THE SUFFRAGETTES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2576, 10 August 1909, Page 3

THE SUFFRAGETTES.

A NEW ZEALANDER’S VIEW

(From a Correspondent of the Lyttelton “Times.” LONDON, June 21. After spending my first week in London, I strongly suspect that the women’s suffrage movement has advanced a great deal further than the newspapers of England would have the world believe. The women are winning out through sheer pluck. They have faced an amount of abuse and intolerance that would have shaken the courage of most men, and to-day, in their tens of theusa: del they aro speaking and fighting as bravely and as vigorously as did the circle of pioneers in the day when ike cry. of “Votes for Women” was new in ’the land It' would be a sad thing for the race f Englishmen could watch -an uphill light -for a cause

that the best of them —even Ministers of the Crown —have admitted to bo just, without a desire to help the weaker side. The indications suggest that a great many Englishmen are very heartily ashamed of the treatment- accorded to the suffragettes on various occasions during the last three years. The opponents of the movement have not been generous in. the reports they have circulated regarding the “scenes” created by tho women. Law and order, as represented by policemen and stewards at political meetings, have been resisted, and public men have been “heckled” and sometimes refused a hearing, but what would men have done under similar circumstances? Here are educated, refined women, fluent speakers and ready debaters for the most part, intellectually the equal of tho man whom they are meeting in what should be a political controversy. They find themselves treated as though they had none of the rights of citizens. The Prime Minister and members of his Government use the police to keep away their deputations. When the women address a meeting they find themselves subjected to tho ignorant, often ribald, interruptions of. herds of young men; while if a woman interjects at one of the men’s political meetings, she is thrown out with an amount of harshness that would not bo accorded to a drunken man. Hundreds of liave been imprisoned, and at their meetings they are taunted with the fact by their opponents. The history of Britain records various occasions upon which nun, fighting for a principle, have met with opposition such as is being encountered by the women—The opposition of physical force and scornful intolerance. The reformers have not hesitated to oppose force by force, even to shod bleed, and it is hardly surpris- ! ing that tho suffragettes to-day should ! be announcing that - they will' not allow j Mr Asquith to speak in public, and that I they will use every means in their po- ! wer to enter the House -of Parliament, and voice then' grievance in the Empire’s Holy of Holies. The suffragettes are not unsexed wo- ! men bent on achieving notoriety, as I might be inferred from the statement! |of their opponents. Yesterday I heard Miss. Christabel Pankhurst address a meeting in Hyde Park, aild it was a little- hard to believe that she had been lodged in Holloway Gaol, with the scum of the London Streets, in “good old England.” Imagine a slim, well-dress-ed girl, with an eager, attractive face, addressing a crowd composed largely of men. There was nothing hysterical, no appeal to sentiment about her speech. It was a clever, logical, forcible statement of the arguments in support of the women’s suffrage movement. Her face flushed as she claimed for her sex the rights of citizenship, and with an occasional impatient movement swept back a curl of hair from her forehead. She carried the fight right into the “enemies” camp. “Why should not we women have votes?” she asked. “Are we not as intelligent as ycu fnen? Do men get the vote because they are intelligent, or because they hold the householders’, lodgers’ or university qualification ? Are we refused a voba because we do not shoulder a gun and fight for -a country. Do all the men who voto fight for their country ? Are they all capable, physically, of going cut and taking part in the killing? No, sensible men'do- not put forward those reasons now. So'mebody told. -me just new that I ought to be at home. Are you men willing that all we women should go home and let you support'us? Are you prepared to see those five million women who aro earning their own livings in Britain cease work and go home? Are you capable, individually, -of supporting all the women of your family r You Have to say ‘No’ to that. Well, then, if the women havo to support themselves, if they have to take the same responsibilities as the men, why should they be denied the < rights cf citizenship?”

Mis-s Pankhurst has a real gift of humor, and a faculty for shattering tho arguments on an opponent with gentle banter. Her smiling communis upon Mr Asquith’s “mailed fist’’ attitudo were delightful, and she scored every time when replying to interjections. In conclusion, she announced that on June 29 a deputation of women proposed to wait upon the Prime Minister at the House of Commons to demand “votes for women.” “This is going to be the biggest deputation we have had, and I do not know what the Government is going to do about it,” she said. ‘Mr Asquith has said that he will not see us. He is Prime Minister of Great Britain, and he will not see a deputation representing a vast body of people who wish a wrong redressed. Mr Lloyd-George, you remember, has said that he will never again address a public meeting at which a woman is present. The Government has had 5000 policemen mustered to prevent fifty women entering Westminster, but our deputations have grown bigger each time, and will continue to grow .bigger, and' presently there will not be enough policemen. Will the soldiers he called out then, and the women who want justice and freedom he shot down ? We' shall see.” Of course there will be .no shooting. Even the men who throw the women from the public meetings would object to that. The position, however, is evidently becoming acute, and there seems to be a growing impression in London that the Government, whether Liberal or Conservative, will have to yield to the women. The suffragettes are well led and well organised, and their numbers grow day by day. Every man in the Empire who admires grit and has any chivalrous instincts will wish them success.