SUFFRAGETTES AND SUFFRAGISTS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 15160, 2 October 1913, Page 11

SUFFRAGETTES AND SUFFRAGISTS.

LADY STOUT'S ADDRESS AT ■.' T: 'i .--.= ' TEMUKA. 7 a a . ■. ■ ■

The Parish IlalL Temuka, was'comf ortabiy hued on. Tuesday evening, wg.en Laidy btouV delivered-'"an interesting address on ' 'The Campaign in England for tne Enlrancnisement ol Women." Mrs G- ■ W. Arinitage, President of .the Temuka branch or the Women's Social and Political Union, introduced the speaker, and promised.tihe audience a treat; which promise was fulfilled. Lady Stout, who has a very pleasant manner and- appearance, early Capti. vated! her audience, and her were frequently received with rounds of applause. She commenced by congratulating the. Temuka branch of the Women's Social and Political. Union upon its promising birth, and emphasised the point that it was women's duty to steer cletacr of the mire of party politics,, and to devote their attention to those moral and: social reforms that intimately concerned every woman's duty to her children, home and country. Even wbenjier husband was Prime Minister of New Zealand she /Lady Stout) was strongly opposed to party politics, and had been so ever since. Without the power that lay behind the vote women could not hope to achieve any definite, permanent improvement or reform in the social arid moral conditions which constituted an environment for their young people. Up to the year 1832 women in England had the vote—on a property qunEncartion. A so-called "Liberal" Government deprived them of that measure of franchise. In 1866 the first suffrage League came into existence—a perfectly peaceful, ladylike organisation, which along with other similarly ladylike organisa-tion-sent" ten thousand (10,000) petitions .to Parliament. • The 10,000 petitions and the ladylike methods had no effect. Then Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter decided that new methods were necessary,' and- in 1903 started a serosa of meetings, at which they were pelted with rubbish and stones. Then Miss Ghristabel Pankhurst (a talented young woman who had taken her law degree with honours in Constitutional 'History)/and Miss Annie Kenny (representing 95,000. Lancashire Women Wdrkera) went to S:r Edward Grey's meeting, at question time, asked whether: Sir E. Grey's Government would give women, .the vote. Their wrifc. j ten. questions were put into the waste- ! paper basket. Dozens of questions, ,on "all sorts of subjects, put by men/in the audience, were answered promptly, and civilly. The men had the vote! The women had no vote and their questions ! were treated with contempt. Seeing' iow they-were being treated Miss Pank,' I hurst and Miss Kenny' repeated their I questions verbairy. Their were immediupon by the Liberal -stewards, Dunchßd and kicked .and thrown 9 n s, '.?? the building. Those indignities and the shocking 'treatment accorded two/women who had mereJy asked civil questions, 'saw the birth of miktency in the suffragette movement. It was-thus not violence "by" women, but-violence '."to" womenthat started militancy: Lady Stout -here touched upon the early movements of militancy, and the distinction between the suffragist and the suffragette. The former was one who believed in peaceful methods, the "'saying""" of ''thank you" for-the votevthat' she | hadn't got;-the latter believed in the aggressive tactics of militancy-&s the only method by which .England could be .roused from its lethargy, womaiv given -the- Tote,: arid [dreadful moral and social' ""evils i <*-*&*. Old Land be . gripped with i fi. ■ hai] tf- The speaker recounted | tno five promises publicly ' made arid i broken by Mr Asquith ok the subject of women's suffrage, the.various biUathat. had progressed to the second readiag, there to.be-deliberately killed at.the call of party ! rubbish to contend that a great reform of this kind could be carried in England by peaceful means, \; and Lady Stout -quoted the late Mr Gladstone, Mr Lloyd George and other§, to prove that no progress of-any note hadever been achieved without violence. The suffragettes refused ; ;.tb : eat;-in;; the prisons because they were not treated as pofitifcal prisoners, but as ordinary criminals. When John Burns led a riot in London he was treated as a •political prisoner,; had his own furniture, his. own choice of food, Ms' own Jbooks and his own clothes. When Mre Pankhurst and other suffragettes:went to gaol, they were compelled to wear prisoners' clothes, and livedo under all the ordinary of the criminal prisoner. But then Mr Burns and his I followers. had the vote' Mrs Pankhurst and her followers had no vote, and were' 'tretated Following upon the abandonment of forcible, feeding, come the "Cat - and: Mouse Bill," an nnfambus creation that provided for sick,suffragettes being sent to a. private andimmediately they' were restored "to health, - .being restored also to prisons. The cat and the mouse surely 1 'The suffragettes nevor died in prison; the Government saw to that. Many, however, • died in private hospitals after thecr removal fron the prisons, and among those were Mrs Pankhurst's sister, and Miss Wil'iams..

Reverting to the militant-methods and alleged destruction of 'property by suffragsitcs, Lady Stout warned her audience against crediting what : they ■ read: in the newspapers. Pretty well every fire, robbery, boyish pfaik, etc., was cabled out as the work of the suffragettes. As tt matter of-fact, the man who had robbed and set fire to. so many churches had been dis- < covered," as also had the perpetrators j of much other mischief. Yet all these ' outrages were- originally cabled out as "suffragette madness;" but. the discoveries, proving otherwise, had rarely troubLod the e»ble-sehder3. The policy of the suffragette forbade any tactics calculated tq tendanger huma,:i life or to inflict useless damago. The euf£ra- : getie bombs, consisting of jam tins -with" a little cotton wasta, coal dust, and fuse had never been known to explode. (Laughter.) ~ Th&y merely served their xrarpose in advertising tho movement. The big shop-owners, after having their shop windows broken, had so appreciated the good advertisement they got, and the oause of the suffragettes, that they had sent beg donations to the suffragette ba&aars. Whit*l»y , s, Robinson's, Barclay's, and others, were among: the big firms who had so acted. was the contrast afforded between the treatment accorded Sir IS. Carson and"Mass Sylvia, Rankhurst. Tho one, a man guilty of high treason, was unmolested; the other. «n Englishwwoman, guilty of exercising a British right of free ■ speech, was maltreated, thrown, into prison, and treated like a. felon. The cablegrams told them nothing of the great body of eminent men behind the movement for the enfrftnchiirement of women, of the enormous mass meetings held all over the country; of the fact that every prominent city and county council had petitioned the Government in -its favour. It "had been clearly shown that two-thirds of; the man of the United Kingdom were in favour of -women.-having the vote: yet a pigheaded Tory (Mr Asquith) and hk Go* yernmee.t persisted- in sailing on to their doom. In conclusion, Ladv Stout touched "the social conditions in London's slums, tais snares for girls, the necessity for women to rise above party polrtios; and everywhere combine in the great' movement for the social and jribraT uplifting of the race. .The " suffrage movement at Home was not a mere " Votes for Women " movement, but a mighty awakening of women to a sem» w their responsibilities, and a demand, ih»t the way should \}t cleared