THE WOMEN'S WAR.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1719, 9 April 1913, Page 7

THE WOMEN'S WAR.

MRS. PANKHURST REFUSES FOOD. J ! A MANSION BURNED. > f By Telegraph—Press ABSociaUon-Copj-righl London, April 7. J Mrs. l'aukhurst, sentenced a few days j ago to three years' imprisonment, has tasted only water .since last Thursday. ; A large modern unoccupied mansion at , Norwich was entirely destroyed by fire. [ Suffragettes in the district refuso to dis- ! claim responsibility for the outrage. Suffragettes; using petroleum, set fire . to an untenanted house at Potter's Bar, i Middlesex, b'ut the lire was extinguished. Wholesale pillar-box outrages occurred ' at Glasgow to-day. Phials containing ; black and red liquids wero enclosed in , packages and addressed thus: "Asquith and Company, Medieval Torturers." No • arrests have yet been made. Suffragettes attempted (o burn the grandstands at Cardiff" racecourse, - but [ were disturbed and arrested. : 1 AMERICAN AGITATION. ' (Rec. April 9, 8.10 p.m.) Washington, April 8. I'"ivo hundred Suffragettes invaded tho Capitol aud.-presented their demands. ( Afterwards formal resolutions giving wemen .votes wero introduced in both Houses. SUICIDE AS A SOLUTION. MR. BERNARD SHAW ON HUNGERSTRIKERS. .Writing a few mouths tigo on the subject of the forcible feeding of the Suffragetfc prisoners \yhu set tir-e to the Theatre ivjOyal in Dublin, Mr. George Bernard ahaw made some characteristic remarks which aro interesting to recall ut the present time. "h .the Suffragists may commit arson with impunity because their motives arc public motives," said Mr. Shaw, "then 'i'V® 3 )' assi *s;>imite,^throw express trains off thp lihe, blow up the Houses of Parliament with dynamite, or, in short, do anything mischievous or murderous. This is clearly an impunity which no community will stand; aud women who are prepared to go to such lengths must c.ear.y be restrained in some'way. "I do not say tlicy should be punished, because I do not believe that anybody Should be .puuished; but restrained they certainly must be, just as necessarily as n tiger must be restrained. "i\ow the only method of restraint at present available is imprisonment. I think it extremely unfortunate that a prison should bo a place of punishment: out even-if the idea ut punishment wero gnen up, and a prison were made as comfortable as a country house in a park, still, as long as people were confined there, or indeed, restrained or watched in any way, they; could always, by the expedient of voluntary starvation, force upon the community the alternative of either removing the restraint or seeing them die. ~ 'h's is the dilemma in which the oulir&gist3 have placed the Government. Hitherto the Government has stupidly and angrily attempted to escape from the dilemma by the illegal and abominable expedient of forcible feeding. It has been guilty of violence and torturo in its prisons, and it has tried to excuse itself by'lying and insolence in Parliament. At , that game it has been ignominiously bsaten. It has .had to release the wonioit and to confess its own impudent mendacity concerning the cruelty and danger of its illegal methods. >' ' "But this) plan of tin-ally releasing lie prisoners alter torturing them as much as 'disprison authorities dare,b clearly onlj applicable to short sentenc-osi "with regard to-which the Home Secretary can be assured that tiio unfortunate Women have received, in the course, of a, few days' forcible feeding, a -very lull equivalent for the miseries of the unexpired portions of their sentences. "Tlie moment the women go on to graver crimes this illogical compounding of ii mouth's, imprisonment for a week's torture is no longer possible. An attempt to give the Mountjby prisoners an equivaI lent, in forcible feeding lor three ami a half years', penal servitude would probably end either in killing them or driving them mad. The result of that might be that other Suffragists might be goaded into doing something that would be punished by a sentence of penal servitude for "In that case what would the Government do? To release a really dangerous criminal after a fortnight's stomachpumping would bo ridiculous, and the releassd prisoner might quite possibly be lynched. To keep the 'prisoner would mean allowing her to starve herself to death. "In such an extremity it seems to me that the-prisoner's: right to commit suicide would have to bo recognised. As long as the Government placed within the prisoner's reach a sufficiency of food, I do not see how it could be held accountable for the prisoner's death any more than, if- she committed suicide m any othsr manner. ."If a woman meets me on Waterloo Bridge and fays: /Give me a five-pound note or I'll jiimp -into the Thames and drown jnyself as soon as you have gone a sufficient distance .to prevent yon from holdirt; me,' I really do not see how I could reasonably comply with tlie'request, because if it were established as a rule of conduct that I was bound to do so or else be held guilty.of the woman's death, all tho women in London might make m'o stand aud deliver in /turn until I was a beggar."And in the same way if the Government is bound to release every prisoner who threatens to commit suicide by star* vntion, then all the criminals can compel -a general gaol delivery aud practically abolish all legal methods of dealing with crime. Tlie fact that these methods aro so bad that one would hardly regret such a result dees not affect the argument, because any methods, however humane, could be evaded in the same way."