FEMALE SUFFRAGE AGITATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2593, 30 August 1909, Page 5

FEMALE SUFFRAGE AGITATION.

CABLE NEWS.

SUFFRAGISTS BEFORE THE POLICE COURT. FORCIBLE SPEECH BY COUNSEL. United Press Association.— Copyright (Received August 29, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, August 28. Mrs. and several other suffragists were charged at Bow Street Police Court in connection with th© disturbance arising out of a recent attempt to present a petition to Mr. 'Asquith. Mr. Tim Healy, defending the accused, maintained that his clients were entitled constitutionally to present a petition to the sovereign or to the sovereign’s chief officer. He contrasted the toleration allowed to powerful combinations in regard to assembling outside factories under the Trades Union Act of 1906, with the treatment meted out to these ladies, standing day after day, in all weathers, humbly asking for a vote. Would a British jury, he asked, blame them, or a man for refusing to see them? If the Magistrate declined to acquit the defendants, he would ask him to state a case. Then it would be ascertained whether the Judges of the High Court thought that th© rights of millions could be swept away at the bidding of a casual ephemeral Premier. If the defendants had gone to applaud Mr. Asquith, or the Liberal party, or the Budget, they would not have been removed.

Air. Curtis Bennett, the presiding Magistrate, reserved his decision for a week.

[Mr. Tim Healy is well known as an Irish Nationalist M.P., and a brilliant writer in support of the Irish cause. He was called to the English bar in 1903. Airs. Despard is a sister of General Sir John French.]

One hundred and seven persons (says an exchange) were arrested in a recent suffragette riot in London, and the Tory newspapers report that Airs Pankhurst violently and wantonly struck an inspector of police, that other agitators broke some of the windows of Air. Asquith’b house, and that a daring lady impudently tried to ride a horse through a crowded street. There is no doubt that the women agitators are unbecomingly violent, and the Tory newspapers are right in telling them that they ought to use peaceful and constitutional methods. “The Only Way,” a little magazine published by Edinburgh University students, quotes from Air. T. D. Benson to show by what peaceful and constitutional methods men agitated in England when they wanted an extension of the franchise. “In Bristol,” says Air. Benson, “I find they only burnt the Alansion House, the'Custom House, the Bishop’s Palace, the Excise Office, three prisons, four toll-houses and forty-two private dwellings and warehouses, and all in a perfectly respectable and constitutional manner. Numerous constitutional fires took place in the neighborhoods of Bedford, Cambridge, Canterbury, and Devizes. Four men were respectably banged at Bristol and three at Nottingham. The Bishop of. Lichfield was nearlv killed, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was insulted, spat upon, and with great difficuly rescued from amidst tho yells aud execrations of a violent and angry mob. A general strike was proposed and secret arming and drilling commenced in most of the great Chartist centres. In this and other ways the male® set a splendid example of constitutional methods in agitating for the franchise.” That is, in its way, an effective retort, for it explains the motives of the suffragettes in pursuing what are called violent methods. The Chartists riots were for the most part unrestrained affairs of mobs, while the women agitators aT© deliberately endeavoring to rouse public interest by adopting sensational device*.

Those New Zealanders (say s a writer in the “Dominion”) who most strongly condemn the actions of the militant suffragettes will hardly consider that Mr, Asquith was justified when he refused to 'receive a deputation from 200 head mistresses of girls’ public secondary schools, representing 1 0,000 pupils, who desired to present a memorial to him in favor of the extension of the Parliamentary franchise to.duly qualified women. Among the signatories are Mrs. 'Sophie Bryant, D.S.s., L.L.D., Miss H. Jex-Blake, Miss Dove, Miss Burstall, Miss L. M. Faithful!, Miss Gaddesden, Mrs. Wodehouse, Miss F. R. Gray, M.A., Miss S. M. Collie, Miss F. A. A. Bishop, Miss Catherine T. Dodd M.A., Miss R. M. Haig Brown, Miss Mabel F. Vernon Harcourt, Miss H. M. Sheldon, M.A., Miss Lucy Silcox, Miss M. Bentinck Smith, Miss H. Winifred Sturge, 8.A., and other equally wellknown heads of some of the most important girls’ schools in England. After pointing out that' they share heavy responsibilities, and that they suffer from disabilities that affect men teachers, without possessing their power to vote concerning them, the petition concludes: “Other subjects on which we desire to be able to influence legislation, since wo hold opinions on them with the strength which comes from practical knowledge (though these opinions are not necessarily unanimous) are: The religious training of children, the medical inspection of children, the care of the feeble-minded, child labor, compulsory school attendance, the feeding of school children at’ public cost, school age, the facilities for the transfer of pupils from elementary to secondary schools, continuation schools, reform of the universities. But on all we are driven back to the academic attitude only, and our views command just the amount ofl attention usually accorded to academic views. “We desire enfranchisement, then, for the protection of our sex, of girls schools, of our profession; hut, above all, because we believe that with our votes we could help the country which at present declines us as citizens. Knowing that men’s work is imperfect without the co-operation of women, wo would desire to see not only tho work which particularly affects ourselves, hut the whole work of the country perfected, as it can only be when the gifts of women as well as those of men can be freely given for its service. This high responsibility for the country will bo fully realised by women as a whole, and instilled into the boys and girls of the nation, when, by enfranchisement, women are given the same stake - in tho country as air, other cifeons ”