The Women's Victory—and After: Personal Reminiscences, 1911-1918

Lord Selborne, as Minister of Agriculture, gave unstinted praise to women's work on farms, and said he had heard nothing but unqualified praise of the hundreds of women thus employed.

All the foregoing we were able to reckon among the supporters of women's political enfranchisement. But we began to be aware of a new note among the voices that go to make up public opinion when we discovered commercial and financial magnates, managers of railways and other great industrial concerns, and old-fashioned country gentlemen not hitherto connected in any way with our political aims, joining in the chorus which was now loudly chanting the praises of women's work.

A very interesting and important article on Women in Industry will be found in the Quarterly Review, July, 1919, by Sir Lynden Macassey, Chairman of the National Tribunal on Women's Wages, Chairman of the Clyde Dilution Commission, and a member of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry. In this Quarterly article, among other significant things, he says that by the end of the war "women had literally leapt as agents of production, and by inherent economic powers and aptitude, into a position of eminence in the economic world previously undreamt of even by themselves" (p. 79). On another page he says that, "where the work required constant alertness, a sure, deft touch, delicacy of manipulation – in short, a combination of quick intelligence and manual dexterity within a limited ambit – women were invariably superior to men" (p. 81). I, for one, can never believe that any Act of Parliament can thrust women back into the industrial morass in which they were stifled before the war.

Lord Revelstoke, speaking as an expert on finance, said that the tapping of the "new reservoir" of women's labour had saved the financial situation by enabling the country to keep up the volume of its exports. Even Lord Curzon, Chairman of the Antisuffrage League, and Mr. Asquith, our chief political adversary, surprised us by joining with Mr. Balfour in signing a letter to the Press containing a strong appeal for funds for the extension of the buildings of the London School of Medicine for Women. "Is Saul also among the prophets?" we asked each other. Mr. Walter Long, at that date an opponent of our enfranchisement, included women in his National Register Bill, saying that women themselves had made an almost unanimous demand for this, and he would look upon their exclusion "as a serious rebuff wholly unjustifiable in face of the splendid services which they had rendered already to the prosecution of the war." Mr. Walter Long, too, had greatly delighted us at a meeting in Grosvenor House to promote the employment of women on the land by exclaiming that, although the movement was going on well, "yet there were still, unfortunately, villages to be found where the women had become imbued with the idea that woman's place is home." "That idea," he added, "must be met and combated."

Even more extraordinary, however, were the signs which now began to be seen of Mr. Asquith's change of view. This was first foreshadowed in his words spoken in the House of Commons on the heroic death of Edith Cavell in September, 1915. Referring to what that year had produced to justify "faith in the manhood and womanhood of our people," he added, speaking particularly of Miss Cavell: "She has taught the bravest man amongst us a supreme lesson of courage; yes, and in this United Kingdom and throughout the Dominions of the Crown there are thousands of such women, but a year ago we did not know it." We suffragists rejoiced in this change of tone. At the same time, we wondered where he could have lived all his sixty odd years without discovering that courage was not the exclusive attribute of the male sex. At this time – 1916, 1917 – conversions of important public men and of newspapers came in, not by twos and threes, but by battalions. The Press became full of wonderful instances of women's courage and capacity, and told of nurses standing back from the lifeboats of a torpedoed ship, who, when the word went forth, "Save the women first," gave the reply, "Fighting men first; they are the country's greatest need." The Prefect of Constanza was quoted, who saw the work of our women orderlies in connection with the Scottish Women's Hospitals, and said: "It is extraordinary how these women endure hardships; they refuse help, and carry the wounded themselves. They work like navvies. No wonder England is a great country if the women are like that." Another instance of the courage of women which deeply affected public opinion was afforded at an inquest on the bodies of the victims of an explosion at a shell factory in the North of England. Twenty-six women had been killed, and about thirty injured. The behaviour of the women was declared to be worthy of the highest praise. "They displayed the greatest coolness and perfect discipline, both in helping to remove the injured and in continuing to carry on the work of the factory." It was announced in the Press that Sir Douglas Haig would be asked to let the men at the front know of the courage and spirit which animated their womenfolk at home. Our feeling about all this was, not that women had changed, but that the public attitude towards them and appreciation of them had changed.

Among the conversions to suffrage views at this time, none were more valuable to us than those of which we had evidence in the Press. Our old friends the Manchester Guardian, the Daily News, the Aberdeen Free Press, the Nation, the New Statesman, etc., stood by us, and were more valued than ever; but we welcomed new recruits in The Times, the Daily Mail, the Globe, the Evening News, and Observer. Miss Violet Markham, once a chief among the antisuffragists, was known to have withdrawn her opposition. Her war work had brought her in contact with some of our most active societies, and she was understood to have said that she would never in future say anything against suffragists. Her conversion may be assumed to have been fairly complete, as she consented to stand as a Liberal candidate for the Mansfield Division of Nottinghamshire at the General Election in December, 1918. One of our chief opponents in the Press was reported to have said: "The women were wonderful! Their adaptability, freshness of mind, and organizing skill were magnificent. Men were making too great a mess of the world, and needed helpers without their own prejudices, idleness, and self-indulgence."

The conversion of other well-known public men, formerly our opponents, became known about this time. Among these may be mentioned Lord Derby and his brother, Sir Arthur Stanley, Chairman of the British Red Cross and St. John of Jerusalem Nursing Association; Lord Faber, Mr. Winston Churchill, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Sir Croydon Marks. Two former antisuffragists, both Members of Parliament, one a Liberal and the other a Conservative, may be quoted as representative of what was going on in men's minds. The Liberal, who had hitherto pleaded militancy as an excuse for his antisuffragism, said at the annual meeting of Liberals in his constituency: "Any party which did not realize that the women had made good their cause by their services where they had formerly spoilt it by their threats must be blind"; and he held there should be no widening of the franchise for men without bringing in women on the same terms. The Conservative said simply: "I have always been an antisuffragist, but the women have served their country so magnificently that after this I shall support giving them the vote."

It is very significant that, while these wholesale conversions were taking place in this country, thus preparing the way for a sweeping victory for women's suffrage in the House of Commons, a similar change, brought about by similar causes, had already, in 1916, taken place in Canada. In that year a great suffrage movement swept over Canada, like a mighty wind, from the West to the East. One after another, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and British Columbia enfranchised their women. In British Columbia, a referendum (only men voting) showed a majority of more than two to one for women's franchise, and the soldiers' vote, which came in later, only swelled the large majority. Ontario followed. The late Sir Wilfred Laurier, once Liberal Premier, announced his conversion. He had for years been an important opponent.

The Nova Scotia legislature passed a Women's Suffrage Bill without opposition; and in May, 1917, Sir Robert Borden announced his intention to introduce a women's suffrage measure for the whole of Canada, thus giving women the federal vote. This intention was faithfully carried into effect in time for women to vote at the General Election, which was held in 1917. The Province of Alberta, in the meantime, had bettered its own record by returning a lady, Miss Roberta Catherine MacAdams, to its Legislative Assembly. An interesting feature of her election was that she was chosen entirely by men who were performing military service in Europe. There were twenty men candidates and one woman, and Miss MacAdams was elected. Thus the whole Empire seemed by one impulse to be moving in the direction of women's enfranchisement.

About this time a professional man of wide outlook and long experience wrote:

"One of the greatest benefits which I look for from the war is that women will come by their own. The tribute to the efficiency of women's work now being paid by managers of railways and munition works – many of them unwilling witnesses – are most hopeful signs. After this it seems impossible that women should be denied their fair share in the national councils. This opens a wide vista of other resulting reforms, which almost makes one wish to be young again, so that one might see what will happen in the next fifty years."

Women did come by their own, not quite directly, but through "the verdurous gloom and winding mossy ways" of the parliamentary wrangle over the Special Register Bill and the Speaker's conference to be described in the next chapter.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAST PHASE

"It consists of an influx – whence or why none can tell – of a wave of vitality. It is as if from the central heart of life a ray broke suddenly upon the world, inspiring men to feel deeply, to live greatly, to do nobly. It makes men. It is not made by men."

Without belittling the importance of the wave of enthusiasm for women's enfranchisement which swept over the English-speaking world in 1916, it is impossible to disguise the fact that we in England won our battle at the exact moment we did in consequence of the absolute necessity under which the Government laboured of producing a new parliamentary register and a new voting qualification for men. For this meant that a real reform of the representation of the people was required; and the previous stages of our political struggle had demonstrated that when once the franchise question was dealt with by Parliament it would be impossible any longer to neglect the claims of women.

It will be remembered that so long ago as 1892 Mr. A. J. Balfour had said in a suffrage debate in Parliament:

"If any further alteration of the franchise is brought forward as a practical measure, this question [the enfranchisement of women] will again arise, menacing and ripe for solution, and it will not be possible for this House to set it aside as a mere speculative plan advocated by a group of faddists. Then you will have to deal with the problem of women's suffrage, and deal with it in a complete fashion."

The moment which Mr. Balfour foresaw in 1892 had arrived in 1916. The situation was briefly thus: The old register for the whole United Kingdom, unrevised by the express direction of the Government since the outbreak of the world war, contained the names of rather over eight million men, of whom almost seven millions voted as "occupiers" or householders. There were other qualifications, such as the lodger, freehold, and University franchises; but they only accounted, between them, for about a million voters in the three kingdoms. "Occupation" was, therefore, by far the most important of the qualifications for the exercise of the parliamentary franchise. To qualify as an "occupier" it was, however, necessary to prove the unbroken occupation of the qualifying premises for twelve months previous to the last 15th of July. This obviously necessitated in some cases continuous residence for nearly two years. From August, 1914, onwards at least five millions of men, either actual or potential voters, had volunteered for the Navy or Army, or had moved, in obedience to national demands, to munition areas, or other places where they were required. Consequently very large numbers had ceased to be "occupiers" in the sense legally required to enable them to become, or remain, voters.

The Government and the country were therefore, in the third year of the war, face to face with the impossible position that if circumstances necessitated an appeal to the country there was in existence no register of voters which could in any sense be looked upon as representative of the manhood of the nation. The elderly, the infirm, the shirker, the crank, who had remained at home evading military service, and "the conscientious objector," would remain on the old and obsolete register in full numerical strength; the young manhood of the nation who were fighting for it in the Navy, or the Air Service, or on the dreary swamps of Flanders, or the tremendous battlefields round Ypres or on the Somme, would in large proportion have forfeited their parliamentary votes in consequence of the services they were rendering to their country. It was an intolerable situation. By-elections which from time to time took place illustrated the extraordinarily non-representative character of the old register. Candidates and agents reported the existence of street after street in which only a handful of voters remained. It would have been impossible to dissolve on such a register, and even if it had been possible, Mr. Asquith had himself declared that a Parliament elected on such a register would be "lacking in moral sanction."

It will be remembered that the House elected in 1910 had passed an Act limiting the duration of all future Parliaments to five years. If there had been no war the dissolution must therefore have taken place by 1915; but as a General Election, except on sheer necessity, could not be contemplated during the war, the operation of the five years' limit was more than once suspended by legislation. This, however, was only postponing the problem, and did not afford any solution of it.

Mr. Asquith's first War Cabinet had suddenly collapsed in May, 1915, and had been succeeded by the first Coalition Government. Mr. Asquith remained Prime Minister, but among his colleagues were now found representatives of the three chief parties – Liberal, Conservative, and Labour. Mr. Redmond, as leader of the Irish Nationalists, was also asked to join it, but declined to do so. The changes involved in this reconstitution of the Government were in several ways favourable to the suffrage movement: not a few of our most bigoted opponents were among the Liberals who were shed by Mr. Asquith when he formed his Coalition Government, whilst among his new colleagues were now to be found convinced suffragists, such as Mr. A. J. Balfour, Mr. Bonar Law, Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Lytton, Lord Selborne, Mr. Arthur Henderson, etc. The formation of the coalition was favourable to us in another sense. Party discipline and party passion had always been inimical to our movement. "Yes, I am your friend, but I am not prepared to break up my party in order to support you," said one party leader. "Yes, I am your friend, but I tell you frankly, you must not count on my vote if the success of women's suffrage would mean the withdrawal from public life of my leader, Mr. Asquith," said another. I had been accustomed to say of the two chief parties, Liberal and Conservative, that from the suffrage point of view the first was an army without generals, and the second was generals without an army. The Coalition gave us the immense advantage of bringing these two indispensable elements of success together, and parliamentary suffragists became equally strong in both officers and men. The commander-in-chief, Mr. Asquith, was still our opponent, but, as described in the last chapter, we began to see signs that even he was prepared to recognize that he was beaten, and to ask for an armistice.

When 1916 arrived no solution of the franchise problem had been found; the creation of a new register before a General Election could be held was generally recognized as necessary, but there were no signs of agreement upon the principles on which it should be based. The end of the war seemed as far off as ever. Compulsory military service for men had been adopted, and this strengthened the demand for manhood suffrage on the very reasonable ground that if a man could be compelled to offer his life for his country, he should at least have some influence, as a voter, in controlling the policy which might cause such a sacrifice to be called for.

Contemporaneously with these events and new developments, Sir Edward Carson and a group of his parliamentary supporters were urging with considerable vigour that there should be a new franchise based on military service. In a sense he had a strong position, for it was an obvious absurdity that men offering their lives for their country should incidentally to the fulfilment of that service be struck off the parliamentary register, while every waster and do-nothing who managed to stay at home maintaining his occupation franchise would have the vote. We made some unsuccessful efforts to induce Sir Edward Carson so to define his definition of "service" as to include the services of women. Meanwhile, there was a great deal of discussion socially and in the Press about the possibility of basing the vote on national service of some kind.

On May 4th, 1916, we addressed a careful letter to Mr. Asquith on the points raised by the obsolete register and the necessity for a new one, and also for a new qualification for the franchise. We said that nothing was farther from our intention than to press our claim at such a moment if the Government was contemplating legislation simply to replace on the register those men who had lost their qualification in consequence of their service in the Navy or Army, or in munition areas in parts of the country other than those where they had formerly resided. But we stated that if the Government intended to meet the situation by altering the whole basis of the parliamentary franchise and founding it on national service, whether naval, military, or industrial, we should then use our utmost endeavours to induce a favourable consideration at the same time of the national services of women. After referring to some of the very important work of women during the war, we added:

"When the Government deals with the franchise, an opportunity will present itself of dealing with it on wider lines than by the simple removal of what may be called the accidental disqualification of a large body of the best men in the country, and we trust that you may include in your Bill clauses which would remove the disabilities under which women now labour. An agreed Bill on these lines would, we are confident, receive a very wide measure of support throughout the country. Our movement has received very great accessions of strength during recent months, former opponents now declaring themselves on our side, or, at any rate, withdrawing their opposition. The change of tone in the Press is most marked… The view has been widely expressed in a great variety of organs of public opinion that the continued exclusion of women from representation will … be an impossibility after the war."

Mr. Asquith replied almost immediately.

"10, Downing Street,"Whitehall, S.W.,"May 7th, 1916.

"Dear Mrs. Fawcett,

"I have received your letter of the 4th. I need not assure you how deeply my colleagues and I recognize and appreciate the magnificent contribution which the women of the United Kingdom have made to the maintenance of our country's cause.

"No such legislation as you refer to is at present in contemplation; but if, and when, it should become necessary to undertake it, you may be certain that the considerations set out in your letter will be fully and impartially weighed without any prejudgment from the controversies of the past.

"Yours very faithfully,"H. H. Asquith."

This reply was, we considered, very much more encouraging than any previous letter which we had received from Mr. Asquith. There were some suffragists who did not fail to point out that it promised us nothing. This we did not dispute, but we felt, all the same, that the letter indicated that the turn of the tide in the suffrage direction was taking effect, and that vessels which had long been high and dry on the sandbanks of prejudice were beginning to be floated, and would soon swing round.

On May 7th, Mr. Asquith had said in his letter, "no such legislation as you refer to is at present in contemplation." Nevertheless, it was plain two weeks later from the Prime Minister's replies to questions in the House that this attitude had already been abandoned. The Government then began a series of futile efforts to deal with the problems presented by the situation just described by means of "Special Register" Bills. None of these plans secured the support of the House of Commons. Mr. Asquith shrank from the thorough-going method of solving the problem by introducing a Reform Bill which should frankly provide a new basis for the suffrage. Such a course, he said, would bring the House "face to face with another most formidable proposition," the question of women's suffrage. Sir Edward Carson was meanwhile pressing for a new franchise giving the vote to all sailors, soldiers, and airmen, on the ground of their services. The comment of the Press on this was: "It is clear that the Bill cannot include the soldiers and exclude the women." The hesitation and reluctance of the Government to face the facts went on all through July. It was the same attitude which had caused the fiasco of the Government Bill in January, 1913 when an attempt had been made to pass a Reform Bill at the tail-end of a Session already thirteen months long by calling it a Registration Bill. On July 12th, 1916, Mr. Asquith said that the Government, not having been able to find any practical and non-controversial solution of the registration question, proposed that the House itself should settle the matter. This was not a popular method of proceeding, but the proposition was wrapped up with Mr. Asquith's well-known skill as a master of parliamentary oratory; and though the House grumbled it was not in revolt. A week later, however, the same theme was expounded with much less than the Prime Minister's tact by Mr. Herbert Samuel, another well-known antisuffragist, who enraged the House of Commons by saying in effect the same thing as Mr. Asquith, but in a manner which made it plain, even to the wayfaring man, that it was because the difficulty was insoluble that the Government requested the House of Commons to solve it. He set forth all the difficulties. Something had got to be done; the old register was useless; a new register on the old basis would be nearly as bad, since it would disfranchise our fighting men; and therefore the House would have to take up the difficult controversial points of women's suffrage, plural voting, adult suffrage, and redistribution. The indignation of the House on being told bluntly that the problem was handed to them to solve because it was insoluble caused it to reject the Government proposal; the matter was thrown back by the House to the Cabinet, who were told to do their own job; they therefore began another period of "lengthy consideration."

In the previous spring a leading member of our Executive Committee, Miss Rathbone, now President of the N.U.S.E.C.,7 had formed a consultative committee of constitutional women's suffrage societies, representative of twenty different organizations. This consultative committee sought and obtained early in August an interview with Lord Robert Cecil and Mr. Bonar Law. The deputation urged the necessity for the enfranchisement of women in time for them to take part in the election of the Parliament which would have to deal with the problems of reconstruction after the war; they also repeated that if the new register simply replaced on the roll of voters those men who had forfeited their vote in consequence of their patriotic services, we should not, during the war, raise the question of women's suffrage at all; but if the whole basis of the suffrage were changed we should press the consideration of women's claims with all the strength at our command. Mr. Bonar Law expressed satisfaction with this attitude, but asked if the suffrage societies would stand aside if the period of residence required of future male voters was reduced from twelve months to three. The reply was in the negative, because this change would in reality be equivalent to a new suffrage, and would add many thousands of men to the roll of voters. Lord Robert Cecil warmly supported this view, and said that the reduction in the qualifying period would constitute a long step towards manhood suffrage, and would seriously injure the position of women if nothing were done for them at the same time.