WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE 89 



Warrants had also been issued against Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel ; 

 the former was already in custody for window-breaking, but the latter fled the country. 

 On May i5th the trial of Mrs. Pankhurst and Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Law- 

 Consplracy rence f or unlawful conspiracy to incite members of the Women's Social and 

 others. Political Union to commit damage began before Mr. Justice Coleridge at 



the Central Criminal Court, London. It resulted in a conviction and sen- 

 tences of nine months' imprisonment in the Second Division. On June 3rd the three 

 prisoners were transferred to the First Division upon undertaking not to repeat their 

 offence while in prison. Miss Christabel Pankhurst remained out of the country. 



On July 13, 1912 Miss Helen Craggs was arrested near Nuneham House, Oxford, 

 the residence of Mr. Lewis Harcourt, with house-breaking tools and petroleum in her 

 possession, and on July 23rd Dr. Ethel Smyth was arrested in connection with the 

 attempt on Nuneham, but was discharged on the 26th. Miss Craggs was convicted at 

 the Oxford assizes on October igth and sentenced to nine months' hard labour. 



In the same way Mrs. Mary Leigh and Miss Gladys Evans were arrested in Dublin, 

 in connection with Mr. Asquith's visit there, for attempting to set on fire the Theatre 

 Royal on July i8th. Mrs. Leigh was also charged with throwing a hatchet at Mr. 

 Asquith's carriage on July 1 9th. The two were convicted at Dublin on August 6th and 

 sentenced to five years' penal servitude. 



None of these sentences was actually served. Mrs. Pankhurst and Mrs. Pethick 

 Lawrence were released on June 24th and Mr. Pethick Lawrence on June 2yth. Mrs. 

 Leigh and Miss Evans were released on September 2oth and October 3rd 

 treatment. respectively, and Miss Craggs on October 3oth (after only a week's im- 

 prisonment). In each case the release was on grounds of health, the 

 prisoner having usually resorted to the tactics of refusing food and resisting forcible 

 feeding, known as the " hunger strike," which had already been pursued by a num- 

 ber of suffragist prisoners since 1908. The persistence in these tactics had continued to 

 cause serious embarrassment to the Government, and the practice of forcible feeding 

 greatly exercised the public conscience, violent protests being made by many people 

 against such methods of " torture." On April i8th the Home Secretary had stated in 

 the House of Commons that forcible feeding was only administered if the prisoner's 

 health could stand it; if not, she was discharged, or let out on ticket of leave. On June 

 i4th an influential petition for First Division treatment for all suffragist prisoners was 

 presented to the Home Secretary. On June 25th Mr. George Lansbury, a Labour mem- 

 ber, spoke very hotly in the House of Commons against forcible feeding, and on June 

 28th Lord Robert Cecil brought about a debate on the subject by moving to reduce the 

 salary of the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary then explained that after First 

 Division privileges had been granted to the leaders convicted for conspiracy, the other 

 suffragists then in prison for window-breaking had claimed the same treatment and had 

 adopted the hunger strike as a protest against its refusal, so that the Government were 

 faced with the dilemma of treating acts of wilful damage or calculated to endanger life 

 as political offences, or else of setting the prisoners free, with or without a short prelimi- 

 nary period of forcible feeding, which, when resisted, was undoubtedly capable of being 

 injurious to health. From this dilemma no escape was found, Mr. Bernard Shaw's 

 cynical suggestion that, if the women insisted ort trying to starve themselves to death, 

 they should be allowed to, being rather too logical for official minds. 



The dissensions amongst the different sections of suffragists on the vexed question 

 of militant tactics came to a head in October 1912, when Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence 

 Secession of wfto na< ^ con tributed largely to the funds of the militant societies, announced 

 Mr. and Mrs. their withdrawal from the Women's Social and Political Union, which 

 Pethick under the guidance of Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter was preparing for 



a further campaign. A difference as to the proposed plans was the reason 

 given for this Pethick Lawrence secession. Protests against militancy and violence 

 had meanwhile been made by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies and 

 by the Men's League for Women's Suffrage at intervals during the two years, especially 



