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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women on the same terms as men a plank in its platform. In antic.i.p.ation 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sembled 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sault.
The indignation of the Const.i.tutional 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:
(1) Is it the intention of the Government that the Reform Bill shall go through all its stages in 1912?
(2) Will the Bill be drafted in such a way as to admit of amendments introducing women on other terms than men?
(3) Will the Government undertake not to oppose such amendments?
(4) Will the Government regard any amendment enfranchising women, which is carried, as an integral part of the Bill be defended by the Government in all its later stages?
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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 p.r.o.nouncement as to the att.i.tude 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 compa.s.s failure."
There was plenty of unwise handling, but not, as I am proud to think, from the const.i.tutional 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 all-important position of Prime Minister pledge himself to use all the forces at the disposal of the Government to pa.s.s 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 a.s.sure 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 circ.u.mstances 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 subst.i.tute 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 canva.s.sing 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 ma.s.s 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. .h.i.therto 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women." This was followed by resolutions pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sociation, patrol work in the neighborhood of soldiers" training camps, Red Cross work, conducting French cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses, suffragist and anti-suffragist, threw themselves into work for the nation in a way that had never been antic.i.p.ated 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 disfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 att.i.tude of the N.U.W.S.S. and seventeen other Const.i.tutional Suffrage Societies who had united to form a Consultative Committee, was quite clear as to the line we should take under these circ.u.mstances. 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 d.i.c.kinson, 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 const.i.tuency 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 Munic.i.p.al 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 ent.i.tle 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 Munic.i.p.al 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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sage 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 const.i.tuents, 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 a.s.sert 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 ... 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 Const.i.tution 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, I 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 a.s.sent 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 const.i.tuency numbering roughly about 10,000,000 men and 6,000,000 women. The actual numbers of both s.e.xes 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 const.i.tution 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.
[216] 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 non-contentious 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.e.x 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 pa.s.sed through all its stages in the House of Commons notwithstanding Government opposition but was defeated in the House of Lords and the Government changeling subst.i.tuted. 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.