The March of the Suffragist.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 8, 19 August 1908, Page 8

The March of the Suffragist.

For a full hour on Saturday afternoon ( writes our London correspondent on June 19) I watched a procession of ten thousand women, marching four abreast, pass up Northumberland Avenue on its way to the Albert Hall. It was one of the most impressive sights that London has provided in recent years. Neither London nor any other part of the world has ever seen the like of it before. Ten thousand women of every class in society, representing the pick of feminine intelligence and capacity, were marching to demand the vote. This was the prompt and impressive response to Mr Asquith’s challenge to the women to show that there was a real demand for the franchise. The monster procession was organised and carried out by women with a completeness and a degree of success that equalled anything of the kind that has been attempted by men. It demonstrated beyond all argument that so far at any rate as educated and intellectual women are concerned, there is an overwhelming demand to be placed on a political equality with the men, against whom they have to compete in industry, commerce, and the professions. These were no “shrieking sisters,” no unsexed notoriety-hunters, but an army of orderly, respectable, earnest, capable women, many of them highly educated, many of them women of distinction in various professional walks of life. The number of women doctors and graduates who walked in the procession in cap and gowm was a revelation to the London crowd. Those who had come to jeer were moved to a sort of sheepish admiration by the sight, and aw T ed into respect-

ful silence. I do really believe that the sight of the strong, clever faces amongst that array of lady doctors in their robes and gowns gave a shock to the selfesteem of the man in the street, and made him feel that perhaps after all these learned women were just as much entitled to a vote as himself. He did not submit with a very good grace. He tried to pass it off with a smile. But at the back of his mind there must have been an uneasy feeling that it was rather hoggish to assume that he ought to have a vote, and that they ought not. The women were grouped in companies, according to their professions and occupations, and each company carrie.d a beautiful silk banner bearing an emblem of their calling. There were musicians, artists, women doctors, actresses, women writers, nurses, teachers, women gardeners, typists, factory hands, representatives of women’s political societies, and a contingent of Australian women, whose banner bore the device, “Trust the women, Mother, as we have done.” The procession was led by Mrs. Henry Fawcett, LL.D., Lady Frances Balfour, Miss Emily Davies, the veteran founder of Girton College, Lady Henry Somerset, and Dr Anna Shaw, the most distinguished woman speaker of the United States. Dr Garrett Anderson led the women doctors, and the dramatic authors included Miss Cicely Hamilton, Mrs Alfred Lyttelton, and Miss Gertrude Kingston. Mrs. Despard, the sister of General Sir John French, was at the head of the Women’s Freedom League, and in the Fabian Women’s group marched Mrs Pember Reeves, wife of the New Zealand High Commissioner, and Mrs IL G. Wells, wife of the. celebrated author. All the banners and bannerets, to the number of about a thousand, were designed and made by women. The crowds along the route were inclined to be facetious, but the humour was of a poor quality, and fell rather flat. The fact is that the display simply took them by surprise and overwhelmed them. It was only callow youths who attempted jokes and gibes. The men watched the long procession go by in respectful silence, and many women waved their handkerchiefs. - Here and there a group of Socialists raised a cheer, and sang “The Red Flag.” On

the whole, there was not much enthusiasm, but there was present an element hitherto lacking in London's treatment of the women suffragists—respect. The demonstration his converted three more of the London newspapers—the “Morning Post,” the “Daily Graphic,* and the “Daily Express”—to the principle of woman's suffrage. Presently the poor old “Times” will find itself is a minority of one.