Excerpts from an article in the issue of The Vote:
Women’s Freedom League.
Our Position and Policy.
…
In the Women’s Freedom League initiated the
first organised tax resistance campaign by which we tried to prove to the
nation that we were the Constitutionalists of the country in upholding a
principle of our Constitution that taxation and representation should go
together, and that in denying this principle by their refusal to allow
representation to the women whom they taxed, the Government were acting
unconstitutionally. Ever since that time Tax Resistance has been one of the
foremost planks in our platform. Not only does the Women’s Freedom League
object to taxation without representation; it is just as strongly opposed to
legislation being passed over the heads of women without women’s opinions
being represented in the legislature, and has endeavoured to prove that the
government of women without their consent is both a difficult and costly
matter. The Women’s Freedom League also initiated the Census Protest, urging
its members to resist and evade the Census. The result was that thousands of
women up and down the country were not enrolled on the nation’s register, nor
did they give any information concerning themselves. Before the National
Insurance Act was passed the Women’s Freedom League declared its intention of
refusing to comply with its regulations, and it has not paid one penny
towards the insurance of any of its many employees. This Act not only imposes
taxation and legislation on unrepresented women; it adds the further insult
of asking women to collect taxes from other women who are unrepresented!
…
