Somerset House and Its Ways.
The morals of Somerset House [the offices of Inland Revenue] are like those
of the much abused “heathen Chinee.” The Department has a very simple and
convenient maxim by which it regulates its conduct, and that is, Never be
aware of anything unless it pays. So long as money could be easily obtained by
annexing Mrs. Wilks’ furniture and effects, the Inland Revenue authorities
shut their eyes to the fact that she was Mrs. Wilks, living with Mr. Wilks,
and therefore might be assumed by any intelligent person to be married. Their
excuse is that she never “told” them she was married until recently, and so
they assumed she was not! Presumably they thought Mr. Wilks was her
father-in-law or her grandfather-in-law, or that she called herself Mrs.
Wilks by way of a joke. So soon as they found no more money would be
obtainable from her, they conveniently realised that she had a husband, from
whom they demand the tax. “But a great many excuses must be made for a
Department which has only become officially alive to woman’s existence during
the current year,” writes Mrs. [Ethel] Ayres Purdie to us. “Hitherto all
official letters began with ‘Sir,’ regardless of the fact that women
pay taxes, and pay for the official stationery and clerical work. As I
objected to having ‘Sir’ hurled at me every time I opened an official letter,
I drew up a form letter, in which I observed that ‘business men’ were in the
habit of addressing women clients or customers as ‘Madam,’ and I should be
much obliged if they would remember this fact, and refrain from the solecism
of addressing me as ‘Sir.’ Every public official from the humble clerk up to
Departmental secretaries and arrogant Treasury clerks received one of these
letters as regularly as clockwork every time they called me ‘Sir.’ At last
they have learnt to address women as ‘Madam,’ and this year even the printed
forms begin ‘Sir or Madam,’ for all the world like a respectable business
firm.
Some excerpts from another article in the same issue:
“Mostly Fools.”
That “the Law is a Hass” no one has ever seriously attempted to deny; but
what one wants to know is what to say of the people who make it? This is an
aspect of the case that has been much neglected; but with a little goodwill
and concentration, we hope to make up for lost time and direct attention to
the real offenders. It is a poor kind of wit or wisdom that breaks its shaft
over the suffering head of the Law, and keeps silence on the subject of the
Law-maker. The gentlemen who draw salaries large and small, ranging from
£10,000 to £400 a year for performing what one might describe as the most
highly skilled work required by the country, and who perform that work in
such a way as to create such situations as that leading to the arrest of Mr.
Mark Wilks for non-payment of taxes not his own and due on an income over
which he has no control and whose amount he can only guess at, are surely
playing the biggest “bluff” ever put up, on their long-suffering fellow-men.
One’s mind wanders between the alternative possibilities, that those in
office are knaves while the others are fools, or that they are all knaves
together; or that they are “mostly fools,” both in office and out.
…
…Acts in conflict with each other, such as the Income Tax and Married Women’s
Property Acts, the National Insurance and the Truck Acts, should be brought
into harmony on some definite ruling; and some attempt should be made by
future legislators so to simplify their language as to make their meaning
plain without the superfluity of litigation which their unhappy ambiguity at
present inflicts on the nation. While waiting for this legislative
millennium, we fill in the time by demonstrating on every possible occasion
how poor is the workmanship for which we are called upon to pay such
preposterous prices, and how entirely logical and correct a fashion of
protesting our displeasure and disability is the Tax Resistance policy, of
which Mr. Mark Wilks and Dr.
Wilks are the latest exponents. All Suffragists will thank them for their
spirited action, which from the nature of the case must have been painful
and unpleasant for them both. We shall not readily forget such support as
that given by Mr. Wilks; and the demonstration on
by the
W.F.L.,
the W.T.R.L.,
the Men’s League and the Men’s Federation, showed how forcible is such
action. The position was entirely appreciated by the large crowds which
gathered round the Lions in Trafalgar Square; and in spite of a good deal of
laughter and “chaff” which was never ill-natured, a large section of the
“long-suffering” British public testified to its dissatisfaction with the
present state of the law and its approval of the tactics of the Women Tax
Resisters.
C. Nina Boyle
Trafalgar-Square Demonstration.
.
True “Queen’s weather” favoured the opening of our autumn campaign on
, when the Freedom League, in
conjunction with the Tax Resistance League, the Men’s League, the Free Church
League, and the Men’s Federation for Women’s Suffrage met in the
Trafalgar-square to demand the enfranchisement of women and to protest
against the imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks for the non-payment of his wife’s
taxes. Mme. Mirovitch and Mr.
Herbert Jacobs were among those who supported the speakers.
The large crowd, which gathered half an hour before the meeting began and
remained throughout the two hours of its duration, showed the widespread
interest in votes for women. Both before and during the speeches members of
the Tax Resistance League paraded the Square, carrying sandwich-boards
bearing the words in bold letters, “We demand the immediate release of Mark
Wilks.”
There were two platforms on the plinth, one presided over by Miss Anna
Munro and the other by Mrs. [Isabel] Tippett. At both of these the following
resolution was put and carried by a large majority:— “That this meeting
demands from the Government the political enfranchisement of women this
Session, and the immediate release of Mr. Mark Wilks.”
Ridiculous Position of the Government.
Mrs. Tippett, in opening the meeting, pointed out the extraordinary and
ridiculous position in which the Government has placed itself by the
arrest of Mr. Wilks. The crowd was intensely interested while she read a
statement of Mr. Wilks with regard to his position. Mr. Futvoye, of the
Men’s Federation, in moving the resolution, said how glad he was to be on a
common platform with so many suffrage societies. The women’s movement had
drawn together people of different parties, religions and sexes. He
emphasised the fact that women will be unable to get fair conditions of life
and labour until they get the vote. As long as they are unrepresented the
Government will take no notice of their demand for a living wage. Mrs.
Merivale Mayer, seconding the resolution, said there was much talk about
progress in these days, but when women talked of it it seemed to be thought
that she required man’s permission to rise. This was not progress. Miss
Boyle, in supporting the resolution, showed the ridiculous situation brought
about by the incompatibility of the laws with regard to Income-tax and the
Married Women’s Property Act. Members of Parliament are the servants of the
people, paid, whether they be ministers or ordinary members, out of the
pockets of both men and women. Though paid to make laws, they did
their job so badly that other people then had to be paid to find out what
the law meant. Women wanted better value for their money, especially when it
was taken from them under compulsion. Suffragists had found that Tax
Resistance was very effective; but though Government was spending public
money in trying to put down the Suffrage movement, they would not succeed.
In being so blind as to the strength and significance of the movement, and
in their treatment of the women of this country, they were obliged to look
either fools or brutes, and as they were not afraid to look either they
succeeded in looking both.
An Appeal to Business Men.
Mr. Simpson supported the resolution. He appealed to the practical business
men in the crowd, who had the vote because others had fought for it for them.
After long years of legislation of the people for the people by the people
they wanted less of Party politics and more improvement in social conditions.
In the Labour market, what had been done to raise wages was neutralised by
the cheap labour of women. Votes for women was the only remedy for this.
Miss [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, of the Tax Resistance League, explained that
Mrs. Wilks refused to pay her taxes because she realised that such a refusal
was the most logical protest a woman could make against a Liberal Government
whose cry had been that with taxation must go representation. The Government
was bound either to remove the burden of taxation, or give women the vote. She
thought men ought to make the protest, for the Government had imprisoned a
man, while Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, Mrs. Pankhurst, and many other women who
had not paid taxes for years, were still at large.
Worse than Ancient Rome.
At the other platform, presided over by Miss Munro, the mover of the
resolution was Mrs. [Margaret] Nevinson, who kept her audience in a ripple of
laughter. She thought it was high time to alter the laws of this country,
which in some respects were worse than those of ancient Rome, when in the
twentieth century a man could be put in prison for doing nothing. She told
several very amusing and yet pathetic stories of cases she had known before
the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act, but said that the passing of
that Act had brought about such anomalies as the present one, when a man
could be arrested for not paying his wife’s taxes when he didn’t even know
her income.
Mr. Lawrence Housman, in seconding the resolution, said that as a member of
the Tax Resistance League he would like first to thank the Women’s Freedom
League for allowing them to share in this meeting and to state a man’s
grievance. He found women always ready to help men, and felt that if men had
been as ready to help women they would not be in the position they are
to-day. According to the Anti-Suffragists, the sending of a man to prison for
his wife’s default is an example of the wife’s privileges under the law. All
honest women want to get rid of this privilege. At the mention of Mrs. [Mary]
Leigh’s release there was loud applause. Mr. Housman said the Government dare
not kill her because, whatever she had done, they knew she was fighting for
a just cause. Here was a case where physical force, so beloved by the
Anti-Suffragists was defeated.
Man and Woman Standing Together.
Mrs. Despard, who was received with loud applause, said it gave her peculiar
satisfaction to support the resolution, particularly the last part of it, for
in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Wilks she saw coming true an old dream of hers,
the dream of men and women standing together, not only in the family, but in
that larger family — the State. She was proud that these were her personal
friends. It was difficult to understand the actions of the Government with
regard to tax resistance, for she had not paid taxes for two years, and the
Government had done nothing but tell her that she should know their
intentions. In Ireland one weak woman had defied them; they had found it
useless to coerce; the only possible course was to yield to the just demands
of womanhood.
Poetic Justice.
Mrs. Tanner said that although everyone was indignant at the arrest of Mr.
Wilks, there was some sort of poetic justice in a man having to suffer
through the muddle made by men. It showed how incapable men were of
legislating by themselves. Women asked for a share in the Government in
order to try and prevent such muddles occurring in the future. Mr. Kennedy
supported the resolution as a member of the Men’s League. He reminded his
audience that the poet Whittier, in writing of Women’s Suffrage, had said
that it was right because it was just, and although the consequences were
not known, it was the safest thing, the truest expediency, to do right.…
Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, of the Tax-Resistance League, also very briefly
supported the resolution. She begged for sympathy and support of Mr. Wilks
and announced how this could be publicly shown.
…
Enthusiasm for Dr. Wilks.
At the end of the meeting Dr.
Wilks spoke a few words from each platform. She was received with great
applause, which was redoubled when she announced that neither she nor her
husband intended to pay the tax.
A. Mitchell.
The Government in a Knot.
Statements by Mr. and Mrs. Wilks.
Mr. Mark Wilks, of 47, Upper Clapton-road,
N.E., was arrested on
while on his way to the
school of which he is headmaster, and removed to Brixton Prison, for the
non-payment of his wife’s Income-tax. He is the husband of
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, suffragist
and upholder of the principle “No vote, no tax.” Her goods have been
distrained upon on two occasions for non-payment of taxes. In a “manifesto”
he has issued Mr. Wilks says:—
In my wife claimed that such distraint was
illegal, asserting that under the Income-tax Act she, as a married woman,
was exempt from taxation. The authorities then wavered in their claim,
making it sometimes on her, sometimes on me, sometimes on us both
conjointly, finally on me alone. On my pointing out that her liability had
already been established by forcible distraint upon her property, I was
informed that for the future I should be held liable, as that by the
Income-tax Act the “wife’s property for purposes of taxation is the
husband’s,” although by the Married Women’s Property Act it is entirely out
of his control. Thus I am to be held liable for a tax on property which does
not belong to me. I am now told I am to be committed to prison until such
time as I shall pay the “duty and costs” — over £37.
Dr. Wilks’s Statement.
Writing to the Standard (“Woman’s Platform”)
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks states the
case forcibly and clearly thus:—
Will you allow me a space in your columns to explain as clearly as I can the
position my husband and I respectively take in regard to the non-payment of
tax on my earned income? The Press misrepresents the case when it speaks of
Mr. Wilks’s refusal to pay the tax. I refuse to pay any Imperial tax until
the Parliamentary vote is granted to women on the same terms as to men. He
does not refuse to pay, but as an assistant-teacher under the London County
Council he has not sufficient money to do more than pay the tax on his own
income, which he has done. While, however, married women are not recognised
as taxable units the claim does not fall on the right person. At present the
Income-tax Act still holds a man liable for the tax on his wife’s income, in
spite of the fact that a more recent Act, the Married Women’s Property Act,
has taken from him all control over that income. Yet we neither of us
dreamed that this anachronism would be thus glaringly exposed by the
imprisonment sine die of a husband earning a smaller income
than his wife.
I am taunted with the fact that while asking for my rights I am unwilling to
accept my liabilities. This is untrue. I am asking to be recognised as a
person both as regards rights and liabilities. If the State comes to
recognise me as a person liable to taxation, but still denies me
representation, I, as a voteless tax-resister, shall be in Holloway Prison
instead of my husband, a voter and taxpayer, being in Brixton — perhaps
a somewhat less absurd position than the present one.
In the meantime the law does indeed press hardly on my husband, and a very
striking example is given of the tendency of present-day legislation to
penalise those who desire to comply with the marriage laws of the country.
Had the tie between us been irregular my husband would have been practically
exempt from Income-tax, and for years I could have claimed abatement.
Because we are legally married he has had to pay the tax on the whole of
his salary.
There is one other point I should like to mention. From the outset of my
professional career the authorities have sent the claim on my earned income
to me and not to my husband. In , instead of paying, as I had previously done, I wrote across the
form, “No vote, no tax.” They then distrained on me for the amount. In
I questioned the legality of the
threatened distraint, and the authorities then wavered in their claim,
making it sometimes on me, sometimes on my husband, sometimes on us both
conjointly, finally on him alone. Now after two years’ intermittent
correspondence he is in prison for inability to meet it. Manifestly if he is
liable I am not, and the distraints executed on my goods were illegal. If I
am liable his arrest was illegal and the distraints on me should have been
continued.
Certainly it is open to suppose that my husband’s imprisonment is not only
unjust but unlawful. A remark made by Mr. Hobhouse in a debate on the
Finance Act on , makes
this supposition the more probable. On this occasion (Parliamentary Debates,
Vol. 20,
No. 92) he said, speaking on
Mr. Walter Guinness’s amendment: “It may be said by
hon. gentlemen opposite,
‘Why don’t you send one of the demand forms to the wife?’ I am not at all
sure if that course were taken that the Inland Revenue would not put
themselves out of court subsequently in their demand from the husband.”
Have they not in this case so put themselves out of court? Mr. Hobhouse was
not sure at that time. Have the officials become sure since?
Teachers Sign a Petition
A petition against the arrest of Mr. Mark Wilks, the Clapton headmaster, for
the non-payment of his wife’s Income-tax, has been circulated among London
County Council teachers. On the first day a thousand signatures were
received, and many others are rapidly being obtained.
Protest Meeting.
A public indignation meeting, to protest against the imprisonment of Mark
Wilks, will be held on , at the Caxton Hall,
Westminster. The chair will be taken by the
Hon. Sir John Cockburn,
K.C.M.G., and the speakers will be Mr.
H[enry].G[eorge]. Chancellor,
M.P.,
Mr. Laurence Housman, Mr. Herbert Jacobs,
Rev. Fleming Williams,
and Mr. G[eorge]. Bernard Shaw. Tickets: Reserved,
2s.
6d.; unreserved,
1s. To be had from The
International Suffrage Shop, Adam-street, Strand; and from The Women’s Tax
Resistance League, 10, Talbot House,
St. Martin’s-lane,
W.C.
And a little more from the same issue:
In Hyde Park and Regent’s Park.
…Mrs. [Marianne] Hyde and Miss Bennett addressed a meeting in Regent’s Park on
, and a
resolution was passed calling on the Inland Revenue authorities to release
Mr. Mark Wilks, who is imprisoned in Brixton Gaol for the non-payment of his
wife’s income-tax.
