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

As the debate went on the suffragists became more and more confident. Our whip had been sent out signed by Lord Aberconway and Earl Grey. The first had been a suffragist from his youth up, the son of one of our oldest and stanchest friends, Mrs. Priscilla McLaren, sister of John Bright. The second was the great-grandson of the Earl Grey who had carried the first great Reform Bill in 1832.

At last Lord Curzon rose to close the debate. The story went the round in suffrage circles that when this moment was reached a group of suffrage women who were waiting for news in one of the committee rooms of the House of Lords saw the door open and a policeman's head put in. He said: "Lord Curzon is up, ladies. But 'e wont do you ladies no 'arm."

Lord Curzon opened his remarks with what may be best described as the standardized antisuffrage speech: the pattern and method were familiar to all of us. His mistrust and apprehension were as great as they had ever been, and were expressed in his usual language. Then came a slight pause, and Lord Curzon said:

"Now, my Lords, I ask you to contemplate what may happen if, over this matter, we come into collision with the House of Commons… Your Lordships may vote as you please. You can cut this clause out of the Bill. You have a perfect right to do so. But if you think that by killing the clause you can also save the Bill, I believe you to be mistaken. Nothing, to my mind, is more certain … than that, if your Lordships cut this clause out of the Bill, as you may perhaps be going to do, the House of Commons will return the Bill to you with the clause reinserted. Will you be prepared to put it back? Will you be content, if you eliminate the clause, with this vigorous protest you have made, and will you then be prepared to give way? Or, if you do not give way, are you prepared to embark upon a conflict with a majority of 350 in the House of Commons, of whom nearly 150 belong to the party to which most of your Lordships also belong?"

Lord Curzon concluded by saying that he could not vote either way upon the amendment before the House, because he could not take upon himself the responsibility of "precipitating a conflict from which your Lordships would not emerge with credit."

The effect of this speech was intensely dramatic. The antisuffragists were white with rage; the suffragists were flushed by the certainty of victory. To Lord Aberconway, who was standing at the bar quite near me, I said, "What will our majority be?" He replied, "Quite thirty." The division which followed showed that it was rather more than double this number, for the figures were: For the clause, 134; against it, 71. Both Archbishops and the other twelve Bishops present voted for the clause. Only twelve antisuffrage peers followed Lord Curzon's example and abstained from voting. If Lord Curzon and his twelve followers had voted against the clause, it would still have been carried by a substantial majority.

The Royal Assent was given to the Bill on February 6th, 1918.

Thus ended our parliamentary struggle, which had lasted since John Stuart Mill moved a women's suffrage amendment to the Reform Bill of 1867. The real source of our victory lay in the enormous majorities by which the suffrage clauses had been carried in the House of Commons, and to the fact that every political party into which that House was divided showed a majority for the principle of women's suffrage. People used to talk about our fifty years' struggle as fifty years in the wilderness, and offer their sympathy upon the length of time we had had to work for our cause. But there was no call for commiseration. We had had a joyful and happy time, marked by victory in some phase or other of our movement all along. We had won municipal suffrage and all local government suffrages. Municipal offices had been opened. Women had been elected to be mayors in important boroughs. The education of girls had been enormously improved; the Universities had been opened; the medical profession had admitted women to its ranks; nearly all the learned societies had followed suit. Women were no longer treated either socially or legally as if they were helpless children – "milk-white lambs, bleating for man's protection," as one of our poets had called them; a fair share of the responsibilities of capable citizenship was within their reach. To those who were heard to groan from time to time over the fifty years it took us to win household suffrage for women we could justly reply that the time we had taken to win household suffrage for women had been just two years less than the time men had taken to cover the same ground. For, taking 1832 as their starting-point with the Reform Bill of that year, it had occupied them fifty-two years before they won household suffrage for themselves, and they started with the advantage of about one million of voters already in existence, and with the further and much greater advantage of the tradition of seven hundred years of freedom and self-government. We had no such advantages; we had not one vote between us; "we could not get the vote because we had not got the franchise," as Punch put it, and in lieu of the tradition of centuries of freedom behind us, we had the exactly opposite tradition of unbroken subjection and subordination. The best men and women in each succeeding generation helped and encouraged our movement from the days of Mary Wollstonecraft onwards. We were winning all the time, and never had any cause for despondency.

Our movement goes on all the more surely and rapidly now that we have what all men have found essential to freedom, the power to control the Government and by our vote help to decide by what type of men the country shall be governed.

Very little now remains to be said. The N.U.W.S.S. has changed its name and extended its objects as described in the following chapter. I am in hearty sympathy with this development, but I felt that my years entitled me in the future to a less strenuous existence. I therefore resigned my presidency of the union, and it was a matter of sincere satisfaction to me that my old friend and colleague, Miss Eleanor Rathbone, was elected as my successor.

CHAPTER X

THE DIFFERENCE THE VOTE HAS MADE

"In the United States the grant of women's suffrage has made no difference whatever … the mere fact that women have a right to vote makes no difference at all."

– Viscount Bryce, in House of Lords, December 17th, 1917.

The words quoted above come strangely from the lips of any man who believes in the principles of free representative government. If the vote makes no difference, why have our race all over the world attached such enormous importance to it? It is bred in our bone, and will never come out of the flesh, that the possession of the franchise is the very foundation-stone of political freedom. Our fifty years' struggle for the women's vote was not actuated by our setting any extraordinary value on the mere power of making a mark on a voting paper once in every three or four years. We did not, except as a symbol of free citizenship, value it as a thing good in itself; we valued it, not as a ribbon to stick in our coat, but for the sake of the equal laws, the enlarged opportunities, the improved status for women which we knew it involved. We worked for it with ardour and passion because it was stuff of the conscience with us that it would benefit not women only, but the whole community; this is what we meant when we called our paper the Common Cause. It was the cause of men, women, and children. We believe that men cannot be truly free so long as women are held in political subjection.

We have at present – November, 1919 – only a very short experience of the actual results of women's suffrage. It is less than two years since the parliamentary battle was won, and less than one year since women voted for the first time, but already the practical results of women's suffrage have surpassed our expectations. It is no exaggeration to say that those most closely in touch with work in Parliament on subjects affecting the welfare and status of women were conscious of a change in the atmosphere of the House immediately after the passing of the Reform Bill of 1918.

One instance of the working of this change will suffice to prove my point. In 1902, after twelve years of hard spade work undertaken by a group of very able and experienced women, an Act was passed to secure that those women habitually practising as midwives should receive adequate training for their calling. The case for such legislation was overwhelming. In over 70 per cent. of the births in this country the mothers were attended by midwives. The death percentage was unnecessarily high, especially from puerperal fever. Remedial legislation on such a matter called forth no party passions; so the case for the training of midwives was extremely simple and free from complication. But a certain amount of opposition was manifested by the least enlightened section of the medical profession; and this for a long time was the chief barrier in the way of getting any Government to adopt the Bill and use their power to pass it. As I said just now, it took twelve years to overcome this obstacle. But the Act was passed in 1902; experience proved that there were many weak places in it. No provision had been made for the payment of doctor's fees where, in difficult cases, it was desirable that the midwife should have the aid of a medical practitioner. Neither had any provision been made for the payment of travelling expenses for members of the Central Midwives Board, and other expenses incidental to the efficient carrying out of the Act. No doubt the promoters of the legislation of 1902 were well aware of these "weak places," but dared not raise a discussion on them for fear of jeopardizing the whole Bill. So matters stood until the passing of the Reform Act in February, 1918. Then, that same year, before any woman had voted, the Government produced the Midwives Amending Act, 1918. Mr. Hayes Fisher, now Lord Downham, was in charge of it in the House of Commons, and explained its object as being not only to amend the "weak places" already referred to, but added that it also aimed at "attracting to this great profession … a high class of midwives… We want them more in quantity … and we want to improve them in status." No one had ever spoken in this tone in Parliament of midwives and their occupation before women were enfranchised. Words of this kind would probably have wrecked the Bill of 1902, as many doctors were extremely jealous of midwives acquiring any professional status at all. But the amending Bill went through rapidly and quietly. The lives of women in childbirth were taken account of by Parliament in quite a different spirit directly women acquired the status of citizens.

It would be easy to give other examples, and I am tempted to add an appendix to this chapter, giving a list of Acts of Parliament specially dealing with the welfare and status of women passed year by year between 1902 and 1919. There are many more entries in the shorter period than in the longer. This in itself indicates some of the difference which women's suffrage has made.

As soon as might be after the Royal Assent had been given to the Reform Bill in February, 1918, the various suffrage societies held their several council meetings to discuss their future action. Some societies dissolved and formed themselves into women citizens' associations. But many resolved to go on working for objects closely allied with their original purpose. The N.U.W.S.S., meeting in council in March, 1918, by a practically unanimous vote resolved to extend its "objects," including in the new programme what had formerly been its sole object – "to obtain the parliamentary franchise for women on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men"; but adding to this two more objects – namely, "to obtain all other such reforms, economic, legislative, and social, as are necessary to secure a real equality of liberties, status, and opportunities between men and women"; and "to assist women to realize their responsibility as voters." The last of these was an indication of the sympathy of the N.U.W.S.S. with the women citizens' associations which were quickly springing into existence.

We should have acted more logically if at the same time that we enlarged our objects we had also adopted a corresponding change in our name. However, on this matter being put to the vote, the old name was retained by a large majority. Many of our members regarded our name as soldiers regard their flag or regimental badge, and were, from motives of sentiment, averse to giving it up.

However, a year's experience proved that it would be really useful and tend to prevent misunderstandings if we changed our name in accordance with the extension of our objects. Therefore, by formal vote of the council in 1919, as stated on p. 155, the N.U.W.S.S. ceased to bear its old name and became the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. We hope that the letters N.U.S.E.C. will soon become as well known and be as much beloved by its members as the N.U.W.S.S.

At this same council meeting of 1919 changes were adopted in our method of attacking what had now become our principal work – viz., the achievement of a real equality of status, liberties, and opportunities between men and women. We had learned in the last twelve months that the field thus covered was so vast that success was jeopardized if we scattered our energies over the whole of it. We therefore resolved henceforth at our annual council meetings to select a limited number of subjects deemed ripe for immediate action, and to concentrate on these, so far as practical work was concerned. The first selection for the year 1919-1920 was thus indicated:

1. We demand equal pay for equal work. And we demand an open field for women in industrial and professional work.

2. We demand the immediate reform of the divorce law and the laws dealing with solicitation and prostitution. An equal moral standard must be established.

3. The Government is in favour of widows' pensions in principle. By constant pressure we mean to make the House of Commons turn principle into practice. We demand pensions for civilian widows.

4. Women must speak for themselves as well as vote. We want to extend the women's franchise, and we are determined that women candidates holding our equality programme shall be returned to Parliament at the next election.

5. At present women are not legally recognized as the guardians of their children. We are working to secure equal rights of guardianship for both parents.

6. Lastly, we are demanding the opening of the legal professions to women. We wish to enable women to become solicitors, barristers, and magistrates.

The walls of our Jericho have not fallen at the first blast of our trumpet, but we have made great progress in promoting the principle of equal pay for equal work, and with the familiarizing of the British public with women as candidates for Parliament. Since the General Election two or three women have been candidates, and one, Lady Astor, has been returned by an immense majority.

Another important success in 1919 remains to be chronicled. It is the inclusion in the Charter of the League of Nations of a clause rendering women, equally with men, eligible to all appointments in connection with the League, including the Secretariat. This clause was inserted during the Paris negotiations after deputations of suffragists from the Allied Nations and the U.S.A. had waited upon all the Plenipotentiaries. They were most cordially and sympathetically received; but the definite success of their efforts was in the main due to the active and whole-hearted support of President Wilson, Lord Robert Cecil, and M. Venizelos.

In the passing by the Government of their Sex Disqualification Removal Act more has been done than we ventured to ask for in the sixth item on our programme – not a bad harvest for one Session, when we remember the twelve years' work necessary to get the Midwives Bill of 1902 passed into law, or the thirty-two years' hard labour before a Nurse's Registration Bill was turned into an Act.

I do not propose in this brief chronicle to enter into a detailed description of the differences between the Government Bill and the Women's Emancipation Bill introduced by the Labour Party, and carried through all its stages in the House of Commons, notwithstanding Government opposition. The Labour Party's Bill after this triumph was torpedoed in the House of Lords, and the Government Bill was pushed forward in its place, and eventually carried into law. The Bill of the Labour Party was much more comprehensive and sweeping; it did what it professed to do, and removed completely every legal inequality between men and women, including placing women on the parliamentary register on the same terms as men. This was probably the reason why the Government objected to its passing into law, and got it defeated in the House of Lords. For, according to all precedent, a large extension of the electorate should be followed as soon as possible by a General Election; and it is not very wonderful that the Government did not desire this under present circumstances, and while the new Parliament had been less than a year in existence. In some respects the Government Bill goes beyond No. 6 in the demands of the N.U.S.E.C. It opens to women, whether married or unmarried, the duty, within certain limits, of sitting on juries and acting as magistrates. It makes it clear to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge that they have the power, when they choose to use it, of admitting women to membership. It opens the legal profession to women. But its most disappointing provision relates to the entry of women in the Civil Service. It opens the Civil Service to them, but with certain restrictions. It does not proceed on the lines of the Government promise of November, 1918, "to remove all existing inequalities in the law between men and women." The Government reserve for themselves the right in this matter to proceed by Orders in Council. It is true the Solicitor-General said in the House on October 28th, 1919, that he wanted to "have the power to differentiate somewhat in favour of women in order to give them a better and more equal opportunity than they have at the present time." We are frankly suspicious of these offers of something better than equality. Equality before the law is a hundred times more stable guarantee for justice than favouritism. Women over and over again have said they are not out for privilege, but for equality of opportunity. Major Hills, who was in charge of the amendments to the Bill promoted by the women's societies, said with brutal frankness that the meaning of the clauses promoted by the Government was "that all the higher-paid posts in the Civil Service will continue to be reserved to men." These Orders in Council will have to be closely scrutinized.

Nevertheless, when we remember that between 1902 and 1914 only two really important Acts bearing specially upon the welfare and status of women had been passed – namely, the Midwives Act, 1902, and the group of Acts, dating from 1907 to 1914, dealing with the qualification of women as candidates in local elections – and that since the passing of the Reform Act of 1918 at least seven important measures effecting large improvements in the status of women have rapidly gone through all their stages in both Houses of Parliament, we shall not be slow to appreciate the fact that the women's vote has made a very big difference indeed. The Act which rendered women eligible for Parliament, introduced in the Commons late in the autumn Session of 1918, went through both Houses in about a fortnight. In the Lords it was adopted without opposition.

Not of great importance in itself, but significant in its implications, was the quiet removal of the heavy grille of the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Commons in the summer of 1918, and the opening to women on equal terms of the Strangers' Gallery. Part of the grille has been preserved for the London Museum, and part will be kept in the House itself. It may be hoped that it will be put up in some appropriate place, with waxen dummies behind it revelling in the Oriental seclusion which recommended it to the Commons for about seventy years. One great discomfort of the grille was that the interstices of the heavy brass work were not large enough to allow the victims who sat behind it to focus it so that both eyes looked through the same hole. It was like using a gigantic pair of spectacles which did not fit, and made the Ladies' Gallery a grand place for getting headaches.

Suffragists are not labouring under the impression that because women now have votes no further reform is needed in our representative system. A large proportion of suffragists are probably in favour of proportional representation, and would favour its adoption mainly on the ground that it would secure a much fairer reflection of the whole nation than the present system, which may, and frequently does, result in the practical exclusion from representation of large masses of the voters. A good deal of education and spade work in spreading the principles of proportional representation are necessary on this and other important reforms, but now that women form a very considerable portion of the electorate they have at least the satisfaction of knowing that their views on this and other important political issues count for something, and are actually studied and considered, so that things work out much more rapidly than ever before in the direction they desire.

The enfranchisement of women, especially the immense addition to the women municipal electors, has put the position of women in local elections on quite a new footing. Formerly, when there were only about a million women voters on the municipal registers of the three kingdoms, and these, in considerable numbers, were either aged or on the brink of old age, they were a negligible quantity. They were neither admitted to the men's organizations nor consulted by them; the candidature of women for locally elected councils was cold-shouldered or opposed by all the party organizations; but the situation is quite different now. The women local electors have increased from one million to eight and a half millions, and, besides this, women are also parliamentary electors; the result is that all the parties encourage the candidature of women, and are pleased to have one or more women's names on their own tickets. Thus the number of women elected in the recent borough council elections in London bounded up on November 1st, 1919, to nearly two hundred. Chelsea, which never returned a woman before, now returns ten; Westminster returns seven; Marylebone returns four, and so on; and the results in many of the country towns were equally remarkable. (See the Common Cause, November 7th, 1919.)

Some time ago, in one of my controversies with Mrs. Humphry Ward, she lamented the very small number of women offering themselves as candidates in local government elections. I pointed out that the qualification for candidature was such as to exclude, in a large degree, the mass of the younger and more vigorous women; also, that the small number of women holding the local government franchise, coupled with the fact that they had no parliamentary vote, rendered them negligible from the party point of view, and I suggested to Mrs. Ward that the best way of increasing the number and improving the status of women concerned in local government would be to secure the abolition of their political disabilities. Events since February, 1918, have more than justified my argument.

Besides the positive gains to women and to the whole country which women's suffrage has brought about, it satisfactory to note that none of the disasters so freely prophesied by the antisuffragists have materialized. The prophets themselves seem to recognize that they were the baseless fabric of a vision now utterly vanished even from remembrance.

APPENDIX

A List of Acts of Parliament specially affecting the Welfare, Status, or Liberties of Women passed in the United Kingdom between 1902 and 1919 (both inclusive)

1902. The Midwives Act.– This Act aimed at securing for women in childbirth attended by midwives a reasonable security that these should have received a proper training. The Act was in many ways imperfect, but, such as it was, it took twelve years' hard and absorbing work from a group of able women to get it passed.