Fawcett Millicent Garrett
The Women's Victory—and After: Personal Reminiscences, 1911-1918
CHAPTER IV
THE FIASCO OF THE GOVERNMENT REFORM BILL
"If we can't win as fast as we could wish, we know that in the long run our opponents cannot win at all."
– John Bright.
We were at this time receiving a great deal of good advice from suffrage members of the Cabinet. One of them, who ought to have known better, advised us to rouse public opinion in our support. "Why," he said, "do you not hold a few meetings, and get good speakers, like Miss Royden, to address them?" We replied that we had held 4,000 public meetings in the last four months, filling the largest halls again and again, and that Miss Royden, never very robust, had nearly killed herself by fulfilling the constant demands that were made upon her for speeches at our innumerable demonstrations. She had spoken 267 times in the last twelve months. We reminded him that there had been no agitation at all by men for a wider franchise for themselves; there had been a persistent and strenuous demand by women for their own enfranchisement; and the only official reply of the Government was to promise a Bill for more suffrage to men, and no suffrage at all for women. All this was, of course, so much more grist to the mill at which we had to grind out perpetual speeches. This, as we did not fail to point out, illustrated the value of a vote: voters could get what they wanted without even asking for it; whereas the voteless had to devote years and generations, and to spend thousands of pounds, in order to voice persistent demands on the part of women for representation, demands which were as persistently and determinedly passed by unnoticed, and we were asked why we did not hold a few meetings! The House of Commons seems scarcely capable of giving intelligent attention to any subject unless it is forced to undertake the excruciating pain of thought by the demands made by voters in the constituencies. The most remarkable social revolution had been taking place for the last fifty years in the educational and professional and industrial status of women; all we asked was that a corresponding change should be made in their political status; but up to the present the only reply we could get from the Government had been rightly described by one of its members as "shuffling and delay."
At this time we derived a sort of sorry consolation by the articles which appeared in the Press on the expiration of the twenty years during which the development of motor travelling in this country had been held back by ignorant legislation. The public were reminded that the first Act passed by Parliament in regard to automobile traffic enjoined that motors must not exceed the pace of four miles an hour, and must be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag! The moral for us was that if our legislators could so little read the signs of the times in regard to a comparatively simple matter like the development of motor transport, it was not astonishing that they were at least as incapable of reading the signs of the times in regard to a great human movement which was gradually, in almost every part of the world, raising the position of women from absolute subjection to free citizenship. Our spirits were raised, too, by the fact that, though we were not winning in our own Parliament, we were winning in other Parliaments and everywhere else. A Czech woman had been returned to the Diet in Bohemia; and three new States were won for suffrage in the U.S.A. Barriers in other directions were everywhere breaking down. The very same papers which reported Mr. Asquith's reception of the antisuffrage deputation in December, 1911, when he confessed his unaltered and unalterable opposition to women's suffrage, also contained the announcement of the election of the first woman to the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. The more intelligent of the antisuffragists, such as Mrs. Humphry Ward, were constantly proclaiming their sympathy with every step in the development of women's freedom which had already been won, such as their share in, and responsibility for, local government. In her society she was at the labouring oar, and must have been conscious that no popular movement could exist whose programme offered nothing but negatives. She felt the need of a positive programme, and even announced her intention of using the machinery of the Society for Opposing the Extension of the Parliamentary Suffrage to Women for promoting their activity in Local Government and the election of women to Local Government bodies. But she was sharply pulled up for this by Lord Curzon, who said at a meeting of the society, as reported in the Antisuffrage Review: "The funds we collect are given primarily, and I think exclusively, for resistance to the parliamentary vote for women. It is for that purpose, and that purpose alone, that our organization exists… I hope you will be quite clear about that." Of course Mrs. Humphry Ward had to give way. Had she not just said at this same meeting "how necessary was the maintenance of the male hand upon the helm of English Government"? But the male hand of the politician is capable of adaptability to changed circumstances. Lord Curzon, twenty years earlier, had succeeded in reversing the decision of the Royal Geographical Society to elect women as Fellows – an innovation which he then considered "most injurious to men and disastrous to women." Further experience must have convinced him that this injury to men and disaster to women would be a source of strength to the society; for when he found himself in the position of President of the R.G.S., and responsible with others for the increased cost of far larger and more commodious premises, he himself promoted and, I believe, proposed the election of women to the society. Council's opinion was taken, and was to the effect that "on the true construction of the charter and by-laws women were admissible." The noble President therefore had the solace of finding that the law was on his side when he said, "Ay."
The difference between Mrs. Humphry Ward and her chief in 1912 may have been the prototype of the greater difference which divided them in 1918. But at the earlier date it was Mrs. Ward who wished to go forward, and Lord Curzon who resolutely refused to follow; in 1918 the rôles were reversed. It was Lord Curzon who bowed to the inevitable and Mrs. Ward who vehemently protested that the "male hand" had betrayed her.4
We now resume the thread of our story in 1912 after the defeat of the Conciliation Bill by 14 votes on March 28th. One of its results was the change in the election policy of the N.U.W.S.S. described in the last chapter. Outside of this, our work was concentrated on securing all possible support for the women's suffrage amendments to the Government Franchise Bill. One important advantage was gained when Mr. Redmond gave a definite promise that his party would be left free to vote on women's suffrage according to their personal convictions. The Irish Nationalists, who had in a body deserted the Conciliation Bill, had been very severely criticized for this by their own supporters, both in this country and in Ireland.
The women's suffrage amendments to be moved to the Government Bill were four in number. The first stood in the name of the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. It was to delete the word "male" from the first clause. It will be remembered that Mr. Asquith, in the previous July, had said in reference to the Bill, "Whatever extensions of the franchise it makes are to male persons only," and the Bill, therefore, had been drafted in this sense. The deletion of the word "male" from the first clause would not in itself have enfranchised a single woman, but, if accepted by the House, it would have rendered the inclusion of women by amendment a possibility. Three amendments to include women were therefore drafted, representing three degrees of comparison, corresponding, roughly, to the degrees of enthusiasm of different sections of the House for the free citizenship of women.
The first amendment represented the views of the Labour Party, and also corresponded with the aims of practically every suffrage society: it demanded the vote for women on the same terms as men. Under the new franchises contemplated in the Bill this would have enfranchised about ten and a half millions of women. We had little hope that this amendment would be carried, as our belief was that Parliament would not consent to the creation of an electorate in which women decidedly outnumbered men. Mr. Arthur Henderson, Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, undertook to move this amendment. He was a very stanch friend of our movement, and could be relied on to support the other amendments if his own were lost.
The second amendment was to create what was virtually household suffrage for women, and proposed to give the franchise to all women over twenty-five years of age who were householders or wives of householders. It was believed that this amendment would enfranchise about six and a half millions of women. It was to be moved by Mr. (now Sir) W. H. Dickinson, also a very stalwart friend, whose tenacity had been tested on many occasions.
The third amendment, to be moved by the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton if the first and second were lost, was on the lines of the Conciliation Bill, and would have enfranchised women householders only, of whom it was known there were about one and a half millions in England and Wales. Committees on party lines were organized in the House of Commons in support of these amendments, Mr. Henderson, Mr. Stephen Walsh, and Mr. Snowden, being especially active on behalf of the Labour Party; Mr. Acland, Sir Alfred Mond, the Hon. H. D. McLaren, and Mr. Dickinson, on behalf of the Liberals; Lord Robert Cecil, Mr. Goulding, Lord Wolmer, and Sir W. Bull, on behalf of the Conservatives. Members of the Government could not join these committees; but some, such as Sir John Simon, gave very valuable help and advice. The great point to aim at was to maintain the unity of the suffragists in all the parties, and thus to secure a united vote in support of any suffrage amendment which recommended itself to the House as a whole. We therefore endeavoured to obtain promises, in the event of one amendment being defeated, that those Members who had preferred it should transfer their support to the next. The Labour Party, inside and outside the House, was particularly firm and outspoken in support of this policy. "We intend to stand by the women through thick and thin," said one of their leaders. "I will fight for them, amendment by amendment, with all the strength that is in me." The annual congress of the Labour Party backed us up by the resolution recorded on p. 3. The Trade Union Congress also adopted a very strong suffrage resolution.
But we soon found the parliamentary air thick with the intrigue and gossip which had succeeded in defeating the Conciliation Bill. Rumours and threats of resignation if any form of women's suffrage were carried were rife. One "Right Honourable gentleman" would take an Irish Nationalist on one side and remark casually that it was lamentable to think, after the long struggle for Home Rule, that it would be destroyed after all by the break up of the Government over women's suffrage. Sir Edward Grey, intending to counteract these rumours, rather intensified them by writing to a suffrage meeting in Glasgow in December indicating that resignation was a game which two could play at, and if antisuffrage Ministers resigned as a result of the success of one or other of the suffrage amendments, then non-success must equally be followed by the resignation of Ministers like himself pledged to its support.
It has already been noted that the Session of 1912 had begun in January; the Second Reading of the Government Reform Bill had been taken in July; on the reassembling of Parliament for the autumn Session October and November went by with no signs of any further progress with the Bill. It was the constant subject of conversation and discussion in the Lobbies, in the Press, and in general society, and many public meetings were held, but no parliamentary progress was made; and when this state of things continued over the Christmas recess, and the lengthy Session of 1912 was prolonged into 1913, the more experienced of suffragists were asking each other how it could be a physical possibility to pass a controversial measure like a Reform Bill through all its stages in both Houses of Parliament at the tail end of a Session which had already lasted nearly thirteen months.
An influential meeting in support of the more democratic of the suffrage amendments to the Reform Bill had been held in the Opera House in Kingsway on December 4th. Important speeches were made by Mr. F. D. Acland, Sir John Simon, leading Liberal women, and others; but the difficulties and confusion inside the House caused by the Prime Minister's statement in the Second Reading debate, that he "could not suppose that the House would so far stultify itself as to reverse the considered judgment it had already arrived at," continued to darken the outlook, particularly by encouraging the rumours of the resignation of antisuffrage Ministers and the consequent break up of the Administration. It is to be noted that no official contradiction was given to these very prevalent rumours of resignation until the day before the House expected to go into Committee on the Bill, January 22nd, 1913. But the coup de grâce for the Reform Bill and those who were responsible for it came from an altogether unexpected quarter. Three days, January 24th, 27th, and 28th, had been allotted to the women's suffrage amendments under a special "guillotine" time-table. This stage, however, was never reached, for on January 23rd Mr. Bonar Law asked the Speaker to give a ruling on the point whether the Government's own amendments to the Bill, regarding the occupation franchise for men, would not so far alter the Bill from that which had received a Second Reading in July as to necessitate its withdrawal and reintroduction in an altered form. The implied argument was, "the Bill which the House read a second time in July is not the same Bill which it is now asked to consider in committee." The Speaker replied that though he could not at that stage give a definite ruling, it was, in point of fact, his opinion that the Bill was not the Bill to which the House had assented in July, and he added that there were "other amendments regarding female suffrage which, of course, would make a huge difference in the Bill if they were inserted." The blow to the whole Bill thus foreshadowed fell like a thunder-bolt on the House, and on no portion of it more severely than on the Government, especially on the Prime Minister. Ever since May, 1908, when first Mr. Asquith had become Prime Minister, he had given various forecasts and promises about this Bill, and especially on his attitude and that of his Government to women suffrage amendments. Now all these promises and forecasts were proved to be absolutely worthless, mere scraps of paper; and this owing to the conduct of the Bill by the Government itself. Whether the Speaker's ruling, which was given definitely a day or two later, was based on the incorrect naming of the Bill,5 or on the fact that in the Second Reading debate Mr. Asquith had told the House definitely, "This Bill does not propose to confer the suffrage on women, and whatever extensions of the franchise it makes are to male persons only," was never, according to my knowledge, made public. What everybody knew was that the Government had blundered badly, that its chief had given promises which by his own action he was powerless to fulfil, and that the proposed Reform Bill promised by him in 1908, 1910, and 1911 was a complete fiasco. The new situation proved to every suffragist that our measure could never be carried through all its parliamentary stages unless it was brought forward by a united Cabinet as a Government measure. The day for such success as could be attained by a private Member's Bill was long passed.
A very considerable number of the general public were under the impression that we had been "had"; and there were many among suffragists who thought that a deliberate fraud or trick had been practised upon us. I never shared this view. The blow was much more a blow to the Government than to the suffrage movement. It did not harm our movement in public opinion. On the contrary, public opinion was with us; the prestige and authority of the Government were lowered; and they did nothing to retrieve their position so far as we were concerned. If the Prime Minister had sent for the representatives of the suffrage societies, the Women's Liberal Federation, and other bodies standing for suffrage which had formed the deputation in November, 1911, and had said, "I have given you promises which it is unfortunately out of my power to fulfil; will you suggest any course which would be a reasonable substitute in fulfilment of my pledges?" he would have put the onus of the acceptance or rejection of such an offer upon us; but he did nothing of the sort. We asked him to receive us, but he refused to meet us or to hold any communication with us on the subject. His position, therefore, was that his promises remained unredeemed, and he made no effort to redeem them. It is true that he offered parliamentary time for the discussion of a Second Reading of a private Member's Bill. But it needed not to be a Daniel or a Solomon to see that a private Member's Bill, of which seven had passed Second Reading in the last four years, and four of them in 1908, 1909, 1910, and 1911, was no substitute for a place in a Government Bill, which, if adopted by the House, would be regarded by the Government as an integral part of the measure, and defended in all its stages in both Houses of Parliament. We were furiously indignant. If a man who had owed £1,000 suddenly became bankrupt, and declined any meeting with his creditors, but offered them 1,000 gilded cardboard discs, he could not expect this conduct to assuage their indignation or soften their anger against him, for he would first have robbed them and then treated them as if they were children. One of the papers which usually supported the Government put the case thus: "If A and B arrange a deal, and A is unavoidably prevented from delivering the goods for which B bargained, it is not open to A to offer a different class of goods till he has had B's consent to the substitution." We remembered how, when the militant suffragists had said that Mr. Asquith's promises were worthless, Mr. Lloyd George had indignantly and forcibly retaliated that such a doubt was "an imputation of deep dishonour" which he absolutely repudiated. We took pleasure in recalling Dr. Johnson's description of the Duke of Devonshire of his time, and contrasting it with Mr. Asquith, to the latter's disadvantage. "If," said the Doctor of the third Duke, "he had promised you an acorn and none had grown in his woods that year, he would not have contented himself with that excuse; he would have sent to Denmark for it. So unconditional was he in keeping his word, so high his point of honour." If that was the sort of man the Duke of Devonshire was, it was the sort of man Mr. Asquith was not. The N.U.W.S.S. decided at its council meeting in February, 1913, to take no part in supporting by work in the constituencies or inside the House this private Member's Bill. Our reasons were that we were now convinced that nothing but a Government Bill, backed by a united Cabinet, would be of any practical service to our cause. Of course the N.U.W.S.S. could never, under any circumstances, oppose any Bill which enfranchised any women, few or many; but we took no part whatever in its support. It came on for Second Reading in May, 1913, and met with the defeat to which from the beginning it had been foredoomed.
The last four years had witnessed the steady advance of the suffrage cause. It was now in the forefront of practical politics, and was a question which had led to more than one serious Cabinet crisis, and was capable of making or unmaking Governments. We held steadfastly to our resolution to work for nothing in Parliament but a Government measure backed by a united Cabinet. Our chief practical consideration was how to do this on constitutional lines and by non-party means. Our friend and colleague, Mrs. Harley, suggested what we afterwards called "The Pilgrimage," and her idea was taken up and carried out with enthusiasm by the whole National Union. An account of the Pilgrimage will form the subject of the next chapter.
