My Own Story Part 12

and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence had already been admitted to bail. Public opinion forced the Home Secretary to make these concessions, as it is well known that it is next to impossible to prepare a defence while confined in prison. Aside from the terrible effect of prison on one's body and nerves, there is the difficulty of consulting doc.u.ments and securing other necessary data to be considered.

On April 4th the Ministerial hearing ended in the acquittal of Mrs.

Tuke, whose activities in the W. S. P. U. were shown to be purely secretarial. Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and myself were committed for trial at the next session of the Central Criminal Court, beginning April 23rd. Because of the weak state of my health the judge was with great difficulty prevailed upon to postpone the trial two weeks and it was, therefore, not until May 15th that the case was opened.

The trial at Old Bailey is a thing that I shall never forget. The scene is clear before me as I write, the judge impressively bewigged and scarlet robed, dominating the crowded courtroom, the solicitors at their table, the jury, and looking very far away, the anxious pale faces of our friends who crowded the narrow galleries.

By the veriest irony of fate this judge, Lord Coleridge, was the son of Sir Charles Coleridge who, in the year 1867, appeared with my husband, Dr. Pankhurst, in the famous case of Chorlton v. Lings, and sought to establish that women were persons, and as such were ent.i.tled to the Parliamentary vote. To make the irony still deeper the Attorney General, Sir Rufus Isaacs, who appeared as Counsel for the prosecution against women militants, himself had been guilty of remarkable speeches in corroboration of our point of view. In a speech made in 1910, in relation to the abolition of the Lords' veto, Sir Rufus made the statement that, although the agitation against privilege was being peacefully conducted, the indignation behind it was very intense. Said Sir Rufus: "Formerly when the great ma.s.s of the people were voteless they had to do something violent in order to show what they felt; to-day the elector's bullet is his ballot. Let no one be deceived, therefore, because in this present struggle everything is peaceful and orderly, in contrast to the disorderliness of other great struggles of the past." We wondered if the man who said these words could fail to realise that voteless women, deprived of every const.i.tutional means of righting their grievances, were also obliged to do something violent in order to show how they felt. His opening address removed all doubt on that score.

Sir Rufus Isaacs has a clear-cut, hawk-like face, deep eyes, and a somewhat world worn air. The first words he spoke were so astoundingly unfair that I could hardly believe that I heard them aright. He began his address to the jury by telling them that they must not, on any account, connect the act of the defendants with any political agitation.

"I am very anxious to impress upon you," he said, "from the moment we begin to deal with the facts of this case, that all questions of whether a woman is ent.i.tled to the Parliamentary franchise, whether she should have the same right of franchise as a man, are questions which are in no sense involved in the trial of this issue.... Therefore, I ask you to discard altogether from the consideration of the matters which will be placed before you any viewpoint you may have on this no doubt very important political issue."

Nevertheless Sir Rufus added in the course of his remarks that he feared that it would not be possible to keep out of the conduct of the case various references to political events, and of course the entire trial, from beginning to end, showed clearly that the case was what Mr. Tim Healey, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence's counsel, called it, a great State Trial.

Proceeding, the Attorney General described the W. S. P. U., which he said he thought had been in existence since 1907, and had used what were known as militant methods. In 1911 the a.s.sociation had become annoyed by the Prime Minister because he would not make women's suffrage what was called a Government question. In November, 1911, the Prime Minister announced the introduction of a manhood suffrage bill. From that time on the defendants set to work to carry out a campaign which would have meant nothing less than anarchy. Women were to be induced to act together at a given time, in different given places, in such numbers that the police should be paralysed by the number of persons breaking the law, in order, to use the defendant's own words, "to bring the Government to its knees."

After designating the respective positions held by the four defendants in the W. S. P. U., Sir Rufus went on to relate the events which resulted in the smas.h.i.+ng of plate gla.s.s windows valued at some two thousand pounds, and the imprisonment of over two hundred women who were incited to their deeds by the conspirators in the dock. He entirely ignored the motive of the acts in question, and he treated the whole affair as if the women had been burglars. This inverted statement of the matter, though accurate enough as to facts, was such as might have been given by King John of the signing of Magna Charta.

A very great number of witnesses were examined, a large number of them being policemen, and their testimony, and our cross examination disclosed the startling fact that there exists in England a special band of secret police entirely engaged in political work. These men, seventy-five in number, form what is known as the political branch of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police. They go about in disguise, and their sole duty is to shadow Suffragettes and other political workers. They follow certain political workers from their homes to their places of business, to their social pleasures, into tea rooms and restaurants, even to the theatre. They pursue unsuspecting people in taxicabs, sit beside them in omnibuses. Above all they take down speeches. In fact the system is exactly like the secret police system of Russia.

Mr. Pethick Lawrence and I spoke in our own defence, and Mr. Healey M.

P. defended Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. I cannot give our speeches in full, but I should like to include as much of them as will serve to make the entire situation clear to the reader.

Mr. Lawrence spoke first at the opening of the case. He began by giving an account of the suffrage movement and why he felt the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women appeared to him a question so grave that it warranted strong measures in its pursuit. He sketched briefly the history of the Women's Social and Political Union, from the time when Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney were thrown out of Sir Edward Grey's meeting and imprisoned for asking a political question, to the torpedoing of the Conciliation Bill. "The case that I have to put before you," he said, "is that neither the conspiracy nor the incitement is ours; but that the conspiracy is a conspiracy of the Cabinet who are responsible for the Government of this country; and that the incitement is the incitement of the Ministers of the Crown." And he did this most effectually not only by telling of the disgraceful trickery and deceit with which the Government had misled the suffragists in the matter of suffrage bills, but by giving the plain words in which members of the Cabinet had advised the women that they would never get the vote until they had learned to fight for it as men had fought in the past.

When it came my turn to speak, realising that the average man is profoundly ignorant of the history of the women's movement--because the press has never adequately or truthfully chronicled the movement--I told the jury, as briefly as I could, the story of the forty years' peaceful agitation before my daughters and I resolved that we would give our lives to the work of getting the vote for women, and that we should use whatever means of getting the vote that were necessary to success.

"We founded the Women's Social and Political Union," I said, "in 1903.

Our first intention was to try and influence the particular political Party, which was then coming into power, to make this question of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women their own question and to push it. It took some little time to convince us--and I need not weary you with the history of all that has happened--but it took some little time to convince us that that was no use; that we could not secure things in that way. Then in 1905 we faced the hard facts. We realised that there was a Press boycott against Women's Suffrage. Our speeches at public meetings were not reported, our letters to the editors, were not published, even if we implored the editors; even the things relating to Women's Suffrage in Parliament were not recorded. They said the subject was not of sufficient public interest to be reported in the Press, and they were not prepared to report it. Then with regard to the men politicians in 1905: we realised how shadowy were the fine phrases about democracy, about human equality, used by the gentlemen who were then coming into power. They meant to ignore the women--there was no doubt whatever about that. For in the official doc.u.ments coming from the Liberal party on the eve of the 1905 election, there were sentences like this: 'What the country wants is a simple measure of Manhood Suffrage.' There was no room for the inclusion of women. We knew perfectly well that if there was to be franchise reform at all, the Liberal party which was then coming into power did not mean Votes for Women, in spite of all the pledges of members; in spite of the fact that a majority of the House of Commons, especially on the Liberal side, were pledged to it--it did not mean that they were going to put it into practice. And so we found some way of forcing their attention to this question.

"Now I come to the facts with regard to militancy. We realised that the plans we had in our minds would involve great sacrifice on our part, that it might cost us all we had. We were at that time a little organisation, composed in the main of working women, the wives and daughters of working men. And my daughters and I took a leading part, naturally, because we thought the thing out, and, to a certain extent, because we were of better social position than most of our members, and we felt a sense of responsibility."

I described the events that marked the first days of our work, the scene in Free Trade Hall, Manchester, when my daughter and her companion were arrested for the crime of asking a question of a politician, and I continued:

"What did they do next? (I want you to realise that no step we have taken forward has been taken until after some act of repression on the part of our enemy, the Government--because it is the Government that is our enemy; it is not the Members of Parliament, it is not the men in the country; it is the Government in power alone that can give us the vote.

It is the Government alone that we regard as our enemy, and the whole of our agitation is directed to bringing just as much pressure as necessary upon those people who can deal with our grievance.) The next step the women took was to ask questions during the course of meetings, because, as I told you, these gentlemen gave them no opportunity of asking them afterwards. And then began the interjections of which we have heard, the interference with the right to hold public meetings, the interference with the right of free speech, of which we have heard, for which these women, these hooligan women, as they have been called--have been denounced. I ask you, gentlemen, to imagine the amount of courage which it needs for a woman to undertake that kind of work. When men come to interrupt women's meetings, they come in gangs, with noisy instruments, and sing and shout together, and stamp their feet. But when women have gone to Cabinet Ministers' meetings--only to interrupt Cabinet Ministers and n.o.body else--they have gone singly. And it has become increasingly difficult for them to get in, because as a result of the women's methods there has developed the system of admission by ticket and the exclusion of women--a thing which in my Liberal days would have been thought a very disgraceful thing at Liberal meetings. But this ticket system developed, and so the women could only get in with very great difficulty. Women have concealed themselves for thirty-six hours in dangerous positions, under the platforms, in the organs, wherever they could get a vantage point. They waited starving in the cold, sometimes on the roof exposed to a winter's night, just to get a chance of saying in the course of a Cabinet Minister's speech, 'When is the Liberal Government going to put its promises into practice?' That has been the form militancy took in its further development."

I went over the whole matter of our peaceful deputations, and of the violence with which they were invariably met; of our arrests and the farcical police court trials, where the mere evidence of policemen's unsupported statements sent us to prison for long terms; of the falsehoods told of us in the House of Commons by responsible members of the Government--tales of women scratching and biting policemen and using hatpins--and I accused the Government of making these attacks against women who were powerless to defend themselves because they feared the women and desired to crush the agitation represented by our organisation.

"Now it has been stated in this Court," I said, "that it is not the Women's Social and Political Union that is in the Court, but that it is certain defendants. The action of the Government, gentlemen, is certainly against the defendants who are before you here to-day, but it is also against the Women's Social and Political Union. The intention is to crush that organisation. And this intention apparently was arrived at after I had been sent to prison for two months for breaking a pane of gla.s.s worth, I am told, 2s. 3d., the punishment which I accepted because I was a leader of this movement, though it was an extraordinary punishment to inflict for so small an act of damages as I had committed.

I accepted it as the punishment for a leader of an agitation disagreeable to the Government; and while I was there this prosecution started. They thought they would make a clean sweep of the people who they considered were the political brains of the movement. We have got many false friends in the Cabinet--people who by their words appear to be well-meaning towards the cause of Women's Suffrage. And they thought that if they could get the leaders of the Union out of the way, it would result in the indefinite postponement and settlement of the question in this country. Well, they have not succeeded in their design, and even if they had got all the so-called leaders of this movement out of their way they would not have succeeded even then. Now why have they not put the Union in the dock? We have a democratic Government, so-called. This Women's Social and Political Union is not a collection of hysterical and unimportant wild women, as has been suggested to you, but it is an important organisation, which numbers amongst its members.h.i.+p very important people. It is composed of women of all cla.s.ses of the community, women who have influence in their particular organisations as working women; women who have influence in professional organisations as professional women; women of social importance; women even of Royal rank are amongst the members of this organisation, and so it would not pay a democratic Government to deal with this organisation as a whole.

"They hoped that by taking away the people that they thought guided the political fortunes of the organisation they would break the organisation down. They thought that if they put out of the way the influential members of the organisation they, as one member of the Cabinet, I believe, said, would crush the movement and get it 'on the run.' Well, Governments have many times been mistaken, gentlemen, and I venture to suggest to you that Governments are mistaken again. I think the answer to the Government was given at the Albert Hall meeting held immediately after our arrest. Within a few minutes, without the eloquence of Mrs.

Pethick Lawrence, without the appeals of the people who have been called the leaders of this movement, in a very few minutes 10,000 was subscribed for the carrying on of this movement.

"Now a movement like that, supported like that, is not a wild, hysterical movement. It is not a movement of misguided people. It is a very serious movement. Women, I submit, like our members, and women, I venture to say, like the two women, and like the man who are in the dock to-day, are not people to undertake a thing like this lightly. May I just try to make you feel what it is that has made this movement the gigantic size it is from the very small beginnings it had? It is one of the biggest movements of modern times. A movement which is not only an influence, perhaps not yet recognised, in this country, but is influencing the women's movement all over the world. Is there anything more marvellous in modern times than the kind of spontaneous outburst in every country of this woman's movement? Even in China--and I think it somewhat of a disgrace to Englishmen--even in China women have won the vote, as an outcome of a successful revolution, with which, I dare say, members of his Majesty's Government sympathise--a b.l.o.o.d.y revolution.

"One more word on that point. When I was in prison the second time, for three months as a common criminal for no greater offence than the issue of a handbill--less inflammatory in its terms than some of the speeches of members of the Government who prosecute us here--during that time, through the efforts of a member of Parliament, there was secured for me permission to have the daily paper in prison, and the first thing I read in the daily Press was this: that the Government was at that moment feting the members of the Young Turkish Revolutionary Party, gentlemen who had invaded the privacy of the Sultan's home--we used to hear a great deal about invading the privacy of Mr. Asquith's residence when we ventured to ring his door bell--gentlemen who had killed and slain, and had been successful in their revolution, while we women had never thrown a stone--for none of us was imprisoned for stone throwing, but merely for taking the part we had then taken in this organisation. There we were imprisoned while these political murderers were being feted by the very Government who imprisoned us, and were being congratulated on the success of their revolution. Now I ask you, was it to be wondered at that women said to themselves: 'Perhaps it is that we have not done enough. Perhaps it is that these gentlemen do not understand womenfolk.

Perhaps they do not realise women's ways, and because we have not done the things that men have done, they may think we are not in earnest.'

"And then we come down to this last business of all, when we have responsible statesmen like Mr. Hobhouse saying that there had never been any sentimental uprising, no expression of feeling like that which led to the burning down of Nottingham Castle. Can you wonder, then, that we decided we should have to nerve ourselves to do more, and can you understand why we cast about to find a way, as women will, that would not involve loss of human life and the maiming of human beings, because women care more about human life than men, and I think it is quite natural that we should, for we know what life costs. We risk our lives when men are born. Now, I want to say this deliberately as a leader of this movement. We have tried to hold it back, we have tried to keep it from going beyond bounds, and I have never felt a prouder woman than I did one night when a police constable said to me, after one of these demonstrations, 'Had this been a man's demonstration, there would have been bloodshed long ago.' Well, my lord, there has not been any bloodshed except on the part of the women themselves--these so-called militant women. Violence has been done to us, and I who stand before you in this dock have lost a dear sister in the course of this agitation.

She died within three days of coming out of prison, a little more than a year ago. These are things which, wherever we are, we do not say very much about. We cannot keep cheery, we cannot keep cheerful, we cannot keep the right kind of spirit, which means success, if we dwell too much upon the hard part of our agitation. But I do say this, gentlemen, that whatever in future you may think of us, you will say this about us, that whatever our enemies may say, we have always put up an honourable fight, and taken no unfair means of defeating our opponents, although they have not always been people who have acted so honourably towards us.

"We have a.s.saulted no one; we have done no hurt to any one; and it was not until 'Black Friday'--and what happened on 'Black Friday' is that we had a new Home Secretary, and there appeared to be new orders given to the police, because the police on that occasion showed a kind of ferocity in dealing with the women that they had never done before, and the women came to us and said: 'We cannot bear this'--it was not until then we felt this new form of repression should compel us to take another step. That is the question of 'Black Friday,' and I want to say here and now that every effort was made after 'Black Friday' to get an open public judicial inquiry into the doings of 'Black Friday,' as to the instructions given to the police. That inquiry was refused; but an informal inquiry was held by a man, whose name will carry conviction as to his status and moral integrity on the one side of the great political parties, and a man of equal standing on the Liberal side. These two men were Lord Robert Cecil and Mr. Ellis Griffith. They held a private inquiry, had women before them, took their evidence, examined that evidence, and after hearing it said that they believed what the women had told them was substantially true, and that they thought there was good cause for that inquiry to be held. That was embodied in a report.

To show you our difficulties, Lord Robert Cecil, in a speech at the Criterion Restaurant, spoke on this question. He called upon the Government to hold this inquiry, and not one word of that speech was reported in any morning paper. That is the sort of thing we have had to face, and I welcome standing here, if only for the purpose of getting these facts out, and I challenge the Attorney General to inst.i.tute an inquiry into these proceedings--not that kind of inquiry of sending their inspectors to Holloway and accepting what they are told by the officials--but to open a public inquiry, with a jury, if he likes, to deal with our grievances against the Government and the methods of this agitation.

"I say it is not the defendants who have conspired, but the Government who have conspired against us to crush this agitation; but however the matter may be decided, we are content to abide by the verdict of posterity. We are not the kind of people who like to brag a lot; we are not the kind of people who would bring ourselves into this position unless we were convinced that it was the only way. I have tried--all my life I have worked for this question--I have tried arguments, I have tried persuasion. I have addressed a greater number of public meetings, perhaps, than any person in this court, and I have never addressed one meeting where substantially the opinion of the meeting--not a ticket meeting, but an open meeting, for I have never addressed any other kind of a meeting--has not been that where women bear burdens and share responsibilities like men they should be given the privileges that men enjoy. I am convinced that public opinion is with us--that it has been stifled--wilfully stifled--so that in a public Court of Justice one is glad of being allowed to speak on this question."

The Attorney General's summing up for the prosecution was very largely a defence of the Liberal Party and its course in regard to woman suffrage legislation. Therefore, Mr. Tim Healey, in his defence of Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, did well to lay stress on the political character of the conspiracy charge and trial. He said:

"It is no doubt a very useful thing when you have political opponents to be able to set the law in motion against them. I have not the smallest doubt it would be a very convenient thing, if they had the courage to do it, to shut up the whole of His Majesty's Opposition while the present Government is in office--to lock up all the men of l.u.s.tre and distinction in our public forum and on our public platforms--all the Carsons, F. E. Smiths, Bonar Laws, and so on. It would be a most convenient thing to end the whole thing, as it would be to end women's agitation in the form of the indictment. Gentlemen of the jury, whatever words have been spoken by mutual opponents, whatever instructions have been addressed, not to feeble females, but to men who boast of drilling and of arms, they have not had the courage to prosecute anybody, except women, by means of an indictment. Yet the Government of my learned friend have selected two dates as cardinal dates, and they ask you to pa.s.s judgment upon the prisoners at the bar, and to say that, without rhyme or reason, taking the course suggested without provocation, these responsible, well-bred, educated, University people, have suddenly, in the words of the indictment, wickedly and with malice aforethought engaged in these criminal designs.

"Gentlemen of the jury, the first thing I would ask in that connection is this: What is there in the course of this demand put forward by women which should have excited the treatment at the hands of His Majesty's Ministers which this movement, according to the doc.u.ments which are in evidence before me, has received? I should suppose that the essence of all government is the smooth conduct of affairs, so that those who enjoy high station, great emoluments, should not be parties against whom the accusation of provoking civic strife and breeding public turmoil should be brought. What do we find? We find that, in regard to the treatment of the demand which had always been put forward humbly, respectably, respectfully, in its origin, by those who have received trade unionists, anti-vaccinators, deceased wife's sisters, and all other forms of political demand, and who have received them humbly and yielded to them, we find that when these people advocating this particular form of civic reform request an audience, request admission, request even to have their pet.i.tions respectfully received, they have met, judicially, at all events, with a flat and solemn negative. That is the beginning of this unhappy spirit bred in the minds of persons like the defendants, persons like those against whom evidence has been tendered--which has led to your being empanelled in that box to-day. And I put it to you when you are considering whether it is the incitement of my clients or the conduct of Ministers that have led to these events--whether I cannot ask you to say that even a fair apportionment of blame should not rest upon more responsible shoulders, and whether you should go out of your way to say that these persons in the dock alone are guilty."

In closing Mr. Healey reverted to the political character of the trial.

"The Government have undertaken this prosecution," he declared, "to seclude for a considerable period their chief opponents. They hope there will be at public meetings which they attend no more inconvenient cries of 'Votes for Women.' I cannot conceive any other object which they could have in bringing the prosecution. I have expressed my regret at the loss which the shopkeepers, tradesmen and others have suffered. I regret it deeply. I regret that any person should bring loss or suffering upon innocent people. But I ask you to say that the law has already been sufficiently vindicated by the punishment of the immediate authors of the deed. What can be gained? Does justice gain?

"I almost hesitate to treat this as a legal inquiry. I regard it as a vindictive political act. Of all the astonis.h.i.+ng acts that have ever been brought into a public court against a prisoner I cannot help feeling the charge against Mr. Pethick Lawrence is the most astonis.h.i.+ng.

He ventured to attend at some police courts and gave bail for women who had been arrested in endeavouring, as I understand, to present pet.i.tions to Parliament or to have resort to violence. I do not complain of the way in which my learned friend has conducted the prosecution, but I do complain of the police methods--inquiring into the homes and the domestic circ.u.mstances of the prisoners, obtaining their papers, taking their newspaper, going into their banking account, bringing up their bankers here to say what is their balance; and I do say that in none of the prosecutions of the past have smaller methods belittled a great State trial, because, look at it as you will, you cannot get away from it that this is a great State trial. It is not the women who are on trial. It is the men. It is the system of Government which is upon its trial. It is this method of rolling the dice by fifty-four counts in an indictment without showing to what any bit of evidence is fairly attributable; the system is on its trial--a system whereby every innocent act in public life is sought to be enmeshed in a conspiracy."

The jury was absent for more than an hour, showing that they had some difficulty in agreeing upon a verdict. When they returned it was plain from their strained countenances that they were labouring under deep feeling. The foreman's voice shook as he p.r.o.nounced the verdict, guilty as charged, and he had hard work to control his emotion as he added: "Your Lords.h.i.+p, we unanimously desire to express the hope that, taking into consideration the undoubtedly pure motives that underlie the agitation that has led to this trouble, you will be pleased to exercise the utmost clemency and leniency in dealing with the case."

A burst of applause followed this plea. Then Mr. Pethick Lawrence arose and asked to say a few words before sentence was p.r.o.nounced. He said that it must be evident, aside from the jury's recommendation, that we had been actuated by political motives, and that we were in fact political offenders. It had been decided in English Courts that political offenders were different from ordinary offenders, and Mr.

Lawrence cited the case of a Swiss subject whose extradition was refused because of the political character of his offence. The Court on that occasion had declared that even if the crime were murder committed with a political motive it was a political crime. Mr. Lawrence also reminded the judge of the case of the late Mr. W. T. Stead, convicted of a crime, yet because of the unusual motive behind the crime, was allowed first division treatment and full freedom to receive his family and friends.

Last of all the case of Dr. Jameson was cited. Although his raid resulted in the death of twenty-one persons and the wounding of forty-six more, the political character of his offence was taken into account and he was made a first division prisoner.

They were men, fighting in a man's war. We of the W. S. P. U. were women, fighting in a woman's war. Lord Coleridge, therefore, saw in us only reckless and criminal defiers of law. Lord Coleridge said: "You have been convicted of a crime for which the law would sanction, if I chose to impose it, a sentence of two years' imprisonment with hard labour. There are circ.u.mstances connected with your case which the jury have very properly brought to my attention, and I have been asked by you all three to treat you as first cla.s.s misdemeanants. If, in the course of this case, I had observed any contrition or disavowal of the acts you have committed, or any hope that you would avoid repet.i.tion of them in future, I should have been very much prevailed upon by the arguments that have been advanced to me."

No contrition having been expressed by us, the sentence of the Court was that we were to suffer imprisonment, in the second division, for the term of nine months, and that we were to pay the costs of the prosecution.

CHAPTER III

The sentence of nine months astonished us beyond measure, especially in view of certain very recent events, one of these being the case of some sailors who had mutinied in order to call attention to something which they considered a peril to themselves and to all seafarers. They were tried and found technically guilty, but because of the motive behind their mutiny, were discharged without punishment. Perhaps more nearly like our case than this was the case of the labour leader, Tom Mann, who, shortly before, had written a pamphlet calling upon His Majesty's soldiers not to fire upon strikers when commanded to do so by their superior officers. From the Government's point of view this was a much more serious kind of inciting than ours, because if it had been responded to the authorities would have been absolutely crippled in maintaining order. Besides, soldiers who refuse to obey orders are liable to the death penalty. Tom Mann was given a sentence of six months, but this was received, on the part of the Liberal Press and Liberal politicians, with so much clamour and protest that the prisoner was released at the end of two months. So, even on our way to prison, we told one another that our sentences could not stand. Public opinion would never permit the Government to keep us in prison for nine months, or in the second division for any part of our term. We agreed to wait seven Parliamentary days before we began a hunger strike protest.

It was very dreary waiting, those seven Parliamentary days, because we could not know what was happening outside, or what was being talked of in the House. We could know nothing of the protests and memorials that were pouring in, on our behalf, from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, from members of learned societies, and from distinguished men and women of all professions, not only in England but in every country of Europe, from the United States and Canada, and even from India. An international memorial asking that we be treated as political prisoners was signed by such great men and women as Prof. Paul Milyoukoff, leader of the Const.i.tutional Democrats in the Duma; Signor Enrico Ferri, of the Italian Chamber of Deputies; Edward Bernstein, of the German Reichstag; George Brandes, Edward Westermarck, Madame Curie, Ellen Key, Maurice Maeterlinck, and many others. The greatest indignation was expressed in the House, Keir Hardie and Mr. George Lansbury leading in the demand for a drastic revision of our sentences and our immediate transference to the first division. So much pressure was brought to bear that within a few days the Home Secretary announced that he felt it his duty to examine into the circ.u.mstances of the case without delay. He explained that the prisoners had not at any time been forced to wear prison clothes. Ultimately, which in this case means shortly before the expiration of the seven Parliamentary days, we were all three placed in the first division. Mrs. Pethick Lawrence was given the cell formerly occupied by Dr. Jameson and I had the cell adjoining. Mr. Pethick Lawrence, in Brixton Gaol, was similarly accommodated. We all had the privilege of furnis.h.i.+ng our cells with comfortable chairs, tables, our own bedding, towels, and so on. We had meals sent in from the outside; we wore our own clothing and had what books, newspapers and writing materials we required. We were not permitted to write or receive letters or to see our friends except in the ordinary two weeks' routine. Still we had gained our point that suffrage prisoners were politicals.

We had gained it, but, as it turned out, only for ourselves. When we made the inquiry, "Are all our women now transferred to the first division?" the answer was that the order for transference referred only to Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and myself. Needless to say, we immediately refused to accept this unfair advantage, and after we had exhausted every means in our power to induce the Home Secretary to give the other suffrage prisoners the same justice that we had received, we adopted the protest of the hunger strike. The word flew swiftly through Holloway, and in some mysterious way travelled to Brixton, to Aylesbury, and Winson Green, and at once all the other suffrage prisoners followed our lead. The Government then had over eighty hunger strikers on their hands, and, as before, had ready only the argument of force, which means that disgusting and cruel process of forcible feeding. Holloway became a place of horror and torment. Sickening scenes of violence took place almost every hour of the day, as the doctors went from cell to cell performing their hideous office. One of the men did his work in such brutal fas.h.i.+on that the very sight of him provoked cries of horror and anguish. I shall never while I live forget the suffering I experienced during the days when those cries were ringing in my ears. In her frenzy of pain one woman threw herself from the gallery on which her cell opened. A wire netting eight feet below broke her fall to the iron staircase beneath, else she must inevitably have been killed. As it was she was frightfully hurt.

The wholesale hunger strike created a tremendous stir throughout England, and every day in the House the Ministers were hara.s.sed with questions. The climax was reached on the third or fourth day of the strike, when a stormy scene took place in the House of Commons. The Under Home Secretary, Mr. Ellis Griffith, had been mercilessly questioned as to conditions under which the forcible feeding was being done, and as soon as this was over one of the suffragist members made a moving appeal to the Prime Minister himself to order the release of all the prisoners. Mr. Asquith, forced against his will to take part in the controversy, rose and said that it was not for him to interfere with the actions of his colleague, Mr. McKenna, and he added, in his own suave, mendacious manner: "I must point out this, that there is not one single prisoner who cannot go out of prison this afternoon on giving the undertaking asked for by the Home Secretary." Meaning an undertaking to refrain henceforth from militancy.

Instantly Mr. George Lansbury sprang to his feet and exclaimed: "You know they cannot! It is perfectly disgraceful that the Prime Minister of England should make such a statement."

Mr. Asquith glanced carelessly at the indignant Lansbury, but sank into his seat without deigning to reply. Shocked to the depths of his soul by the insult thrown at our women, Mr. Lansbury strode up to the Ministerial bench and confronted the Prime Minister, saying again: "That was a disgraceful thing for you to say, Sir. You are beneath contempt, you and your colleagues. You call yourselves gentlemen, and you forcibly feed and murder women in this fas.h.i.+on. You ought to be driven out of office. Talk about protesting. It is the most disgraceful thing that ever happened in the history of England. You will go down to history as the men who tortured innocent women."

By this time the House was seething, and the indignant Labour member had to shout at the top of his big voice in order to be heard over the din.