So various Conciliation Bills
were allowed to be read to the House of Commons and to reach Second
readings at which they were passed with huge majorities. Then they
came to nothingness by being referred to a Committee of the whole
House. Still a hope of some solution was dangled before the
oft-deluded women, who could hardly believe that British Ministers
of State would be such breakers of promises and tellers of
falsehoods. In November, 1911, there being no reason for further
dissembling, the Government made the announcement that it was
contemplating a Manhood Suffrage Bill, which would override
altogether the petty question as to whether a proportion of women
should or should not enjoy the franchise. This new electoral measure
was to be designed for men only, but--the Government opined--it
might be susceptible of amendment so as to admit women likewise.
[Probably the Government had satisfied itself beforehand that,
acting on some unwritten code of Parliamentary procedure, the
Speaker would rule out such an amendment as unconstitutional. At any
rate, this is what he did in 1913.]
The wrath of the oft-deluded women flamed out with immediate
resentment when the purport of this trick was discerned. Led by Mrs.
Pethick Lawrence a band of more than a thousand women and men (and
some of the presumed men were, like Vivie, women in men's clothes,
as it enabled them to move about with more agility and also to
escape identification) entered Whitehall and Parliament Street armed
with hammers and stones.
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