MRS. PANKHURST DEFIANT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15235, 24 February 1913, Page 7

MRS. PANKHURST DEFIANT.

"I INCITED THEM."

CHALLENGES ARREST.

"PUT YOU IN THE ZOO."

(Received February 23, 5-5 p.m.) London, February 1 22. Mrs. Pankhurst addressed a crowded meeting in the Chelsea Town Hall last night. A large force of police was stationed outside the hall. The speaker met with a mixed reception. She delivered an hysterica,! speech in which she declared that " women will do their utmost to safeguard human li:"e, but they mean to do everything necessary to settle the status of woman once J:7id for all." Mrs. Pankhurst defied the Government to arrest her. "It is wrong," she said, " that the women, who have committed offerees are sent to prison while I, who incited them, am free. 1 How is the Goveramei. goii»g to end it 1 ? A Voice: Put you in the zoo. (Laughter and uproar). Considerable uproar and an angry demonstration took place outside the hall. A hundred actions are pending against Mrs. Pankhurst and other members of the Women's Social and Political Union. Miss Pankhurst's Campaign. Miss Christabel Pankhurst is delivering addresses at the weekly suffragette meetings. She declares that nothing can be gained without violence, and that they have all the necessary money. If Mrti. Pankhurst, she added, were imprisoned she would let herself die of hunger. The Women's Social and Political Union has established a branch in Paris. The Government lav/ officers are considering the question of taking action . in regard to the recent speech of Mrs, Pankhurst in which she admitted responsibility for the instigation of the bomb outrage at Mr. Lloyd-George's house at Walton. Protests Against Militancy. ¥?:s. Henry Faw< stt, president, of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (a non-militant : body), Lady Betty Balfour and j several other non-militant supporters of women's suffrage are strongly I protesting against Mrs. Pankhun ) methods of violence. ;

Many suffragette advocates and other newspaper correspondent?', in voicing their disapproval of the tactics followed by Mrs. Pa?ikj.v..vst, complain of the Government's ineptitude

Mr. Herbert Samuel, PostmasterGeneral, speaking at Euston. (Suffolk), said that if Parliament sanctioned the suffrage for women it would be putting a premium on disturbances and inviting crime. There was, he said, a growing opinion that it would be wrong to legislate at present, lest this action should encourage men to resort to similar violence. THE PAXKHURST POLICY. Mrs. Pankhurst. in a speech in London about, four months ago, urged in defence of the militant policy of the Women's Social and Political Union (of which she is t.'ic founder and lion, secretary) that, as long as women were "outlaws" they wore justified in open rebellion. She declared that the great, mistake of women in the past was that they had been too law-abiding. She was waiting quite calmly, and with a considerable amount of enjoyment, for the next movement, on the part of "the enemy" with regard to tho rebellion of theirs. Whether (lie enemy attacked them in large numbers or singly they were " armed ( and prepared" for whatever might, happen. They were just as much at war as the people m tho Balkan?, only they fought in a -different way, being women. People said : " But you imperil human, life." All she could say was that, their fight, would bo carried on as it had been, with every kind of regard for human life. They\had every desire to carry it through to success without the loss of any lives, and if there wore any lives to be lost they would be their own. Mi Christabel Pankluirst (organising secretary of the union) is quite as forcible as her mother in the language that she employs in defence of the militant policy. In a letter to a correspondent, about, a year ago she wrote:—"We defy the Government and their stupid and brutal attempts to wear. out. this spirit of our resistant, and stamp out by repression women's demands for political freedom. They will tear the stars from tho sky before they will break the spirit of the women of this country. What, are we ' fighting for? Not for sympathy, not. for facilities, and not for socalled principles. We arc fighting for the vote, and nothing less than the vote. Therefore, until t-h-e measure giving equal voting rights to women is achnllv on the S' - '*" 4 "' Book, we. as self-respecting women, cannot and will not bo at. peace with the Government."