SUFFRAGETTE RAID

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1379, 4 March 1912, Page 5

SUFFRAGETTE RAID

WINDOW-SMASHING-SUDDEN DESCENT ON LONDON WITH HAMMERS. EXTRAORDINARY SCENES. By Telejraph—Press Association—Copyrielit (Rec. March 3, 5.5 p.m.) London, March 2. Another great woman suffragist demonstration took placo yesterday- raid was quite unexpected. Hundreds of suffragists sallied out carrying large mull's, in which they had concealed hammers. On a preconcerted signal being given, they smashed hundreds of windows in the Strand and Bond Street. A hundred and twenty-ouo arrests were made, tho prisoners including Mrs. Panklniret, leader of the Women's Political and Social Union, who broke the Premier's windows. After smashing tho windows, Mrs. Pnnklmrst wrenched her arm free from the constable's grasp, and broke a Home Office window. Other women in the meantime broko the Colonial Office windows, and various parties made a rapid descent on private premises and large stores .'at different

points. Tho wrecked windows include those' in tho premises of Messrs. Stewart Dawson end Co., the Canadian-Pacific Railway Co., tho Kodak Depot, the Civil Service Stores, Messrs. Duveen Brothers,. Liberty's, all the loading drapers' and furniture warehouses in Oxford Street, ami the Post Office in Regent Street and Charing Cross. The women arrived in fashionable vehicles, and entered the shops ostensibly to make purchases. Suddenly they smashed tho windows of rows of shops in Bond Street. Carpenters were employed throughout tho night barricading the broken fronts. Tho damage is estimated at -£4000. , Miss Christabol Pankhurst stated that, as the miners were getting legislation hecause they had made themselves a nuisance, the women had been incited to act similarly.

STONES AS AN ARGUMENT. THE NOVEMBER RAID. Tho raid is largely a repetition of that on November 21, when organised windowsmashing was resorted to by the suffragettes for the first time. Miss Christabel Pankhurst, in an interview the day aftfr the raid, said: "Stone-throwing is a tiinehonoural method of political agitation. It is, judging by history, the most effective substitute for the vote. Tho men of to-day owe their votes largely to the fact that their forefathers were brave enough to throw stones and tako the consequences. Such are tho only arguments the politicians understand."

In the November demonstration, some 220 women succeeded in setting themselves arrested. Early in the evening a meeting of women was held in a centrally located hall. After listening to liory speeches and adopting a denunciatory resolution the body of women set out to march to the Houses of Parliament with the intentiun of forcing their way to the floor of the House of .Commons and presenting their resolution to tho leaders of the Government. There had been nothing secret about the plans for the evening,- and tho authorities were thoroughly prepared to ■ cope with the situation. While futile assaults were being made on the police, other women were engaged in smashing windows. "With stones and hammers they shattered pane after pans of glass in the Government, buildings up and down Parliament Street, in the National Club, and even in a hotel, a restaurant, a newspaper odice, and shops along the Strand. The, police were so well prepared and handled tho women so well that at no time was there any possibility that they would succeed, in penetrating to the House of Commons. The, purpose of this assault was a protest against the refusal of the Prime Minister to go as far as the militant Suffragettes desired in promising facilities for the discussion of woman suffrage legislation at the next session of . Parliament. Tho occasion of the protest was a declaration by Mr. Asquith that at the session'of Parliament next vear a Bill would be introduced to provide manhood suffrage. At the same time ho announced that the Bill would be introduced in such form that amendments extending the suffrage to women might bo made when the Bill was before tho Commons, if the majority in the Commons were in favour of it. The leaders of tho militant suffrage party immediately declared that they rejected "with contempt the proposal that women should depend for their enfranchisement upon tho mere amendment to the Reform Bill." Their demand was that tho Government "take full responsibility for enfranchising women."

A SUFFRAGETTE AUTOCRACY. In a leading article on the raid, the "Manchester Guardian" said:—"Unhappily tho organisation of the Women's Social and Political Union is an extraordinarily narrow one. It is completely

dominated by at tho outside four persons; it has no constitution—none, at least, which gives any sort of representation or power to the general bedy of its members; it has not even, so far we are aware, any roll of membership; and it is as complete in autocracy as tho Salvation Army itself, which in many respects —in its emotionalism, its unconventionality, and the secrecy of its inner councils —it closely resembles. To these characteristics it no doubt owes much of its success. Discipline, continuity, swiftness must in any militant organisation carry with them 'conspicuous advantages. But in a political society they have their corresponding defects. Tco much depends on the judgment and temper of a very few persons, and these almost necessarily move in a too narrow circle of admirers and devotees, and the sense of reality is lost. It is difficult in any other way to account for the mistakes which have now been made and the wild outbreak of irrational anger which found expression in the tumult of yesterday."