Tax Resistance.
Mrs. Harvey’s Protest.
A great gathering assembled at Brackenhill to support Mrs. Kate Harvey in her spirited protest against the
Insurance Act. A decorated brake, adorned with Women’s Freedom League and
Women’s Tax-Resistance League banners, started from Headquarters’ Office at
, conveying some twenty-seven
persons, among whom were Mesdames Huntsman, [Anne] Cobden Saunderson, Tanner,
Mustard, Catmur, Pierotti, Green, Ball, Kux, Presbury, Johnson, Sanders,
Pyart, Watson, Spiller, Sutcliffe, Moser, Miss [Florence] Underwood, Misses
[Nina] Boyle, Sanders, St
Clair, and Lawrence. Miss F.A. Underwood and
Dr. [Elizabeth] Knight, who
went down by train, were accompanied by other members, and at the Bromley
Police-court were joined by Mrs. Snow, Mrs. Terry, Mrs. and Miss [Emma] Fox
Bourne, Mrs. Fisher, and other well-known members of the League.
Mrs. Harvey, charged on ten counts with neglecting to insure William David
Asquith under the provisions of the National Insurance Act, pleaded guilty
and said she did not mean to pay. Asquith was put in the box to prove that
his employer had refused to stamp his card; and the solicitor for the
Insurance Commissioners pressed for “special costs” on the strange ground
that there was no defence and that therefore the “public” should not be at
the cost of such a prosecution. Allusion was also made to Mrs. Harvey’s
well-known “objection” to paying taxes of any kind.
Mrs. Harvey then spoke. She said: “I am not resisting the Act as an Act. If
it had come straight down from heaven I should resist it just the same. I am
doing what every business man throughout the country does as a matter of
course — I refuse to pay for goods which I cannot choose.”
Continuing, Mrs. Harvey insisted on her right to choose the men who went to
Westminster to make the laws. “I am here because of my right to choose
clean-living men to make those laws, to save women from prostitution, to make
life more safe and our streets more safe for women and girls — aye, for our
children even. I stand here because I refuse to break the law — the
law has declared that there can be no taxation without the right of
representation.”
After consultation the magistrates imposed the vindictive sentence of £1
for each offence, £10; arrears of insurance due to Asquith,
5s.
10d.; court fees, £4
10s.; and “special” costs
(which we presume to be the solicitor’s own fees), £2
2s.; total, £16
17s.
10d.
Before leaving the dock Mrs. Harvey reiterated her intention not to pay. “I
would rather die first,” she exclaimed in a burst of fierce indignation as
she addressed the Bench. “I stand for justice, and this is injustice, an
injustice which will hang round your necks like a millstone and drown you in
your own incapacity and folly.” Loud cries of “Shame!” from the Suffragists
in court greeted the sentence, and Mrs. Harvey’s concluding remarks were
applauded.
The entire party was entertained to lunch and tea at Brackenhill, and in
the afternoon a poster parade, with alternate
W.F.L. and
W.T.R.
posters, was organised by Mrs. Huntsman. The placards were inscribed, “We
Refuse to Break the Law,” “Taxation of the Unrepresented is not Government,
it is Tyranny,” “We Refuse to Pay for Goods We Cannot Choose.”
In the market-place a mass meeting was held at
, with Miss Anna Munro in the chair.
A large, expectant crowd gathered long before the hour, and it is a
significant fact that the extreme hostility so characteristic of other
meetings at Bromley was conspicuously absent. A sea of upturned, attentive
faces listened without interruption to Miss Munro, who went over the grounds
on which women demand the Vote; and Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, who as
representing the Women’s Tax-Resistance League, pointed out that women
resisted the Act as women, as voteless women, and as tax-paying women; and to
Miss Nina Boyle, who summed up the position and set forth the policy of the
Women’s Freedom League.
That Waggon!
On ,
Dr. Knight’s famous hay waggon
was sold again at Woodbridge — this time to recover the amount of her dog
license and of the costs connected with the case. Mrs. [Isabel] Tippett, Mrs.
Lane, and Miss [Marguerite A.] Sidley represented the Women’s Freedom League.
Before the sale Miss Sidley addressed the market, explaining the
circumstances of the sale and the reasons for tax resistance. Afterwards Mrs.
Tippett gave a most excellent and telling speech which was listened to with
the greatest attention. While waiting by the waterside for their train our
members listened with much interest to an animated discussion on the merits
and demerits of tax resistance, and the speeches of the afternoon and of the
preceding evening when the Suffrage Pilgrims were at Woodbridge. The waggon
has done duty so often that it has now become historic in the Suffrage Cause;
future generations will, no doubt, rank it with John Hampden’s ship.
Dr. Knight is also resisting
the Insurance Act, and has received several calls from harassed officials.
She has arranged to meet them at some future date to discuss the whole
question.
Land Tax Resisted.
Miss Boyle has forwarded to the District Valuer of Worcester the following
communication in relation to the Inland Revenue “Forms” sent to her in
valuation of property in that neighbourhood:—
Sir,— I am exceedingly obliged to you for the interesting collection of
Forms 7, 17, 35 and 36 which you have been good enough to send me from time
to time. I trust you will continue and send me many more.
As for the provisional valuation being correct, I should think that in the
last degree unlikely. But as I have not the slightest intention of paying
anything whatever to the Government so long as women remain unenfranchised,
that is a question we need not go into for the present. — Faithfully
yours,
C. Nina Boyle.