Suffragettes Still Campaign for Women’s Rights

Lake County Mail, Issue 29, 10 December 1947, Page 5

Suffragettes Still Campaign for Women’s Rights

Standing by the window of a Blooms bury women’s club, the visitor fron Sweden in the red-flowered summei frock patted her short, brown wavj hair and surveyed the 10 women whc had been to prison. They were al talking animatedly among the crowc of interesting-looking women present ._W*ten she left her' Swedish hoim for a holiday in London, she had nol anticipated being invited to a Suffragettes’ “at home.” It was all so contradictory. None of the women sipping cups of coffee looked as though she could ever have done such an unladylike thing as throw stones at windows, or struggle in the arms of a policeman. Yet at least 10 of these guests had gone to prison 40 years ago for their \ unorthodox behaviour during the \“ Votes for Women” activities, - writes Betty .Rosamund in the Daily Mail. (This sultry summer evening they all looked so very respectable. There was Miss Mary Phillips, with the smart hali;-stylc, over in the corner discussing her recent Yugoslavian holiday. In the days when the Suffragettes had determined that the only way to draw attention to their cause was to make a nuisance of themselves, Miss Phillips had concealed herself in the restricted space under a political speaker’s platform for nearly 24 hours in order to embarrass the man speaker with the uncanny cry of “Votes for Women” from under his feet. She would have appreciated then the dainty sandwiches she was now nibbling at the “ at home.” The black bread served in the cells of Holloway Prison 40 years ago was of such rock-like consistency that it .is still in an excellent state of preservation in the Suffragettes’ museum. The cocoa, too, was noted for its quantity rather than its quality, Suffragette-in-chief at the party was Lady Pethick-Lawrencc, who, in a champagne-coloured lace dress and coatee, was holding court at the food-covered round table. The sweetness and sensitivity of her face quite disproved the unfounded idea that all reforming women must be masculine types stamping around in flat-heeled shoes, wearing collars and ties and pork-pie felt hats. Looking Ahead . . . at 80 At the other side of the table sat Lord Pethick-Lawrence, former Secretary of State for India, nodding in agreement with Miss Marian•' Reeves (she just managed to keep outside Holloway’s doors during the Suffragette campaignings). The room was buzzing with chatter > , “ They had a town-crier in the Swiss village where I) stayed,” announced one guest, “ and they specially asked me to give a talk because I was British.” Not one word of reminiscence about the good old days could I hear. Even when Lady Pethick-Lawrence ** got up to speak, she was in an up-to-the-minute mood. For her there was no looking back. “We would not be without our memories—-the sad ones and the happy ones, she declared, “ but we have got to look forward.” “ She will be 80 in December,” whispered one woman to another. To Lady Pethick-Lawrence “ looking forward ” means riding the old hobby horse of equal pay for equal work, regardless of the sex of the worker. But she was not advising her hearers to be militant. That was all very well in the Suffragette days, when the country had few troubles. But that did not prevent Lady Pethick-Lawrencc denouncing the Government’s refusal to grant women equal pay for equal work. This denial of a principle they had accepted in theory she decisively declared to be “ Wicked.” “The Government ‘wicked?’” queried the guests, looking over at Lord Pethick-Lawrencc, who is one of its supporters. Here, was democracy really at work: Old Ditty Then Lord Pethick-Lawrencc spoke. To many he is the parton saint of the Suffragettes. From the earliest days he gave them his support. When his wife was in prison he increased his donations to their fighting fund, thus giving rise to the then popular ditty: “He said he’d give a pound a day To keep his wife in Holloway.

where members forgot their political labels as soon as they sat down to lunch. In the House of Commpns'’ restaurant, however, there was a tendency for Tories to eat only with Tories and Socialists to fraternise only with Socialists. Questions followed; What chance had peeresses in their own right of sitting in the House of Lords? Lord Pethick-Lawrencc thought they s’tood a very good chance if they started petitioning just now. Another “ peeress ” campaigner asked whether there was any significance in the fact that Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten was made a duke before his marriage to Princess Elizabeth. Was this to prevent Princess Elizabeth from sitting in the Lords as a peeress in her own right? Lord Pethick-Lawrence could not agree that there was any sinister plot

against women in this act. One of the globe-trotting speakers was Miss Alla Munro, a magistrate sitting in the Reading Court, who had has just returned from the United States. Miss Munro sat with American judges, she enjoyed the luxury of the New World and she returned home not dissatisfied with her own country. Abroad she found a fear of the future that despite all our problems, is not to be met here in Britain. So, over the coffee cups, these women whose very life blood is fused into our laws, continued to enrich by their varying experiences, and all kinds of political opinions, our most precious heritage of democracy.