Kitabı oku: «The Women's Victory—and After: Personal Reminiscences, 1911-1918», sayfa 8
A similar but more objectionable method of reducing mechanically the number of women voters had been adopted in Norway in 1907, and had lasted for six years, after which women were placed on the register on terms exactly the same as those for men. Events in the Session of 1919 show that it is very unlikely that the higher age limit for women will be maintained in Great Britain for so long a time. It may here be mentioned that the actual numbers both of men and women enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1918 turned out to be larger than had been calculated when the Bill was before Parliament. On the first register compiled in 1918 there were over 7,000,000 women, and the official figures of the number of men and women on the revised register published in 1919 were: men electors, 12,913,160; women, 8,479,156.
From the date of the presentation of the report of the Speaker's conference our parliamentary success went forward rapidly, smoothly, and without check. On March 29th the Prime Minister received a great deputation of women war workers, organized by the N.U.W.S.S., representing every possible form of active service by which women had worked for their country during the war. The deputation also had the support of between thirty and forty women's organizations, including nearly all the existing suffrage societies, besides such well-known bodies as the British Women's Temperance Association, the National Union of Women Workers, the National Organization of Girls' Clubs, and the Women's Co-operative Guild, etc. It had been the intention of this deputation to ask the Prime Minister to introduce without delay legislation based on the recommendations of the Speaker's conference. But we found ourselves in the joyful position of being a day after the fair; for on the previous evening in the House of Commons Mr. Asquith had moved a resolution calling for the early introduction of a Bill on these lines. The whole debate which followed had dealt, not exclusively, but very nearly so, with the question of the enfranchisement of women. Mr. Asquith had again emphasized his conversion, had compared himself with Stesichorus, who had been smitten with blindness for insulting Helen of Troy, adding, "Some of my friends may think that, like him, my eyes, which for years in this matter have been clouded by fallacies and sealed by illusions, at last have been opened to the truth." In the debate which followed every leader of every party, Conservative, Liberal, Labour, and Irish Nationalist, supported the enfranchisement of women, thus foreshadowing the Agreed Bill for which the N.U.W.S.S. had asked in the previous May. Mr. Lloyd George, the new Prime Minister, took an important part in the debate, speaking with all his accustomed vigour and fervour on our side. The opposition was almost non-existent, and Mr. Asquith's motion was agreed to by 341 votes to 62. The practical unanimity of the House was reflected by a similar unanimity in the Press (the three Posts, however, see p. 79, still holding the antisuffrage fort). The general tone was well expressed in the Daily Telegraph, which said:
"The conference decided by a majority in favour of the principle of women's suffrage. The work of women during the war, the new position to which they are called in the whole industrial life of the country, are considerations which have effected a sweeping change in general opinion on this great matter; and it is by this time fairly plain that a measure of women's suffrage must be included in any reform legislation which is seriously meant."
It will therefore be easily understood that our deputation was of a very cheerful and congratulatory character on both sides. We were, however, able to make clear certain points on which doubts had been expressed. We explained that the support of the suffrage societies was dependent on our enfranchisement being made an integral part of the Bill from the first; we were determined not to sanction its being introduced by amendment. Mr. Lloyd George told us he had already instructed the parliamentary draughtsman to draw the Bill on the lines we wished. He also explained that the Bill was not to be a Government Bill, but a House of Commons Bill; it would be introduced and guided throughout its passage in the House by a member of the Government, and would be pushed through by Government machinery, but Members would be free to vote as they pleased in both Houses on the women's clauses. We spoke against the high age limit for women, and said if the Government found it possible to modify this, or otherwise to improve upon the recommendations of the Speaker's conference in a democratic direction, we should be gratified; but, at the same time, our chief concern was for the safety of the whole scheme. We emphasized this, showing how greatly we preferred an imperfect Bill which could pass to the most perfect measure in the world which could not. The Prime Minister smilingly signified his assent to these views. We desired only to press for such improvements as were consistent with the safety of the whole Bill.
As the debates went on, and the House of Commons majority for women's suffrage became more and more overwhelming – the Second Reading being carried by 329 votes to 40, and the majorities in Committee on Clause IV., the women's clause, 385 to 55, or 7 to 1, with a majority within each party into which the House was divided; and, again, on the last trial of strength, 214 to 17 – we felt the ground was sufficiently solid beneath our feet to attempt an improvement in the Bill. We therefore urged the Government to apply to women local government electors the same principle which had already been adopted by the House in regard to the parliamentary vote – namely, to admit to the register not only those women who were qualified in their own right, but also the wives of men similarly qualified. The great importance of this reform had been urged upon us by a member of our Executive Committee, now President of the N.U.S.E.C., Miss Eleanor Rathbone, herself a member of the City Council of Liverpool, and possessing very great experience of local government matters. The Labour Party gave the proposal its hearty support. But at first it was resisted by Sir George Cave, who had charge of the Reform Bill in the House of Commons. A joint deputation of women's societies and the Labour Party was organized on November 14th, but still Sir George Cave held out no hope that the Government would accept the amendment. There were vigorous protests in the House against this attitude; and our societies and other bodies bombarded the leader of the House and the Minister in charge of the Bill with letters and telegrams, urging the Government to accept for local government the principle they had already adopted for the parliamentary register. This had an excellent effect, and gave us a foretaste of the advantages of possessing, though at that time only in prospect, real political power. On November 20th the Government withdrew its opposition, and the amendment we had urged unsuccessfully on November 14th was agreed to without a division. The Report Stage of the Bill was concluded on December 7th, and the Third Reading was taken the same evening without a division.
The next stage of our battle had to be fought in the House of Lords, where we had far more formidable opponents than in the House of Commons. Lord Curzon, the leader of the House and chief representative of the Government, was also President of the National Society for Opposing Woman Suffrage. He was an eloquent and polished speaker, not beloved, but certainly powerful. We had tried to get a personal interview with him, but without success. His intended line in regard to the women's clause in the Reform Bill was absolutely unknown to us. He remained a member of the Government; perhaps, we reflected, it was to save his face and prevent his resignation that, as Mr. Lloyd George had told us, the Reform Bill was not a Government but a House of Commons Bill. Then there was Lord Bryce, from some points of view an even more formidable opponent, with all his prestige as an historian and a successful diplomatist. Lord Balfour of Burleigh was another redoubtable antagonist. We were told no man in the Upper House had more influence upon the predominant party in it. Then there was a group of well-known peers, representing both political parties, who were certain to oppose any sort of enfranchisement of women – Lord Loreburn, Lord Finlay, Lord Halsbury (these three were Lord Chancellors or ex-Lord Chancellors), Lord Weardale, Lord Lansdowne, and Lord Chaplin. But we had powerful friends, too, among whom should be mentioned the two Archbishops, the Bishop of London, Lord Selborne, Lord Lytton, Lord Burnham, Lord Milner, Lord Grey, Lord Haldane, and Lord Courtney. The Second Reading of the Bill went through without a division in the House of Lords on December 17th, but not without very hostile speeches from Lord Bryce and the aged Lord Halsbury, who carried his ninety-three years very vigorously. On comparing the two groups, our friends and our opponents, in the House of Lords we were cheered to see that our friends carried away the palm for youth. In so aged an assembly as the House of Lords this was a distinct advantage: very few peers are young enough to run the risk of rashness. The real fight in the Lords began when committee stage was reached, on January 8th, 1918. As a preliminary step the antisuffragists moved the elimination from the Bill of all clauses which had not been unanimously recommended by the Speaker's conference. This was aimed at Clause IV., which enfranchised women, but was opposed by the Government and withdrawn. Then came the more direct attack, the deletion of the parliamentary franchise from Clause IV. This gave rise to a full-dress debate, lasting three days. On the second of these – January 10th – we received, and looked upon it as a good omen, the joyful news of the passage through the American House of Representatives of the Federal Amendment on Women's Suffrage with the necessary two-thirds majority. The House of Lords was crowded, and excitement and expectation were very keen on both sides. On the suffrage side the speech of Lord Selborne was particularly memorable, first-rate in manner, matter, and method. It produced a deep impression. In the small space allotted to ladies other than peeresses on the floor of the House suffragists and antisuffragists were penned up together, and every shaft from either side told with profound effect. Before we were conducted to our seats in the House of Lords, Mrs. Humphry Ward had asked me, in the event of the suffrage clause being carried, if I would support her in trying to get it submitted to a referendum. Of course my reply was in the negative. I told her that, so far as my experience went, the referendum was one of those instruments of government which was most respected where it was least known, and that I agreed with the Prime Minister in regarding it as an expensive method of denying justice; and I asked her why she had not used her influence to get the referendum considered by the Speaker's conference. Having missed that opportunity, I thought there was little or no chance of raising the question at this, almost the last, stage of the Bill.
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.
