CHAPTER VI

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

"Yet die not: do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow. Live and take comfort.... Thou hast great allies."

After the Pilgrimage, but whether because of it or not we could not judge, we began to receive much more general support from the public and from the Press than ever before. This process was probably accelerated by the character of some of the legislation which had recently passed through Parliament. The National Insurance Act, for instance, in 1912, caused a great stir, some of it extremely nonsensical, such as a huge meeting got up mainly by antisuffrage women to protest that they would perish rather than stick the insurance stamps on their servants' policies. The Society for Opposing the Extension of the Parliamentary Suffrage to Women, however, presented to Mr. Lloyd George a really excellent memorial on the subject of the Insurance Bill as it affected women, in the course of which they asked whether it would not be better if the Bill provided for women the kind of insurance they wanted rather than the kind which they did not want. We suffragists, of course, did not fail to point the moral that the way to get the legislation women wanted was to let women have votes. Mr. Lloyd George, who had charge of the Bill throughout, was, however, very accessible to suggestions about it, and received deputations in which women of all kinds took part, mistresses and maids, as well as women in industrial occupations. He said he had learnt much from them, and that their point of view had not occurred to him before he had had the opportunity of meeting them. The suffragists again were not slow to point the moral: If women had been voters, their point of view would have been ascertained and considered from the outset.

One almost ludicrous feature of the Insurance Bill as it first passed through Parliament was the payment of the maternity benefit granted under it to the father and not to the mother. One of our Conservative supporters, Mr. R. Prothero (now Lord Ernle), said, in reference to this: "It is a small detail. But it is impossible to imagine that a Parliament elected by women would have allowed the maternity benefit to be paid to the husband, and would have given the woman the remedy of prosecuting the man, with whom she must continue to live, if he does not spend it properly." The improper use of the maternity benefit by the husband probably was quite exceptional; but there were cases known in which the husband had spent it in the public-house or to buy himself a gramophone; and in such cases it was poor comfort to the wife to tell her that she could protect herself by prosecuting her husband, and get him fined or sent to prison.

As far as argument was concerned our battle was won. The antisuffragists, when they pulled themselves together sufficiently to have a great meeting, continually fell back, even in the case of their more distinguished speakers, on the undeniable statement that men were men, and women were women. Another speaker at the Albert Hall antisuffrage meeting gravely reproached the suffragists for wilfully misleading industrial women by persuading them that women's wages would be favourably affected by the possession of political power. His words were: "It is a heartless and cruel deception to tell poor women that the possession of a vote would enable them to raise their wages. Parliament has never attempted such a thing for men." This was on February 28th, 1912. Within less than a month the Government, of which he remained a member, did regulate the minimum rate of wages for men and boys in coal-mines. We believed that the triumph of the miners was in part due to their electoral power.

The antisuffragists were greatly elated by the success of their Albert Hall meeting, and their monthly organ, _The Antisuffrage Review_, for March triumphantly exclaimed: "The great demonstration has been held, and the woman's suffrage bubble has been pricked." Mrs. Humphry Ward, however, took a different and a more subdued line. Speaking at Oxford a little later, she said that "the real fight was only beginning, and would probably last a long time." As pricked bubbles are not of a very durable character, she thus virtually disowned the exuberant metaphor of her paper. But the small fry in the antisuffrage movement were about this time more than usually offensive and inept. One of them, a woman writer with a tolerably well-known name, published the following: "For social purposes, now and always, man is superior to woman. Organized society rests on him. It would go on quite comfortably if every woman retired to her own particular wigwam and did nothing but breed." Another writer, probably male, not to be left behind in offensive rubbish, wrote in the _Liverpool Courier_: "Votes for women! Why, the matter is in a nutshell. If married, she exercises the franchise through her husband. If a widow, she is a past-partner in a joint concern, and should rest content with the achievement of other days. If single, she is, or ought to be, too busily engaged in trying to capture 'John Henry Charles' to think about votes." Degrading and vulgar nonsense of this kind was nauseating to every decent-minded man or woman, whether for or against suffrage; but it made many who had previously been indifferent turn with sympathy to those who were claiming political freedom for women and trying to preach and live the gospel of a nobler and truer relationship between the sexes.

"Self-reverent each and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities, But like each other ev'n as those who love."

These coarse and foolish attacks upon our whole movement did it not one ounce of harm.

It was in the spring of 1914 that Lord Selborne raised the question of women's suffrage in the House of Lords. It was the first time that suffrage ground had been broken in any serious sense in the Upper Chamber. A Bill was introduced on the lines of the Conciliation Bill, and came on for Second Reading on May 5th. Eleven peers spoke in its favour, and seven in opposition. Among the speeches on our side Lord Lytton's rose to the level of the very highest excellence. The House, so proverbially difficult to move in any emotional sense, was obviously and deeply moved by his earnestness, transparent sincerity, and closely reasoned argument. Gossip said that as he concluded Lord Curzon threw himself back in his seat and exclaimed, _sotto voce_, to his next neighbour: "What a tragedy that such talent should be wasted upon women!" Another peer who took the antisuffrage side, and used language comparable to the specimens quoted on the previous page, caused an old-fashioned country gentleman type of antisuffrage peer sitting on the Conservative side to exclaim: "I shall go. If I listen to this fellow any longer I should be driven to vote for the Bill." Lord Curzon moved its rejection, and it was defeated by 104 votes to 60. The suffragists were more than gratified by this result, and by the debate and the general reception given to the subject.

A number of other things were happening month by month which indicated the growing strength of our movement. The Labour Party, preparing its programme for the next General Election, placed in the forefront of its demands "a Government Reform Bill, which must include the enfranchisement of women." Within the Women's Liberal Federation a Liberal Women's Suffrage Union was formed, pledging its members to undertake no work in support of antisuffrage Liberal candidates. A Liberal Men's Association for Women's Suffrage was also formed, under the chairmanship of Mr. W. Barton, M.P. for Oldham. Mr. Barton had recently claimed the right of Liberal women in his constituency to attend a party meeting to be addressed by Mr. Asquith, and this not as guests accompanying the speakers, but as political workers in the constituency. The extraordinary attitude adopted by many Liberal Associations towards women at this time may be gauged by the fact that Mr. Barton had to threaten to resign his seat before he could induce the Oldham Liberal Association to admit women Liberals to their meeting.

Contemporaneously with this, women's suffrage was making way within the Conservative Party. At the annual conference of the National Conservative and Unionist Associations at Norwich, Lord Robert Cecil moved "that it is expedient to extend the franchise to all citizens, regardless of sex, who have the qualifications at present required of men for the exercise of the suffrage." The opponents did not venture on a direct negative, but moved "that it is not expedient to grant the parliamentary franchise to women on any terms until this great constitutional change has received the express sanction of the electors." This amendment was carried by a large majority; but Lord Robert Cecil had made a deep impression on the association in connection with this and other subjects debated by them, and his present very leading position in politics was from this date distinctly indicated.

Support for suffrage came at this time from another and a much less expected quarter. The Ulster Unionist Council in September, 1913, approved the draft articles of the Ulster Provincial Government which it was intended to set up in the event of the Home Rule Act coming into operation, and these articles embodied the enfranchisement of women on the basis of the Local Government register. Indeed, the Ulster Unionist Council went further than this. For, writing to the Ulster Women's Unionist Association, the secretary of the U.U. Council asked for "names of women willing to act upon the various committees which will on that date (the date of the creation of a Nationalist Parliament) be established. This ensures that those who have so heartily supported us in the past will immediately be co-opted with a view to taking their proper share in the management of the affairs of Ulster whilst we are holding the province on trust for the British nation, in which matter we fully realize that their interests are as much at stake as those of the men."

This attitude on the part of the Ulster Unionist Council was all the more satisfactory to us because up to that time we had reason to believe Sir Edward Carson to be among our most determined opponents.

About the same time the Church Congress, meeting in Southampton under the presidency of the Bishop of Winchester, arranged a debate on the Ideals of Manhood and Womanhood. The Bishop ruled that the political aspects of the subject would not be out of order. Miss Royden spoke, and made so deep an impression that her speech was referred to a year later by the Bishop of Lichfield, preaching in Hull, "as the epoch-making address of Miss Maude Royden." The Bishop of Winchester wrote to the Press, replying to attacks made upon him in defence of his attitude on women's suffrage at the Church Congress. He pleaded for truce and amnesty between the Government and the suffrage party, and urged as a necessary preliminary to this the definite prospect of the introduction by the Government of a Women's Suffrage Bill as a first-class measure. From that meeting of the Church Congress at Southampton dates, I believe, the very strong and undivided support given to our movement by the Bishops in the House of Lords.

We also had evidence at this time of the support of another religious body, the Society of Friends, who this year, in their _Annual Epistle_, issued from the London yearly meeting, made a very sympathetic reference to the women's movement. We valued this all the more because of their fine record in the matter of sex equality in religious matters from the foundation of their society. They had from the first practised as well as preached the doctrine of equality as between men and women, and had again and again been pioneers in matters of education and social reform, besides giving us many of our most valued colleagues and leaders.

In 1913 also the National Union of Women Workers (now the National Council of Women) had the last of a series of tussles with Mrs. Humphry Ward. The point at issue between the suffragists and antisuffragists in the N.U.W.W. was the necessary majority required on any particular subject before the executive committee was justified in taking action upon it. A committee for revising the constitution had been at work, and had presented a report recommending, among other things, that no action should be taken on any controversial point unless such action were supported by a three-fourths majority; this was by way of an olive-branch, as the necessary majority under the old constitution had been one of two-thirds. To this proposed compromise the antisuffragists presented a solid opposition. Some desired that the council should be deprived of the power of passing resolutions at all. Mrs. Ward proposed that no resolution should be binding unless passed unanimously—a reminiscence, apparently, of the _liberum veto_ which contributed so much to the ruin of the old Polish Constitution. Driven from this position, she then proposed to give to any five branches and five affiliated societies an absolute veto upon the proceedings of the council. In each of these efforts Mrs. Ward was unsuccessful, and in a gathering of over 400 she could not rally sufficient votes to carry any of her points. The Antisuffrage Society in consequence withdrew from the N.U.W.W., and figuratively shook its dust from their feet.

At the opening of this chapter I referred to the more favourable tone in the Press upon women's suffrage and allied questions. For quite a number of years we had had true and faithful friends in the _Manchester Guardian_, the _Aberdeen Free Press_, and in _Punch_, and other papers. The latter gave us a series of first-rate pictures and cartoons, which I hope one day may be reproduced as _Punch's_ "History of Women's Suffrage." Its occasional verses were also very crisp and to the point. A couple of specimens are here reproduced. The first was apropos of Mr. Asquith's frequent statement in the course of his struggle with the House of Lords that "the will of the people must prevail."

"You speak, Mr. Asquith, the suffragist said, Of the Will of the People wholesale; But has the idea never entered your head That the People are not wholly male?"

Another, which was headed "Any Premier to any Suffragist," ran thus:

"So, lady, it is plain, While at your claim one man shies, Until you have the vote 'tis vain To ask us for the franchise."

About this time the editor of the _Daily Telegraph_ allotted space in his paper once a week, under the heading of "Women in Public Life," for the discussion of all kinds of women's activities, including suffrage. It also gave good telegraphic summaries of events bearing on the women's cause in foreign countries, and sometimes even printed the speeches of suffrage leaders verbatim. As our struggle for suffrage became more and more a struggle with Mr. Asquith it not unnaturally followed that those papers were naturally estranged from us which lived, and moved, and had their being in believing that he was the first of men, and that everything he said and did was perfect. They did not go back definitely, and in so many words, upon their former record in support of free representative institutions, but they gave us many a back-hander, published everything conspicuously which they thought likely to be damaging to us, and suppressed such events as told in our favour. I give an instance. In a copy of an evening paper in 1913 I saw in one column, apropos of some House of Commons incident, that "Mrs. Fawcett was in despair"; in another that "Mr. Birrell had finished with women's suffrage for ever"; and that "Mr. Wilfred Ashley had felt compelled to vote against it." As I knew I was not in despair, and had never given any justification for the assertion that I was, I contemplated with some calm the assertions about Mr. Birrell and Mr. Ashley. We did not complain of this sort of treatment. The tactics it revealed were too transparent to do our movement any real harm. The papers which we familiarly referred to as "the three _Posts_"—the _Morning Post_, the _Birmingham Post_, and the _Yorkshire Post_—remained out-and-out antisuffrage all through down to the very end of our struggle. But the _Standard_, which at one time had refused even to insert colourless paragraphs of suffrage news, passed to new editorship, and became much more favourable. It referred sympathetically to our by-election campaigns in 1912 and 1913, saying that suffragists "were displaying energy of the first order"; and after the procession in the Coronation year, which had attracted much favourable notice, it arranged for the daily appearance of a special page, entitled "Woman's Platform," in which facts and arguments for and against suffrage were inserted. This was of great use to us, and we welcomed the publication of the antisuffrage copy, because this gave the paper an entry into the strongholds of our opponents, and also enabled us to judge of their policy and tactics. For instance, it was in the "Woman's Platform" of the _Standard_, in 1913, that Mr. MacCallum Scott called upon his Liberal friends in the House of Commons to break their suffrage pledges in order to save Mr. Asquith from the humiliation of keeping the promises he had made to us.

In 1913 the Conservative and Unionist Women's Franchise Association, of which the Countess of Selborne had become President, had the happy thought of instituting through the medium of a joint committee of suffragists and antisuffragists a systematic and careful enquiry into the results of women's suffrage in those States of the U.S.A. where it had been put into operation. A _questionnaire_ was drawn up and sent to men and women occupying positions of authority and influence in these States. Of the sixty-three replies received, forty-six were wholly favourable, eight neutral, five vaguely unfavourable, and only four wholly adverse.

The late Hon. Robert Palmer, Lady Selborne's son, tabulated the replies, and published an explanatory comment on them from the suffrage point of view, while the same task on behalf of the antisuffragists was performed by Mr. MacCallum Scott, M.P.

Both reports appeared in the form of articles in the _Nineteenth Century and After_ of February, 1914. Mr. Palmer's article was later published as a small volume, and formed a valuable handbook for suffrage speakers. The supporters of suffrage in the U.S.A. frequently expressed themselves as convinced by experience that the women voters strengthened the forces which made for good government, using such expressions as this: "I do not think we could have cleaned up the city without the women's vote"; or, "At that time I was opposed to woman suffrage ... but since I have had experience of it I have become favourable." Mr. MacCallum Scott did not, of course, deny that by an immense majority the replies had supported the women's vote, or that it had been followed, in California, for example, by the immediate passing of much long-sought-for social legislation; but he concluded his article with the words: "I have tried to sum up the evidence as impartially as possible, but I have not tried to conceal my own views, and I have found nothing in the evidence to modify them."

Another very significant breach in the antisuffragist Press stronghold was revealed when on the last day of 1913 _The Times_ published one of its American Supplements "On the Pacific Coast," and, to the amazement and joy of suffragists, wrote most warmly in praise of the complete success of women's suffrage on the whole Pacific seaboard. Suffragists had won the State of Washington in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon and Arizona in 1912. We had expected nothing from _The Times_ but flouts, and gibes, and sneers, and lo! it blessed us altogether. The concluding paragraph sufficiently indicates the general character of the article. It ran thus:

"One-fifth of the United States Senate, one-seventh of the House of Representatives, and one-sixth of the Presidential electoral vote of the United States comes now from States where women exercise suffrage just as men do. Homes have not been disrupted, marriages have not lessened, children have not failed because of the political enfranchisement of women. Instead, there has come a more solemn feeling of obligation, a greater feeling of responsibility on the part of men and women, a higher moral tone in candidates and in measures, and an effort to make the city streets and the country at large a safer place for children when they leave the precincts where maternal love reigns supreme. The women of the suffrage States care not only for their own children, but for the children of women not so fortunately placed."

What a change this represented from the time, three years earlier, when every day for nearly a fortnight _The Times_ in its leading articles and correspondence columns fulminated on the unmeasured national misfortunes which must necessarily result from the enfranchisement of women.

Immediately all our group wrote for as many copies of this blessed supplement as our newsagents could supply. The stock from this source was quickly exhausted; then I wrote officially to _The Times_ office, asking for more, only to receive the reply that no more copies could be obtained. Then we applied for leave to reprint, but the request was declined on the ground that it was the intention of the management to publish the whole supplement in book form. On enquiring the probable date and price, the first question was unanswered, and the reply to the second mentioned what we considered a prohibitive sum.

But we never saw that book. Of course, I carefully preserved my own copy, and quoted it continually when I was speaking. The evidence it gave coincided entirely with what we had learned from our American friends at the Congress of the International Women's Suffrage Alliance held the previous June at Buda Pest, when ladies from the newly enfranchised State of California had told us that, after winning the vote, they had gained in six months legislative reforms for which (without the vote) they had been labouring in vain for twenty years. Twenty months of suffrage, our American friends told us, were worth more than twenty years of "influence."

Another of the signs of the great progress of our cause was the continual increase of the support given to it in modern drama. At this time nearly all the really telling plays by up-to-date writers were practically suffrage plays. Some—like _How the Vote was Won_, by Miss Cecily Hamilton; _Votes for Women_, by Miss Elizabeth Robins; and _Press Cuttings_, by Mr. Bernard Shaw—were propaganda plays pure and simple, and very good propaganda, too, extremely witty and amusing. Others, even more telling because a good deal more subtle in method, were by Sir James Barrie, Mr. Arnold Bennett, and many by Mr. Bernard Shaw. These were of very great service to our cause, as well as a sign of its progress; while the plays on the moral aspects of our movement, such as _Les Trois Filles de M. Dupont_ and _Les Avariés_, by M. Brieux, brought our message to thousands whom we could not have reached unaided.

No wonder that, with all the influences enumerated in this chapter working in our favour, we felt we were on the eve of victory. We quoted, with an application to ourselves, Cavour's prophetic saying, "La cosa va." Seldom has a political movement had such a various army of allies: the Trades Union Congress, the Labour Party, the Church Congress, the annual meeting of the Society of Friends, the Ulster Unionist Council, the Press, the Pulpit, and the Theatre. But a great catastrophe was at hand, which for four and a half years concentrated all thoughts on national safety, and, above all, on the preservation of the principles of free representative government, not merely in our own country, but throughout the world.