The following statement, signed by Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and Mrs. and Miss Christabel Pankhurst, was published yesterday in Votes for Women, which has hitherto been the organ of the Women's Social and Political Union:-
At the first re-union of the leaders after the enforced holiday, Mrs. Pankhurst and Miss Christabel Pankhurst outlined a new militant policy, which Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence found themselves altogether unable to approve. Mrs. Pankhurst and Miss Christabel Pankhurst indicated that they were not prepared to modify their intentions, and recommended that Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence should resume control of the paper Votes for Women, and should leave the Women's Social and Political Union. Rather than make schism in the ranks of the union, Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence consented to take this course. In these circumstances, Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence will not be present at the meeting at the Royal Albert Hall on October 17.
It is stated on the title page of Votes for Women that the paper is now edited by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence, and the editors, after speaking of the distress and pain which the separation from the other leaders has caused them, say:-
"So far as this paper is concerned, for which alone we have now any right to speak, it is our intention to continue along the main lines which we have adopted since we founded it five years ago. It will advocate absolute political equality of status between men and women. It will consistently oppose every Government which refuses to give effect to this fundamental principle. It will show the futility of so-called constitutional methods while the only weapon which is really constitutional - the Parliamentary vote - is withheld from women."
THE NEW MILITANCY.
The Women's Social and Political Union, being deprived by the arrangement recorded above of its former organ, has started a new paper, the Suffragette, of which Miss Pankhurst is the editor. The new organ, which bears testimony to Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence's services to the cause of woman suffrage, announces that the Women's Social and Political Union will continue to occupy the premises at Lincoln's Inn House. Mrs. Pankhurst succeeds Mrs. Pethick Lawrence as hon. treasurer of the Union, and Mrs. Tuke becomes the hon. secretary.
Miss Pankhurst, in the course of a leading article, says:-
"At the present time alarmist rumours are afloat concerning the intentions of the Women's Social and Political Union. It is being said that life is now to be attacked. To that we give an absolute and uncompromising denial. The militancy sanctioned by the Union consists in defiance of legal enactments and in attacks upon property. The only limit that the Union puts to militancy is that human life shall be respected. The new militancy is only a development of the old."
Mr. Pethick Lawrence explained the position in the course of conversation yesterday.
He said that before March last the policy of the union was the result of the combined deliberations of Mrs. and Miss Pankhurst, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, and himself. During their enforced separation Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and he outlined in their minds a militant policy for the ensuing campaign. Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter at the same time were forming certain definite views, and when they met again for the first time they found that those views were mutually inconsistent. Miss Pankhurst was with them when they met. All their views were of a militant nature, but they differed as to the form their militancy should take. As the only alternative course was to fight out their divergence publicly, in the presence of the members, Mrs.Pethick Lawrence and he decided to leave. The union now had a reserve of ú10,000. He had no intention at present of forming a society on his own account.
OPPOSITION TO THE LABOUR PARTY.
The rival organs both criticize the Labour Party with candour. Votes for Women describes the attitude of the Labour Leader, the official organ of the Independent Labour Party, as pusillanimous, and says that in view of the known facts it is extraordinary that a section of woman suffragists continue to trust blindly to the Labour Party.
The Suffragette is more aggressive and thus defines the policy of the Women's Social and Political Union:-
"Hitherto only Liberal candidates have been opposed at elections, but from now onwards Labour candidates will also be opposed. Everything that women can do will be done to weaken the coalition and each section of it, both in the House of Commons and in the country."
Meanwhile the non-militant National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies issues the following announcement:-
"The present election policy of the National Union is to support the Labour candidate in three-cornered contests, except in cases where his personal attitude on the women's suffrage question is unsatisfactory, or where the Liberal candidate is a tried friend of the women's cause. A special fund has been inaugurated for carrying out this policy, and between ú4,000 and ú5,000 has already been received."
The Women's Freedom League also makes no complaint against the Labour Party. Miss Nina Boyle, its secretary, said yesterday:-
"The Labour Party never gave any pledge as to how it would vote, and we never asked it to give any pledge. . . . We have never had any defined relations with the Labour Party, but have simply assisted it in three-cornered contests, in order to help to split the Liberal vote, and we shall continue to assist it in that way whenever there is a chance of injuring the Government.
MR. LANSBURY'S POSITION.
Mrs. PANKHURST presided last night at a crowded gathering of suffragists at the Albert Hall.
She said she yielded to no one in her gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence for the incalculable service they had rendered to the women's movement, and she firmly believed that the women's movement would be strengthened by their being free to work for the suffrage as they thought best, while those who remained with the Union would continue the militant movement. It had never been the policy of the Women's Social and Political Union to be reckless of human life, and it was through property - which was far dearer to the Government than human life - that they must strike their enemy. Let them put on their armour and be militant each in her own way. Let all who could break windows do so. She incited that meeting to rebellion. The Government had not dared to take the leaders of Ulster for their incitement to rebellion. Let them take her if they dared.
Mr. LANSBURY, M.P., spoke in support of the resolution declaring a relentless opposition to the Government "and its allies" while they maintain their present attitude. Referring to the position of the Labour Party, he said that when the time arrived for consulting his constituents he would take this stand-that he could not be a party to keeping in office a Liberal Government or any other Government which refused, by every kind of subterfuge, to see justice done to women.
Mrs. PANKHURST announced that, of the ú10,000 which the Women's Social and Political Union now had in hand, ú6,000 was to be put aside for the payment of rent for three years of the new buildings in Kingsway, ú2,000 would be placed in the hands of trustees to cover any loss which Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence might incur in connexion with the old premises in Clement's Inn and their other activities, and ú2,000 would be kept in hand.
The resolution was carried almost unanimously.
During the evening contributions to the Union's funds, amounting to ú3,300, were announced.
.lcThe WSPU leadership split in 1912 over the issue of militant tactics they should adopt. The more moderate Mr and Mrs Pethick Lawrence left the organisation, leaving the WSPU in the hands of the relentlessly militant Mrs Pankhurst and her eldest daughter Christabel.
