THE SUFFRAGETTES.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1791, 2 July 1913, Page 3

THE SUFFRAGETTES.

Sir,—Will you kindly allow mo lo correct a mistake tliot appeared in the notice of Miss Gertrude Durke's wedding which states that the llev. Hugh Chapman, chaplain of the Chapel l(oyal, "owes obedience and allegiance to 110 earthly power"? The Rev. Hugh Chapman is not under episcopal control, but is under the direct control, and owes • obedience and allegiance, to King George. * This is very significant in the light of the fact that Mr. Chapman has always supported the militant Suffragettes by his presence on their platforms, and by sermons and "suffrage" services in the Chapel Hoyal. Mr. Chapman is an ardent admirer of Mrs. i'aiiKhurst, to whoso noble .character and self-sacrificing devotion to principle and humanity he has often publicly borne testimony. Will you allow me to suggest that you should refrain from publishing tho cablegrams from reports in the Yellow Press of doings of the Suffragettes, tho evidence of the falsehood of which you publish in tho announcement that the perpetrators of the "outrages" were students and boys? The campaign which tho Suffragettes have been obliged to follow, to make their demands understood, has never, and never will, endanger human life, nor has it over destroyed properly belonging to women. Neither have the Suffragettes anything to do with "outrages" whero hairpins and hatpins havo been found.! Thesa "feminine traces" are tho students' or boys' "little joke" to hide tho origin which they proclaim. The "bomb" which lias gone off has never beeu thrown or placed by a Suffragette. Their "bombs" consist of black coaldust, a shilling alarm clock, a pad of cotton-wool with a. candleend, placed in a jam tin. The panic and scaro which these harmless ingredients engender in the minds of Cabinet Ministers is soleiy duo to the daily and hourly reproach of their consciences for the brutnl. treatment of women and broken pledges. News of meetings which are being held in protest against the treatment of women prisoners and the extent of the campaign 'would boiof more interest to your reader's than the oensational cablegrams which fill your columns. Perhaps your intention in publishing these is to show that militancy is the "only way" to bring about the reform which fifty years of constitutional advocacy has not been ablo ■to secure. . The report I havo of a meeting in,protest of forcible feeding, which was presided over by tho Bishop of Lincoln, who \vas supported, by the Key. 11. J. Campbell, and other noted men, at which there was no condemnation of militancy, but strong disgust and condemnation of the treatment of prisoners, shows that public opinion, apart from hooliganism, is on the side of the women. There were 25,000 meetings in 1912, held by tho militants' alone, besides as many more by the constitutional societies, but no hotico of these or tho strenuous educational and constitutional propaganda is ever referred to in the cablegrams. The International) Suffrage Congress, which is. representative of the most distinguished men and women of every civilised country in tho world (except New Zealand, which has no representative) received only a short paragraph, and that in reference to militancy, which was not officially represented. Why do you so consistently advertise the cause of militancy and ignore all other methods which are being used in tho suffrage campaign?—l am, etc., ANNA P. STOUTs [Wo had been under tho impression that Lady Stout was in favour of militant —as distinct from lawless—methods as a means of attracting notice to the women's claims to the right to vote, but the last paragraph of her letter would 6cem to imply that such is not thfe case. We may explain that we merely publish the cable messages as sent by the Press Association, which claims to be a nonpartisan news service.]