Great Protest Meeting Against the Imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks.
“No Government Can Stand Ridicule. The Position is Ridiculous!”
The great meeting of indignant protest against the imprisonment of Mr. Mark
Wilks, held at the Caxton Hall on , under the auspices of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, will be
not only memorable but epoch-making. The fight for woman’s citizenship in
“free England” has led to the imprisonment of a man for failing to do what
was impossible. Throughout the meeting the humor of the situation was
frequently commented upon, but the serious aspect was most strongly
emphasized. Sir John Cockburn, who presided, struck a serious note at the
outset; for anything, he said, that touched the liberty of the citizen was of
the gravest importance. He remarked that it was the first occasion on which
he had attended a meeting to protest against the action of law.
The resolution of protest was proposed by
Dr. Mansell Moullin, whose
many and continued services to their Cause are warmly appreciated by all
Suffragists, in a very able speech, and ran as follows:—
That this meeting indignantly protests against the imprisonment of Mr. Mark
Wilks for his inability to pay the tax on his wife’s earned income, and
demands his immediate release. This meeting also calls for an amendment of
the existing Income-tax law, which, contrary to the spirit of the Married
Women’s Property Act, regards the wife’s income as one with that of her
husband.
A Husband the Property of His Wife.
Dr. Moullin expressed his
pleasure in supporting his colleague,
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, in the
protest against the outrage on her husband. The case, he said, was not a
chapter out of “Alice in Wonderland,” but a plain proof that, although
imprisonment for debt has been abolished in England, a man may be deprived of
his liberty for non-payment of money which was not his, and which he could
not touch. The only argument that could be used was that Mr. Wilks was the
property of his wife. Twice distraint had been made on the furniture of Mrs.
Wilks, the third time the authorities carried off her husband; it is the
first occasion on which it has been proved that a husband is the property of
his wife. The law allows a man to put a halter round the neck of his wife,
take her to the market-place and sell her, and this has been done within
recent years; but there is no law which allows the Inland Revenue authorities
to sell a husband for the benefit of his wife. Governments, he added, can
stand abuse, but cannot stand ridicule, and the position with regard to
Dr. Wilks and her husband is
both ridiculous and anomalous. The serious question behind the whole matter
was how far anyone is justified in resisting the law of the land. The
resister for conscience’ sake is the martyr of one generation and the saint
of the next. Dr. Moullin
doubted whether the Hebrews or Romans of old would recognise what their laws
had become; we are ashamed of the outrageous sentences for trivial offences
passed by our forefathers; our children will be ashamed of the sentences
passed to-day. Everything in the law connected with women required
reconstruction from the very foundation, declared
Dr. Moullin. Constitutional
methods, like Royal Commissions, were an admirable device for postponing
reform; all reformers were unconstitutional; they had to use unconstitutional
methods or leave reform alone. The self-sacrifice of an individual makes a
nation great; that nation is dead when reformers are unwilling to sacrifice
themselves.
No Man Safe.
Mr. George Bernard Shaw was the next speaker, and gave a characteristically
witty and autobiographical address. He said that this was the beginning of
the revolt of his own unfortunate sex against the intolerable henpecking
which had been brought upon them by the refusal of the Government to bring
about a reform which everybody knew was going to come, and the delay of
which was a mere piece of senseless stupidity. From the unfortunate Prime
Minister downwards no man was safe. He never saw his wife reflecting in a
corner without some fear that she was designing some method of putting him
and his sex into a hopeless corner. He never spoke at suffrage gatherings.
He steadily refused to join the ranks of ignominious and superfluous males
who gave assistance which was altogether unnecessary to ladies who could well
look after themselves.
Under the Married Women’s Property Act the husband retained the
responsibility of the property and the woman had the property to herself. Mr.
Wilks was not the first victim. The first victim was
G.B.S. The
Government put on a supertax. That fell on his wife’s income and on his own.
The authorities said that he must pay his wife’s supertax. He said, “I do
not happen to know the extent of her income.” When he got married he
strongly recommended to his wife to have a separate banking account, and she
took him at his word. He had no knowledge of what his wife’s income was. All
he knew was that she had money at her command, and he frequently took
advantage of that by borrowing it from her. The authorities said that they
would have to guess at the income; then the Government passed an Act, he
forgot the official title of it, but the popular title was the Bernard Shaw
Relief Act. They passed an Act to allow women to pay their supertax. In spite
of this Act, ordinary taxpayers were still apparently under the old
regime, and as Mrs. Wilks would not pay the tax on her own
income Mr. Wilks went to gaol. “If my wife did that to me,” said
Mr. Shaw, “the very moment I came out of prison I would get another
wife. It is indefensible.”
Women, he added, had got completely beyond the law at the present time. Mrs.
[Mary] Leigh had been let out, but he presumed that after a brief interval
for refreshments she would set fire to another theatre. He got his living by
the theatre, and very probably when she read the report of that speech she
would set fire to a theatre where his plays were being performed. The other
day he practically challenged the Government to starve Mrs. Leigh, and in the
course of the last fortnight he had received the most abusive letters which
had ever reached him in his life. The Government should put an end to the
difficulty at once by giving women the vote. As he resumed his seat Mr. Shaw
said: “I feel glad I have been allowed to say the things I have here
to-night without being lynched.”
Bullying Fails.
Mr. Laurence Housman laid stress on the fact that the Government was
endeavouring to make Mrs. Wilks, through her affection, do something she
did not consider right. Liberty could only be enjoyed when laws were not an
offence to the moral conscience of a people. Laws were not broken in this
country every day because they were not practicable. Every man, according to
law, must go to church on Sunday morning, or sit two hours in the stocks; it
was unlawful to wheel perambulators on the pavement. If the police were
compelled to administer all the laws on the Statute Book, England would be a
hell. To imprison Mr. Wilks for something which he had not done and could not
do was as sane as if a servant were sent to prison because her employer
objected to lick stamps under the Insurance Act. The Government had tried
bullying, but women had shown that it did not pay. Self-respecting people
break down a law by demonstrating that it is too expensive to carry.
Question for the Solicitor to the Treasury.
The legal aspect was the point specially dealt with by Mr. Herbert Jacobs,
chairman of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage. He said that it was
stupidity, not chivalry, which deprived the husband under the Married
Women’s Property Act of of the right to his
wife’s earnings, but did not relieve him of responsibility to pay for her.
Imprisonment for debt has been abolished; but if it could be shown that a man
had the means to pay and refused to pay, he could be sent to prison for
contempt of court. Mr. Jacobs suggested that the Solicitor to the Treasury
should be asked to reply to the following question: “What has Mr. Wilks done
or omitted to do that he should be imprisoned for life?” The law, he added,
does not compel a man to do that which he cannot possibly perform. The action
of the Internal Revenue authorities may be illegal; it certainly is barbarous
and ridiculous.
Bad Bungling
Mr. H[enry].G[eorge]. Chancellor pointed out that the Married Women’s
Property Act was an endeavour by men to remove injustice to women, but
because they did not realise the injustices from which women suffer and
avoided the woman’s point of view, they bungled badly. No one can respect a
ridiculous law, and the means to be taken in the future to avoid making
ridiculous laws, must be to give women the right to make their opinions
effectively heard through the ballot-box. Mr. Chancellor said that he had
investigated 240 Bill[s] laid on the table of the House, and had found that
123 were as interesting to women as much as to men; twenty-one affected women
almost exclusively; six had relation to the franchise. “When we consider
these Bills,” he added, “we rule out the whole experience and knowledge of
women. We must abolish sex privilege as it affects legislation. I appeal to
men who are Antis to consider the Wilks case, which is possible just so long
as we perpetuate the huge wrong of the continued disenfranchisement of
women.”
Refinement of Cruelty
In a moving speech Rev.
Fleming Williams declared that the case of
Dr. Wilks and her husband
ought to appeal to men all over the country. He spoke of the personal
interviews he had had with Mr. Wilks in the presence of the warder, and of
the effect of imprisonment upon him. It was impossible to contemplate
without horror the spectacle of the Government’s attempt to overcome the
wife’s resistance by the spectacle of her husband’s sufferings. If she
added to his pain by humiliating surrender, it would lower the high ideal he
cherishes of her principles. “She dare not do it; she will not do it!”
exclaimed Mr. Williams. He added that he had had an opportunity of waiting
upon the Inland Revenue Board and tried to show them how their action appears
to outside people. He had suggested that, in order to bring the law into
harmony with justice, representative public men in co-operation with the
Board should approach the Treasury to secure an alteration in the law. “But,”
declared Mr. Williams, “if women are made responsible by law it will not
bring the Government an inch nearer the solution of the difficulty. They may
imprison women for tax resistance, but married men would not stand it. The
only way is to say to Dr.
Wilks, “We will give you the right to control the use we intend to make of
your money.”
The resolution was passed unanimously with great enthusiasm, and thus ended
a meeting that will be historic.
The Campaign.
A great campaign is being carried on for the release of Mr. Mark Wilks.
On , the
Women’s Tax Resistance League held a meeting, followed by a procession in the
neighborhood of the prison, and on Sunday there was a large and very
sympathetic meeting in Hyde Park. Mrs. Mustard took the chair. Mrs.
[Charlotte] Despard and Mrs. [Margaret] Parkes were the speakers. The
resolution demanding the release of Mr. Wilks was carried unanimously.
Nightly meetings are held in Brixton by the Men’s Federation for Women’s
Suffrage.
A great demonstration will take place on
, in
Trafalgar-square. Members of the Women’s Freedom League and all
sympathisers are asked to come and to bring their friends. There will be a
large attendance of London County Council teachers — more than 3,000 of whom
have signed a petition against the arrest of Mr. Wilks.
A deputation of Members of Parliament and other influential men is being
arranged by Sir John Cockburn to wait upon Mr. Lloyd George and to see him
personally about the case.
Ignominious Defeat of Law-Makers.
We hope earnestly that before this issue of our
Vote appears, news of the release of Mark Wilks
will be brought to us. It seems to us impossible that the authorities of the
country can persist in their foolish and cruel action. But, in the meantime
and in any case, it may be well for us seriously to consider the situation.
We are bound together, men and women, in a certain order. For the maintenance
of that order, it has been found necessary for communities and nations all
over the world to impose laws upon themselves. In countries that call
themselves democratic, it is contended that the civil law is peculiarly
binding, because the people not only consent, but, where they have sufficient
understanding, demand that the laws which bind them shall, in certain
contingencies, be made or changed or repealed according to their need, and
because by their voice they place in seats of power the men whom they believe
to be honest and wise enough to carry out their will.
That, at least, is the ideal of democracy. For several generations the
British nation has claimed the honour of being foremost in the road that
leads to its achievement. We (or rather the men of the country) boast of our
free institutions, of our free speech, of the liberty of the individual
within the law to which he has consented, of the right to fair trial and
judgment by his peers when he is accused of offences against that law; above
all — and now we have the difference between a democratically governed
country and one under despotic rule — not to be liable to punishment for the
omission of that which he is unable to perform.
It seems clear and simple enough — what any intelligent schoolboy knows;
and yet our so-called Liberal Government, which flaunts in every direction
the flag of democracy, which proclaims, here severely and there with dulcet
persuasion, that liberty for all is their aim, and that “the will of
the people shall prevail,” does not hesitate, when it is question of a
reform movement which it dislikes and despises, to set itself in direct
opposition to its own avowed principles.
For what do the arrest and imprisonment of Mark Wilks mean? We are perfectly
certain that it will not last long. Stupid and inept as it has been, the
Government, we are certain, will not risk the odium which would justly fall
upon it if this outrage on liberty went on. A Government which has much at
stake and which lives by the breath of popular opinion cannot afford to
ignore such strong and healthy protest as is being poured out on all sides.
To us, who are in the midst of it, that which seems most remarkable is the
growth of public feeling. In the streets where processions are nightly held,
we were met at first by banter and rowdyism. “A man in prison for the sake
of Suffragettes!” To the boy-mind of the metropolis, on the outskirts of
many an earnest crowd, that seemed irresistibly funny; but thoughtfulness is
spreading; into even the boy-mind, the light of truth is creeping. If it had
done nothing else, the imprisonment of Mark Wilks has certainly done this — it has educated the public mind. It is not we, the Suffragists alone — it is women and men in hosts who are asking, What do these things mean?
On the part of these in our movement they mean courage, determination,
skilful generalship — aye, and speedy triumph. On the part of our
opponents, perplexity and failure.
“This is defeat, fierce king, not victory,” said Shelly’s Prometheus, when
from his rock of age-long pain he hurled heroic defiance at his tormentor.
The ills with which thou torturest gird my soul
To fresh resistance till the day arrive
When these shall be no types of things that are.
Woman, in this professedly liberty-loving country, may echo the hero’s
words. Defeat, in very truth, for what can the authorities do? Their position
is an extraordinary one. In a lucid interval, politicians — not clearly,
it may be, understanding the issues involved — passed the Married
Women’s Property Act. We believe there were no Antis then to guide and
encourage woman-fearing man. This may partly account for it. In any case,
the deed was done. Married, no less than single women and widows, became
owners of their own property and lords of their own labour. It would have
saved the country from much unnecessary trouble if, then, politicians had
gone a step further, if they had recognised woman’s personal responsibility
as mother, wage-earner or property-owner, and had dealt with her directly.
Love of compromise, unfortunately, weighs too deeply on the soul of the
modern politician for him to be able to take so wise a course, and it is left
for his successor to unravel the tangle.
What are the authorities to do? While, with threats of violence and dark
hints of disciplined, organised resistance, Ulster defies them, Suffragists
by almost miraculous endurance are breaking open prison doors. While brutal
men, under the very eyes of a Minister of the Crown, are torturing and
insulting women, in token, we presume, of their devotion to him, the story
of the wrongs of women — not only these but others — is being noised
abroad. None of our recent publications has been bought so freely as “The
White Slave Traffic.” While well-known women tax-resisters are left at
large, a man who has not resisted, but who respects women and will not coerce
his wife, is arrested and locked up in prison without trial, and, since he
cannot pay, for an indeterminate time. A pretty mess indeed, which will take
more than the subtlety of an Asquith, a Lloyd George or a McKenna to render
palatable to the men on whose votes they depend for their continuance in
power! In a few days they will be faced with a further difficult problem.
Women are prepared to resist, not only the Income, but also the Insurance Tax.
Let us see what the alternatives are. Mark Wilks may be let out as Miss
[Clemence] Housman was; but that will not help the Government. It is a poor
satisfaction to a creditor of national importance to know that his debtor is
or has been in prison. He wants his money, and the example of one resister
may be followed by many others. If so, that big thing the Exchequer suffers.
The creditor may, when Parliament comes together, pleading urgency, pass an
Act which will make married women responsible for their own liabilities. That
might result in a revolt of married women which would have serious
consequences. Men who live at ease with their children, shepherded by
admirable wives, would find it, to say the least, inconvenient to be deprived
periodically of their services. And these men might be in the position of
Mark Wilks. They might not be able to pay, while their wives might have no
goods on which distraint could be made. Truly the position would be pitiable.
Over the Insurance Act the same difficulties will arise. What is a distraught
Government to do?
The answer is clear. The one and only alternative that lies before our
legislators is at once to take steps whereby women — workers, mothers,
property-owners — shall become citizens. That done, we will pay our
taxes with alacrity; we will bring our quota of service to the State that
needs our aid, and the unmannerly strife between man and woman will cease.
In the meantime, the law and the legislator are defeated ignominiously, and
it is becoming more and more evident that, in a very near future, “the
will of the people shall prevail.”
C. Despard.
The “Favouritism” of the Law.
It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to devise a situation which
would show more clearly than does the Wilks’ case, how absolutely incapable
is the average man of grasping a woman’s point of view, or of realising her
grievances and legal disabilities. For seventy years men have been cooly
appropriating the Income-tax refunded by the Inland Revenue on their wives
incomes. Did anybody ever hear of a man raising a protest against the state
of the law which made it possible and legal for a husband to do this? My own
experience covers a good many years of Income-tax work, and the handling of
some hundreds of cases, but the only complaints I have ever heard have come
from the defrauded wives. I have observed that the men always accepted the
position with the utmost equanimity. But now, when by the exercise of
considerable ingenuity, women have contrived, for once in a way, to put the
boot on the other leg, the Press and the public generally is filled with
horror, and the air is rent with shrieks of protest from the male sex.
The Evening News sapiently remarks that women
might have been expected to have more sense than to seek to show up a law
which is “so obviously in their favour”! And The
Scotsman says: “One would imagine that the last thing the
Wilks’ case would be used for is to illustrate the grievance which woman
suffers under the law. Here two laws combine to favour the wife and
inflict wrong upon the husband.” And it goes on to deride women and
“their inherent illogicality.” Here we see clearly manifest the absolute
incapacity of man to realise the existence of any injustice until it touches
himself or his fellow man. Nothing could well be more logical than the
holding of a man responsible for non-payment of his wife’s Income-tax, since
it is the necessary and inevitable corollary of the theory that a wife’s
income belongs to her husband, and that all refunds of Income-tax must be
made to him, and to him only. It is in accordance with logic and
also with strict business principles that no person can claim the advantages
of his legal position while repudiating its disadvantages. Thus if a man dies
leaving money, his son cannot claim to take that money and at the same time
repudiate his father’s debts. He must accept the one with the other. And in
exactly the same way, women are no longer going to allow men to claim their
legal right to demand re-payment of their wives’ Income-tax, unless they also
accept their legal responsibility for its non-payment. The game of
heads-I-win-tails-you-lose is played out, and the sooner men realise this
fact the better it will be for everybody. The “logic” of
The Scotsman and its contemporaries is no longer
good enough for women. The law must be forced to take its course where men
are concerned as it does where women are concerned.
As to the provisions of the Income-tax Act favouring the wife and
wronging the husband, I can only say that Mr. Wilks’ case is the
first in all my experience where these provisions acted adversely to the
husband. And even in this case they only so acted because women had laid
their heads together to bring it about, and thus show how little men relish a
law of their own making when it begins to act on the boomerang principle, and
they find themselves “hoist with their own petard.”
A few actual instances, casually selected out of a large number, will show how
wives have hitherto been “favoured.” A man and his wife have £100 a year each,
taxed (at 1s.
2d. in the £) by deduction
before they receive it. There are four children, on each of whom the husband
is entitled to claim a rebate of £10 a year. (The wife, it should be noted,
can never claim any rebate whether she has a dozen or a score of
children. And if a widow, having children, re-marries, the rebate on these
children goes to their step-father.) Consequently the husband can,
and does, reclaim not only the tax deducted from his own income,
i.e. £5 16s.
8d., but also the £5
16s.
8d. deducted from his wife’s
income. So he really pays no tax at all, and gains £5
16s.
8d. while she loses a similar
amount. Thus the actual position is, that the wife is only worth £94 a year,
while he is worth £106 a year, though nominally their incomes are the
same. If single, each could claim repayment of £5
16s.
8d., therefore marriage
represents a loss to the wife, but a profit to her husband.
A member of the Women’s Freedom League was forced to leave her husband on
account of his misconduct, and to bring up and educate her children without
any financial aid from him. But for a number of years he regularly drew the
“repayment” of her Income-tax, until a merciful Providence removed him from
this mundane sphere, by which time it was calculated that she had lost, and
he had gained, about £200. At his death she, of course, ceased to be a legal
“idiot,” and was allowed to claim her repayment for herself. I may remark
here that the Income-tax Act has a favourite method of classifying certain
sections of the community, namely, as “idiots, married women, lunatics and
insane persons.” I don’t know precisely what the difference is between a
“lunatic” and an “insane person,” but doubtless there is a difference, though
unintelligent persons might think they were synonymous terms.
As regards the point of resemblance between the “idiot” and the “married
woman,” it is rather obscure, but after intense mental application I have
succeeded in locating it; and really when somebody illuminates it for you it
becomes clear as daylight. It is quite evident to me that our
super-intelligent legislators are convinced that the woman who is capable of
going and getting married is an utter “idiot,” and in fact next door to a
“lunatic.” Well, men ought to know their own sex, and if they say
that the women who marry them are idiots, it must be true, I suppose. We may
therefore take it that a woman evinces her intelligence by remaining
unmarried. I ought humbly to explain that, being married myself, I am only
one of the idiots, and therefore my ideas on any subject must not be taken to
have the slightest value. But to return to our instances of “favouritism,”
another man has £230 a year and his wife £170 a year. She pays Income-tax
(deducted before receipt) to the tune of £9
18s.
4d., and he pays
2s.
6d.. It sounds impossible,
perhaps; but when you know the rules it is quite simple. To begin with, he
gets an abatement of £160, which leaves him with £70. Then he gets a further
abatement of £67 for insurance premiums, a great part of which premiums are
paid by his wife on her own life. This leaves him with a taxable
income of slightly over £3, on which he pays
9d. in the £1., amounting to
half-a-crown. This couple have no children. If they had any he would begin
not only to pay no tax himself, but to have some of hers repaid to
him. She, however, under any circumstances, will always be mulcted of the £9
18s.
4d.; unless she becomes a
widow, when she will be able to reclaim the whole amount. (The official forms
supplied to those reclaiming Income-tax read: “A woman must state whether
spinster or widow.”) If we reverse the financial position
of this couple, and assume that she receives £230 and he only £170, she would
then be paying £13 8s.
4d. Income-tax. Contrast this
with his payment of half-a-crown in the same circumstances, and observe how
highly she is “favoured.” He, however, would then pay nothing and would
receive a “refund” of nearly £3
10s. a year.
A very enterprising and smart young fellow was able to treat himself to a
really nice motor-cycle — not the sort that has a side-car for a
lady — out of his wife’s “repaid” tax; repaid to him, I mean. He
can’t support himself, but depends on her, as she has just about enough for
them both to rub along on, though she can’t afford luxuries for
herself, and wouldn’t have paid for his. But the Inland Revenue gave him her
money quite cooly and without the slightest fuss.
The “Scotsman” will be pleased to hear that this poor husband manages to bear
up quite bravely under his “wrongs,” and seems indeed to get a considerable
amount of satisfaction out of them. His wife, I am truly sorry to say, doesn’t
properly appreciate the favour shown to her by the law.
But then men are naturally brave, and women are by nature a thoroughly
ungrateful lot I expect, if they could only see themselves as
The Scotsman and The
Evening News see them.
Ethel Ayers Purdie.
Another article from the same issue reads:
Forerunners.
In this connection it is interesting to note that three years ago two members
of our Edinburgh Branch, the Misses N[annie]. and J[essie]. Brown, walked
from Edinburgh to London, chatting of Woman Suffrage with the villagers all
along the line of route southwards, many of whom had then not even heard
about this question. They started from Edinburgh in
and reached London before
. A further point of
interest is that the father of these ladies was the last political prisoner
in Claton Gaol in . Mr. Brown’s offence was
his refusal to pay the Annuity Tax which he considered an iniquitous
imposition. He was imprisoned for one week, but received the treatment of a
political prisoner; he had the satisfaction of knowing that his protest led
to the repeal of the Annuity Tax. The next people who committed a political
offence in Edinburgh were two Suffragettes, who — fifty-two years later than Mr. Brown’s incarceration — were
imprisoned, but were not treated as political prisoners.
Another article from the same issue:
In Hyde Park.
Notwithstanding the showers a good crowd gathered on
to hear Mrs. Despard, who spoke of
the anomalies existing in our laws affecting women and taxation, and referred
at length to the imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks for his inability to pay his
wife’s taxes on her earned income. A resolution expressing indignation at
this and demanding Mr. Mark Wilks’ release was passed with only five
dissentients. The chair was taken by Mrs. Mustard, who told the audience of
the indignation felt by the Clapton neighbours and friends of Mr. and
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks over his
imprisonment.
A note in another article about the activities of local branches said, in part:
…On evening we had our usual
open-air meeting. Mr. Hawkins kindly chaired, and Mrs. Tanner spoke with her
usual excellency, bringing in the “Wilks” case in her speech, as a specimen
of anomaly in law in which the man suffers. The crowd was
sympathetic as regarded “poor old Wilks,” but was swayed otherwise by
mistaken ideas of our aims and motives.…
