1909] The Suffragettes Again 237 



" 12th March. — I was premature in thinking I had converted Margot 

 in the direction of peace with the Suffragettes. She writes in strong 

 language about them : ' I personally think the women criminal as they 

 threaten people's lives and incite the rotters in the street to storm 

 anything and anybody. They are hysterical, full of vanity, and too 

 idle to promote their cause in an intellectual way. . . . Let them have 

 the vote after a general election approves of it, but let us be in peace 

 till then.' I am answering : ' You must not be angry with me for 

 what I said in favour of the Suffragettes. I have no brief for them, 

 nor do I take much interest one way or another in their cause. I 

 should be against them if I thought there was the smallest chance of 

 woman rule in England, but there is none, no more than there is 

 danger of " the Yellow Peril " in Europe, or the " Negro Peril " in 

 America. Women have never ruled men anywhere and never will 

 except indirectly by being better and kinder and less selfish than we 

 are. You are one of these, and if I talked as I did it was because 

 I was afraid you might focus on yourself the resentment of some 

 foolish women who would do you an injury in anger at having been 

 treated criminally for a political offence. I know how violent ideas 

 work in enthusiastic people's minds. That is my chief interest in the 

 quarrel. So absolve me. The whole woman's movement is not worth 

 a curl of your brown head, which may God protect from evil.' 



" An Indian gentleman. Mr. Khaparde, called on me with a letter 

 of introduction from Hyndman. Here is a genuine Nationalist of a 

 very different type from Gokhale and Lajpat Rai. He is in England 

 now for the first time to do what he can in favour of his friend Tilak, 

 who has been deported to Mandalay. He brought Tilak's case before 

 the Privy Council but, of course, without result, and he is now try- 

 ing to get a petition signed in favour of his friend's release, and 

 present it in Parliament. He spoke very openly in an extreme national 

 sense, saying that everyone in India now was for eventual independence, 

 even the moderates, though people dared not say all they thought. 

 ' Even the Mohammedans ? ' I asked, and he said there was no real 

 difference of opinion between them and the Hindoos, ' in a revolt they 

 would all be with us. They hate English rule, perhaps more than we 

 do, because, except in the West, it was they, not we, who had been 

 deprived of power by the English. The Moderates,' he said, ' were 

 swayed by motives of personal interest, but they had no following 

 in the country. Gokhale found it to his advantage to play the English 

 game or he would not be where he is. As for Lajpat Rai, his arrest 

 had been a blunder, for he was a man of no importance, the real 

 leaders of the riots being still at large.' He said he found our people 

 here in England very different to what he had imagined them. He 

 had been brought up with the tradition of their being full of good 



