FEEDING THE SUFFRAGETTES

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14219, 16 November 1909, Page 6

FEEDING THE SUFFRAGETTES

INDIGNANT JOURNALISTS. [FROM our own correspondent,

London, October 8. The feeding by artificial means of suffragettes in Winsor Green Prison, Birmingham, has brought down a torrent of abuse upon Mr. Gladstone, the Home Secretary. One by one the right honourable gentleman has dealt with the devices of the suffragettes to evade the police in the first plaoe, to disturb meetings, and to obtain their release from prison. The starvation scheme proved thoroughly successful. Quite a handful of the ladies, refusing to take food, had ■to bo released on account of their health. At length the Winsor Green officials thought of resorting to the feeding-cup and the stomach-pump. Violent protests were made. Every day for a week Mr. Gladstone had to defend the practice on the floor of the House. He declared that it had been in vogue for both malo and female prisoners for years. Tho most interesting protest of all was that of two well-known journalists, who resigned their positions as leader-writers on the Daily News. One is Mr. H. N. Brailsford, who has some reputation as an authority on Eastern matters, and who is, incidentally, a relative of Mr. J. A. Brailsford, a young New Zealand journalist now in San Francisco. The other is Mr. H. W. Nevinson, an experienced war correspondent, and author of a batch of books of travel and others. He it was who called forth a personal rebuke from Mr. Lloyd-George for protesting against tho treatment of disturbing suffragettes at the great meeting at the Albert Hall last winter. " Lest we should seem in our strictures on Liberalism and its organs in the press to be guilty of ah inconsistency," they write, we wish to take this opportunity of stating that, despite our warm approval of. the budget, we have resigned our positions as leaderwriters on the Daily News. We cannot denounce torture in Russia and, support it in England* nor can we advocate democratic principles in tho name of a party which confines them to a single sex."