Nothing daunted, Mrs. Kate Harvey, of Bromley, has plunged into the fray again.
In default of payment, the tax-collectors have once more broken the barricades at Brackenhill, and ear-marked goods for a forced sale.
An ingenious plan of protection had been devised and carried out, and the King’s officers wrestled with the fortifications for two hours before an entry was effected by means of a battering-ram!
The sale will take place on , and all friends and members who will give their support at the protest should hasten to send their names in to Headquarters.
It is probable that the sale will be on the premises, as for some reason or other the authorities appear nervous about the prospect of a disturbance if the affair is held in a more public spot.
As the protests of Mrs. Harvey are now recognised and appreciated at their true value by the people of Bromley, we have no difficulty in interpreting the nervousness as a fear that too great a demonstration of sympathy for the “offender” might make the task of the officials even more thankless than usual.
Miss Lena Ashwell addressed a crowded audience at the Suffrage Club, St. James’s, , under the auspices of the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan presided.
Miss Ashwell said that taxation was the thing on which men succeeded in getting the vote, yet women had been constantly told that they had nothing to do with taxation.
With her peculiar charm she gave account of her interview with Mr. Lloyd George when, with other members of the League, she stated her position under the Income Tax Act.
“I had heard that this most charming and unreliable of men had the power to convince you of his own point of view, whatever your previous attitude.
I therefore took the precaution to write down all I meant to say.”
But all that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could say when pressed for amendments of the law, was that ‘the Treasury would lose by it!’ ” Miss Ashwell showed how hardly the Insurance Act dealt with the domestic servants, but it revealed a mass of misery among women hitherto unsuspected.
The Press accepted with callousness such facts as that a woman and child managed to live on 4s. a week.
“Women,” she added, “must organise as never before!”
On a drawing-room meeting was given at Harley-place by Dr. Handley Read and Dr. Constance Long, when Mr. Laurence Housman spoke on the necessity for Tax Resistance on the part of voteless women in order to make the Government realise the far-reaching spirit of revolt among all classes of women.
Speeches were also made by Dr. Constance Long, Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parks, and Mr. Vernon Compton.
On , Mrs. Skipwith, who lent her drawing-room in Montagu-square and presided over the meeting, said she had twice resisted her taxes and felt that the protests had been very valuable to the Cause.
Miss Abadam was the speaker, and made a most earnest appeal to women to realise their enormous responsibility if they continued to subscribe money to the Government under existing conditions.
The December monthly meeting will be held on at the offices of the League, 10, Talbot House, 98, St. Martin’s-lane.
Miss Winifred Holiday will preside, and members who have successfully evaded payment of taxation will give their experiences.
Tea will be served at , and the meeting will begin at .
Members are invited to bring friends.
The hon. treasurer of our Brighton branch (Mrs. Jones-Williams) is the first person in Brighton to refuse to pay taxes as a protest against the unenfranchised condition of women.
The local authorities, apparently not knowing the usual procedure, took the unusual course of sending a bailiff to take possession.
Thanks to the activity of some members of the men’s league, the authorities consented to the man being in “walking possession.”
Once before this course has been taken, when a bailiff was put in possession at Mrs. Rose Hyland’s in Manchester.
Not even this unnecessary piece of annoyance will make us pause in our efforts to refuse our consent to taxation without representation.
Sale on .
We congratulate the Brighton branch and Mrs. Jones-Williams on the firm stand they have made in the matter, and urge all Suffragists in the town to rally to the protest meeting .
Mrs. [Edith] How-Martyn will be one of the speakers.
Another Passive Resister,
and a member of the N.E.C., Mrs. Francis, the hon. secretary of the branch, writes:— “ ‘With this ring I thee wed’ — that’s sorcery; ‘with my body I thee worship’ — that’s idolatry; and ‘with my worldly goods I thee endow’ — that’s a lie,” says old Sir J. Bowring.
“Wishing to test the validity or otherwise of the vow which, according to the forms of the Established Church, my husband made at the altar at the time of our marriage, and also with an ever-increasing sense that tax-resistance is not only morally justifiable, but morally imperative, I have refused consent, as joint controller of our mutual finances, to the payment of my half of the year’s taxes.
My husband has therefore retained this amount while paying his own share, and explaining the reasons for taking this action.
An entreating letter has followed from the tax-collector, but the threat of distraint has not yet been received.
“We hope that if and when these protests have to be pushed to extremity our friends will do their utmost to help make them widely known and effective.”
Notwithstanding the mud and odoriferous atmosphere of the back streets off Drury-lane, quite a large number of members of the Tax Resisters’ League, the Women’s Freedom League, and the Women’s Social and Political Union, met outside Bulloch’s Sale Rooms shortly after to protest against the sale of Miss Bertha Brewster’s goods, which had been seized because of her refusal to pay her Imperial taxes.
Before the sale took place, Mrs. Gatty, as chairman, explained to at least a hundred people the reasons of Miss Brewster’s refusal to pay her taxes and the importance of the constitutional principle that taxation without representation is tyranny, which this refusal stood for.
Miss Leonora Tyson proposed the resolution protesting against the injustice of this sale, and it was seconded by Miss F[lorence].
A. Underwood, and supported by Miss Brackenbury.
The resolution was carried with only two dissentients, and these dissentients were women!
On , a drawing-room meeting was held at 30, Hyde Park Gate, by kind permission of Mrs. [Adela] Stanton Coit.
Mrs. [Edith] Zangwill was in the chair, and gave an opening address which was full of charm and subtle truth.
Her delightful personality always serves to emphasise the depth of thought contained in her remarks.
Miss [Alice] Abadam was the principal speaker, and her address was a masterpiece of oratory directed to emphasise the grave responsibility of the taxpaying women of this country towards the moral, spiritual and political emancipation of woman.
Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes gave a short account of the work of the society, formed to put into practice the principles of tax resistance, which was followed by a good discussion, opened by Dr. Stanton Coit.
The secretary of the league also addressed a crowded audience in the Public Hall, Croydon, on the subject of tax resistance, , and the chair was taken by Miss Green, treasurer for the local branch of the W.S.P.U.
