THE BRITISH ELECTIONS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 91, 11 January 1919, Page 4

THE BRITISH ELECTIONS

AND THE '/WOMEN'S VOTE. - The result of the British elections seem to sshow .that the, women's. vote must, have been largely Coalition. It is Very up-'. ,parent that', at the first time of exercising it/at. any rate the . women's. vote could'hot have been solid for the women .'candidates. . The following of .'interest in this connection. Tho Pa'nkhursts mentioned must not bo confused with Sylvia Pankliurst, wild is pacifist, Sinii. Fein,, and anything - else . that is revolutionary. Thire, is a "'growing ; resentment in fetmiiist circles.at the raging propaganda .which',ia..being.carried on by the Pank'hiirsts' to capture; tho women's voto ifor "the Government in the forthcoming elecsays . ah: English writer. Presumably the propagandists have tho beinveiltance of [Downing Street, and they evidcutlj\have tho command of ample funds, but '.tlitjir activity has more zeal than "judgmerit, arid.i&ilkely to weaken rather !thnn strengthen tho Government. ' ; . A specifically'"Women's Party"—wliicli is the title\thoy have arrogated to themselves—is a devdlopment that the responsible and far-Wing feminists have always discouraged asyikely to hinder the propar activity of tiie-.sex in the body politic. It is more thah-. time this'question w!is raised, for what Way fitly be termed, in contemporary .pai ! i/ance, the .Pankliurst stunt" is boing worked in certain quarters with a vigourNand persistence' that ■inevitably challenge examination ahd : inquiry. \ • 1 1 - Super-Pafr.iots, '' In the /past pdlitical.Nhistory' of .Mrs. Pankhurst and Miss Clkistabel Pankhurst there- is littlo n'e\d .to '.inquire'. They do not appear to hlivc identified themselves-prominently with any jvjlitical party, and their relations with Mr; Lloyd George during tho woman suffrage controversy lvero marked _ by incidents th'at could not easily be interpreted : as expressivo of their' admiration and regard for the presont Prime Minister.^ Dnring tho war, however, the two members of the Pankhurst family already named took the field as 'super-patriots}, distinguishing themselves -particularly by" the venom of their attacks (in the pages of their sheet, "Britannia") on Mr; Asquith.and Sir 'Edward : Grey, and other mombers of the Cabinet of the dav. -

About this time—in July, 1915—Mr. Lloyd George, who was then Minister of Munitions, and who had been markedly immuno from .Mrs. Panklnirsfs journalistic .assaults, .agreed to receive 1 a deputation of women .prepared to loffcr for munitions volunteer work, the deputation to lie headed, of course, by 'Mrs. Pankhurst.

The deputation was duly received. It was preceded by an elaborate and extensively organised procession that had evidently taken a great deal of paying forgo much so that one or two members ot tho House of Commons felt the matter worth a question, their curiosity being rewarded by the remarkable admission that the Minister of Munitions himself had authorised payment for this purpose from the public funds—at a time wlieh (to quote tho "Daily .Chronicle" of those days) Mrs. Pankhurst's .paper was regularly publishing "the most falicious attacks on members'of the Government, more particularly atrocious libels 'on Sir Edward Grey." . A Visit to Russia. In Juno, 1017, Mrs. Pankhurst asked tho Prime Minister (not tho Foreign Office) for permission to visit Russia as mouthpiece of "British patriotic women" generally. No other British woman has got to Russia on a political mission, /but: Mrs. Pankhurst got there without the smallest trouble. The War Cabinet (not. the Foreign Office) granted the. necessary •permission. ' / Having thus acquired the taste for travel, Sirs. Pankliurst-dccided about a ; year later to visit America. She was permitted to go—just after a passport had been refused to Miss Margaret Bondfield, a delegate of tho Trade Union -Congress, on the ground that it was undesirable for women to travel by sea—because (according to Mr. Balfour) "it was considered to be in the Allied interest that she should go." Altogether, "the growing resentment in feminist circles" is not altogether surprising, for no other women's organisation has succecded in securing a'tithe of ilie favour accorded in high places- toMrs. Pankhurst and her friends.