Tax Resistance.
An interesting sequel to the seizure of Mrs. Tollemache’s goods last week,
and the ejection of the bailiff from her residence, Batheaston Villa, Bath,
was the sale held ,
at the White Hart Hotel. To cover a tax of only £15 and costs, goods were
seized to the value of about £80, and it was at once decided by the Women’s
Tax Resistance League and Mrs. Tollemache’s friends that such conduct on the
part of the authorities must be circumvented and exposed. The goods were on
view the morning of the sale, and as there was much valuable old china,
silver, and furniture, the dealers were early on the spot, and buzzing like
flies around the articles they greatly desired to possess. The first two
pieces put up were, fortunately, quite inviting; £19 being bid for a chest of
drawers worth about 50s.
and £3 for an ordinary leather-top table, the requisite amount was realised,
and the auctioneer was obliged to withdraw the remaining lots much to the
disgust of the assembled dealers. Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, in her
speech at the protest meeting, which followed the sale, explained to these
irate gentlemen that women never took such steps unless compelled to do so,
and that if the tax collector had seized a legitimate amount of goods to
satisfy his claim, Mrs. Tollemache would willingly have allowed them to go.
Another note in the same issue mentioned that “the quarterly meeting of the Scottish Council of the Women’s Freedom League… expressed high appreciation of the splendid stand made by Miss [Janet Legate] Bunten, hon. treasurer of the Glasgow Branch, in defence of the principle that ‘taxation without representation is tyranny.’ Miss Bunten intimated her determination to continue this fight.”
