Is It Illegal Distraint?
Goods were seized from
Mrs. Tollemache, of Batheaston Villa, Bath, for refusal to pay Property Tax
and Inhabited House duty. The tax collector threatened to put a man in
possession for five days, but this was quite easily circumvented by acting on
the instructions of the League, and the goods were then promptly removed to
the White Hart Hotel, where they will be sold by public auction
.
For a tax amounting to £15, goods were seized far exceeding in value the
required sum, and it is therefore hoped that this will afford an opportunity
to sue for illegal distraint.
Also in that issue, the National Executive Committee of the Women’s Freedom League stated “the reasons which have led them to refrain from militant action at this juncture.” Leading up to their explanation, they reminded readers, among other things, that the W.F.L. “was the first Suffrage society to make tax resistance a part of its official programme.”
Another article covered an “At Home” meeting at which “Miss [Nina] Boyle gave a graphic account of the St. Rollox Division by-election at Glasgow, and of the spirited tax resistance protest by Miss [Janet Legate] Bunten, whose fine was paid without her consent.”
