The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies 1897-1914 (Routledge Revivals)

Leslie Hume

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317213260
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

First published in 1981, this book traces the history of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) from 1897-1914. Whereas most historians have focused on the more militant aspect of the struggle for female enfranchisement, embodied by the Women's Political and Social Union (WPSU), this work provides an essential overview of the often dismissed non-violent and constitutional NUWSS — by 1914 the largest single women's suffrage organisation. The author argues that, although a less dramatic organisation than the WPSU, the NUWSS was far more responsible for laying the pre-war groundwork for the enfranchisement of women in 1918.

CHAPTER V

THE ELECTION FIGHTING FUND AND THE FRANCHISE BILL

With the defeat of the Conciliation Bill, the NUWSS rested its hopes on the women’s suffrage amendments to the Franchise and Registration Bill; yet, the suffragists’ prospects were negligible if the same conditions that had extinguished the Conciliation Bill prevailed. If the vote on the women’s suffrage amendments were to be successful, the NUWSS would, in some way, have to prevent the coalescing of forces that had occurred on March 28. The NUWSS and its supporters in Parliament believed that the cessation of militancy would undercut the antisuffragist campaign against the amendments; the Pankhursts chose to turn a deaf ear to this argument and the suffragists unhappily acknowledged that they could not persuade the WSPU to abandon militancy. With the House of Commons, the NUWSS still thought it had some influence. The vote on the second reading indicated that the Liberals and the Irish held the keys to victory on the vote on the Franchise Bill; the NUWSS did not dismiss the Conservatives, but it felt, quite correctly, that its cause was more popular with the rank and file of the Liberal Party than with the Tories.¹ Therefore if the suffragist forces within the Liberal Party could be strengthened, and those who had abstained on March 28 could be persuaded to support the amendments, there was a good chance that the House of Commons would incorporate women’s suffrage in the Franchise Bill. About the Irish Nationalists, whose fortunes were so intertwined with the Liberal Party, there was less reason to be sanguine. Fawcett, complaining to Sir Edward Grey about the Nationalists’ vote on the Conciliation Bill, predicted that there would be little chance of carrying a women’s suffrage amendment if the Irish persisted in their opposition to the cause: “The fact that not one of Mr. Redmond’s followers voted for the Bill, though 31 voted for it last year, is very ominous for the future unless something can be done to win them back to a more reasonable attitude.² If a repetition of March 28 were to be averted, the NUWSS would have to secure, at the least, the neutrality of the Irish. The Liberals’ attitude to women’s suffrage would exert a great influence on the behavior of the Nationalists.

Between April 1912 and January 1913, the NUWSS turned its energies to the job of building up a parliamentary majority for the women’s suffrage amendments to the Franchise and Registration Bill. The main objects of the pressure were the Liberals and the Irish, who had to be drawn back to solid support. As in the past, the lobbying took the form of letters, memorials, meetings, and deputations. Some mention was also made of the women’s suffrage amendment to the Home Rule Bill, the “Snowden amendment.” The Irish were much opposed to this amendment, and the NUWSS thought it would be possible to use it as a way of showing the Nationalists that the suffragists could place obstacles in the path of Home Rule and perhaps coerce the Irish into remaining neutral on, if not supporting, the women’s suffrage amendments to the Franchise Bill.³ Lastly, the NUWSS adopted a new by-election policy: the Election Fighting Fund. This marked an important new departure in its political strategy.

The failure of the Conciliation Bill had severely shaken the NUWSS confidence in the Liberal Party, particularly in the party’s leadership, and had simultaneously demonstrated that the Labour Party was committed to women’s suffrage. By their official support of the Conciliation Bill, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) had given substance to the women’s suffrage resolution adopted at the January party conference.⁴ The NUWSS thought it was justified in showing the erring Liberals that they could not continue to toy with the suffragists, and at the same time rewarding the Labour Party for its steadfast support for women’s suffrage. The Election Fighting Fund (EFF) was worked out as a means of combining these several political motivations into a single strategy. If successful, the strategy would not only punish the Liberals but even entice them with the carrot being offered to the Labourites.

The EFF scheme, as first outlined in May 1912, was quite simple: the NUWSS agreed to form a special committee—the EFF—which would raise “a sum of money for the specific object of supporting individual candidates standing in the interests of Labour in any constituency where the N. U. thinks it advisable to oppose a Liberal Antisuffragist” and offered to “support such candidates by the organization of a vigorous campaign on their behalf.”⁵ The new policy was not anti-Government in the same sense as the WSPU’s election policy: it did not challenge all Liberals, only the antisuffrage ones. Moreover, unlike the militants’ policy, there was a positive content to the EFF: it would work to build up the forces of the prosuffrage Labour Party in the House of Commons. The NUWSS did not regard the EFF as an abandonment of its former “best friend of women’s suffrage” by-election policy. Rather, its support for Labour was simply a recognition that “a suffragist who belonged to a suffrage party was a better friend than a suffragist who belonged to a party which was Anti-Suffrage or neutral.”⁶ As Fawcett admitted, the defeat of the Conciliation Bill had administered a “fatal shock” to the old by-election policy of the NUWSS: forty-two “best friends” had voted against the bill and ninety-one had abstained. The EFF would add a new and more solid dimension to the interpretation of “best friend": in deciding whether or not to support a candidate, the NUWSS would take into account not only the individual’s views but also the views of his party.⁷

In short-range terms the NUWSS adopted the EFF to rid the House of Commons of antisuffragists and to augment the suffragist forces, thereby increasing the chance of a successful vote on the women’s suffrage amendments to the Franchise Bill.⁸ The EFF was not aimed indiscriminately at all antisuffragists, however—only at Liberal antisuffragists—and its main purpose was to coerce members of the Liberal Party into supporting the women’s suffrage amendments to the Reform Bill.⁹ Brailsford’s analysis of the causes of the Liberals’ antipathy to the Conciliation Bill agreed with that of the NUWSS in finding that many party members were afraid of the disruptive influence of women’s suffrage on the Cabinet and feared the electoral effects of the bill: “There was a general sense in the House that women’s suffrage was dangerous. It is fear which defeated us, and a calculation of party advantage. The belief which confronts us is that it may be dangerous to Liberalism to carry women’s suffrage. It lies with us to arrange that it will be much more dangerous to delay it.”¹⁰

In adopting the EFF, the NUWSS attempted to make such an arrangement. It intended to show the Liberal Party managers that “in consequence of the defeat of the Conciliation Bill and the uncertainty about the Government Reform Bill an increased number of three-cornered contests would take place. ”¹¹ Since the Liberals’ control over the House of Commons was no more than tenuous, three-way contests which would divide the progressive vote could well prove disastrous for the Liberals and put the Conservatives back in power. The NUWSS realized that the Liberal Party machine resisted women’s suffrage because of its electoral implications; it designed the EFF to persuade the Liberals that it would be more damaging to delay than to conclude a settlement of the women’s suffrage question. In assessing the prospect of an increased number of three-cornered by-elections, the Liberal Party managers might decide to press for the passage of women’s suffrage amendments to the Reform Bill, rather than risk the loss of Liberal seats.¹² Through the EFF the NUWSS also intended to influence, indirectly, the behavior of the Nationalists: the Irish, disturbed by the possible loss of Liberal seats at a time when Home Rule hung in the balance, might reverse their attitude to women’s suffrage.¹³

The new policy also had a subtler, long-range rationale. The NUWSS intended, should the women’s suffrage amendments to the Reform Bill fail, to continue the EFF policy with an eye to the next General Election: the object would be to increase the number of seats which Labour would contest at the election and to eliminate the antisuffragist element in the Liberal Party, particularly in the Cabinet. Brailsford, who was still the NUWSS parliamentary watchdog, had assured the suffragists that “Two changes in the present disposition of forces in the House would ensure our success; the elimination of the present antisuffragist element in the Liberal ranks and any considerable increase in the Labour strength.”¹⁴ A contest between Liberals and Labourites for the same seats might result in an electoral victory for the Conservatives, but that was a risk the NUWSS was willing to take. At this point, the suffragists were inclined to feel that their position could be no worse under a Conservative Government, particularly as the leadership of the party included a distinguished suffragist component; and besides, they were convinced that the Liberals would agree to a women’s suffrage measure if they believed that the suffrage issue would prove a handicap to them at the General Election.¹⁵

The negotiations that led to the formation of the EFF reveal much about the Labour Party and the NUWSS as political organizations. As had so often been the case in the past, Brailsford, himself a Liberal, played a guiding role in shaping the NUWSS policy, and he was responsible for the suffragists’ decision to formulate an alliance with Labour.

Brailsford had for some time been critical of the NUWSS by-election policy and had questioned its effectiveness in influencing the behavior of Members of the House of Commons. However, he also criticized the anti-Government by-election policy of the militants as being too sophisticat...