“ALIEN’S” LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3017, 10 January 1912, Page 75

“ALIEN’S” LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

November 24. The voice of the women has been loud in the land this week. Vote or no vote, the day is past for ever when women will tamely accept man-made law, and on two points this week they have risen and fought, and with their fighting has gone both self-sacrifice and money. The first protest is against the Manhood Suffrage Bill, which proposes to give all males the vote to the exclusion of women. The Prime Minister received the deputation of Suffragettes, which numbered about 40, at No. 10 Downing street, but Mr Asquith’s reply was unsatisfactory, as he gave no definite promise. If they could persuade a majority of members of the House next session to introduce women’s suffrage, into the Reform Bill, the Government would abide by the decision. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Lloyd George) was present with Mr Asquith, and Mrs Asquith and Miss Asquith were interested listeners to the discussion. Introduced by Mrs Fawcett, the first spokeswoman (Miss Christabal Pankhurst) said nothing else would satisfy her or the Suffragettes but equal rights to man and woman. Their demand was for womanhood suffrage. Mrs Pethick Laurance said the only terms of peace they' would accept were those stated. Lady Selborne, Lady Betty Balfour, and Mrs Despard also spoke strongly, the latter putting in a plea on behalf of the poorer class of women. Mr Asquith said that it was the most eloquent speech he had listened to, and it was impossible to listen to such speeches as they had heard without being convinced of the intensity of feeling that prompted the speakers. -Miss Pankhurst said they were not satisfied. In response to a request for a speech, Mr Lloyd George avoided any definite statement, and advised the deputation to fa like course. “I say now, and with 21 years’ experience of Parliament,” he remarked, “do not commit ydurselvce too readily to the statement that this is a trick upon woman suffrage. If yon find next year as a result of this ‘trick’ that several millions of women have been admitted to the franchise in a bill, that this bill lias been sent to the Homo of Lor do, and that the Government stand - by the bill whatever the Holds may do, then those who commit themselves to this injudicious suggestion will look very foolish.” But the women have lost their faith in the Chancellor of the Exchequer—the majority, a-nyway. Meetings were held by the various Suf frage Societies after the deputation left Downing street. The National Union of Woman’s Suffrage issued a statement that the Executive Committee, while continuing to urge that women should be included in the proposed Electoral Reform Bill, “holds that the statement made to-day by tlie Prime Minister and Mr Lloyd George renders it almost certain that the enfranchisement of women will be- realised in the roar 1912, either by an amendment to the Reform Bill or by the Conciliation Bill.” The Women’s Social and Political Union, on the other hand, however, doesn’t believe a word of the half-promises, and regards the Government as distinctly hostile to the claims of women, and decided to demonstrate in Parliament square on Tuesday. The demonstration, although announced, came as somewhat of a surprise —or, rather, the method of it, —for, although the raid on the House of Commons was prepared for and quelled, there was serious rioting over a laige area of the West End, where the police were not prepared for the onslaught on Governmentproperty. Not only were all the windows of the Government offices broken by stones, but the Hot spread from Parliament square and Parliament street right down the Strand and Victoria street, where wrecking was done on an extensive scale. The windows of clubs, post offices, newspaper offices, restaurants, and the private residences of Ministers were broken. A strong cordon of police drawn across Do-'nine-street protected the Prime Ministers house, but as far away as Battersea the windows of Mr John Burns’s house were broken, and also t*yse of Lord Haldane in Queen’s Gate. In Whitehall and Parliament street the windows of the War Office. Treasury, Admiralty, Home Office. Local Government Board, Scottish Office, tile National Lib ra! Club on the ground floor of the Treasury had not a window left intact. Somerset House and many post offices were damaged. This organised raid of stonethrowing in widely-spread localities had not been anticipated. Quiet, well-dressed women moving in ones and twos a.mtmg the crowd were armed with handbags of stones, and some with hammers. Before the raid was over 220 Suffragettes were arrested out of some th’oucan ds,- among them the leader of the party who tried to storm the House of Commons, Mrs Pethick Laurance and Lady Constance Lytton and the H’on. Evelina. Haverfiekl, daughter of the Baron Abingcr, Evelyn Sharp (novelist), and many well-known women from Clement’s Inn. It was a clear, cold, wintry evening, and, knowing of the Suffragettes intended demonstration against the Manhood Suffrage Bill, a large concourse of people" had collected in the vicinity of Parliament House and the Abbey. It was about 8 o’clock when the rush began, and the )K)lice cleared Parliament square. At the head of the raid in a tumultuous swaying sea of women. Mrs Pethick Laurance, white and determined led the women to battle. And what a resolute battle! Quite regardless of personal hurt—and women shrink from physical violence, —they charged the mounted police and stalwart officers*—delicately-bred women many of them, but their ‘ small white hands had the tenacity of their purpose, and their strength was the strength of enthusiasm rendered desperate by years of thwarted

(Specially Written for the Witness Ladies’ Pago.)

THE VOICE OF THE WOMEN.

hope and endeavour. Right under the horses’ feet they pressed, and were driven back from the sacred St. Stephen’s, Temple of Man. One of the most courageous 'of that company of women was a cripple, who charged the police with her chair, which she drove at them valiantly, until at last she was arrested and, chair and all, lifted over the heads of a protesting crowd. A moment of painful excitement stirred the surging throng when a report was heard near Westminster Abbey, and another and a no; her, and white smoke was seen to ascend. Rut it was nothing more serious than tire taking of flashlight photographs of the scene for newspaper illustrations. There were some who were rear enough to hear the reports above the din who feared that shots had been fired. Amid the surge of determined women, Airs Pethick Laurance, surrounded by police, strove in vain to break free, and reluctantly—for she is greatly respected—the officer gave orders for her arrest, and the cordon of police, who could not be moved by her followers, opened to pass her to the police station. Meanwhile tumultuous crowds had swept to Parliament street and Whitehall and elsewhere, where there had been comparative quiet. Then came a roar of voices, the smashing of glass, and confusion. Each militant woman scattered over a large area threw stones; white-haired women, who had perchance tremblingly, though bravely, done their duty, were rescued by younger women, or their rescue was attempted. Suffragettes have some sense of humour, ears one comment in the Daily Chronicle. “In the scuffle on Tuesday night was a fine lump of a woman, and near her a wizzened, decrepit male. “Don t you wish vou were a man?” said the little man jestingly to her. She replied, ‘‘Don’t ‘ The arrested Suffragettes are being dealt with in the various courts, and, ns many hundreds of pounds’ worth of damage has been done, it seems that Holloway Prison will be full for Christmas. . The other war of w.omen which is claiming public attention throughout Britain" this week, to the exclusion ot minor topics, is the revolt against the clause of Mr Lloyd George 6 National Insurance Bill, which, if passed, will make it compulsory on all mistresses and maids throughout the kingdom to pay to the insurance fund, the former fur employing servants, and the latter for being employed. Already most employers of labour are paying the 2s 6d insurance premium a year for servants anti charwomen, etc., to secure them aid in the case of accident, but this new proposed tax (for .so it is called) is to provide servants who are ill with 7s 6d a week, with Government medical attendance for six months, and disablement benefit of five shillings a week for so long as the illness continues, and to provide°fcr the unfit, and to swell the Budget by the surplus over and above this'’provision, the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes a tax of £1 6s on every servant throughout the land over 16 years, including charwomen engaged at regular intervals, window-cleaners, jobbing gardeners. etc. The proposed tax is ; —For everv servant employed sixpence a week must be paid, threepence by the mistress and threepence by the servant. The manner of payment must he in sixpenny stamps attached to a book by the mistress each week, with the lawful right of deducting half the amount from the wages of the servant. If the mistresses do not keep such a stamp book, which will entitle the servant to Government provision in illness, the servant shall have the right to sue the mistress, and a fine of £lO can he imposed. In the original clause of the bill which, owing to public revolt. h"~ undergone amendments, it was suggested that an inspector should have the right of entering any house to make sure whether a servant was kept or not. But that the mistresses would not submit to. The Englishman’s house, whether a mansion or a cottage, has hitherto been his castle, and against the right of Government officials to intrude and pry on their domestic affairs the wives and mistresses of mansion and cottage protest, and in hundreds of thousands, against a tax which ignores the fact that good mistresses provide for -rood servants in their homes, with medical attendance and nursing in eases of illness. The protest is that every mistress who provides for her servants,' and every efficient servant throughout the Kingdom pay 13s a year for the physically unfit. In the bulk these unfit are drawn* from undesirable parentage—offspring cf the unfit. The public have their own remedy, it is suggested. If the mistresses of every Unionist household in the country refused, with their maids, to pay the tax, the Government could not prosecute half fhe nation. The mistresses protest against the insult of the bill, which assumes that no provision is made by them for their servants in times of illness, and the servants protest against the tax, which will reduce their wages. The suggestion to get up a women’s and householders’ petition against the tax was quickly responded to. The Government favours strikers, it is urged, and why should the employers be the only ones not to strike? A house-to-house petition was urged, so as to obtain the real mind of the public, on this vexed question. It is not only the tax that is objected to, but the loss of independence of the home. The maids assort that they will be worse off than at present, as whereas now they are in innumerable instances taken care of by mistresses during illness, the allowance" by Government of 7s 6d a tveek during illness would not provide the same comfort. Many have no homes to go to, and many others have only poor homes at long distances, where good bed and board

and attendance could not be forthcoming. Wnat the servants object to most is that when they are out of employment they must pay the 6d per -week themselves. And mistresses of the poorer order, who only employ a young girl, or a char-, woman to assist with the housework, will in numerous cases do without that assistance if the bill becomes law. The agitation against the bill has reached almost national proportions. The Dowager Countess of Dessart and Lady Brassey have organised a mass meeting of mistress and maids, which is to be held in the Albert Hall. Women of all views and parties have united for this purpose. Prominent names on the committee are Winifred, Countess of Arren, Lady Tweedy, the Hon. Mrs Charles Eliot, Mrs Anstruther, and others, and among many giving support is Lady Dorothy Nevill, Lady Maud Capcl, Lady Alfred Paget, Lady Evans, the Countess of March, Lady Jepson, the Hon. Mrs Eustace Fitzgerald, and Lady Grevellee. Mistresses are asked not only to be present at the meeting themselves, but to give their servants also an opportunity to bo present, to hear the various aspects of the question diseased. A fund opened for the insurance tax protest expenses has within a few days amounted to thousands of pounds., contributions varying from £IOO to 6d. The Tunes says:—“Anyone who underrates this domestic uprising will make a great mistake. It has its root in a sentiment which is extraordinarily sensitivo and tenacious among the peppy of these islands. The insurance scheme touches the sanctum of the home where women hold their sway. It comes into the servants’ hall, the area, and, the most intimate of all, the kitchen—that feminine stronghold in every Pome, —and interferes with the relations of mistress and maid. Both resent it passionately —the maid, perhaps, more than the mistress. It may l>c oaid that the last Compensation Act did the same, but there is no analogy at all. What happened under the Compensation Act —which lias been no great success, by the way—was that tire master of the house paid so much a year to an insurance company, and no one else heard anything more about it. The weekly or monthly mutual stamping of cards and the deductions from wages are a very different thing. And there is the threat of interference by an inspector. The private bonne is now exenrpted from his personal intrusion, but he may come prying about to find out if servants are insured, and may prosecute if they are not. Householders in Germany put up with it, hut they have been brought up for generations to submit to innumerable regulations that would n'ot be tolerated here. They would feel lost if they did not Lave to fill up cards and satisfy the police about all sorts of personal details. Our women have no such experience, and their resentment is intelligible.”