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§ 28. Opposition Tactics.

Before another session opened Mr. Jacob Bright had re-entered Parliament, and in 1877 the Bill passed back to its first leader, and was set down for June 6th, the interval being occupied by the vigorous promotion of petitions and meetings-the work winding up with a large meeting in St. James' Hall, when Lord Houghton presided, and on the day before the debate a deputation of ladies to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Northcote). The deputation was introduced by Mr. Forsyth; Lady Anna Gore Langton expressed the hopes of the Societies for his support on this occasion, and their gratitude for his support in past years. She was followed by Miss L. Ashworth and Miss Becker with a brief statement. Sir Stafford Northcote then explained the position from which he regarded the movement.

"The view I have taken of the Parliamentary franchise is that it is an artificial arrangement in the constitution of the country, for the purpose of producing the best possible, or at least the best attainable, constituency for the election of a governing body like our Parliament, and therefore I should be slow to admit the mere plea that either this man or woman has as good a right to vote as that man or woman. I must consider, first, whether the alteration would be beneficial; and, secondly, whether it is, at any given moment, sensible and proper to make a considerable electoral change. It resolves itself with me into a question of time and expediency; and I am bound to say, speaking quite frankly, that I

do not think the present a particularly desirable time for reopening the great electoral question. If I find myself unable to vote for the Bill to-morrow, it will be upon that ground, and not from any of the hesitation of mind which is indicated by many of those opposed to the Bill."

The friendly reception given to the deputation, together with fresh promises of support from many and unexpected quarters, all pointed to a good division. Then a most unlooked-for turn took place in the debate. Mr. Courtney had risen at 5.15 to reply to Mr. Butt, when the Opposition burst into a tumultuous uproar, which effectually prevented his words from being heard. When it became apparent that the opponents would not listen to arguments, the purpose was formed amongst the members on the side of the Bill to prevent a vote being taken, and Mr. Courtney breasted the storm of yells and cries that drowned his voice until the clock. struck the hour of closing.

Those wild notes, Divide! divide!! divide !!! came surging up in boisterous billows of sound to the ladies' gallery, and struck on the ears of the listeners there in painful discord with the earnest yearning with which they regarded what to them was a holy cause. Truly the echoes of that afternoon ring even now in one's memory as the most painful experience of all those years.

The debate and the treatment it met with aroused very strong feelings, and a meeting took place on June 12th, by invitation of Lady Anna Gore Langton, at Langton House, George Street, Hanover Square, to discuss the speeches. This meeting is memorably marked

by the speech of Mrs. Wm. Grey, which tells so much in its short compass of the attitude of thoughtful women at the time, that it should be recorded in full.

"This is the first time," Mrs. Wm. Grey said, "since I came forward in the movement for the better education of women that I have ever opened my lips on Woman Suffrage. I have, indeed, carefully avoided doing so, and refused every invitation to speak, partly because it is unwise to attempt to drive two coaches at once, and as I was anxious to drive, or at least be a passenger in the education coach, I thought it better to leave the suffrage coach without me; but yet more because the education movement was fighting its way against much prejudice, and to weight it with the still stronger prejudices clustered round Women's Suffrage would have done it great injury, while what I could have done for the suffrage would have done but little good. My sister (Miss Shireff) felt with me, and we determined to go on quietly working, with the conviction that every woman who did her chosen work well was helping Women's Suffrage. But when it was stated in the House of Commons that none of the women who had been promoters of women's education were friends to Women's Suffrage,— and those who had helped in Girton College were especially mentioned, then my sister and I resolved it would be cowardly not to speak. And when asked to speak here I determined to break through my rule. I believe the truth is the reverse of what was stated. As a rule, all the women who have been active in any cause for the benefit of their sex, are strong friends of the suffrage, and the few exceptions go to prove the rule. I am here, therefore, to declare that, whatever value may be given to the judgment of my sister and myself-judgment founded on the experience of a long life, and exercised on every question in which women are concerned-whatever influence we may possess, from personal character on the value of any work we have been able to do, the whole of that weight, the whole of that influence, we wish to be thrown into the Women's Suffrage scale. I would like to say why I wish all thrown into the Women's Suffrage scale. I believe it

impossible to deny the claim, but I was indifferent to it. But ever since I began to work for women's education, I have felt more and more that we should never get justice in education without the suffrage, and, on the other hand, the suffrage movement has helped that for education."

§ 29. The Trend of the Time.

The work went quietly on through the session of 1878 and 1879 without presenting any novel aspects. After the session of 1877 Mr. Jacob Bright's health induced him to resign the conduct of the Bill; and at the instance of a representative deputation, which waited on him in his rooms in Queen Anne's Gate, Mr. Leonard Courtney consented to take the position.

Although Mr. Bouverie's Committee for Maintaining the Integrity of the Franchise instituted a systematic canvass amongst members of the House of Commons against the Bill, it maintained, and more than maintained its ground in 1878: the hostile majority fell to eighty, "a result which was the more satisfactory considering that, since the division in 1876, seventeen friends had been removed by death or other causes from the House of Commons, and only five opponents. One of those whose death (in June 1878) was most felt was the Rt. Hon. Russell Gurney, Recorder of London, who had been teller with Mr. Mill in 1866, and who, always ready to help on the efforts of women, had shown himself to be in truth a 'friend of women.'

In 1879 Mr. Courtney varied the procedure by introducing a resolution. This resolution led to a very animated debate, followed by a vote which was

the smallest on record since 1870; but its significance was not to be measured by the numbers in the division lists as may be understood from the explanation given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Northcote) of his reason for giving his vote for what he called the previous question. To vote for a resolution to "forthwith" repeal the electoral disabilities of women would be to pledge the Government to bring in a measure; his vote was not to pronounce an opinion on the measure, but to pronounce that this was not the time or manner to introduce it.

"The silent, secret shower of papers in the ballotboxes of the United Kingdom," which reversed the power of parties in the State at the sudden General Election of March 1880, swept nearly all the prominent friends of the Women's Suffrage measure back into the House as well as some who had been defeated in 1874; on the other hand, it swept several of the persistent opponents out. So hope grew stronger for the success of the appeal, soon to be made to Parliament, that the last remaining disability under the English electoral law should be removed by the approaching Reform Bill.

These encouraging circumstances were the signal for an outburst of energetic work-such as had never yet been. Money came in more freely. Miss Priestman in Bristol undertook and successfully carried out the collection of a fund of £1000 for the Bristol and West of England Society. By means of that £1000 the Committee in Bristol were able to lay down systematic plans of work throughout the Western Counties and South Wales, during the next three years. To recall

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