6o4 



The Review of Reviews. 



of the laws lessens in the mind of the 

 common man r Passive resistance began the 

 destruction of the old, instinctive respect for 

 law!;, and thus the holders of the Noncon- 

 formist conscience are to a large degree 

 guilty of having pulled out the corner-stone 

 of the British legal edifice. Here the 

 ])()liccnKin has always ruled by moral in- 

 fluence, and has been respected because he 

 was the outward sign and concrete fore- 

 runner of a system of law not yet put into 

 motion. Abroad the policeman, armed with 

 sword and revolver, is the avenging symbol 

 of an active and fear-inspiring law. Are 

 we now to arm ovir police and abandon the 

 sway of moral force ? We must if we 

 weaken the respect for law. The numerous 

 remissions of sentences lead us almost to 

 believe the foreigner who said, " I always 

 knew that in England jjrisoners were inno- 

 cent until proved guilty ; it is only now that 

 I sec that they are also innocent when 

 proved guilty." One notable exception, 

 and one which shows that the courts of law 

 can take into account special circumstances 

 as well as a Minister, is the fact that the 

 niutineers of the Oli/mpic were released 

 without any punishment. This because 

 they represented public opinion, the real 

 framer of the unwritten law of England, 

 upon the question of the right of every pas- 

 senger and sailor, the right to a chance of life. 

 The sentence of Mrs. 

 Woman's Suffrage Pankliurst and Mr. and 

 Advancing. Mrs. Pethick Lawrence to 

 nine months" imprisonment 

 in the second division will, it may be 

 hoped, put a full stoj) to the tactics of 

 violence which ha\e proved so harmful to 

 the cause of the woman's vote. There 

 could be no shadow of a doubt of the truth 

 of the charge of conspiracy for the pur|)osc 

 of inflicting material damage. l"he jury 



mercifully drew attention to the " pure 

 motives "' that underlay the agitation^ The 

 moral effect of the sentence is greatly 

 heightened by the fact that the judge who 

 imposed it, Mr. Justice Coleridge, is well 

 known to be an advocate of woman's 

 suffrage. It is not too much to say that 

 the conscience of the community as a 

 whole, including many of the warmest 

 supporters of votes for women, approves 

 the justice of this punishment. The im- 

 prisonment of the three conspirators will 

 tend to wipe out the adverse effect produced 

 on public opinion by the window-breaking 

 episode. While we must always admire 

 those who are ready to suffer for their 

 convictions, we cannot raise any enthusiasm 

 for Roman martyrs who as soon as they 

 find themselves in the arena whine if they 

 do not fall to the share of a toothless old 

 lion. Perha[)s the most pathetic spectacle 

 suggested to the eye of the sympathetic 

 mind is that of poor Miss Christabel, the 

 chief of staff of the militant suffragettes. 

 She has had none of the glory of arrest, 

 none of the opportunities of addressing the 

 world from the prisoner's dock, none of the 

 kudos of martyrdom-: still wgrse, her en- 

 forced flight has simply effaced her. To 

 be driven into obscinitv and inactivitv in 

 . this crvicial \ car of the women's strueale is 

 surely one of the hardest punishments ever 

 meted out to an ardent soul. 



In the absence of these 

 Woman disturbers of the peace 



Labour. ^'^^ woman's movement is 



rapidly recovering itself, 

 and will be effectively heard of when the 

 Government's Franchise JJill comes before 

 the House of Commons. The National 

 Union of Women's Suffrage Societies has 

 just executed a dett stroke of electoral 

 strategy. In view of the lo\al and con- 



