THE FRANCHISE DEBATE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 19, 21 January 1913, Page 6

THE FRANCHISE DEBATE.

PtfEOAIUTIONS AGAINST LAWLESSNESS.

<By Efcetric Teitegntph. —Copyright.) (United Ureas Association.) (Received 9.40 a.ln.) London, January 20.

The police nave taken elaborate precautions against lawlessness following the franchise debate, and members of the Cabinet'are closely guarded. Some of their lives have been threatened. Members on the front benches hold divided opinions regarding Sir E. Urey's amendment to omit the word "male,” ahd'the vote will be left to the House absolutely ,

SUFFRAGETTES’ PUNISHMENT

A number of people have been writing to the newspapers With the object of assisting the Government to hnd a means Ct making “the punishment fit the crime” (writes a London Correspondent). These correspondents are very much in earnest, but for the most part their sugestions are amusing without being helpful. Several of them haVe suggested that the surfragettes found guilty of criminal offences should be subjected to corporal punishment. Their proposals vaiy between five and twenty strokes with 'thC birch, ’but they would not be averse to more drastic methods being employed 'if federate punishment tailed in its object. Some of the other coirespondents have suggested that the suffragettes should be banished from the country. One •of them states that the militants should be transported, to a lohely island in the I acme, and made as comfortable as possible, and left to govern themselves without iiiterierence xrom the male sex. ihe lirifist dighified suggestion offered is that, the womanhood of the country should organise protests of a non-poli-tical 'character at. the hooliganism ot the militants, so that it might be denibnstrated, perhaps to the enlightenment of the militants themselves, that the wdlhanhood of th© nation, so far from regarding them as martyrs, disown them tis advocates of the cause of Women. Mr Yicarv Gibbs, a former member of the Souse of Commons, declares that, although th© hunger strikers can resist the pangs of Hunger no one can resist the pangs of thirst. He suggests that a bowl of fnilk Should be placed each day m the cells of imprisoned suffragettes. If no other food,or drink were furnished they would drink the milk, and a milk diet would be sufficient to sustain life fbr twelve months or more. He points out that it would be necessary that the prisoners should have no water for washing until the milk had Been consumed each day.