people capable of this amount of
self-sacrifice, that the one duty of the House of Commons is not to
stamp the iron heel upon them, but to see how far their cause is just,
and to act according to justice."
When such a debate as this was possible in the House of Commons, it must
be plain to every disinterested reader that militancy never set the
cause of suffrage back, but on the contrary, set it forward at least
half a century. When I remember how that same House of Commons, a few
years ago, treated the mention of woman suffrage with scorn and
contempt, how they permitted the most insulting things to be said of the
women who were begging for their political freedom, how, with indecent
laughter and coarse jokes they allowed suffrage bills to be talked out,
I cannot but marvel at the change our militancy so quickly brought
about. Mr. McKenna's speech was in itself a token of the complete
surrender of the Government.
Of course the promise of the Home Secretary that subscribers to our
funds should, if possible, be held legally responsible for damage done
to private property by the Suffragettes, was never meant to be adhered
to. It was, in fact, a perfectly absurd promise, and I think that very
few Members of Parliament were deceived by it. Our subscribers can
always remain anonymous if they choose, and if it should ever be
possible to attack them for our deeds, they would naturally take refuge
behind that privilege.
Our battles are practically over, we confidently believe. For the
present at least our arms are grounded, for directly the threat of
foreign war descended on our nation we declared a complete truce from
militancy. What will come out of this European war--so terrible in its
effects on the women who had no voice in averting it--so baneful in the
suffering it must necessarily bring on innocent children--no human being
can calculate. But one thing is reasonably certain, and that is that the
Cabinet changes which will necessarily result from warfare will make
future militancy on the part of women unnecessary. No future Government
will repeat the mistakes and the brutality of the Asquith Ministry. None
will be willing to undertake the impossible task of crushing or even
delaying the march of women towards their rightful heritage of political
liberty and social and industrial freedom.
THE END