The W.S.P.U.
dared not relax in its militancy lest Ministers should think the
struggle waning and Woman already tiring of her claims. The vaunted
Manhood Suffrage Bill had been introduced by an anti-woman-suffrage
Quaker Minister and its Second reading been proposed by an equally
anti-feminist Secretary of State--this was in June-July, 1912; and
no member of the Cabinet had risen to say a word in favour of the
Women's claims. Still, something might be done in Committee, in the
autumn Session--if there were one--or in the following year. There
was a simmering in the Suffragist ranks rather than any alarming
explosion. In March, before Vivie went to Brussels, Mrs. Pankhurst
had carried out a window-smashing raid on Bond Street and Regent
Street and the clubs of Piccadilly, during which among the two
hundred and nineteen arrests there were brought to light as
"revolutionaries" two elderly women surgeons of great distinction
and one female Doctor of Music. In revenge the police had raided the
W.S.P.U. offices at Clifford's Inn, an event long foreseen and
provided against in the neighbouring Chancery Lane.
The Irish Nationalist Party had shown its marked hostility to the
enfranchisement of women in any Irish Parliament and so a few
impulsive Irish women had thrown things at Nationalist M.P.'s
without hurting them. Mr. Lansbury had spoken the plain truth to the
Prime Minister in the House of Commons and had been denied access to
that Chamber where Truth is so seldom welcome.
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