Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
women’s suffrage movements →
British women’s suffrage movement →
Elizabeth & Mark Wilks
Here’s some commentary on an unusual tax resistance case in the battle for women’s suffrage in England — a man was imprisoned when his wife refused to pay her income tax.
THE CASE OF MARK WILKS
(Communicated by Alvin Waggoner, Esq.)
The fact, not generally known, that in England, a man may be imprisoned for his wife’s failure to pay her income tax, should be of interest just now in this country where we are in the act of adopting an income tax amendment to our own Constitution.
With a proposed exemption of five thousand dollars we need not remind ourselves that few lawyers are likely to go to jail for failure to pay the tax on their annual incomes, but if the English procedure should be adopted here, who can foresee what may come upon any one of us for a wife’s delinquency in this regard.
It behooves us then to consider the case of one Mark Wilks.
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks is an English physician.
From her practice and property she has an income sufficient to bring her within the tax on incomes.
Dr. Wilks is a suffragette.
With others of her sex, she believes that taxation without votes is tyranny, and is an enthusiastic member of the Woman’s Tax Resistance League.
As concrete evidence of opposition to a man-made government, when her income tax became due, she refused to pay it.
The government decided to make an example of — Mr. Wilks!
He was called upon, under the statute, for the tax his wife owed.
Whether it was a matter of principle or cash with him does not appear, but he also failed to pay the tax.
Whereupon he was taken to jail.
A wife, less conscientious and fixed in her opinions, might have wavered, but not Dr. Elizabeth Wilks.
She stood on the doorstep and watched the detestable government cart her husband off to jail, feeling, no doubt, that her martyrdom was as sweet as it was peculiar.
Other women had gone to jail for the cause; she had sent her husband!
The situation was sufficiently novel to attract a great deal of public attention.
It was seized upon by the conservative press as a new subject for ridicule of the present government and its policies.
The Wilks case soon assumed an importance equaled only by the Home Rule Campaign.
A great meeting of protest was held under the auspices of the Woman’s Tax Resistance League in London early in .
Sir John Cockburn presided.
George Bernard Shaw was the principal speaker, and a newspaper report quotes him as saying:
I knew of cases in my boyhood where women managed to make homes for their children and themselves, and then the husbands sold the furniture, turned the wife and children out, and got drunk.
The Married Woman’s Property Act was then carried, under which the husband retained the responsibility of the property, and the wife had the property to herself.
As Mrs. Wilks would not pay the tax on her own income Mr. Wilks went to jail.
If my wife did that to me, the very moment I came out of prison I would get another wife.
It is indefensible.
Mr. Israel Zangwill, the novelist, added to the gaiety of the occasion by suggesting that “marrying an heiress might be the ruin of a man.”
Possible American complications, involving some of our best families, do not seem to have been pointed out, however, by any of the speakers.
In the end, after Mr. Wilks had been in jail several weeks, such an uproar was created that the Government receded from its position, and the prisoner was released.
The London Times, commenting editorially on the affair, declared that the Government had blundered in sending Wilks to prison, pointed out that this was “admitted by his release,” and added:
Mr. Wilks’s case is also worth noting because it illustrates the anomalies of the law of husband and wife, most of them very much to the disadvantage of the former.
From one extreme the law has gone to another.
The husband is liable for the wrongs committed by his wife, though he has no power to prevent her from committing them.
She for many kinds of contracts is his agent, and can bind him practically to almost any amount.
He may be compelled to find her in funds wherewith to carry on proceedings in the Divorce Court.
Liabilities founded upon the identity of husband and wife are continued when, by reason of the Married Woman’s Property Acts, it no longer exists.
Of these anomalies we rarely hear, though, as any one conversant with proceedings in Courts of Law is aware, they lead to cases quite as hard as that of Mr. Wilks.
Somehow, then, is kept well in the background the fact that, in a Parliament elected by men, laws placing them in a position of inferiority and disadvantage are passed.
As usual the Times extracted the large fact of sober significance from an affair that was in most of its phases a comedy.
Barely half a century ago, so far as property rights were concerned, the English law regarded the husband and wife as one person, and the husband as that one.
Today she not only has her own property, but he may be imprisoned for her delinquency in paying her taxes.
And yet there are those who say that the legal world does not move.
This is from the edition of The Green Bag: An Entertaining Magazine for Lawyers.
. —
At Hammersmith, furniture was sold, the property of Miss Carson.
Open-air meeting. Speakers: Mrs. Armstrong, Mrs. Merrivale Mayer,
Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes.
. —
At Kilburn, a bookcase was sold, the property of Miss Green,
Hon.
Treas.
W.T.R.L.
Procession and open-air meeting. Speakers:
Dr. [Helen] Hanson, Mrs.
[Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. [Emily] Juson Kerr, Mrs. Kineton Parkes.
. —
At Mile End, a gold watch was sold, the property of
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks.
Procession from Aldgate Station to open-air meeting. Speakers: Mrs.
[Charlotte] Despard, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. Kineton Parkes.
. —Brighton. Goods belonging to Mrs. Gerlach and Miss [Mary] Hare were
sold. Open-air meeting and public meeting in Lecture Hall at night.
Speakers: Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan, Miss Gertrude Eaton, Miss Hare,
Miss Nina Boyle, and the Rev.
J. Kirtlan.
Bournemouth. — Old silver was sold, the property of Miss Symons.
Open-air meeting. Speakers: Miss Howes, Miss Pridden, Mrs. Kineton
Parkes.
Henley-on-Thames. — A cow was sold, the property of Miss
Lelacheur. Open-air meeting. Speakers: Mr. and Mrs. Cobden Sanderson,
Mrs. Juson Kerr and Mr. Carlin.
. —Putney. The goods of Mrs. and Miss Richards were sold. Protest
meeting. Speakers: Miss Richards, Mrs. Juson Kerr, Miss Phyllis
Ayrtin, Miss Gilliat and Mrs. Cobden Sanderson.
Battersea. — Goods belonging to Mrs. [Helen Alexander] Archdale were
sold. Open-air meeting. Speakers: Mrs. Kineton Parkes, Miss Clemence
Housman, Miss Thomas.
Highbury. — At the sale of a silver salver belonging to
Dr. Winifred Patch, of
Highbury, Steen’s Auction Rooms, Drayton Park, were crowded on
by members of the Women’s Freedom
League, the Women’s Tax Resistance League, and other Suffrage societies. The
auctioneer refused to allow the usual five minutes for explanation before the
sale, but Miss Alison Neilans, of the Women’s Freedom League, was well
supported and cheered when she insisted on making clear the reasons why
Dr. Patch for several years
has refused to pay taxes while deprived of a vote. A procession was then
formed, and marched to Highbury Corner, where a large open-air meeting was
presided over by Mrs. [Marianne] Clarendon Hyde, of the Women’s Freedom
League, and addressed by Mrs. Merrivale Mayer.
Bromley. — Mrs. [Kate] Harvey,
Hon. Head of the
W.F.L.
Press Department, is again resisting payment of taxes, and has, in addition,
barricaded her house at Bromley. She hopes members of the Women’s Freedom
League will support her when the sale takes place, and if any members will
send their names to her, Mrs. Harvey will communicate with them direct as
soon as she knows the date and time of the sale. If possible, full
particulars will be published in next week’s Vote,
and information may be had from Headquarters.
(from W.F.L. Literature Department, 1s.; post free, 1s. 1d.)
Not long ago, at the final meeting of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, it was decided to present the famous John Hampden Banner (which did such magnificent service at so many women’s protest meetings against the Government’s unconstitutional practice of taxation without representation), to the Women’s Freedom League.
We treasure this standard of former days, and now we are the grateful recipients of an edition of “The Tax Resistance Movement in Great Britain,” written by our old friend, Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, with an introduction by another of our friends, Mr. Laurence Housman.
This little book is charmingly produced, and on its outside cover appear a figure of Britannia and the colours of the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Every reader of The Vote knows that it was the Women’s Freedom League which first organised tax resistance in as a protest against women’s political disenfranchisement, and all our readers should be in possession of a copy of this book, which gives a history of the movement, tracing it back to , when two sisters, the Misses [Anna Maria & Mary] Priestman, had their dining-room chairs taken to the sale-room, because, being voteless, they objected to taxes being levied upon them.
Dr. Octavia Lewin is mentioned as the first woman to resist the payment of licenses.
It is refreshing to renew our recollections of the tax resistance protests made by Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, Mr. [Mark] Wilks (who was imprisoned in Brixton Gaol for a fortnight), Miss [Clemence] Housman (who was kept in Holloway Prison for a week), Mrs. [Isabella] Darent Harrison, Mrs. [Kate] Harvey (who had a term of imprisonment), Miss [Kate] Raliegh, Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Saunderson, Dr. [Winifred] Patch, Miss [Bertha] Brewster, Dr. [Elizabeth] Knight (who was also imprisoned), Mrs. [Mary] Sargent Florence, Miss Gertrude Eaton, and a host of others too numerous to mention, and last, but not least, Miss Evelyn Sharp, who, as Mrs. Parkes says, “has the distinction of being the last tax resister to suffer persecution at the hands of unrepresentative government in the women’s long struggle for citizenship.”
The full list of tax-resisters appearing at the end of this pamphlet will be found to be of special interest to all suffragists.
I haven’t yet found a copy of this book on-line or available via interlibrary loan.
I might be able to order photocopies of a microfilm version held by a library in Australia, but I’m too cheap and so I’m holding out for a better option.
Any ideas?
Another source I’ve had trouble tracking down is Laurence Housman’s The Duty of Tax Resistance, which comes from the same campaign.
The Vote printed excerpts from it in their issue:
The Duty of Tax Resistance
By Laurence Housman.
Two years ago Members of Parliament determined to place the payment of themselves in front of the enfranchisement of women; and now women of enfranchised spirit are more determined than ever to place their refusal to pay taxes before Members of Parliament.
To withdraw so moral an object-lesson in the face of so shabby an act of political opportunism would be not merely a sign of weakness, but a dereliction of duty.
Nothing can be worse for the moral well-being of the State than for unjust conditions to secure to themselves an appearance of agreement and submission which are only due to a Government which makes justice its first duty.
It is bad for the State that the Government should be able to collect with ease taxes unconstitutionally levied; it is bad for the men of this country who hold political power, and in whose hands it lies to advance or delay measures of reform, that they should see women yielding an easy consent to taxation so unjustly conditioned.
If women do so, they give a certain colour to the contention that they have not yet reached that stage of political education which made our forefathers resist, even to the point of revolt, any system of taxation which was accompanied by a denial of representation.
It was inflexible determination on this point which secured for the people of this country their constitutional liberties; and in the furtherance of great causes, history has a way of repeating itself.
Our surest stand-by to-day is still that which made the advance of liberty sure in the past.
In this country representative government has superseded all earlier forms of feudal service, or Divine right, or the claim of the few to govern the many; and its great strength lies in the fact that by granting to so large a part of the community a voice in the affairs of government, it secures from people of all sorts and conditions the maximum of consent to the laws and to administration; and, as a consequence, it is enabled to carry on its work of administration in all departments more economically and efficiently than would be possible under a more arbitrary form of Government.
But though it has thus acquired strength, it has, by so basing itself, entirely changed the ground upon which a Government makes its moral claim to obedience.
Representative government is a contract which requires for its fulfilment the grant of representation in return for the right to tax.
No principle for the claim to obedience can be laid down where a Government, claiming to be representative, is denying a persistent and active demand for representation.
People of a certain temperament may regard submission to unjust Government as preferable to revolt, and “peaceful penetration” as the more comfortable policy; but they cannot state it as a principle which will bear examination; they can give it no higher standing than mere opportunism.
It may be said that the general welfare of the State over-rides all private claims. That is true.
But under representative government it is impossible to secure the general welfare or a clean bill of health where, to any large body of the community which asks for it, full citizenship is being denied.
You cannot produce the instinct for self-government among a community and then deny it expression, without causing blood-poisoning to the body politic.
It is against nature for those who are fit for self-government to offer a submission which comes suitably only from the unfit; nor must you expect those who are pressing for freedom to put on the livery of slaves, and accept that ill-fitting and ready-made costume as though it were a thing of their own choice and made to their own order and taste.
Representative Government man, without much hurt to itself, acquiesce in the exclusion from full citizenship of a sleeping, but not of an awakened section of the community.
And if it so acts toward the latter, it is the bounden duty of those who are awake to the State’s interests to prevent an unrepresentative Government from treating them, even for one single day, as though they were asleep.
They must, in some form or another, force the Government to see that by its denial of this fundamental claim to representation its own moral claim to obedience has disappeared.
That is where the great distinction lies between the unenfranchised condition of certain men in the community who have still not got the vote and the disenfranchised position of women.
It is all the vast difference between the conditional and the absolute.
To no man is the vote denied; it is open to him under certain conditions which, with a modicum of industry and sobriety, practically every man in this country can fulfil.
To woman the vote is denied under all conditions whatsoever.
The bar has been raised against her by statute, and by statute and legal decision is still maintained.
There is the woman’s direct and logical answer to those who say that, after all, she is only upon the same footing as the man who, without a vote, has still to pay the tax upon his beer and his tobacco.
The man is always a potential voter; and it is mainly through his own indifference that he does not qualify; but the woman is by definite laws placed outside the Constitution of those three estates of the realm from which the sanction of Government is derived.
If it asks no sanction of her, why should she give it?
From what principle in its Constitution does it deduce this right at once to exclude and to compel?
We see clearly enough that it derives its right of rule over men from the consent they give it as citizens — a consent on which its legislative existence is made to depend.
But just as expressly as the man’s consent is included in our Constitution, the woman’s is excluded.
From that exclusion the State suffers injury every day; and submission to that exclusion perpetuates injury, not to the State alone, but to the minds of the men and of the women who together should form its consenting voice as one whole.
This submission is, therefore, an evil; and we need in every town and village of this country some conspicuous sign that among women submission has ceased.
What more definite, what more logical sign can be given than for unrepresented women to refuse to pay taxes?
If Women Suffragists are fully awake to their responsibilities for the enforcement of right citizenship, they will not hesitate to bring into disrepute an evil and usurping form of Government which does not make the recognition of woman’s claim its first duty.
The Cæsar to whom in this country we owe tribute is representative government.
Unrepresentative government is but a forgery on Cæsar’s name.
For Suffragists to honour such a Government, so lacking to them in moral sanction, is to do dishonour to themselves; and to offer it any appearance of willing service is to do that which in their hearts they know to be false.
From pamphlet published by The Women’s Tax Resistance League.
1d.
Undaunted, Mrs. Harvey has gone to Holloway.
The Bromley police authorities, after certain spasmodic efforts to secure payment of the sums claimed from her, have carried the sentence of the court into effect, and, by courteous arrangement, allowed Miss Harvey, Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, and Miss [Mary] Anderson to accompany her to the gates of Holloway.
A plain clothes officer and a woman warder met them at Bromley Station, and two taxi’s [sic] conveyed them to the prison from Holborn.
A great meeting of protest is to be held against the vindictive sentence on our brave comrade, for which has been fixed.
Trafalgar-square will be the place of meeting, and we hope to have a great rally of the friends of freedom.
Meetings also will be held in Bromley Market-place twice a week — Mondays and Wednesdays — at 7.30 p.m., where we hope members will rally when possible.
We venture to foretell that Mrs. Harvey will come out of prison no less resolute a resister than when she went in, and that she will stand to her principle of resisting Government without consent and taxation without representation no matter what Governments may order or police authorities execute.
We wish to call attention to another prosecution, that of four farmers in Scotland — we have republished several lately, — of men who also resisted the Act and whose servants resisted the Act by joint conspiracy, the latter not being prosecuted at all.
The penalties imposed in none of these cases have been so heavy as those imposed on Mrs. Harvey, whose chief crime is that she acts on principle and not because she desires to evade and obligation.
The Scottish farmers’ case is as follows:—
At Aberdeen on four farmers from the Turriff district pleaded guilty to having failed to pay insurance contributions in respect of farm servants in their employ.
Their agents stated that the farm servants in this district, believing that they were better off under the former conditions, when the employers provided for them during illness, than they would be under the provisions of the Act, refused to bring their cards, and declined to engage unless the master gave an understanding not only that he would not deduct the money from their wages but would not apply for an emergency card.
The Fiscal said that in such cases complaint should have been lodged with the Commissioners, who would have instituted a prosecution against the servants.
A penalty of 15s. for each offence in each case was imposed, and on the application of Mr. Gerrard, who appeared for the Scottish Insurance Commissioners, decree was given for the amount of contributions in arrears.
―Glasgow Herald, .
C. Nina Boyle.
Letter from Mrs. Harvey.
Comrades, — When you read this you will be much in my thoughts, for I shall be in Holloway Gaol.
I will not insult you by asking you to think of me, but when you do, will you remember that if my sentence be the means of bringing home to but one person the kind of justice meted out by vote-protected men to voteless women, the price will be light though the sentence is heavy, very heavy when compared with that passed on men whose only desire is to shirk responsibility when refusing to pay the Insurance Tax, iniquitously heavy when compared with the sentences passed on men who ruin the bodies of our girls, often baby-girls.
Since writing the above I have heard that, quite lately, a man was sentenced to a twenty shillings fine or seven days for criminally assaulting two children, the excuse being that his brain was weak.
The same authorities do not hesitate to label Suffragettes “mad,” but in their case it is only an added excuse for harsh treatment.
Justice!
We have almost forgotten the meaning of the word.
“No taxation without representation.”
Men made that law, men break that law, then punish women for not breaking it also!
Justice! It is conspicuous by its absence!
Another man-made law, “a man must be tried by his peers”; equally so a woman should be tried by her peers!
One thing I ask.
Will you strive by every means in your power to make “Hiawatha” [a dramatic version of Longfellow’s poem that Harvey had put together] a huge success?
It is a sore trouble to leave before arrangements are fully completed; help me by letting my absence rouse you to enthusiastic endeavour for our paper!
Many doubt as to the wisdom of the step I have taken; none can doubt as to the lack of wisdom in a Government that deliberately turns good citizens into outlaws! — Yours, in the Cause that is nearest to our hearts, the Cause of women — and children, they are inseparable,
K. Harvey.
Mrs. Despard’s Letter to Mr. McKenna
Mrs. Despard has sent the following letter to the Home Secretary:—
2, Currie-street, Nine Elms, London, S.W.
.
To the Right Honble. Reginald McKenna, M.P.
Sir,— A few months ago you granted an interview to me and several of my colleagues in the Women’s Freedom League.
I spoke to you then on what I conceive to be the maladministration of justice in this country and the unequal incidence of punishment.
I desire now to bring before you a glaring instance of that of which I complain, hoping that if your attention has not been drawn to it, you will immediately give it your serious consideration.
Thousands of British men and women are refusing to pay the Insurance Tax or to deduct the Tax from the wages of those whom they employ.
Some object to this tax on principle; others desire to shirk responsibility.
Suffragists — and I am amongst their number — are, in many cases resisting this in common with other forms of taxation because their rights of citizenship are not recognised.
There have been sundry prosecutions — mostly of men in business.
I wish to quote three cases to show you the different treatment meted out to men and women in our law courts.
Joseph Lister, of Doncaster, defaulter for thirty-one weeks, was given by Mr. Andrews, the magistrate, a fine of 50s., with payment of costs.
Mr. F. Hamblin (Eastbourne), who had conscientious objections, was summoned on twenty counts.
He was ordered to pay fines, costs and arrears to the amount of £6 14s., 8d..
Mrs. Harvey, of Brackenhill, Bromley, Kent — a Suffragist, the first who has been proceeded against for Insurance Tax resistance — was summoned, on , on ten counts in respect of her gardener.
She was fined £1 on each count, £4 10s. costs, £2 2s. special costs, and ordered to pay the arrears, 5s. 10d.; total, £16 17s. 10d.
I beg you to compare this sentence with the two previous ones.
Mrs. Harvey, deeply conscious of the injustice done to her, has refused to pay the money.
A week later a further fine of £5 was imposed upon her for refusal to pay her gardener’s license.
The alternative was a month’s imprisonment on each summons, and she went to Holloway yesterday.
I cannot believe, sir, that you will permit this injustice to be done.
Let me remind you that the woman who, in a Piccadilly flat, used for vile purposes, was drawing young girls to their ruin, had a similar sentence.
We hear, moreover, on good authority, that she was released after she had served ten days.
Mrs. Harvey is one whose time, service and money are given to the rescue of little destitute children, and to the help of those not so fortunately placed as herself.
While such injustices as these are permitted by the authorities, can you wonder that women are in revolt? ―Yours truly,
C. Despard
Women’s Freedom League Statement.
The following letter has been sent to the Press from Headquarters:—
Sir,— We write to protest against the extraordinary partial administration of justice in this country.
Thousands of persons are resisting the Insurance Act in Great Britain; many cases have been brought before the Courts and nominal fines only have been imposed on the defendants.
When, however, it is a case of a woman, and a Suffragist, resisting this Act, who from the point of view of principle, objects to paying taxes because she is not represented in the counsels of the nation, a heavy penalty is exacted.
Mrs. Harvey, of Bromley, Kent, who refused to pay her Insurance dues in respect of her gardener, William David Asquith, or the license for him, was fined as follows:—
For refusal to pay Insurance dues—
£16
17
10
£1 fine on each count
£10
0
0
Arrears of Insurance amounting to
0
5
10
Court fees
4
10
0
“Special costs” asked for by the Insurance Commissioners
2
2
0
For refusal to pay the license—
£5
14
0
Fine
£5
0
0
Costs
0
14
0
And since she declined to pay these fines Mrs. Harvey has to-day been conveyed to Holloway Gaol for two months’ imprisonment in the second division.
We think these facts speak for themselves.
Mrs. Harvey spends her life in working for the betterment of conditions under which our poorer children live, and has never failed to help those weaker than herself.
She believes that until women have a voice in making the laws, no satisfactory legislation will be carried through for the protection of girls and children.
For this reason she protests against the exclusion of women from full citizenship rights, and the answer of men’s representatives is two months’ imprisonment in the second division.
For keeping a Piccadilly flat for the express purpose of ruining young girls physically, mentally and morally, another woman was also sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and it is universally believed that she was released at the end of ten days!
―We are, yours faithfully,
Charlotte Despard. Florence A. Underwood.
A “Snowball” Protest.
As evidence of the wide interest which is being aroused, Miss Marie Lawson writes from 5, Westbourne-square, London, W., to inform us that she has started a “Snowball” protest on behalf of Mrs. Harvey — a form of protest which she worked successfully in the case of Mr. Mark Wilkes.
The “Snowball” letter, which she hopes will be copied and widely distributed, is as follows:—
Dear Madam,— Mrs. K. Harvey, of Bromley, Kent, has been committed to prison for two months for non-payment of a Government tax and for non-compliances with the requirements of the National Insurance Act.
Because she refuses to submit to the tyranny of arbitrary taxation and because her conscience will not permit her to comply with conditions which she knows to be wrong and unjust, she has been given this extraordinarily severe sentence.
Passive resistance is a form of protest which has been frequently and successfully used in this country by men.
A good part of our constitutional history may be said to have been written in the terms of tax-resistance, and it is largely by such means that some of our greatest reforms have been won.
In the case of voteless women it is the only form of protest open to them, short of actual violence.
They have to choose between passive resistance and cowardly acquiescence.
Mrs. Harvey has chosen the latter [sic], and as a result now lies in Holloway Prison.
I earnestly request you to assist the agitation for her immediate release in two ways:—
By copying the accompanying form of protest on to two postcards, adding your name and address, and directing one to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, The Treasury, Whitehall, S.W., and the other to the Home Secretary, Home Office, Whitehall, S.W..
By copying this letter and the form of protest in full and forwarding it to at least three friends, inviting them to join in this “snowball” movement.
Relying on your sympathy and cooperation,
Yours sincerely,
No Taxation Without Representation.
Form of Protest
I write with reference to the case of Mrs. K. Harvey, of Bromley, Kent, who has been committed to prison for two months as a result of her refusal to submit to the tyranny of arbitrary taxation.
In seeking to impress upon a Liberal Government the necessity of putting its principles into practice, Mrs. Harvey adopted the time-honoured protest of passive resistance.
That being her only offence, I protest against this vindictive sentence, and urge you to use every effort to secure her immediate release.
We look forward to a strenuous autumn and winter campaign.
We shall begin this in London by holding a demonstration in Trafalgar-square, , to protest against the biased administration of the law and its treatment of women, as instanced in the two months’ imprisonment in the second division which Mrs. Kate Harvey is now undergoing at Holloway because of her refusal to comply with the regulations of the Insurance Act.
We urge our readers to make this demonstration as widely known as possible, and to bring all the friends they can to the Square to protest against this excessive sentence.
Vote sellers, literature sellers, collectors, and banner bearers will be in great demand, and we shall be glad to have names of volunteers at an early date.
“Would 20s. have ruined Mr. Hampden’s fortune?”
“No, but the payment of half 20s. on the principle on which it was demanded would have made him a slave.”
So Burke epitomised the attitude of John Hampden towards unjust taxation, and so with equal conciseness might the position of the modern tax-resister be summed up.
Beyond the fact that he resisted Ship Money, the majority of people know little about John Hampden, and we therefore commend the new edition of a pamphlet by Mrs. [Isabella] Darent Harrison, of the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Herself a well-known resister, the writer has depicted with sympathy and force the struggle between Hampden and the King, and with a novelist’s skill has made the events live again.
The character of this “rebel and leader of rebels” was marked by restraint and dignity, by respect for order and good government.
Slow to take up arms against the King, he acted directly his duty became clear; he received his death-wound leading his “Green Coats” at Chalgrove Field.
Incidently it is interesting to note that the loss of his case against the Crown roused people to see how degenerate the law may become, and paved the way for the Great Rebellion.
It was not the men alone who rebelled, but the women also refused to submit to unjust laws.
Among the twenty or thirty people who signed the protest against Ship Money in Great Kimble Church in 1635 were four women — Mrs. Westall and the Widows Bampton, Goodchild and Semple.
Women also presented petitions for peace at Westminster Hall.
“It may be thought strange and unbeseeming our sex to show ourselves here… but… we are sharers in the public calamities,” so ran the first petition.
This deputation was well received by Pym.
Not so fortunate was the later one of 5,000 women.
Because they pushed their way to the doors of the House of Commons, a cavalry charge was ordered, two women were killed and several injured.
One wonders if there was not a touch of sarcasm about the meek wording of these petitions.
One can imagine the lips of these brave women slightly curling with scorn at such words, as “We need not dictate to your eagle-eyed judgment the way,” or “We do this not… as seeking to equal ourselves with men either in authority or wisdom.”
But we forbear from further extracts, and advise all who wish to realise the continuity of the struggle for freedom through the centuries to read this little book.
M.L.
* “John Hampden” (second edition, with frontispiece).
By Mrs. Darent Harrison.
(Published by the Women’s Tax Resistance League, 10, Talbot House, 98, St. Martin’s-lane, W.C.
Price 1d.)
…some of us have just accompanied to the gates of Holloway the comrade and friend whose letter will be found in the columns of this issue.
Mrs. Harvey, of Bracken Hill, whose splendid work and gracious personality are known to so many of us, having been sentenced to a month’s imprisonment in the second division for refusing to pay her Insurance Tax, and to another month, in lieu of fine, for a license for a manservant, went to prison on Monday.
Our readers will understand that no effort will be spared by the League to make this iniquity known.
We have reason to believe that the law has been strained, if not broken, in the infliction of these sentences.
That will be ascertained.
It is our fervent hope that Mrs. Harvey will soon be with us again.
Meantime we hope and believe that every member of the League will help us to the utmost limit of their powers in the battle we are waging against this gross injustice.
In particular, will every member of the League in London and the neighborhood rally round our banners on , in Trafalgar-square, where a big demonstration of protest will be held?
We hope earnestly that you will not only come yourselves, but that you will bring others with you.
Just and righteous administration of the law is a question which affects men quite as deeply as it affects women.
Our Trafalgar-square Demonstration on , is to be a great success. It is being
advertised by the Caravan, which, covered with great banners, is parading
some of the principal thoroughfares all this week; it is accompanied by a
little band of chalkers and bill-distributers. The meeting is one of protest
against the biased administration of the law and its treatment of women, as
instanced in the two months’ imprisonment in the second division which Mrs.
Kate Harvey is now undergoing at Holloway because of her refusal to pay her
Insurance Tax and license for her manservant. We have a fine list of
speakers: Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, Miss Nina Boyle, Miss Amy Hicks,
M.A., Miss Anna Munro, Mrs.
M[argaret].W. Nevinson, Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. [Emma] Sproson,
Mrs. Tanner, Mrs. [Isabel] Tippett, Mr. Harry de Pass, Mr. George Lansbury,
Mr. H.W. Nevinson, Mr. John Scurr and Mr. Mark Wilks.
Vote-sellers, literature-sellers, collectors, and
banner-bearers please be at the office
We hope every London member will
attend the demonstration and bring as many friends as possible.
The meeting outside Holloway Gaol, held from the Women’s Freedom League Caravan, was small and not
particularly sympathetic. The speakers — Mrs. Hyde, Mrs. Despard, and Miss
Boyle — were heard without very much interruption, but with little
enthusiasm. The meetings at Bromley, on the other hand, held by the Women’s
Tax Resistance and Freedom Leagues alternately, have been more than
satisfactory. Miss Hicks and Miss Boyle, on
and
nights, secured excellent crowds on
the Market-square, and were listened to with deep attention and quiet
courtesy. These meetings will continue throughout Mrs. Harvey’s imprisonment.
The caravan will continue its advertising campaign through London and the
suburbs until ’s meeting is
over; and the list of speakers for the demonstration is more than satisfactory.
The following resolution will be put to the meeting:—
That this meeting protests with indignation against the vindictive sentences
passed on Voteless Women, and especially that on Mrs. Harvey; and demands
that the Government accord equal treatment to men and women under the law
and under the Constitution.
The arrangements are as follows:—
Platform 1. — Facing National Gallery.
Chair:
Miss Anna Munro.
.
— Mrs. Despard.
.
— Mr. George Lansbury.
.
— Mrs. Cobden Sanderson.
.
— Mr. Harry de Pass.
.
— Miss Nina Boyle.
.
— Resolution.
.
— Collection and Questions.
Platform 2. — Facing Strand.
Chair:
Miss Amy Hicks, M.A..
.
— Mr. John Scurr.
.
— Miss Nina Boyle.
.
— Mr. George Lansbury.
.
— Mrs. Nevinson.
.
— Mr. Mark Wilks.
.
— Resolution.
.
— Collection and Questions.
Platform 3. — Facing Pall Mall.
Chair:
Mrs. Tanner.
.
— Mr. H.W. Nevinson.
.
— Mrs. Tippett.
.
— Mrs. Sproson.
.
— Mr. John Scurr.
.
— Mrs. Despard.
.
— Resolution.
.
— Collection and Questions.
The Chair to be taken at .
Mrs. Despard’s letter to the Home Office asking for Mrs. Harvey’s release has
elicited the reply that the Home Secretary can see no reason to intervene,
and that he does not admit that “Queenie Gerald” is not still serving her
sentence.
Mr. Harben has addressed the following letter to the Home Office:—
Newland-park, Chalfont St.
Giles, Bucks. .
Dear Sir,— May I be permitted to appeal to you to use your power to secure a
reduction of the sentence on Mrs. Harvey, who as a matter of principle has
refused to pay the contribution due under the Insurance Act.
Justice can always afford to be merciful; unfairness is bound to fall back
on cruelty for its support. While women are voteless in the hands of men,
the sense of injustice is bound to arise among them; and that is all the
more reason why a Government, which does not propose to remove that
grievance, should be doubly careful to be fare in all other respects. Yet
more persons have been imprisoned for political offences in the last four
or five years than at any recent period in our history; and while the
administration of the law is thus openly prostituted for political purposes,
there is growing up in the public mind a contempt for the law so widespread
that it has already had a damaging effect on public order, and will
certainly lead to more serious consequences still.
I would ask you, Sir, what good purpose can possibly be served by such a
sentence as this? Two months in the Second Division will cause considerable
suffering to Mrs. Harvey herself; but so far from being a deterrent to her
or anyone else, its effect will be exactly the reverse. The fact that the
offences of Mrs. Harvey and Queenie Gerald are on the same level before the
law will ring as a challenge to all decent men and women throughout the
country to remove the poison from the springs of justice at all costs, and
with the utmost speed. Were it not that cruelty to women has now become a
Government pastime, and that the terrors of Holloway are so obviously the
panem et circenses thrown to the creatures of Llanystumdwy,
it would be impossible to suppose that in England such a sentence could be
allowed to stand. ―I remain, yours faithfully,
Suffragette propaganda postcard: “These useful little Articles / the enemy appals / You’ll find them come in handy / When the Tax Collector calls.”
“No Taxation Without Representation.”
Miss Marie Lawson asks us to publish the following abridged account of her
“snowball” protest, and to correct one or two errors in
our last issue. “Latter” was printed
for “former” in the second paragraph, and an impression was conveyed that the
“snowball” letter was to be anonymous, which is not the case.
Mrs. K. Harvey, of Bromley, has been committed for two months in the second
division for non-payment of a Government Tax and for non-compliance with the
requirements of the National Insurance Act.
As a declaration against the tyranny of arbitrary taxation, Mrs. Harvey
adopted the time-honoured protest of passive resistance — the only form of
protest, short of actual violence, that is open to the women of this country.
She had to choose between passive resistance and cowardly acquiescence. She
chose the former and, as a result, now lies in Holloway Gaol.
You are urgently requested to assist the agitation for her release in two
ways:—
By sending a postcard to the Home Secretary, The Home Office, Whitehall,
S.W., protesting
against the severity of the sentence and demanding her immediate
release.
By copying this statement in full and forwarding it to at least three of
your friends.
Printed postcards for collecting signatures in support of the protest can
be obtained from Miss Lawson on receipt of a stamped envelope.
I am still locked up!
A fellow “resister” has sent the following lines to cheer me:—
Good luck, my friend, I wish to thee, In thy brave fight ’gainst tyranny. Bracken Hill Siege will bring good cheer To those who hold our Freedom dear, And fight the good fight far and near.
And when oppression is out-done, And Liberty, at last, is won, When women civic rights possess, They’ll think, I hope, with thankfulness, Of those who bore the battle’s stress.
Those women who have heard or read of the impending arrest of Mr. Mark Wilks (the husband of Dr. Elizabeth Wilks) in consequence of his inability to pay income-tax on his wife’s earnings from her profession, will doubtless be interested to know why such a situation is possible, and what is the exact legal position of the husband and wife.
Long ago in the dark ages, or to speak more precisely, in , the Income Tax Act was passed, which regulates all income-tax procedure, even to the present day.
It is a most fearsome piece of composition.
Its language is archaic and tautological, it rises wholly superior to punctuation, and proceeds breathlessly through one hundred and ninety-four clauses.
Clause No. 45 provides that the “profits” of any married woman “shall be deemed to be the profits of her husband,” and are to be charged with income-tax in his name and not in hers.
In other words, he was to pay, and she was to be exempt, a perfectly fair arrangement in the bad old times when a man acquired his wife’s revenues or earnings on their marriage and she became thereby literally a “destitute” person.
The word “profits” denotes all revenue or income derived either from the wife’s capital or her labour.
So whether she receives her income from rents, interest, dividends, &c., from the exercise of a trade or profession, or from salary or wages paid for her services or labour, a demand for payment of income-tax thereon must be made to her husband, and to him only.
If he fails to comply with such demand, he can be thrown into prison (without any trial or other formalities) until he pays.
Such is the unfortunate and wholly absurd position to which man-made law has brought Mr. Mark Wilks — as well as numerous other husbands whom the Inland Revenue authorities are mostly unable to locate.
It will be seen that his arrest might involve a husband’s being imprisoned indefinitely, or even permanently, the period of detention being only determined by payment of the sum demanded, which in the present instance is £40. Most of the Press reports have rather distorted Mr. Wilks’ case by asserting that it is Mrs. Wilks who is refusing to pay.
Legally no married woman can even be asked to pay income-tax, and therefore a refusal on her part is quite out of the question.
I can hear someone saying, “Oh, but in we obtained a Married Woman’s Property Act.”
Quite true, but according to an official letter from Somerset House in my possession, “the Crown does not recognise this Act.”
The Crown authorities claim the right to maintain the position as it existed seventy years ago, and to over-ride the later and minor Act whenever it happens to suit their own ends.
It happens — for reasons which space compels me to omit — to suit them to the tune of two and a-half million pounds a year.
Mr. Lloyd George confessed quite frankly in the House of Commons recently, when it was suggested to him that it was high time the Government set an example of compliance with the law, instead of bare-faced defiance of it, that to recognise the Married Women’s Property Act would annually deplete the Treasury to this large amount.
Mr. Stuart Wortley boldly told the Government they were an unscrupulous and dishonest lot, who juggled with the laws of the country, and shaped their policy on £ s. d., instead of on even-handed justice.
And in the course of the debate it was stated that if mercantile firms conducted their business on this principle they would speedily find themselves in the dock.
Readers will probably be in thorough agreement with this declaration.
As a tax-resister on the ground that taxation and representation must go together, Miss Marie Lawson has made the following appeal to His Majesty the King:—
To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, etc. The Humble Petition of Marie Lawson, of 5, Westbourne-square, London, showeth:—
That your petitioner, having been proceeded against by Your Majesty’s Attorney-General in the High Court of Justice with respect to the non-payment of Income Tax, humbly prays Your Majesty to stay the said proceedings in consideration of the circumstances hereunder set forth:—
That the imposition of such tax is wrong and unjust in that it is an infringement of the principle that taxation and representation must go together, a principle which has been long recognised in that rule which prohibits the House of Lords, and an unrepresentative assembly, from initiating or amending Money Bills; and it is respectfully submitted that the same principle should operate to prevent the House of Commons, an assembly equally unrepresentative with regard to Your Majesty’s female subjects, from initiating or enforcing financial legislation affecting such subjects.
That the redress of grievances has long been recognised as a condition to supplies, and that arbitrary taxation has been persistently and successfully resisted in the past, whether the arbitrary taxation levied by the King in his own person which in the Stuart period plunged this country into Civil War, or the arbitrary taxation levied by Parliament, in the name of the Crown, which caused the American revolution.
That Your Petitioner, in common with large numbers of other women, has been driven to resistance by the goad that is furnished by the continued refusal of your Majesty’s government to grant to the women of Great Britain that measure of justice already enjoyed by their sisters in Your Majesty’s dominions beyond the seas.
Women are not only the least criminal part of our population, but they are also the most exemplary taxpayers.
Until the repeated denial of their right of voting called forth the protest of passive resistance, the women taxpayers of the country must have won golden opinions from the officials of the Inland Revenue Office.
But these days are gone.
From every quarter comes the refusal of information and the refusal of payment.
The gathering in of the income-tax of women has become a burden.
The peaceful taxpayer of a few years ago has become to the official eye a most unsatisfactory defaulter.
She claims the right of voting as an acknowledgment of her peaceful paying.
She has taken for her motto “No Vote, No Tax.”
She reiterates her grievance, and will not pay until it is redressed.
In addition to this general grievance, the special injustice and indignity imposed upon married women by the Inland Revenue procedure are met with resentment and growing protest and with categorical charges of illegality.
The husbands of the women having separate incomes or earnings are adding their protests like fuel to the fire.
They fail to see why they should be held responsible for the return of their wives’ incomes, and be penalised by the denial of abatement if such return is not forthcoming.
They point out that the law gives them neither the power nor the right to enquire into the financial affairs of their wives.
They add that by the illegal practice of putting the two incomes together and calling them the income of the man, the State is guilty of imposing a higher rate of taxation upon married persons.
In this way marriage is specially penalised, and unorthodox unions are encouraged.
This state of affairs is not satisfactory to either husband or wife; and both husband and wife have joined the protest against it.
The Treasury will have both to meet if it does not alter its present course of action.
These are standing grievances, but an additional reason and an additional opportunity for revolt upon the resistance-to-taxation lines has been supplied by the new Land Tax.
Unless the Women’s Suffrage Bill is carried into law this autumn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to face the fact that every new piece of taxation carried through the Legislature will be impeded as far as possible by the efforts of women who have not been consulted about it.
The outcry against the liquor taxes of the Budget, and now the growing clamour against the far-reaching demands of the new Land Tax Act, ought to make clear to this gentleman that there are quite enough natural opponents to increased taxation to be faced and vanquished without any Government going out of its way to raise up artificial ones by specific acts of injustice.
But there are some people whom the gods make blind that they may be the more certainly overthrown.
There are not a very large number of women land-owners.
Indeed, if the word is employed according to ordinary usage, there are very few.
But for the purposes of this Land Tax a new meaning has been given to both “land” and “owner.”
The new legal definition makes “land” include all kinds of structures, from mansions to stables, and also minerals, trees, and machinery; the owner is so defined as to include lease-holder as well as the owner proper; many a comparatively poor women will find herself included in the wider range thus assured for the Government’s operations.
Upon the Land Tax itself we pass no opinion.
It may be a good thing, as some people claim; it may be a bad one conceived for a good end, as others hold; or it may be one that is bad altogether.
Suffragists, as such, have no official opinion upon this point.
They hold that it will be time enough for them to divide into hostile camps about land taxes when they are voters, and they put this, with many other issues, aside.
But while they refuse to be partisans, they take a very definite stand against the application of any Act which entails the taxing of voteless women.
Every new Act of this nature must count upon their opposition.
The famous forms on which the owners and lease-holders of the country have to prepare the necessary statistics for the levying of the new tax have been issued now in practically all parts of England, and they will be issued in Scotland within a few days.
Already these forms have been returned unfilled up, and with a curt comment as to the status of the women applied to, by some of our members in England.
They will be so returned by many Suffragists across the border.
Neither information nor money will be forthcoming in response to the Inland Revene Department’s demands.
As far as possible this piece of Government business will be impeded first by the determined refusal of information, and, second, by the withholding of the money claimed in taxes.
Such refusal to yield to tyranny is always desirable.
But at the present moment it carries an additional value in that it can be employed to improve the chances of the Conciliation Women’s Suffrage Bill.
From now until the fate of the Bill is decided, every woman to whom any Government application for information or for taxes is made should not only refuse to comply because of the unrepresented condition of her sex, but should add a rider to the effect that she will gladly supply information and provide the money claimed if the Women’s Suffrage Bill at present before Parliament becomes law this Session.
By this means pressure will be brought to bear upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and through him upon the Cabinet, in favour of our Bill.
In order to make the protest completely effective, not only should it be made through the local revenue channels, but Mr. Lloyd George himself should be approached.
A letter stating the reasons for the course of action followed, and repeating the promise to comply with the Government claim if the Conciliation Bill is carried into law, should be sent to him by every passive resister.
To further emphasise the position, groups of tax-resisters should seek interviews with the Chancellor.
There should be a series of requests for deputations to be received from every kind of taxpaying women.
The women affected by the new Land Tax should send a deputation, if possible, from every district.
The women payers of ordinary income-tax should send a deputation.
The married women should send a deputation.
The women liable to the super-tax should send a deputation.
And everyone of them should preach the same path of salvation to the Treasury — the Conciliation Bill as the price of yielding to taxation by the women of the country.
If, in addition to this series of lessons from women, a representative deputation of aggrieved husbands could wait upon the Chancellor, pointing out their intention to oppose the Government by their votes unless they are relieved from their present anomalous and burdensome position, the education of this member of the Cabinet would surely be ensured.
Many Liberal women, who have so far failed to share the worst risks of the Suffrage fight, could do great service to the cause now in this way.
The attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Conciliation Bill has completely absolved them of any obligations to him.
Many thousands of them are taxpayers, and a determined demand for the passage of this Bill as the price of their taxes should have some effect.
Much resentment is felt in Liberal ranks.
But vague resentment, however warm, is of little practical value — it is ignored, its very presence is denied by the politician.
Translated into this practical form, it would be more effective than the protest of any other body of people.
Will the Liberal women rise to the occasion?
Definite impeding of the Government business is the only policy that will carry weight now.
Let all who can put their hands to the plough, and the task will yet be done.
Madam,— My wife, being treated as an outlander in her own country, has refused payment of taxes levied on her own professional income.
For this she has already twice suffered distraint of her goods in enforcement of that levy.
This would appear logical treatment for those in full possession of the rights of citizenship, the qualification for which is payment of taxes, direct or indirect.
On a third refusal, however, no suggestion of distraint is made, but I am informed that I am liable for taxes levied on her income, while at the same time the law places all her property entirely beyond my control.
This in itself is sufficiently illogical, but if it be a correct interpretation of existing law, then the distraints on my wife’s property were clearly illegal.
I cannot be responsible for her income which I may not touch, and she liable to distraint for what she is not obliged to pay.
The logic of the market-place grasps the fact that you cannot have your cake and eat it.
―Yours faithfully,
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.
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.
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.
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.
…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.
Mrs. Harvey was released from Holloway on morning in a very bad condition of health, her imprisonment having had a serious effect on her constitution.
She was met at the prison gates by Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, Miss Harvey, and Miss Watson, and taken to Brackenhill, where she will be nursed back to health.
The refusal of the Home Secretary to allow the attendance of a homœpathic doctor aroused great indignation at Bromley, and some women residents, deeply interested in her person as well as in her protest, paid the smaller fine to secure her release before actual injury should have occurred.
Mrs. Harvey has served her sentence for the Insurance Act resistance, and the remaining term of imprisonment would have been in respect of the gardener’s license.
Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes next addressed the meeting.
In the first place she compared the sentences passed on persons who resisted taxation from conscientious convictions with those who resisted from selfish or dishonest motives, showing very forcibly that in the eyes of the Government the former were more worthy of contempt than the latter.
Secondly, she condemned the incompetence of the officials who administered the law showing the ridiculous and dilatory methods in which the proceedings against tax-resisters were carried through, often being allowed to extend over months, and in many instances eventually dropped.
Finally Mrs. Parkes drew attention to the policy followed previously in the cases of Miss [Clemence] Housman and Mr. [Mark] Wilks, as well as that of Mrs. Harvey, of waiting until Parliament was prorogued before making any attempt to bring such cases to an end, and carry out the sentences imposed.
Of course, it was quite easy to see the reason for this policy.
Had Mrs. Harvey’s imprisonment been effected while the House was sitting, numerous friends drawn from all parties would have been asking awkward and unpleasant questions.
…
More Indignation Meetings.
The usual meeting was held last week by the Women’s Tax Resistance League, in Bromley Market-square, to protest against the imprisonment of Mrs. Harvey.
The chair was taken by Mrs. Beaumont Thomas, and the speakers were Mrs. Despard and Mrs. Kineton Parkes.
Mrs. Despard emphasized Mrs. Harvey’s care for neglected children, even to taking them to her home for weeks together.
This, she said, was the kind of woman on whom the Government passed vindictively heavy sentences.
Mrs. Kineton Parkes also pointed out the peculiar hardships of the case.
At the close of the meeting the following resolutions was unanimously carried:—
“That this meeting protests against the sentences passed on Mrs. Harvey, and demands equal treatment under the law for men and women.”
A large and enthusiastic mass meeting was held by the League in Hyde Park on afternoon to protest against the injustice of Mrs. Harvey’s imprisonment.
The speakers were Mrs. Despard and Mr. H.W. Nevinson, and the chair was taken by Mrs. Kineton Parkes.
At the close of the meeting the resolution was passed unanimously followed by prolonged cheering and applause, and the crowd manifested a great interest in this case and remained for more than half an hour to have their questions answered.
…
Pertinent Questions to Mr. McKenna.
The following letter has been sent by Mrs. Kineton Parkes, Organising Secretary of the Women’s Tax Resistance League:—
To the Right Honourable R. McKenna, M.P., Home Office, S.W. .
Sir,— I am writing again on behalf of the Committee of this League with regard to the imprisonment of Mrs. Harvey.
I find that an urgent letter was sent to you about this matter on , setting forth the facts of the case in detail, and that though acknowledged by your secretary, no reply of any kind had been received.
Would you kindly see that a definite answer is at once sent to the following questions, either by yourself or whoever is acting at the Home Office during your absence?:—
Are you aware that one of the two months’ imprisonment to which Mrs. Harvey was sentenced is for non-payment of the license for her manservant?
If so, can you explain why Mrs. Harvey has been treated differently from other members of this League who for the same conscientious reasons have refused to pay licenses?
Can you explain why Mrs. Harvey is sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the second division instead of being placed in the first division, as Miss Housman was, who also refused to pay taxes?
Will you explain why the Insurance Commissioners were allowed to make a claim for special costs of two guineas in Mrs. Harvey’s case?
Such costs have never been claimed before from man or woman, and Mrs. Harvey’s court fees were already far in excess of the usual costs, viz. £4 10s.
Will you explain why the Bench was allowed to grant this unusual claim?
Can you explain why, if Mrs. Harvey’s imprisonment is a just one, she was not arrested immediately she refused to pay her fine instead of waiting until Parliament was prorogued, when no questions could be asked in the House of Commons by Members of Parliament about the injustice of the case?
At our last meeting Miss [Mary?] Trott addressed the members of the Branch, appealing to all to help in every possible way to secure the release of Mrs. K. Harvey and to work harder for the suffrage cause…
Manchester.
An interesting Branch meeting was held on , at which Miss Trott, from London, appealed on behalf of Mrs. Harvey.
Printed post-cards protesting against the vindictive sentence passed upon her are now ready for signature, and may be obtained at the office.…
Great Protest Meeting Against the Imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks.
“No Government Can Stand Ridicule. The Position is Ridiculous!”
The great meeting of indignant protest against the imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks, held at the Caxton Hall on , under the auspices of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, will be not only memorable but epoch-making.
The fight for woman’s citizenship in “free England” has led to the imprisonment of a man for failing to do what was impossible.
Throughout the meeting the humor of the situation was frequently commented upon, but the serious aspect was most strongly emphasized.
Sir John Cockburn, who presided, struck a serious note at the outset; for anything, he said, that touched the liberty of the citizen was of the gravest importance.
He remarked that it was the first occasion on which he had attended a meeting to protest against the action of law.
The resolution of protest was proposed by Dr. Mansell Moullin, whose many and continued services to their Cause are warmly appreciated by all Suffragists, in a very able speech, and ran as follows:—
That this meeting indignantly protests against the imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks for his inability to pay the tax on his wife’s earned income, and demands his immediate release.
This meeting also calls for an amendment of the existing Income-tax law, which, contrary to the spirit of the Married Women’s Property Act, regards the wife’s income as one with that of her husband.
A Husband the Property of His Wife.
Dr. Moullin expressed his pleasure in supporting his colleague, Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, in the protest against the outrage on her husband.
The case, he said, was not a chapter out of “Alice in Wonderland,” but a plain proof that, although imprisonment for debt has been abolished in England, a man may be deprived of his liberty for non-payment of money which was not his, and which he could not touch.
The only argument that could be used was that Mr. Wilks was the property of his wife.
Twice distraint had been made on the furniture of Mrs. Wilks, the third time the authorities carried off her husband; it is the first occasion on which it has been proved that a husband is the property of his wife.
The law allows a man to put a halter round the neck of his wife, take her to the market-place and sell her, and this has been done within recent years; but there is no law which allows the Inland Revenue authorities to sell a husband for the benefit of his wife.
Governments, he added, can stand abuse, but cannot stand ridicule, and the position with regard to Dr. Wilks and her husband is both ridiculous and anomalous.
The serious question behind the whole matter was how far anyone is justified in resisting the law of the land.
The resister for conscience’ sake is the martyr of one generation and the saint of the next.
Dr. Moullin doubted whether the Hebrews or Romans of old would recognise what their laws had become; we are ashamed of the outrageous sentences for trivial offences passed by our forefathers; our children will be ashamed of the sentences passed to-day.
Everything in the law connected with women required reconstruction from the very foundation, declared Dr. Moullin.
Constitutional methods, like Royal Commissions, were an admirable device for postponing reform; all reformers were unconstitutional; they had to use unconstitutional methods or leave reform alone.
The self-sacrifice of an individual makes a nation great; that nation is dead when reformers are unwilling to sacrifice themselves.
No Man Safe.
Mr. George Bernard Shaw was the next speaker, and gave a characteristically witty and autobiographical address.
He said that this was the beginning of the revolt of his own unfortunate sex against the intolerable henpecking which had been brought upon them by the refusal of the Government to bring about a reform which everybody knew was going to come, and the delay of which was a mere piece of senseless stupidity.
From the unfortunate Prime Minister downwards no man was safe.
He never saw his wife reflecting in a corner without some fear that she was designing some method of putting him and his sex into a hopeless corner.
He never spoke at suffrage gatherings.
He steadily refused to join the ranks of ignominious and superfluous males who gave assistance which was altogether unnecessary to ladies who could well look after themselves.
“If my wife did that to me, the very moment I came out of prison I would get another wife.
It is indefensible.”
— George Bernard Shaw
Under the Married Women’s Property Act the husband retained the responsibility of the property and the woman had the property to herself.
Mr. Wilks was not the first victim.
The first victim was G.B.S. The Government put on a supertax.
That fell on his wife’s income and on his own.
The authorities said that he must pay his wife’s supertax.
He said, “I do not happen to know the extent of her income.”
When he got married he strongly recommended to his wife to have a separate banking account, and she took him at his word.
He had no knowledge of what his wife’s income was.
All he knew was that she had money at her command, and he frequently took advantage of that by borrowing it from her.
The authorities said that they would have to guess at the income; then the Government passed an Act, he forgot the official title of it, but the popular title was the Bernard Shaw Relief Act.
They passed an Act to allow women to pay their supertax.
In spite of this Act, ordinary taxpayers were still apparently under the old regime, and as Mrs. Wilks would not pay the tax on her own income Mr. Wilks went to gaol.
“If my wife did that to me,” said Mr. Shaw, “the very moment I came out of prison I would get another wife.
It is indefensible.”
Women, he added, had got completely beyond the law at the present time.
Mrs. [Mary] Leigh had been let out, but he presumed that after a brief interval for refreshments she would set fire to another theatre.
He got his living by the theatre, and very probably when she read the report of that speech she would set fire to a theatre where his plays were being performed.
The other day he practically challenged the Government to starve Mrs. Leigh, and in the course of the last fortnight he had received the most abusive letters which had ever reached him in his life.
The Government should put an end to the difficulty at once by giving women the vote.
As he resumed his seat Mr. Shaw said: “I feel glad I have been allowed to say the things I have here to-night without being lynched.”
Bullying Fails.
Mr. Laurence Housman laid stress on the fact that the Government was endeavouring to make Mrs. Wilks, through her affection, do something she did not consider right.
Liberty could only be enjoyed when laws were not an offence to the moral conscience of a people.
Laws were not broken in this country every day because they were not practicable.
Every man, according to law, must go to church on Sunday morning, or sit two hours in the stocks; it was unlawful to wheel perambulators on the pavement.
If the police were compelled to administer all the laws on the Statute Book, England would be a hell.
To imprison Mr. Wilks for something which he had not done and could not do was as sane as if a servant were sent to prison because her employer objected to lick stamps under the Insurance Act.
The Government had tried bullying, but women had shown that it did not pay.
Self-respecting people break down a law by demonstrating that it is too expensive to carry.
Question for the Solicitor to the Treasury.
The legal aspect was the point specially dealt with by Mr. Herbert Jacobs, chairman of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage.
He said that it was stupidity, not chivalry, which deprived the husband under the Married Women’s Property Act of of the right to his wife’s earnings, but did not relieve him of responsibility to pay for her.
Imprisonment for debt has been abolished; but if it could be shown that a man had the means to pay and refused to pay, he could be sent to prison for contempt of court.
Mr. Jacobs suggested that the Solicitor to the Treasury should be asked to reply to the following question: “What has Mr. Wilks done or omitted to do that he should be imprisoned for life?”
The law, he added, does not compel a man to do that which he cannot possibly perform.
The action of the Internal Revenue authorities may be illegal; it certainly is barbarous and ridiculous.
Bad Bungling
Mr. H[enry].G[eorge].
Chancellor pointed out that the Married Women’s Property Act was an endeavour by men to remove injustice to women, but because they did not realise the injustices from which women suffer and avoided the woman’s point of view, they bungled badly.
No one can respect a ridiculous law, and the means to be taken in the future to avoid making ridiculous laws, must be to give women the right to make their opinions effectively heard through the ballot-box.
Mr. Chancellor said that he had investigated 240 Bill[s] laid on the table of the House, and had found that 123 were as interesting to women as much as to men; twenty-one affected women almost exclusively; six had relation to the franchise.
“When we consider these Bills,” he added, “we rule out the whole experience and knowledge of women.
We must abolish sex privilege as it affects legislation.
I appeal to men who are Antis to consider the Wilks case, which is possible just so long as we perpetuate the huge wrong of the continued disenfranchisement of women.”
Refinement of Cruelty
In a moving speech Rev. Fleming Williams declared that the case of Dr. Wilks and her husband ought to appeal to men all over the country.
He spoke of the personal interviews he had had with Mr. Wilks in the presence of the warder, and of the effect of imprisonment upon him.
It was impossible to contemplate without horror the spectacle of the Government’s attempt to overcome the wife’s resistance by the spectacle of her husband’s sufferings.
If she added to his pain by humiliating surrender, it would lower the high ideal he cherishes of her principles.
“She dare not do it; she will not do it!” exclaimed Mr. Williams. He added that he had had an opportunity of waiting upon the Inland Revenue Board and tried to show them how their action appears to outside people.
He had suggested that, in order to bring the law into harmony with justice, representative public men in co-operation with the Board should approach the Treasury to secure an alteration in the law.
“But,” declared Mr. Williams, “if women are made responsible by law it will not bring the Government an inch nearer the solution of the difficulty.
They may imprison women for tax resistance, but married men would not stand it.
The only way is to say to Dr. Wilks, “We will give you the right to control the use we intend to make of your money.”
The resolution was passed unanimously with great enthusiasm, and thus ended a meeting that will be historic.
The Campaign.
A great campaign is being carried on for the release of Mr. Mark Wilks.
On , the Women’s Tax Resistance League held a meeting, followed by a procession in the neighborhood of the prison, and on Sunday there was a large and very sympathetic meeting in Hyde Park.
Mrs. Mustard took the chair.
Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard and Mrs. [Margaret] Parkes were the speakers.
The resolution demanding the release of Mr. Wilks was carried unanimously.
Nightly meetings are held in Brixton by the Men’s Federation for Women’s Suffrage.
A great demonstration will take place on , in Trafalgar-square.
Members of the Women’s Freedom League and all sympathisers are asked to come and to bring their friends.
There will be a large attendance of London County Council teachers — more than 3,000 of whom have signed a petition against the arrest of Mr. Wilks.
A deputation of Members of Parliament and other influential men is being arranged by Sir John Cockburn to wait upon Mr. Lloyd George and to see him personally about the case.
We hope earnestly that before this issue of our Vote appears, news of the release of Mark Wilks will be brought to us.
It seems to us impossible that the authorities of the country can persist in their foolish and cruel action.
But, in the meantime and in any case, it may be well for us seriously to consider the situation.
We are bound together, men and women, in a certain order.
For the maintenance of that order, it has been found necessary for communities and nations all over the world to impose laws upon themselves.
In countries that call themselves democratic, it is contended that the civil law is peculiarly binding, because the people not only consent, but, where they have sufficient understanding, demand that the laws which bind them shall, in certain contingencies, be made or changed or repealed according to their need, and because by their voice they place in seats of power the men whom they believe to be honest and wise enough to carry out their will.
That, at least, is the ideal of democracy.
For several generations the British nation has claimed the honour of being foremost in the road that leads to its achievement.
We (or rather the men of the country) boast of our free institutions, of our free speech, of the liberty of the individual within the law to which he has consented, of the right to fair trial and judgment by his peers when he is accused of offences against that law; above all — and now we have the difference between a democratically governed country and one under despotic rule — not to be liable to punishment for the omission of that which he is unable to perform.
It seems clear and simple enough — what any intelligent schoolboy knows; and yet our so-called Liberal Government, which flaunts in every direction the flag of democracy, which proclaims, here severely and there with dulcet persuasion, that liberty for all is their aim, and that “the will of the people shall prevail,” does not hesitate, when it is question of a reform movement which it dislikes and despises, to set itself in direct opposition to its own avowed principles.
For what do the arrest and imprisonment of Mark Wilks mean?
We are perfectly certain that it will not last long.
Stupid and inept as it has been, the Government, we are certain, will not risk the odium which would justly fall upon it if this outrage on liberty went on.
A Government which has much at stake and which lives by the breath of popular opinion cannot afford to ignore such strong and healthy protest as is being poured out on all sides.
To us, who are in the midst of it, that which seems most remarkable is the growth of public feeling.
In the streets where processions are nightly held, we were met at first by banter and rowdyism.
“A man in prison for the sake of Suffragettes!”
To the boy-mind of the metropolis, on the outskirts of many an earnest crowd, that seemed irresistibly funny; but thoughtfulness is spreading; into even the boy-mind, the light of truth is creeping.
If it had done nothing else, the imprisonment of Mark Wilks has certainly done this — it has educated the public mind.
It is not we, the Suffragists alone — it is women and men in hosts who are asking, What do these things mean?
On the part of these in our movement they mean courage, determination, skilful generalship — aye, and speedy triumph.
On the part of our opponents, perplexity and failure.
“This is defeat, fierce king, not victory,” said Shelly’s Prometheus, when from his rock of age-long pain he hurled heroic defiance at his tormentor.
The ills with which thou torturest gird my soul To fresh resistance till the day arrive When these shall be no types of things that are.
Woman, in this professedly liberty-loving country, may echo the hero’s words.
Defeat, in very truth, for what can the authorities do?
Their position is an extraordinary one.
In a lucid interval, politicians — not clearly, it may be, understanding the issues involved — passed the Married Women’s Property Act.
We believe there were no Antis then to guide and encourage woman-fearing man.
This may partly account for it.
In any case, the deed was done.
Married, no less than single women and widows, became owners of their own property and lords of their own labour.
It would have saved the country from much unnecessary trouble if, then, politicians had gone a step further, if they had recognised woman’s personal responsibility as mother, wage-earner or property-owner, and had dealt with her directly.
Love of compromise, unfortunately, weighs too deeply on the soul of the modern politician for him to be able to take so wise a course, and it is left for his successor to unravel the tangle.
What are the authorities to do?
While, with threats of violence and dark hints of disciplined, organised resistance, Ulster defies them, Suffragists by almost miraculous endurance are breaking open prison doors.
While brutal men, under the very eyes of a Minister of the Crown, are torturing and insulting women, in token, we presume, of their devotion to him, the story of the wrongs of women — not only these but others — is being noised abroad.
None of our recent publications has been bought so freely as “The White Slave Traffic.”
While well-known women tax-resisters are left at large, a man who has not resisted, but who respects women and will not coerce his wife, is arrested and locked up in prison without trial, and, since he cannot pay, for an indeterminate time.
A pretty mess indeed, which will take more than the subtlety of an Asquith, a Lloyd George or a McKenna to render palatable to the men on whose votes they depend for their continuance in power!
In a few days they will be faced with a further difficult problem.
Women are prepared to resist, not only the Income, but also the Insurance Tax.
Let us see what the alternatives are.
Mark Wilks may be let out as Miss [Clemence] Housman was; but that will not help the Government.
It is a poor satisfaction to a creditor of national importance to know that his debtor is or has been in prison.
He wants his money, and the example of one resister may be followed by many others.
If so, that big thing the Exchequer suffers.
The creditor may, when Parliament comes together, pleading urgency, pass an Act which will make married women responsible for their own liabilities.
That might result in a revolt of married women which would have serious consequences.
Men who live at ease with their children, shepherded by admirable wives, would find it, to say the least, inconvenient to be deprived periodically of their services.
And these men might be in the position of Mark Wilks.
They might not be able to pay, while their wives might have no goods on which distraint could be made.
Truly the position would be pitiable.
Over the Insurance Act the same difficulties will arise.
What is a distraught Government to do?
The answer is clear.
The one and only alternative that lies before our legislators is at once to take steps whereby women — workers, mothers, property-owners — shall become citizens.
That done, we will pay our taxes with alacrity; we will bring our quota of service to the State that needs our aid, and the unmannerly strife between man and woman will cease.
In the meantime, the law and the legislator are defeated ignominiously, and it is becoming more and more evident that, in a very near future, “the will of the people shall prevail.”
It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to devise a situation which would show more clearly than does the Wilks’ case, how absolutely incapable is the average man of grasping a woman’s point of view, or of realising her grievances and legal disabilities.
For seventy years men have been cooly appropriating the Income-tax refunded by the Inland Revenue on their wives incomes.
Did anybody ever hear of a man raising a protest against the state of the law which made it possible and legal for a husband to do this?
My own experience covers a good many years of Income-tax work, and the handling of some hundreds of cases, but the only complaints I have ever heard have come from the defrauded wives.
I have observed that the men always accepted the position with the utmost equanimity.
But now, when by the exercise of considerable ingenuity, women have contrived, for once in a way, to put the boot on the other leg, the Press and the public generally is filled with horror, and the air is rent with shrieks of protest from the male sex.
The Evening News sapiently remarks that women might have been expected to have more sense than to seek to show up a law which is “so obviously in their favour”!
And The Scotsman says: “One would imagine that the last thing the Wilks’ case would be used for is to illustrate the grievance which woman suffers under the law.
Here two laws combine to favour the wife and inflict wrong upon the husband.”
And it goes on to deride women and “their inherent illogicality.”
Here we see clearly manifest the absolute incapacity of man to realise the existence of any injustice until it touches himself or his fellow man.
Nothing could well be more logical than the holding of a man responsible for non-payment of his wife’s Income-tax, since it is the necessary and inevitable corollary of the theory that a wife’s income belongs to her husband, and that all refunds of Income-tax must be made to him, and to him only.
It is in accordance with logic and also with strict business principles that no person can claim the advantages of his legal position while repudiating its disadvantages.
Thus if a man dies leaving money, his son cannot claim to take that money and at the same time repudiate his father’s debts.
He must accept the one with the other.
And in exactly the same way, women are no longer going to allow men to claim their legal right to demand re-payment of their wives’ Income-tax, unless they also accept their legal responsibility for its non-payment.
The game of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose is played out, and the sooner men realise this fact the better it will be for everybody.
The “logic” of The Scotsman and its contemporaries is no longer good enough for women.
The law must be forced to take its course where men are concerned as it does where women are concerned.
As to the provisions of the Income-tax Act favouring the wife and wronging the husband, I can only say that Mr. Wilks’ case is the first in all my experience where these provisions acted adversely to the husband.
And even in this case they only so acted because women had laid their heads together to bring it about, and thus show how little men relish a law of their own making when it begins to act on the boomerang principle, and they find themselves “hoist with their own petard.”
A few actual instances, casually selected out of a large number, will show how wives have hitherto been “favoured.”
A man and his wife have £100 a year each, taxed (at 1s. 2d. in the £) by deduction before they receive it.
There are four children, on each of whom the husband is entitled to claim a rebate of £10 a year.
(The wife, it should be noted, can never claim any rebate whether she has a dozen or a score of children.
And if a widow, having children, re-marries, the rebate on these children goes to their step-father.)
Consequently the husband can, and does, reclaim not only the tax deducted from his own income, i.e. £5 16s. 8d., but also the £5 16s. 8d. deducted from his wife’s income.
So he really pays no tax at all, and gains £5 16s. 8d. while she loses a similar amount.
Thus the actual position is, that the wife is only worth £94 a year, while he is worth £106 a year, though nominally their incomes are the same.
If single, each could claim repayment of £5 16s. 8d., therefore marriage represents a loss to the wife, but a profit to her husband.
A member of the Women’s Freedom League was forced to leave her husband on account of his misconduct, and to bring up and educate her children without any financial aid from him.
But for a number of years he regularly drew the “repayment” of her Income-tax, until a merciful Providence removed him from this mundane sphere, by which time it was calculated that she had lost, and he had gained, about £200. At his death she, of course, ceased to be a legal “idiot,” and was allowed to claim her repayment for herself.
I may remark here that the Income-tax Act has a favourite method of classifying certain sections of the community, namely, as “idiots, married women, lunatics and insane persons.”
I don’t know precisely what the difference is between a “lunatic” and an “insane person,” but doubtless there is a difference, though unintelligent persons might think they were synonymous terms.
As regards the point of resemblance between the “idiot” and the “married woman,” it is rather obscure, but after intense mental application I have succeeded in locating it; and really when somebody illuminates it for you it becomes clear as daylight.
It is quite evident to me that our super-intelligent legislators are convinced that the woman who is capable of going and getting married is an utter “idiot,” and in fact next door to a “lunatic.”
Well, men ought to know their own sex, and if they say that the women who marry them are idiots, it must be true, I suppose.
We may therefore take it that a woman evinces her intelligence by remaining unmarried.
I ought humbly to explain that, being married myself, I am only one of the idiots, and therefore my ideas on any subject must not be taken to have the slightest value.
But to return to our instances of “favouritism,” another man has £230 a year and his wife £170 a year.
She pays Income-tax (deducted before receipt) to the tune of £9 18s. 4d., and he pays 2s. 6d..
It sounds impossible, perhaps; but when you know the rules it is quite simple.
To begin with, he gets an abatement of £160, which leaves him with £70. Then he gets a further abatement of £67 for insurance premiums, a great part of which premiums are paid by his wife on her own life.
This leaves him with a taxable income of slightly over £3, on which he pays 9d. in the £1., amounting to half-a-crown.
This couple have no children.
If they had any he would begin not only to pay no tax himself, but to have some of hers repaid to him.
She, however, under any circumstances, will always be mulcted of the £9 18s. 4d.; unless she becomes a widow, when she will be able to reclaim the whole amount.
(The official forms supplied to those reclaiming Income-tax read: “A woman must state whether spinster or widow.”)
If we reverse the financial position of this couple, and assume that she receives £230 and he only £170, she would then be paying £13 8s. 4d. Income-tax.
Contrast this with his payment of half-a-crown in the same circumstances, and observe how highly she is “favoured.”
He, however, would then pay nothing and would receive a “refund” of nearly £3 10s. a year.
A very enterprising and smart young fellow was able to treat himself to a really nice motor-cycle — not the sort that has a side-car for a lady — out of his wife’s “repaid” tax; repaid to him, I mean.
He can’t support himself, but depends on her, as she has just about enough for them both to rub along on, though she can’t afford luxuries for herself, and wouldn’t have paid for his.
But the Inland Revenue gave him her money quite cooly and without the slightest fuss.
The “Scotsman” will be pleased to hear that this poor husband manages to bear up quite bravely under his “wrongs,” and seems indeed to get a considerable amount of satisfaction out of them.
His wife, I am truly sorry to say, doesn’t properly appreciate the favour shown to her by the law.
But then men are naturally brave, and women are by nature a thoroughly ungrateful lot I expect, if they could only see themselves as The Scotsman and The Evening News see them.
In this connection it is interesting to note that three years ago two members of our Edinburgh Branch, the Misses N[annie]. and J[essie].
Brown, walked from Edinburgh to London, chatting of Woman Suffrage with the villagers all along the line of route southwards, many of whom had then not even heard about this question.
They started from Edinburgh in and reached London before .
A further point of interest is that the father of these ladies was the last political prisoner in Claton Gaol in .
Mr. Brown’s offence was his refusal to pay the Annuity Tax which he considered an iniquitous imposition.
He was imprisoned for one week, but received the treatment of a political prisoner; he had the satisfaction of knowing that his protest led to the repeal of the Annuity Tax.
The next people who committed a political offence in Edinburgh were two Suffragettes, who — fifty-two years later than Mr. Brown’s incarceration — were imprisoned, but were not treated as political prisoners.
Notwithstanding the showers a good crowd gathered on to hear Mrs. Despard, who spoke of the anomalies existing in our laws affecting women and taxation, and referred at length to the imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks for his inability to pay his wife’s taxes on her earned income.
A resolution expressing indignation at this and demanding Mr. Mark Wilks’ release was passed with only five dissentients.
The chair was taken by Mrs. Mustard, who told the audience of the indignation felt by the Clapton neighbours and friends of Mr. and Dr. Elizabeth Wilks over his imprisonment.
…On evening we had our usual open-air meeting.
Mr. Hawkins kindly chaired, and Mrs. Tanner spoke with her usual excellency, bringing in the “Wilks” case in her speech, as a specimen of anomaly in law in which the man suffers.
The crowd was sympathetic as regarded “poor old Wilks,” but was swayed otherwise by mistaken ideas of our aims and motives.…
The release of Mr. Mark Wilks, under precisely the same circumstances as the release of Miss [Clemence] Housman — that is to say, after a futile imprisonment, a series of defiant suffrage demonstrations, and with no sort of official explanation — is a triumph for the Women’s Tax Resistance League, the W.F.L., and the various men’s association[s] that helped to conduct the protest campaign.
It is more than a triumph; it is an object lesson in how not to do things.
To incarcerate a helpless and innocent man for his wife’s principles, knowing that that wife was one of a movement that never strikes its colours, was foolish on the face of it.
(That it was also unjust is a matter which we recognise to be of little consequence in the eyes of those who make and administer our law).
But to let him out without rhyme or reason seems foolishness of so low a degree that it is only to be described as past all understanding.
One is reminded of the genial duffer who protested that he might be an ass, but he was not a silly ass.
Our highest authorities are not so particular about their reputations as the stage idiot.
The Pity of It.
Yet we are all set wondering what is behind it all.
Is it a contempt so great for the intelligence of the public on which they batten which makes our rulers so unconcerned about even the appearance of wisdom or consistency?
Or is it sheer contempt for women which makes them bully, badger, and torture in turns, and then dismiss the matter as of not sufficient importance to pursue?
It is too easy and flattering a solution to determine that ministers have been impressed by the women’s resolute defiance.
It hardly accounts for the milk in the cocoanut.
Nothing, for instance, would have been easier than to give Mrs. [Mary] Leigh and Miss Evans first-class treatment, and keep them in durance for months and years!
The release of the latter lady at the same time as Mr. Wilks points, we sadly fear, not to an intelligent appreciation of the gathering forces of progress and humanity, but a cruel and callous disregard of wisdom, righteousness, and decency.
If this be “representative” government, it is a sorry testimonial to the worth of the [sic] those represented.
Terminological…?
No tale appears too farcical to present to the tax-payers on behalf of the Government.
One explanation that has been seriously offered, with a view to relieving the Chancellor of the Exchequer from any odium that may be incurred by those responsible for the Wilks imbroglio, is as follows: “The Chancellor knew nothing of the case.
His official correspondence followed him during his recent Welsh peregrinations, missing him everywhere, and only catching him up on his return to London, where he at once ordered a meeting of the Board of Inland Revenue, on whose report (unpublished) he acted promptly.”
Now this is a little too thin.
Wanted, a Good Lie.
The political and militant organiser of the W.F.L., who pens these lines, has to confess with emotion that during recent wanderings in the fastnesses of the Land of George, certain correspondence, re-addressed to divers and sundry humble cottages in mean streets, did indubitably go astray.
But the political and militant organiser is not a world-renowned personage who on occasion has been reduced to the Royal necessity of travelling incognito.
The more than Royal progress of the Carsons and the Georges does not lend itself to these subterfuges; and we feel inclined to give the Chancellor the advice addressed by a too intelligent master to a schoolboy of our acquaintance, whose effort at explanatory romance was not convincing: “No, no, George, my lad; that doesn’t sound likely.
Run away and think of something better.”
In consequence of the release of Mr. Mark Wilks, a sprightly account of which appeared in The Evening Standard, the proposed demonstration on Trafalgar-square was not held by the Women’s Tax-Resistance League .
The main issues which have been brought forward by this new phase of the struggle are:— “That the present irregular method of administering the Income-tax and Married Women’s Property Acts amount to a penalty on matrimony; that the relief afforded to persons of limited income is unjustly and illegally filched from them; and that the Tax Resistance campaign has for one of its objects the determination to secure to the public one million and a half of money which is at present improperly diverted from the pockets of the people to the Government coffers.
It took a woman expert — Mrs. [Ethel] Ayres Purdie — to fathom the real meaning of the law as it is administered to-day; and it is some considerable time since she expressed the opinion, and was laughed at by male legal experts for so doing, that the situation which actually arose was possible.
At Bolton.
A tax-resistance meeting was held at Bolton on , at which Mr. Isaac Edwards presided, the speakers being Miss Hicks and Mrs. Williamson-Forrestier.
The meeting was a public one, explaining the policy and principle of Tax Resistance, and was well attended.
The goods of Mrs. Fyffe, hon. treasurer of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, member of committee of the Horsham and South Kensington Branches of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, and hon. secretary of the London “Common Cause” Selling Corps, have been seized for tax resistance, and will be sold on , at Whiteley’s Auction Rooms, Westbourne-grove.
A procession will form up at Roxburghe Mansion, Kensington-court, at and start at going to the corner of Westbourne-grove and Chepstow-place, where a Protest Meeting will be held.
Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan, Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, and others will speak.
The procession will then go on to the sale.
It is hoped that as many members of the Freedom League and other Suffragists as can will support Mrs. Fyffe by walking in the procession and attending the sale.
Mrs. Fyffe, who is an ardent Tax Resister, was presiding at a meeting of the Kensington branch of the National Union (London Society) at her own house, when the bailiffs arrived to distrain on her goods.
It was a novel experience for the non-militant ladies!
Pleasant Amenities.
Mrs. Louis Fagan, summoned at West London Police-court for non-payment of taxes in respect of motor-car, man-servant, and armorial bearings, had quite a merry dialogue with the presiding genius, Mr. Fordham, who waxed — might one say waggish?
— during the encounter.
After refusing to discuss her “conscientious objections” — while in no way belittling them — he imposed a penalty of 20s. and 2s. costs in respect of the man-servant; £10 2s. costs in respect of the motor-car; and 2s. 6d. for the armorial bearings.
Mrs. Fagan represented that her conscientious objection included fines as well as taxes, and he expressed regret at having no alternative to offer save imprisonment.
“I shall sentence you to a month,” he said, “but you won’t do it, of course — you ladies never do.
If I really wanted you to have a month, I should have to call it five years!”
With such little pleasantries the affair passed off in the happiest manner; and Mr. Fordham was equally obliging in fixing the time for the distraint on Mrs. Fagan’s goods “at the earliest possible moment,” to suit the lady’s convenience.
The goods were seized on ; and all Women’s Freedom League members who know anything of the way in which the sister society organises these matters should attend the sale in the certainty of enjoying a really telling demonstration.
Mr. Lansbury’s Chivalry
At a meeting held in the Hackney Town Hall on to demand the release of Mr. Mark Wilks, Dr. Elizabeth Wilks and the Rev. Fleming Williams, who were received with enthusiasm, both addressed the audience, and a resolution of protest was carried unanimously.
The stirring speech given by Mr. [George] Lansbury contained valuable hints for Suffragists.
“Parliament,” he said, “did not do more for the cause of the women because the women did not make themselves felt sufficiently.
If, instead of remaining Liberal, Conservative, or Socialists, they went on strike against the politicians, they would get what they wanted.
“Many years ago, Mr. Lansbury continued, he had believed in the honesty of politicians, and in the sincerity of political warfare, but much water had flowed under the bridges since then, and many new ideas had gone through his head.
What was of most importance to the women of this country was not politics — whether Tory or Liberal — but the emancipation of their sex.
“The imprisonment of Mark Wilks, though it might be a laughing matter to the daily Press, was no laughing matter for the man imprisoned.
It was a jolly hard thing for Mr. Wilks.
He believed that if the working-class women of this country could be got to realise that his was no mere fight for a vote, but a fight for their complete emancipation, they would soon get this sort of thing altered.”
Resistance in Scotland
The Glasgow Herald tells us that:— “Dr. Grace Cadell, Leith, has, as a protest against the non-enfranchisement of women, refused to pay inhabited house duty on a property belonging to her in Edinburgh.
Several articles of her furniture have been poinded to meet the amount of the tax, about £2, but so far the authorities have not taken these away.”
We are also expecting news of the distraint on Miss Janet Bunten’s property for the same reason.
Miss Bunten, Hon. Sec. of the Glasgow Branch, has already lost goods in this manner, and has also been sentenced to imprisonment for refusal to pay dog license or fine in default.
The other day a woman, an utter stranger to me, came into the office to seek advice.
She was a pale, worried little creature, and had a little blind child.
Her trouble was that she had had to leave her husband on account of his brutality — he seemed to be a thoroughly bad lot — and had returned to her parents with the child.
She never saw her husband, nor received any money from him, but he was getting her Income-tax repaid to him.
Her income was very small, and she needed it all for herself and her child, and asked how this procedure could be stopped and the money obtained for her own wants.
I could only tell her that nothing could be done, as the law held that her income belonged to her husband, on hearing which, she broke down and sobbed bitterly, saying she had thought that women might be able to help her.
These are cases one hears of every week, but the Press remains conveniently silently about such, and reserves all its sympathies for the “wronged” husband.
These repayments often amount to quite respectable sums, perhaps as much as £40 or £50, for a three years claim.
I must say that personally it is terribly distasteful to me, when I have recovered tax deducted from a married woman’s income, to be obliged to draw the cheques in favour of her husband, though morally the money is hers.
Yet this is what I am forced to do for my own protection, as, if I handed the money to its real owner, I should still have to pay it to the husband in addition.
He could sue me in the County Court for it, or I might perhaps be charged with “feloniously misappropriating” his money, if I dared to hand it to the wife.
The isolated case of Mr. Wilks is a relatively small matter when compared with numerous cases of defrauded wives.
Mr. Wilks, being released, will have saved £40 by imprisonment, and lots of these wives would joyfully do a few weeks in Holloway, if thereby they could save their money.
What we want to do is to get the law altered, and the Married Women’s Property Act recognised by the Crown, so that marriage shall not involve the brand of “idiocy” and a financial penalty for a woman.
But there seems to be a general impression abroad that the only injustice lies in Mr. Wilks being imprisoned, and not in the law being as it is; and that as he has been got out, that will be the end of the whole thing, and nobody need trouble about it or make any further fuss, unless and until another husband finds himself held liable for tax on his wife’s income, and put in prison for not paying it.
Whether people are Suffragists or Anti’s or neutrals, it is equally to their interest to get the law brought up-to-date.
The Anti husband of an Anti wife might quite as easily find himself in Mr. Wilks’ position, and “tax-resistance” has nothing to do with it, because Income-tax on a wife’s income may be demanded from a husband quite without his wife’s knowledge.
There is a case going on at the present time where 2s. 8d. is being demanded from a man for Income-tax on some Consols which the authorities state are held by his wife.
She has never been asked to pay it, and is not even aware that it is being demanded from him.
He disputes paying it on the ground that he has no evidence that she possesses any Consols, as he has never asked her anything about her means and never intends to do so.
He has formally appealed against the charge, and at the hearing of the appeal his wife’s name was not mentioned, nor her existence even referred to, as the Consols in question are legally deemed to be in his possession.
This husband will doubtless be put in prison in due course.
He contends, quite logically, that if he is held liable for the tax on one of his wife’s investments, he ought to be held equally liable for the tax on all of her other investments, and while the whole position remains so unsatisfactory and anomalous he will pay nothing and do nothing, but will remain simply passive.
At the hearing of the appeal two highly-paid Special Commissioners, drawing, I believe, at least £1,000 a year each, sat to consider the matter.
There was also present a Surveyor of Taxes, who had come up on purpose from Brighton at the public expense, the appellant and his legal representative (myself).
This gentleman and I wasted our valuable time, and the three Revenue officials wasted their time (and the public’s money) for upwards of an hour, discussing a matter involving 2s. 8d., and the existence or non-existence of some Consols which none of the persons present knew anything about.
There were also one or two clerks who took everything down; and altogether it was a most amusing demonstration of the methods of the Circumlocution Office, and the sublime art of How Not To Do It.
Numbers of married women invest their money in order to escape from the anomalies of the Income-tax Act, so some day we may see an equal number of husbands being called upon to pay tax on these investments (which they know nothing about), and ultimately getting locked up sine die.
When men in considerable numbers begin to feel the shoe pinching, probably some serious effort will be made to amend the law.
A number of members of the Women’s Tax Resistance and Men’s League rallied at Messrs.
Harding’s sale-rooms, Wilton-street, Victoria, , to support Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan in her protest on behalf of unrepresented tax-payers.
A diamond ring has been impounded, and was the first item on the catalogue.
Mrs. Fagan took advantage of the opportunity afforded to make a very telling statement of her position in respect of paying for the upkeep of unrepresentative government.
The ring was brought in by Miss [Gertrude?]
Eaton, and the “protestors” repaired to a handy pitch, where a street-corner meeting was held at which Mr. Sergeant presided, and Mrs. Fagan spoke again from a dog-cart decorated with the brown and black of the W.T.R.L. Mrs. Fagan called attention to the fact that she was not an habitual offender by stating that her recent appearance before Mr. Fordham was the first, and that it was the women who were not in such urgent need of the vote who were coming out to fight for the right to help the others.
Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes made one of her lucid and logical appeals, and the following resolution was passed:— “That this meeting protests against the seizure and sale of Mrs. Louis Fagan’s goods, and is of opinion that the tax-paying women of this country are justified in refusing to pay all Imperial taxes until they are allowed a voice in deciding how those large sums of money shall be spent.”
The light relief was supplied by an irate dame who scolded Mrs. Fagan for not keeping to her place “in the home,” which brought down on her devoted but misguided head the remark that if that was how she felt, it was strange that she should not be there herself instead of at the meeting.
Sold at the Cross.
A “roup” was held at Mercat Cross of the seized goods of Dr. Grace Cadell, of Leith-walk, Edinburgh, who is also “out” against taxation without representation.
Dr. Cadell and her friends arrived on the scene of action in a decorated dray, and a large crowd assembled, which was addressed at the sale and at a subsequent meeting in Parliament-square, by the undaunted resister, and by Miss M. Burn Murdock.
To-Day’s Sale.
Mrs. Fyffe’s goods will be sold for Tax Resistance , at Whiteley’s Auction Rooms, Westbourne-grove, about A procession will start at from Roxburghe Mansion, Kensington-court, to Westbourne-grove, where a Protest Meeting will be held at the corner of Chepstow-place, and the speakers will be Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. Louis Fagan, Mrs. Kineton Parkes, Rev. Charles Baumgarten (Rector of St. George’s, Bloomsbury), and Mr. Laurence Housman, if he arrives in time from the North.
Mrs. Fyffe hopes that all who can will come and walk with her and attend the meeting and sale.
Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage.
…
At the monthly meeting of the Executive Committee of the Men’s League the following resolution was passed on the motion of Dr. Drysdale, seconded by Mr. J.M. Mitchell:—
“The Executive Committee of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage desires to record its sympathy with Mr. Mark Wilks in his imprisonment, and to point out that this imprisonment is the logical outcome of the law of coverture and of the non-recognition of women as responsible citizens.
In the interests, therefore, of men as well as women, it calls for the immediate enfranchisement of women, and for such alteration of the law as shall put women on an equality with men, as regards both the rights and duties of citizenship and responsibility before the law.”
Questioned on the Mark Wilks case in Parliament, the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted the ridiculous condition of the law, but was prepared to enforce it again in the same fashion to enrich his Treasury.
In the House of Lords, with even greater cynicism and dishonesty, Lord Ashby St. Ledgers denounced Mr. Wilks’s action as “in the nature of a political demonstration,” and said that “this imprisonment was intended to be a deterrent, a result to a great extent achieved, as other husbands were not likely to put themselves to the same sort of inconvenience.”
He admitted “illogicality” and “a certain substratum of hardship,” and “something especially out of date,” in a husband being imprisoned for failure to pay his wife’s taxes.
The Lord Chancellor agreed that the laws were full of anomalies, but appeared to think change even more dangerous, and involved himself in the following luminous remark:— “They would have to be very careful lest in making changes they stumbled into the temptation to take advantage of provisions which belonged to a past state of law, while at the same time taking advantage of changes which had been made in quite another direction.”
Dr. Elizabeth Knight, hon. treasurer of the W.F.L., was “hauled up” before the Justices of the Peace for non-payment of dog license at the Hampstead Petty Sessions, Rosslyn-hill.
Writing this in time to go to press, we do not know the result; but if our treasurer is penalised for this time-honoured protest against the upkeep of an unrepresentative Government, the W.F.L. members, we are certain, will rally strongly to a great demonstration in support of her action.
Mrs. Fyffe’s protest was a great success, a procession marching from Roxborough-mansions, Kensington, to the auction rooms at Westbourne-grove.
Miss Constance Andrews carried the W.F.L. banner and moved the following resolution:—
That this meeting protests against the seizure and sale of Mrs. Fyffe’s goods, and is of opinion that the tax-paying women of this country are justified in refusing to pay all imperial taxes until they are allowed a voice in deciding how these large sums of money shall be spent.
The John Hampden banner and other colours were carried, and speeches were made from a carriage decorated in the brown and black of the W.T.R.L. by Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Miss [Constance] Andrews, Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan, and the Rev. Charles Baumgarten.
…An extraordinary general meeting was held on … Mrs. Rentoul Esler in the chair.
Business: To confirm the election of Mrs. Flora Annie Steel as president of the society (vice Miss Elizabeth Robins, resigned).
On the agenda: “Whether the W.W.S.L. should, as a society, resist the new insurance tax and refuse to insure their secretary, with her full consent to their so doing?”
A brief report from the Stamford Hill branch noted that “Mr. Mark Wilks’ reception was well attended by our Branch, and the crowded meeting testified to the high appreciation we all feel of his and Dr. Elizabeth Wilks’ plucky protest against the vagaries of Income-tax Law.”
From the edition of New Zealand’s Evening Post:
Suffragette’s Unpaid Income Tax
Husband Sent to Prison
As he refused to pay “duty and costs,” amounting to over £37, due as tax on his wife’s income, Mr. Mark Wilks, assistant schoolmaster at a Stepney school, was arrested and taken to Brixton prison.
His wife, Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, has a much larger income than he, but she is a suffragist and a member of the committee of the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Her husband agrees with her contention that tax resistance is the best way of protesting against the voteless condition of women, and therefore he has refused to pay her income tax.
Several times distraints have been levied, but when bailiffs recently called for this purpose they were informed that the furniture belonged to Mrs. Wilks.
A curious point is that although according to the Married Women’s Property Act a woman’s property is entirely out of the control of the husband, he is still liable for her income tax.
Mrs. Parkes, of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, said, on being interviewed, that the law provides that the person in prison has to remain in custody till the debt is paid.
As Mr. Wilks would never pay, he would have to remain in custody for ever.
Members of the Women’s Tax Resistance League attended the dinner of welcome held at the Hotel Cecil to the Men’s International Alliance for Women’s Suffrage, and the League was represented at the Congress by Mr. Laurence Housman.
Reception to Dr. and Mr. Mark Wilks.
The Women’s Tax Resistance League wish to announce that they have decided to hold a public reception to Dr. and Mr. Wilks on .
They trust that all Suffrage Societies will support this effort, because not only do they wish to do honour to those who have made such a brave stand for tax resistance, but to use the occasion, as one of many others, to keep before the public mind the necessity for the alteration of the laws which affect the taxation of married women until the reform promised by Mr. Lloyd George is debated in the House of Commons.
Amongst the speakers will be Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, Mr. George Lansbury, M.P., Mr. F. Pethick Lawrence, and Mr. Mark Wilks.
Tickets, 2s. each, including refreshments, may be had from all Suffrage Societies and from the office of the League, 10, Talbot House, St. Martin’s-lane.
The Case of the W.F.L. Hon. Treasurer.
On the hon. treasurer of the Women’s Freedom League was summoned to appear before the Hampstead Petty Sessions Court, at the instance of the London County Council, for refusing to contribute to taxation in the form of dog license.
Dr. Knight did not appear in person, and was represented by Miss Nina Boyle, of the Political and Militant Department, who was supported by Miss Andrews (National Executive Committee), Miss Hunt (assistant secretary to the League), Mrs. Spiller (hon. secretary of the Hampstead Branch), Miss Hicks, Mrs. Garrod, and other friends and supporters.
Mr. Dashwood Carter put the case for the London County Council, and Miss Boyle, invited by the chairman, Mr. Henry Clarke, to state Dr. Knight’s case, asserted that Dr. Knight was “not guilty,” as it was manifestly improper that she should be called upon to contribute to the upkeep of the Government when women were denied representation.
The chairman declared that those were considerations into which they could not go, as they were there to administer the law; whereupon Miss Boyle, expressing her desire to put her case “with the utmost courtesy,” contended that as women not only had to pay for the upkeep of the Government, but also for the upkeep of police-courts, they considered themselves fully entitled to make use of them for the ventilation of their grievance.
The Bench, after a period of indecision, suddenly remembered that the Council had not proved its case; and a witness was hurriedly summoned.
The prosecution incautiously admitted that since calling on Dr. Knight, a license had been taken out in respect of a dog, “but whether it was in respect of the dog at Hampstead, or another at Woodbridge (Suffolk), the prosecution could not say.”
Miss Boyle pointed out that if that were so, there was no proper case for the prosecution; and she would call attention to the grossly improper and slovenly fashion in which the case had been brought into court.
After much consultation, and on Miss Boyle stating that they were not there to contest the case, the Bench fined Dr. Knight £2, with 5s. costs, which, with extraordinary lack of understanding, the court then asked Miss Boyle to produce.
On the assurance that Dr. Knight had not the least intention of paying fines to the Government, the sentence was altered, after more deliberation, to “seven days.”
The prosecuting counsel then greatly improved his case by saying that more witnesses could have been brought from Suffolk, but he had not brought them “because of the expense.”
(Any law and any evidence, apparently, is good enough on which to convict voteless women.)
Dr. Knight’s friends were thereby enabled to leave the court with another emphatic protest against the slovenly and slip-shod procedure in bringing a case.
Dr. Knight has heard nothing further from the Arm of the Law, and is now awaiting developments with her well-known composure.
In Glasgow.
According to The Manchester Guardian, a Sheriff’s officer in Glasgow on , acting on behalf of the Crown, exposed to public sale a number of articles belonging to three women suffragists who as a protest had refused to pay their Imperial taxes.
Two are members of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and one is a member of the Women’s Freedom League.
A solid silver tea service, a gold watch and brooch, and a table and clock were sold.
They were bought on behalf of the parties concerned.
The women addressed the large crowd that assembled.
Miss Janet Bunten is, no doubt, our member referred to, and next week we hope to publish particulars.
Our hon. treasurer is still
at large, and members of Headquarters’ office, and those who kindly
volunteer to help with the arduous duties wrestled with there, still have the
pleasure of seeing Dr.
[Elizabeth] Knight coming and going as usual, in perfect unconcern. The
sentence of “seven days” has neither ruffled her serenity nor interfered with
the even tenor of her way; and the discharge of her term appears to have
receded into the dim and distant future. In this connection we may recall to
the minds of our members that the threat of immediate arrest levelled at Mrs.
[Charlotte] Despard some two years ago, for non-payment of taxes, has not yet
been carried out! Mrs. [Kate] Harvey’s barricade against the tax-collector
also remains unbroken, and has in no way hampered her magnificent energy on
behalf of the International Suffrage Fair.
Probably not one of our keenest observers would, on a casual acquaintance
with Mrs. Kate Harvey, discern a fraction of the capacity for organisation and
business-like execution possessed by this unassuming woman. Even after many
years’ personal knowledge of her and of her generous support of our League in
so many ways, this splendid characteristic came as a revelation to me when I
called at her residence in Bromley the other day.
The house itself has been in a state of siege against the tax collector for
some months past, the windows bearing placards of the Tax Resistance League.
Entrance, therefore, was not too easy, even for a comrade. The locked gates
and the silence of the surrounding grounds gave an appearance of inertia,
but what a contrast when once admission was gained! The whole house, which is
a large one, seemed to have been converted into a warehouse and factory
combined. Here was the great clearing house on which the success of our Fair
depends.…
Suffragists will rally in force to greet Mr. Mark Wilks and his wife,
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, at the
reception, organised in their honour by the Tax Resistance League, to take
place at the Caxton Hall, on The sympathy of
teachers with Mr. Wilks’ protest and imprisonment is shown by the fact that
the chair will be taken by Mr. R. Cholmeley, Headmaster, Owen’s School,
Islington, N. For particulars see page 30.
Mrs. [Ethel] Ayers Purdie’s splendid success at Sunderland, single-handed
against the Board of Inland Revenue, will be given in detail next week. The
Inland Revenue authorities, we understand, intend appealing to the High
Court.
The goods of Mr. J.A. Hall, of “Glenamour,” on
, Waterloo-park, Lancashire,
were sold for the second time against distraint consequent on his refusal to
pay income-tax on house property belonging to his wife. The goods were bought
in by a friend for the amount of the tax and expenses.
Mrs. Hall, who attended the sale in the unavoidable absence of her husband,
explained — by the courtesy of the auctioneer — to the large company of
sympathisers present that this action was taken as the most practical and
emphatic protest possible against the stupid and unjust action of the Revenue
authorities who despite the fact of the Married Woman’s Property Act under
which she herself is liable for her own debts, had forced the issue under the
Income Tax Act of 1842. This Act, whilst making the husband liable for the
payment of any tax on his wife’s own income, leaves him absolutely without
any power to obtain from her any information with regard to her income if she
declines to disclose it.
Mrs. Hall emphasised the absurdity and unfairness of such an enactment,
and said it was matter for considerable surprise that, quite apart from the
merits of the woman’s question, men had not bestirred themselves to force
the Government to remedy this utterly impossible state of things and make
women, if they could, pay this or any other tax whilst withholding
from them the Parliamentary vote.
[Our readers will be specially interested in the following account by Mrs. Ayers Purdie of her successful appeal against the Inland Revenue authorities.]
I desire it to be clearly understood that the following narrative is not an extract from Alice in Wonderland, neither is it a scene out of a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera.
It is a simple and faithful account of a successful Income-Tax appeal which was heard at Durham on .
The appellant was a Suffragist, belonging to the Women’s Tax-Resistance League and the Women’s Social and Political Union.
I was conducting the case for the appellant, which I am legally entitled to do under Section 13 of the Revenue Act, 1903.
Dramatis Personæ
The dramatis personæ are as follows: Two Commissioners of Taxes, elderly gentlemen, inclining, like all their kind, to baldness; spectacled of course; one of them wearing his spectacles high on his forehead, and looking out at me from under his eyebrows with a pair of piercing eyes.
These gentlemen hear appeals under the Income-Tax Acts, and are the judges therein.
Their decision is absolutely final, except on a point of law, in which case a further appeal may be made to the High Court.
To continue the list, there is also the Clerk to the Commissioners, who is a solicitor, member of a well-known North-country firm.
His business is to record everything, and to help the Commissioners on knotty legal questions; and, finally, the Surveyor of Taxes, who conducts the case for the Crown.
Opposed to all these learned gentlemen are my client and myself.
Unlike all other cases, in which the plaintiff or appellant has the opening and closing of the case, the procedure in these appeals is reversed; the Crown has the first and the last word, which puts a handicap on the appellant.
Accordingly the Surveyor of Taxes is invited to open the proceedings with a statement of his case; and he sets forth that Dr. Alice Burn, of Sunderland, Assistant Medical Inspector for the County of Durham, is receiving an official salary of so much per annum, and, though she has a husband, he lives in New Zealand, according to her own admission, so an assessment has been made on her salary and the Surveyor claims that he is fully entitled to do so.
Then it is my turn to put my case, and I freely admit all the facts as stated by the Surveyor, but challenge the conclusion he has drawn from them; my case being that by Section 45 of the Income-Tax Act of 1842 Dr. Burn cannot be held liable for the tax.
The solicitor reads this section aloud to the Commissioners.
Most women are familiar, since the famous [Elizabeth & Mark] Wilks episode, with the words on which I am relying.
They are, “the profits (i.e., income) of any married woman living with her husband shall be deemed the profits of the husband, and shall be charged in the name of the husband, and not in her name.”
One of the Commissioners asks in whose name was Dr. Burn’s salary assessed, and is told that it has been charged in her own name.
Geographical Separation.
The Surveyor, invited to offer any arguments or evidence to support his case, says that as Dr. Burn is here and Mr. Burn is in New Zealand, she cannot be living with him.
I argue, as against this, that the case really involves a point of law as to what is meant or implied by the words “living with her husband;” that these words must be interpreted strictly in accordance with their legal signification, and therefore I shall contend that my client lives with her husband in the legal sense, though I fully admit the geographical separation.
This term, “geographical separation,” seems to strike one of the Commissioners very forcibly; he repeats it with much relish, adding, “Yes, I can see what you mean, and I suppose you will say that the Crown cannot take any cognisance of a mere geographical separation.
Quite so.”
Apparently he thinks this is a good point, and he glances towards the solicitor, as if wondering how in the world they will get over it.
By this time both Commissioners, who started with the expression of men about to be frightfully bored, have become thoroughly alert and impressed; and the Surveyor appears to realise that his task will nt be such an easy one as he anticipated.
He becomes slightly nervous and confused, a little inclined to bluster, and to take the matter personally, which causes him sometimes to contradict himself and to refute his own arguments.
Being now invited to consider the point about “the geographical separation,” he declines to have anything to do with it, and strenuously denies that any point of law is involved.
He absolutely refuses to consider the matter from this standpoint, and declares that the Commissioners do not take the legal aspect into account in forming their decision.
According to him, this case is purely one of fact, and what the Commissioners have to do is to consider the actual fact, and nothing else.
He knows that if a woman’s husband is at the other side of the world she is not living with him in actual fact, and therefore cannot be said to be living with him at all.
Impertinent Questions
Asked by me to state on what authority he bases this last assertion, he says that he bases it on his own authority; and on his own common-sense.
This leads me to inquire how it happened that, being so fully convinced that my client was not living with her husband, he yet had written to her asking her to furnish him with her husband’s name, address, occupation, the amount of his income, &c. He begs this question by complaining that her reply had been that she could not tell him her husband’s address; and, of course, if a woman could not give her husband’s address it was perfectly plain that she could not be living with him.
I point out that this does not follow, and one of the Commissioners mildly suggests that my client shall explain why she made this reply.
She readily answers that her primary reason was indignation at his questions.
The Commissioner, who seems to be rather human, and quick at grasping things, remarks, “Ah, I see.
You thought he had asked you a lot of impertinent questions, and that was your method of showing your resentment.
Very natural, I’m sure.”
The Surveyor being apparently unprepared with any further argument or evidence beyond the assertion of his own common-sense, it is again my innings.
I take up the tale by reference to the decision in Shrewsbury v. Shrewsbury, which showed that the Crown can only claim to levy tax on spinsters, widows, or femes soles, and my client does not correspond to any one of these descriptions.
I quote precedents set by the Inland Revenue Department on other occasions; as witness the successful objection made to taxation by Miss Decima Moore, Miss Constance Collier, and sundry other ladies, whose circumstances were precisely the same as those of my client.
The Surveyor pretends to be too dense to understand how those ladies whose names I have mentioned could have husbands, and has to have it all minutely explained to him before he is convinced.
A Commissioner asks if I can give any other instances, and I reply, “I am an instance myself, if that will do.
My husband’s business compels him to live in Hampshire, while my own business equally compels me to live in London; but no Surveyor of Taxes has ever ventured to assess me, or to insinuate that I am a feme-sole.
Perhaps you will tell me that I do not live with my husband,” I gently suggest to the present Surveyor of Taxes, who looks as if nothing would give him greater satisfaction if he only dared, but he does not offer to accept this invitation, and the Commissioner hastily says, “I think we are now quite satisfied on the question of precedents.”
I am then proceeding to state that the Crown has itself embodied the correct attitude towards married women in one of the forms issues from Somerset House, in which reference is made to the treatment of “a married woman permanently separated from her husband,” when the Surveyor interrupts — “Are you giving that as evidence?”
“Yes, I am,” I reply.
“Then I shall object to it,” he says.
“I deny that there is any Revenue form having such words upon it, and I object to that statement being received as evidence.”
“As he repudiates the existence of this form, I fear we must uphold his objection,” says the Commissioner apologetically to me.
“Oh,” I exclaim, affecting to be greatly dismayed, “this really was my strongest point.
Do you mean to say you will not admit it because you have not this form before you?”
“I am afraid we cannot, if the Surveyor persists in his objection.
As you see, he is also making avery strong point of it,” is the reply.
The Surveyor intimates that he will persist.
“Very well,” I say, in a tone of resignation to the inevitable; and then there is a short and uncomfortable pause.
The Surveyor looks pleased, as though he fancies he has scored at last.
The other three appear to sympathise with me; even my client begins to look apprehensive, as if she fears I am done for.
Because (as she tells me subsequently) she also thinks I cannot produce this thing, and that I have only been bluffing.
Piece de Resistance
But I make a sudden dive down to my satchel, which lies open on the floor at my feet, and where, unseen by anybody else, the disputed form (No. 44A) has been lying in wait; my last act, before I left London, having been to equip myself with this most important document.
It is laid in front of the Commissioners, and they and the solicitor stare very hard at it, shake their heads over it, and murmur to one another, “Yes, it says so, right enough,” and “This settles it, don’t you think?”
When they have quite done with it, the Surveyor has his turn, and he pounces upon it, examines it intently, up and down, and all round, as if to convince himself that there is no deception, and that it is not a conjuring trick.
(I must do him the justice to say that I honesty believe he has never seen or heard of this form before, as it is very little used.)
It is now fairly evident that my pièce de résistance, No. 44A, has clinched the business, as I knew it must, and that my case is as good as won.
But the Surveyor starts off desperately on a fresh tack.
“Even if those words are on this form,” he says, in portentious tones, “it does not follow that what is stated on official forms is necessarily in accordance with law.”
“I quite agree with you there,” is my cordial reply.
“If everything that is contrary to law were to be eliminated from the form, there would be very little left.
But you may take it that the part I am relying on is perfectly good law,” and I glance toward the solicitor, who nods his assent.
“Then I shall maintain that you cannot reply upon what any form says, because the Board of Inland Revenue can at any moment alter the wording of a form,” says the Surveyor.
“Yes, the Board always have the power to vary the forms when they think fit,” echo the Commissioners.
“But they have not yet altered this one,” I object, “and you cannot raise a valid argument against it by simply saying that it might be something different if it did not happen to be what it is.
The Board have put these words on this form to serve some particular purpose of their own; and it so happens that it equally suits my purpose to make use of them here and now.
It is ‘up to you’ to decide this case in one way or the other; but the Crown is not going, as hitherto, to claim to have things both ways.”
“Both ways, indeed,” laughs one of the Commissioners.
“Why, the Crown will have it three ways, if it is possible.”
“And I am here to show the Crown that it is not possible,” I retort.
The Surveyor is disinclined further to contest the validity of Form No. 44A; but the solicitor seems to be uneasy, as if he feels that the Crown is losing prestige, and that somebody must make the running for it.
So he starts to read an obscure and wearisome section of the Income-Tax Act relating to “foreigners” coming to reside in this country!
Ethel Ayers Purdie.
(To be continued.)
I’ll post the second part of the above article on .
After inexplicable delays, the representatives of the Law have finally made up their minds to wrestle with the case of Dr. [Elizabeth] Knight.
On , the Hon. Treasurer of the League received a call from a gentleman who embodied in his person the might, majesty and power of the London County Council, and the Court of Petty Sessions, and showed a desire to annex Dr. Knight’s property in lieu of the £2 5s. which she declines to pay.
It is hardly necessary to tell readers of The Vote that he got very little satisfaction out of his visit, seeing that no fine was forthcoming, no property could be seized, and no information was vouchsafed.
After some slight altercation, and an almost pathetic attempt at persuasion, in neither of which was any advantage gained, the Law retired, to return at some future period (unstated) with a warrant for the arrest of the smiling culprit, who declined, in accordance with the attitude taken up by the Women’s Freedom League, to furnish any information or facilities to the agents of the Government.
Miss Janet Bunten, whose goods were seized in Glasgow at twenty-four hours’ notice, was absent from home with the women marchers at the time that the Government executed its mandate for the distraint.
We are glad to be able to say that a staunch friend of Miss Bunten’s, who belongs to the Women’s Social and Political Union — some of whose members were in the same plight — bought in the goods for her.
Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Last week Mrs. Kineton Parkes spoke at Manchester and Leeds, and on Mrs. [Caroline] Fagan spoke at Woking on the subject of Tax Resistance.
New members joined the League at each place.
On , a Tax Resistance meeting was held under the auspices of the Hampstead W.S.P.U., and was presided over by Mrs. [Myra Eleanor] Sadd Brown.
Mrs. Kineton Parkes and Mr. Mark Wilks were the speakers.
Particulars appear in another column [sic] of the Caxton Hall Reception, on , to Mr. Mark Wilks.
Great interest will also be attached to the account of the case of Dr. Alice Burn, Medical Officer of Health for the County of Durham.
Mrs. Ayers Purdie appeared for her in Durham, and won our case against the Inland Revenue — a notable triumph for the Cause.
The Women’s Tax Resistance will join the Marchers at Camden-town on and proceed with the John Hampden Banner to Trafalgar-square.
“If anyone fears that he has not courage to go to prison he will soon find, when he is inside, that one of its peculiar characteristics is to produce a determination and courage undreamed of to resist, not its discipline, which is a farce, but its tyranny, which oppresses the weak, and vanishes like the mist before the strong.”
— Mark Wilks
Two meetings; the same hall; the same man as the centre of interest; yet what a difference!
In , Mr. Mark Wilks was in prison, and the Caxton Hall rang with the indignant demand for his release.
In Mr. Mark Wilks was on the platform, and the Caxton Hall rang with enthusiastic appreciation of his service to the Woman’s Cause.
“It is fitting that on this memorable day, when the Government has been defeated in the House of Commons, that we should meet to celebrate the defeat of the Government by Mr. Mark Wilks,” said Mr. Pethick Lawrence.
One had only to scan the platform and glance round the hall on to note that the Women’s Tax Resistance League has the power to call together men and women determined to do and to suffer in order to win the legal badge of citizenship for women and the amending of unjust laws.
Mr. Wilks and his brave wife, Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, had a fine reception, and their speeches were clear, straight challenges to all to carry on the fight.
“We must never tire,” said Dr. Wilks, as she showed the injustice of the working of the income tax methods of collection, and told heartrending stories of the betrayal of young girls, “until we have won sex equality.”
“If anyone fears that he has not courage to go to prison he will soon find, when he is inside, that one of its peculiar characteristics is to produce a determination and courage undreamed of to resist, not its discipline, which is a farce, but its tyranny, which oppresses the weak, and vanishes like the mist before the strong.”
Thus, Mr. Mark Wilks; and, having been inside himself, he declared that he was most anxious that Captain Gonne should enjoy a similar experience, because he is resisting taxation, largely on account of the White Slave Traffic.
“They seized an obscure man; let the important ones be seized.
They did not know you were behind me; we will show the one or two men who really stand for the great scheme we call ‘Government,’ that we are behind Captain Gonne.
I have been inside and know how to do it.
Play the band and cheer.
The effect is electric!”
Mr. Robert Cholmely, M.P., from the chair, blessed the Tax Resistance movement; Mr. Pethick Lawrence acclaimed it as part of a militant policy against a Government which abandons its Liberal principles and finds itself defeated; Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard rejoiced that the best men were standing by the women; Mrs. Cobden Sanderson pleaded for more recruits for the League to help it to find more Mark Wilks; Miss Bensusan and Miss Decima Moore delighted and amused everyone by their recitations of imaginary Antis and real tax collectors.
A notable gathering on a notable day.
After many months of barricade, “Brackenhill” was broken into by the tax-collecting authorities, and “in the King’s name” the doors were battered in and Mrs. [Kate] Harvey’s goods were seized to cover the amount of taxes which she refuses to pay so long as no woman in the land has a voice in controlling the expenditure of the country.
The tax-collector wanted these goods to be disposed of peacefully, and therefore insisted that they should be sold on the premises and not in a public hall, as on a previous occasion.
On morning a band of Suffragist men carried placards through the streets of Bromley, on which was the device, “I personally protest against the sale of a woman’s goods to pay taxes over which she has no control,” and long before , the time fixed for the sale, from North, South, East and West, people came streaming into the little town of Bromley, and made their way towards “Brackenhill.”
Punctually at the tax-collector and his deputy mounted the table in the dining-room, and the former, more in sorrow than in anger, began to explain to the crowd assembled that this was a genuine sale!
Mrs. Harvey at once protested against the sale taking place.
Simply and solely because she was a woman, although she was a mother, a business woman, and a tax-payer, she had no voice in saying how the taxes collected from her should be spent.
The tax collector suffered this speech in silence, but he could judge by the cheers it received that there were many ardent sympathisers with Mrs. Harvey in her protest.
He tried to proceed, but one after another the men present loudly urged that no one there should bid for the goods.
The tax-collector feebly said this wasn’t a political meeting, but a genuine sale!
“One penny for your goods then!” was the derisive answer.
“One penny — one penny!” was the continued cry from both inside and outside “Brackenhill.”
Then men protested that the tax-collector was not a genuine auctioneer; he had no hammer, no list of goods to be sold was hung up in the room.
There was no catalogue, nothing to show bidders what was to be sold and what wasn’t.
The men also objected to the presence of the tax-collector’s deputy.
“Tell him to get down!” they shouted.
“The sale shan’t proceed till he does,” they yelled.
“Get down! Get down:” they sang.
But the tax-collector felt safer by the support of this deputy.
“He’s afraid of his own clerk,” they jeered.
Again the tax-collector asked for bids.
“One penny! One penny!” was the deafening response.
The din increased every moment and pandemonium reigned supreme.
During a temporary lull the tax-collector said a sideboard had been sold for nine guineas.
Angry cries from angry men greeted this announcement.
“Illegal sale!”
“He shan’t take it home!”
“The whole thing’s illegal!”
“You shan’t sell anything else!” and The Daily Herald Leaguers, members of the Men’s Political Union, and of other men’s societies, proceeded to make more noise than twenty brass bands.
Darkness was quickly settling in; the tax-collector looked helpless, and his deputy smiled wearily.
“Talk about a comic opera — it’s better than Gilbert and Sullivan could manage,” roared an enthusiast.
“My word, you look sick, guv’nor!
Give it up, man!”
Then everyone shouted against the other until the tax-collector said he closed the sale, remarking plaintively that he had lost £7 over the job!
Ironical cheers greeted this news, with “Serve you right for stealing a woman’s goods!”
He turned his back on his tormentors, and sat down in a chair on the table to think things over.
The protesters sat on the sideboard informing all and sundry that if anyone wanted to take away the sideboard he should take them with it!
With the exit of the tax-collector, his deputy and the bailiff, things gradually grew quieter, and later on Mrs. Harvey entertained her supporters to tea at the Bell Hotel.
But the curious thing is, a man paid nine guineas for the sideboard to the tax-collector.
Mrs. Harvey owed him more than £17, and Mrs. Harvey is still in possession of the sideboard!
In the Market-square in the evening Miss Boyle presided at a large and orderly meeting at which Mr. Mark Wilkes, Mr. Bell, Mr. Webber, Mr. Steer, and Mr. Jouning spoke.
The Tax Resistance banners mingled with those of the Women’s Freedom League, and the meeting was the event of evening at Bromley.
At the instigation of Mr. Webber enthusiastic cheers were given for Mrs. Harvey and the Cause, and Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, responding to an insistent call, wound up the meeting with a short speech.
At the Grand Concert Hall, Hastings, on night a public meeting was held under the auspices of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, which created immense interest in the town owing to the recent decision by Judge Mackarness in favour of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies against the Mayor and Corporation of Hastings.
It will be remembered that owing to the Anti-Suffrage riots on , the authorities prohibited the protest meeting to be held that night, and it was the same mob which attacked the members of the National Union a few days later.
The postponed meeting of the Women’s Tax Resistance League was held night, and in the unavoidable absence of the Countess Brassey the chair was taken by Lady Isabel Hampden Margesson, a direct ascendant of John Hampden.
Lady Isabel, in her opening speech, fully vindicated the action of her historic ancestor, and illustrated by her well-chosen words and clearly expressed sentiments, that she is equally prepared to resist injustice and expose bad government.
Mr Laurence Housman, in a brilliant political speech, traced the constitutional history of Tax Resistance from Magna Charta to the present day, proving that only through refusing to submit to imposition have all great reforms been won.
Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, who was the other speaker, accused the Government of unconstitutional action in demanding taxation from a large section of the community from whom they withheld representation.
She also gave the moral reasons why women should demand the vote, and why they should also unite in protesting by the time honoured way of Tax Resistance against its continual denial.
At the close of the meeting the following resolution was carried with one dissentient:—
That this meeting is of opinion that women are justified in refusing to pay all Imperial taxes until they are granted the same control over national expenditure as male taxpayers possess.
It is satisfactory to know that there was adequate police protection.
It is stated on good authority that the Chief Constable was himself in attendance at this meeting, together with seventy members of the Force, and as many of these men were taken from night duty it caused the authorities a good deal of extra expense.
This police protection would have been more to the point if it had been in evidence in the streets of Hastings on .
On , Mrs. Kineton Parkes spoke at Bristol under the auspices of the New Constitutional Society, and on Wednesday, at Cardiff, under the Women’s Social and Political Union.
No Vote, No Dog License.
At the Assize Court, Kingston-on-Thames, on , Miss Isabelle Stewart, B.Sc., was summoned for non-payment of her dog license.
Defendant did not appear, but it was explained that she had declined to pay the tax on conscientious grounds.
As a suffragist she believed that it was unjust to tax women while they were unrepresented in Parliament.
She was accordingly fined £2 inclusive, and [as] it was stated that she would not pay a fine she considered unjust, distraint was ordered to be levied.
A number of sympathisers were in the Court, including Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, who is refusing to pay the licences on her eight dogs.
A meeting was held by the Coronation Stone in the Market Square.
Miss M. Lawrence presided, pointing out that had Miss Stewart been a man she would have had two votes; as a woman she had none.
Mrs. [Myra Eleanor] Sadd Brown then addressed the crowd.
She commented on the treachery of a Government that had gone back on its principle of no taxation without representation and on the different forms of treatment meted out to Sir Edward Carson, Jim Larkin, and the Suffragists respectively.
The crowd throughout was sympathetic, and at the end of the meeting swarmed round the speaker and argued in an amicable way with her.
Mrs. Harvey’s Thanks.
The Women’s Tax Resistance League has received a very charming letter of thanks from Mrs. Harvey for the bouquet presented to her by Miss Clemence Housman on behalf of the League at the Caxton Hall Meeting on .
Government Rests Upon the Consent of the Governed.
They had decided not to insure; they attended great gatherings at the Albert Hall and passed resolutions with fervour, and clapped and cheered the incitements to rebellion, and when the fatal Bill went through and July 1 came, they formed a conspiracy to defraud — the little mistress, and the cook, and the housemaid, who was also her daughter.
“Nothing,” said the little mistress, who was developing unsuspected powers as a street-corner orator, “nothing will induce me to pay a fresh tax levied on women without their consent.
I will not lick stamps at the bidding of Mr. Lloyd George; I will go to gaol as a protest against such an unconstitutional Government.”
“’Ear, ’ear ma’am,” said the cook; “I ’ate that ole Lloyd George; I’d do anything to spite ’im.
I always did ’ate Radicals, and as my ’usband says, they always do leave a mess for other folks to red up.
They takes us poor people’s money and pays theirselves salaries out of it: Gladys read that out of the paper to me the other day.
Old John Burns is ’aving thousands a year, and when we lived in Battersea I remember his saying as no man weren’t worth five ’undred, and quite enough, too, I says.
Conservative gentlemen are rich and knows about governing the working classes, but this ’ere set of Radicals don’t know nothing abou it; they aren’t no better than us, and just on the make for a bit of money.
What’s the good of the Insurance Act to folks as aren’t never ill?
I never ailed nothing in my life except when I was upstairs with the children.
No more ain’t my old Dad, and he’s just on ninety.
When he broke his leg two years ago and the doctor wanted ’im to swallow some nice-looking red medicine, he just took it for to be perlite, and then spat it out and said ’is stummick had lasted him eighty-seven year and ’e weren’t going to start a-poisoning of it then.
“Silly talk I call it.
I ’ate men — I ’ate the sight of them! and me, a married woman with eight, having to turn out and keep ’im and the little ones as I can’t do with the paltry pittance of my wages and Gladys, and now sixpence a week out of our wages and them children’s stummicks — taking to-day’s bread to pay for to-morrow’s medecine I calls it,” and the cook grasped the scrubbing-brush and viciously attacked the speckless kitchen table.
The month of July came and the husband, whose business took him abroad for long periods, returned to his revolting family, and what Gladys reported as a “few words” were spoken at the dining-table.
He would not dream of resisting the Insurance tax.
He was the master of the house and the women would please obey.
He was not going to be summoned for any silly fad of his wife’s; besides, he had a vote and would look a fool in dock.
The wife replied that she had made inquiries, and her Suffrage Society considered she would be liable to be summoned as the servants were in her employ.
They were ready all three to go to gaol like John Hampden for what they considered an unjust and unconstitutional tax.
The newspapers were consulted, and Mr. Masterman’s great and illuminating answer to a questioner in the House on that point of responsibility was quoted by the wife to show they might settle between them: “It is a purely domestic matter.”
Then a brother, who was also a solicitor, was questioned, and deprecated such an evasive reply from a Cabinet Minister, stirring up domestic quarrels in many a home.
In his opinion the husband only was responsible for all payments; a wife, of course, was under coverture and had no civic existence: she acted as her husband’s agent only.
“I am allowed to have my money, though, under the Married Women’s Property Act, ,” said the little mistress, angrily.
“That has nothing to do with it.
I understand you pay the servants out of your husband’s money.”
“Then you may stamp-lick yourself, Claude,” said the little mistress.
“I will not defile my tongue with Government gum.”
Then she went upstairs and cried bitterly.
The master sent for the servants and reduced them, as he thought, to submission.
The housemaid became one year and a-half younger than the age at which she was engaged over a year ago; and though it seemed incredible, her statement was accepted, for the master knew that “to think a girl sixteen” is a valid excuse before any magistrate, and argued that the converse would also hold good, and no man with any chivalry could contradict a lady.
The cook procured a card as she was bidden, and because she quoted the Truck Act and the illegality of stopping wages, the master paid the lot, licked Government gum till his tongue was sore, and then, his house in order, departed to his business in far countries.
Then the revolt burst out once more.
In spite of her boast of good health, the cook, finding six shillings paid down for ill-health and medical attendance, immediately developed the usual domestic ailments, swimmings here and sinkings there, pains in various regions, which, with the assistance of advertisements for quack medicines, she scientifically diagnosed as liver, kidney, “tisis,” and “pneumonia.”
When she was told that these must be endured till January without State assistance, but that if she was really so ill the family doctor should at once be summoned, she replied she would not dream of such a thing, she never did ’old with doctors, but if she paid money down she liked something to show for it, and not a ’alfpenny more would she put on that card.
Then the “Mark Wilkes’ case” happened, and the power of the law of coverture was proved, so the little mistress went down to consult her society.
She had been brought up on cricket, and it did not seem fair, as she said, to get her husband into prison in his absence.
“Serve him right,” said the honorary secretary.
“Quite enough women have been to gaol,” said the treasurer; “it is time a few men got there for their own folly in allowing such laws.”
“You know we have your pledge as a passive resister, prepared with your two servants to go to gaol; you cannot go back on your word, Mrs. James.”
“We don’t wish to do so; but if they only fine my husband, who has a vote, our protest falls flat; he won’t be a Mark Wilkes and go to gaol for us.”
“You can, of course, take back your pledge.”
“But then cook won’t, and she is very obstinate.”
“You might dismiss her.”
“Yes, but she can cook, and so few cooks know how.”
“My dear,” said a white-haired woman, “if she can cook give her the best bedroom and anything she desires and go on talking about the Insurance Act when your husband comes home.
Discussions on Women’s Liberty are glorious, but disputes over spoilt victuals are degrading.”
As time went on the little mistress, who had both a conscience and a power of attorney, became appalled at the revolt of the women.
The little governess who came to teach the children refused to insure.
She was a Christian Scientist and did not believe either in illness nor doctors.
“Why,” she asked, with unanswerable logic, “should one insure against anything non-existent?”
The charwoman said no one would engage her because of “them stamps,” they took up girls under sixteen instead; but now she suddenly posed as a married woman, wife of a wage-earner, her husband, whom she had supported for years, having once found employment as a buckler-on of skates when, at rare intervals, the climate allowed the ponds on the common to be opened to the public for the exhilarating exercise.
The little dressmaker, who came to renovate and repair, was not insured.
She had been dismissed from her place, she said, in July, and since then no one would employ her because she had not card.
As she would probably end shortly in the workhouse, she thought she might as well go there via prison — both supplied board and lodging gratis.
The model, who came to pose for the figure of Justice which the little mistress was designing for a Suffrage banner, also said that the ladies of her profession would not dream of insuring; and as, apparently, Mr. Lloyd George had never heard of the trade they were safe.
When October 15 drew nigh the cook, after several exhortations, was given an evening off and money for stamps, and sent to join an Approved Society.
She returned very late, having missed a train on the Tube, and very vituperative against the Government; in fact, her command of Limehouse was worthy of the Chancellor himself.
The next afternoon she again was granted a holiday, but returned this time depressed and lachrymose.
She had heard, she said, of a gentleman at Lilac Cottage on the Common who would make excellent terms with her, and she was going back after tea.
“No,” said the little mistress, “you cannot go out again; I am expecting a friend and you must stop at home and cook the dinner.”
The meal came up as incoherent and confused as the Insurance Act itself, and amongst the rare refreshing fruits of the macédoine a big white onion flaunted so aggressively that the eldest son of the house, who came down to dessert, announced that he “could hear it smell.”
The ladies took refuge in the drawing-room, the little mistress jealous of her reputation as housekeeper quite overcome.
“I can’t think what is the matter with cook, the Insurance Act seems quite to have unhinged her.[”]
“No wonder,” said the honorary secretary, as she lit her cigarette.
Our enthusiastic member in the Garden City, Miss [Clara] Lee, has been working hard for some time trying to form a Branch of the League there, and now her efforts are to be crowned with success.
A meeting was arranged for , at which the speakers were Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard and Mrs. [Margaret] Nevinson.
It had been well advertised by Miss Lee in various ways, her poster parade at creating quite a sensation in Letchworth.
The result was a splendid meeting; the Howard Hall was full, and in response to Mrs. Despard’s inspiriting appeal, a number of people gave in their names as members of the new Branch.
Miss Lee, who, on more than one occasion, has refused to pay taxes, had the joy of learning that, as a result of Mrs. Nevinson’s speech on tax-resistance, she will now be supported by many other tax resisters in the first Garden City.
A resolution, moved by Mrs. Tudor, calling upon the Government to include women in the proposed Reform Bill, was carried, one might almost say unanimously, for, though one gentleman dissented, he admitted afterwards that his position was that of “sitting upon the fence.”
Miss Lee, who has kindly agreed to be hon. secretary of the new Branch, will be glad to hear from any sympathisers in the district.
Mrs. [Mary McLeod] Cleeves, who made such a determined stand last autumn
against being taxed and unrepresented, and whose dogcart was seized and
sold, is again defying the authorities.
Mrs. Cleeves, as a married woman, is not liable to pay income-tax, but,
regardless of the Act of Parliament which clearly states this position, the
local tax-collector has put in a bailiff in an endeavour to make Mrs. Cleeves
pay taxes which she is not legally bound to do. Mrs. Cleeves handed the
following statement to the official:—
I protest against your being here in possession, and I protest against any
of the goods in this house being seized. Everything here belongs to me, and
as a married woman I am not responsible for the payment of income-tax.
(When I offered to give the tax-collector Mr. Cleeves’s address, he
refused to take it.)
M. McLeod Cleeves.
The Tax Resistance League, as well as ourselves, is going to support Mrs.
Cleeves in any action which it is deemed wise to take, and in the meantime
both Leagues have written to the authorities at Somerset House and Mr. Lloyd
George. The following letter was sent from the League:—
To Inland Revenue Office.
.
Sir,— I have to request your immediate attention to the serious irregularity
in the case of Mrs. Mary McLeod Cleeves, a member of this League. An
assessment was made on Mr. Ed. A.
Cleeves, but in defiance of the assessment Mrs. Cleeves has been receiving
threatening demands, in her own name, for payment of the assessment. She
has, of course, refused to pay it as she is not liable, and no assessment or
charge may legally be made on her.
The local officials, however, have now proceeded to trespass on her
premises, commit damages, and take possession of her goods to recover a sum
which they are forbidden to charge on her, and which will be paid by the
person assessed as soon as he returns to this country, which may be at any
time now. This person has always paid it, and never refused to discharge his
legal obligations.
I may remind you that your department has said, in reply to a question asked
on behalf of Dr. Elizabeth
Wilks, that the Crown cannot seize the property of a married woman in order
to satisfy the husband’s debt to the Crown. The case of Mrs. Cleeves is
absolutely identical with that of
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, of
Clapton, London, who informed the persons who were sent to levy a distress
on her property that she was not the person charged or liable, and that her
goods could not be seized. On hearing this the persons immediately withdrew,
and declined to proceed with the distraint. She has not been molested since,
but you will recall that after this incident you addressed a letter to her
husband, Mr. Mark Wilks, in which you call his attention to the fact that he
is the only person liable for all taxes, and that if he fails to pay, the
Board’s solicitor will take proceedings against him to make him pay.
You have now been asking him to pay this money for upwards of a year.
I must ask that, as the above is clearly the proper legal procedure, it shall
be adhered to in the case of Mrs. Cleeves also. Will you be good enough to
instruct the local officials that the distraint must be withdrawn, and that
they must refrain from molesting Mrs. Cleeves or trespassing on her property?
I would add that when the assessment was increased last year, Mrs. Cleeves
wished to raise an objection, but was quite properly informed that she could
not be heard, as she had no locus standi in the matter, as
she was not a person who could be charged under any circumstances, and
therefore could have no grievance, but that Mr. Cleeves was the only person
who could be recognised or listened to. It seems inexplicable that the
officials should seize the property of a person whom they have declared to
have no locus standi in the matter.
Requesting your immediate attention to the above facts, I am, yours
faithfully,
Edith How Martyn. Women’s Freedom League, 1,
Robert-street, Adelphi, London, W.C.
We are determined to do our best to make the authorities abide by their own
Acts of Parliament.
Dividends of Married Women.
All deductions from dividends paid on stock held by married women are illegal,
and married women should write to the secretaries of the companies and request
them to follow the procedure laid down by Parliament and to recover the
income-tax from the husbands, and in future to send the dividend in full.
Steady persistence along the lines afforded by the inconsistencies in the
law must end in drawing the attention of Parliament. Once that attention is
gained, it will be comparatively easy to insist that the first alteration in
the law must be to give representation where taxation is imposed.
Also from the same issue:
Protest at Brighton.
Owing to the enormous pressure put upon our space we are unable to give
details of the final stage of the proceedings taken against Mrs. Jones
Williams for her refusal to pay taxes. The goods seized were sold at the
public auction room. Before selling them the auctioneer allowed Mrs. How
Martyn to make a short explanatory speech, and he himself added that it was
an unpleasant duty he had to perform.
There was also much material about the related campaign of census resistance
in this issue.
One brief note on a meeting of the Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire branch,
mentioned that “Mrs. Scott, of High Wycombe, took the chair, and gave a short
speech on the necessity for tax resistance, which some in the district are
much in favour of.”
On Thursday evening, , a good
public meeting was held in the Town Hall, Uxbridge. The chair was taken by the
Hon. Mrs. [Evelina]
Haverfield, who gave a most earnest and spirited address upon the fundamental
basis of the Suffrage movement. Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes spoke on the
principles of tax resistance, and gave a short resumé of the work being done
by the society formed to put these principles into practice. Mrs. [Anne]
Cobden Sanderson made an urgent plea to the women of Uxbridge to boycott the
Census, and gave most lucid and logical reasons why the women should refuse
to be counted, and endeavoured to show the serious results which follow to
women from legislation without their consent. This meeting was entirely
given and arranged by Miss [Kate] Raleigh, who is a member of the New
Constitutional Society for Women’s Suffrage, and also the “Women’s Tax
Resistance League.”
It’s been a while since I’ve dug into the archives to hunt for information on how tax resistance was used in the British Women’s Suffrage Movement.
Here is a very early example, as reported by the Buffalo (New York) Express on :
London, — Miss Muller [Henrietta Müller, I think —♇], a member of the London School Board for the Lambeth District, is the first woman in England to pose as a martyr in the cause of woman suffrage.
She has undertaken in her own person to prove her devotion to the principle “No taxation without representation.”
Miss Muller is a leader of the Woman Suffragists, and was one of the first to propose, during the pendency of Mr. Woodall’s amendments to the Franchise bill, that women throughout the kingdom should form societies to resist the payment of taxes until the franchise should be extended to women householders.
When Mr. Woodall’s amendment was so overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Commons the ardor of the ladies perceptibly cooled, and but little has lately been heard of the proposed tax-resistance societies and defense fund.
Miss Muller, however, never wavered, and when the rate collector made his rounds this year she promptly and absolutely refused to pay a farthing for taxes upon her house.
This is situated in the fashionable precincts of Cadogan Square.
The collector argues and implored in vain, and finally distrained a portion of the furniture in Miss Muller’s residence in satisfaction of the levy.
was set for the execution of the writ, and Miss Muller, far from relenting to save her property, publicly advertised the date of the seizure, and invited the women of England to come and witness the disgraceful spectacle of a woman being robbed by the minions of the law because she dared to ask for a voice in the disposition of her taxation.
The invitation was accepted by hundreds of well-dressed but excited and indignant women, who crowded into Cadogan Square and nearly mobbed the bailiffs while they were removing the lares and penates from the Muller residence.
An indignation meeting was afterward held in Miss Muller’s drawing-rooms and many bitter and vehement denunciations of the tyranny and injustice of the law were indulged in.
Miss Muller was visited by a Cable News correspondent, and was found to be full of fight and determination to continue in her resistance.
She is a small and slender but sinewy woman of about forty-five, and gives one the impression of a veritable volcano of temper and pluck.
She sadly bewailed the seizure by the minions of the law of her favorite belongings, and said that the wretches had purposely picked out those articles which were most cherished by her on account of their associations and overlooked others of greater value.
“But,” she added, “they did not collect the rates, and they never will if they rob me of every stick of my furniture and pull the doors and windows out of my house.
I shall continue this fight if I am the only woman left in England to do so, but I hope and believe that thousands of English women will be found brave enough to follow my example.”
A paragraph of unsigned editorial commentary accompanied that piece:
The Smith sisters [Abby & Julia] of Glastonbury, Ct., who struggled so hard for the principle of “no taxation without representation,” now have an imitator in England.
The Smith sisters regularly refused to pay their taxes because they could not vote, and as regularly saw their cows sold by the tax collector, they protesting but bidding them in.
Miss Muller, the English woman who is following the same principle, lives in a fashionable quarter of London.
She witnessed the carting off of some of ber choicest furniture by the minions of the law, and invited several hundred other women to be present and witness the outrage.
It was no doubt a touching spectacle.
Our cable special clearly shows that Miss Muller was very mad.
But the public will refuse to sympathize very profoundly with a reform martyr of that sort.
Women suffrage may be advisable, though some of us do not believe in it.
But the policy of trying to reform the laws by refusing to obey them is certainly not the height of wisdom.
My next example is a brief note from the Camperdown Chronicle:
Women can refuse, as Mrs Montefiore is again doing, to pay income tax so long as they remain unenfranchised, on the old historic ground that “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”
If resistance, passive or active, ever can be justified, it assuredly is so justified in the case and cause of injured and insulted womanhood.
—“Ignota.” in “Westminster Review.”
From the Albany Advertiser:
Resistance Overcome.
London, .
The widow of Sir James Steel, a former Lord Provost of Edinburgh, refused to pay house or property tax on the ground that she is denied a vote.
A portion of her furniture was sold by auction to cover the amount of the tax.
Five thousand persons were present at the sale.
At first I thought that must be referring to Flora Annie Steele, but she was never married to a James Steel[e].
Turns out this was Barbara Joanna Steel.
She promoted tax resistance in 1907 to the Edinburgh National Society for Woman’s Suffrage, telling them:
On the ground that the franchise has not been extended to women, and she is therefore without a vote, the widow of Sir James Steel, a former Lord Provost of Edinburgh, lately refused to pay her house and property taxes.
The authorities thereupon ordered the sale by auction of a sufficient portion of Lady Steel’s household furniture to meet the demand of the tax collector, and the sale was held in the presence of 5,000 people.
A boycott of the census is (says the “Daily Chronicle” of ) to be the latest method of the militant suffragists for calling attention to their claims to the vote.
The announcement was made by Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard at a “King’s Speech meeting” of the Women’s Freedom League, held in the Caxton Hall.
The census would cost a great deal of money, said Mrs. Despard, and involve an enormous amount of labor.
So far as they were concerned, this census should not be taken.
“We shall prove,” said Mrs. Despard, “whether there is a people, or whether there can be a people without the women.
We shall call upon women householders and women lodgers all over the country to refuse absolutely all information when the census takers come round.”
Women, she went on, had been proud to belong to the nation, but they had been denied their citizenship.
Was it not logical, therefore, that they should say, “Very well; citizens we are not, and we shall not register ourselves as citizens?”
That was logical, as a protest should be, and it would be effective.
Speaking of the preparations for the census, Mrs. Despard asserted that the officials were trying to get cheap labor: little girls from the schools at six and seven shillings a week.
Mrs. Despard added that the members were going to obstruct other Government business and make other protests, and they would stop the census boycott only when they had the promise of the Prime Minister that a Woman’s Suffrage Bill would be introduced this session.
Tax resistance is to be another method of obstruction, and Mrs. Despard, who has already been “sold up” twice for refusing to pay taxes, produced a third summons to which she intimated that she would pay no attention.
A diamond ring, the property of the Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, seized because she refused to pay fines inflicted for failing to take out licenses for five dogs, a male servant, and a carriage, was sold by auction at Ashford (Middlesex) lately.
It was explained that the princess, as a member of the Women’s Tax Resistance league, refused to pay money to a Government which failed to give women representation in Parliament.
The ring was sold for £10, and was subsequently, on behalf of the league, returned to the princess.
London, — The first instance of a suffragist being committed to prison for non-payment of taxes as a protest against the disfranchisement of women occurred when Miss Clemence Housman, an authoress, and sister of Lawrence Houseman, was taken to Holloway Gaol by the Sheriff’s officer.
Similar protests have previously ended in distraint but Miss Houseman had no distrainable goods and was accordingly committed.
Miss Houseman, who belongs to the Women’s Social and Political Union and is on the committee of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, refused to pay for the taxicab in which she was taken to prison and the Sheriff’s officer paid the fare of $2,50, which curiously enough was the amount of the tax she originally declined to pay.
The monotony of purely educational work for woman suffrage has been enlivened by the arrest, imprisonment, and release of Miss Clemence Housman, writes an English correspondent, for non payment of the habitation tax.
Miss Housman a year ago refused to pay this tax, which was only 4/6 (1.10 dollar), and during the year has had sundry notices served upon her, the cost of which brought the amount up to between twenty five and thirty dollars.
The Government offered to compromise, but Miss Housman remained firm.
At length she received notice that she would be arrested on a certain day.
This was made the occasion by the Tax Resistance League of a protest meeting and a tea at the home of Miss Housman’s brother, Lawrence Housman, the noted dramatist and noted suffragist, for Mr. Housman is always speaking and writing for this cause and has thoroughly identified himself with it as his own.
The “John Hampden” dinner was the name under which the members of the “Women’s Tax Resistance League” gave a dinner recently in London.
At the end of the dining hall hung a picture of the hero, who resisted the ship money imposition, and on the menu cards appeared the legend, “No vote, no tax.”
The guests included many well-known people interested in woman suffrage, and the speakers, Earl Russell, Mrs. Despard, Sir Thomas Barclay, and Mr. Laurence Houseman, all upheld the right of women in refusing to pay taxes while they had no voice in the government of the country.
Miss Green, a member of the New Constitutional Society, and honorary treasurer to the Women’s Tax Resistance League, London, having again refused to pay inhabited house duty for 14 Warwick Crescent, Paddington, her bookcase was sold at Messrs.
Gill’s auction rooms in Kilburn.
Many sympathisers attended the sale, and the usual speech of protest having been made, three cheers were raised for Miss Green before the party left the auction room.
A procession then formed up, headed by a waggon decorated with the colours of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, and an open air meeting was held on the High-road, Kilburn.
Dr. Helen Hanson, who presided, spoke of the special injustice under which the voteless taxpaying women are suffering, and expressed her satisfaction in finding that they are now combining to protest in this way.
I’ve encountered “Miss Green” in the archives a couple of times before, but never with enough information for me to be able to attach a first name to her.
Discovery by Mrs. Mark Wilks Gives Suffragets Brilliant Idea.
Campaign of Sympathy
Wilks in Jail Because His Wife Refused to Pay Her Taxes.
London, . —
Mrs. Mark Wilks, whose husband is in jail because she refuses to pay her taxes, is entitled to immense credit for discovering a new and very formidable weapon for suffragets, members of the Women’s Social and Political Union said .
Suffragets are very generally women of property and will follow Mrs. Wilks’ example.
Their husbands in turn will follow Wilks’ example — go to jail, because they can’t help themselves.
It is not, of course, that the suffragets have anything against their husbands.
Many of these husbands are themselves suffraget sympathizers.
Indeed, suffragets are campaigning to create sympathy for Wilks.
Mrs. Wilks’ discovery is too valuable not to be utilised, however.
Husbands will have to be sacrificed on the altar of votes for women.
The plan will work only in the case of husbands whose wives have independent incomes.
Nor will it work in cases where husbands pay taxes on their wives’ incomes.
Some husbands, like Wilks, have not enough money to pay the taxes.
Suffraget-sympathizing husbands, who can pay, are counted on to refuse to do so.
Thus will a large proportion of Englishmen with suffraget wives be in jail shortly.
The suffragets think the scandal and injustice of it will be a big thing, for them.
Under the married women’s property act a husband has no control over his wife’s property or income.
Under the income tax act, he is responsible for the taxes.
If the taxes are not paid the husband — not the wife — is imprisoned.
Mrs. Wilks refused to pay her income tax, $185, and her husband was locked up.
He will spend the rest of his life in prison unless his wife says otherwise or the law is changed.
When at liberty, he is a teacher in the suburb of Clapton.
The arrest and imprisonment “during the King’s pleasure” of Mr. Mark Wilks, the Clapton schoolmaster, who is unable to pay the tax on his wife’s income, is to be the subject of numerous protest meetings, organised by the Women’s Tax Resistance League, during the next few days (said the “Daily News and Leader” on ).
the Wilks campaign opens with a demonstration in Trafalgar Square.
On there will be another mass meeting in Hyde Park, and on a procession will march from Kennington Church to Brixton Gaol, where the central figure in the fight is detained.
In addition, a protest meeting is to be held outside the gaol every morning, and on Mr. Bernard Shaw will address a similar gathering in the Caxton Hall.
Under Two Acts.
A clear and humorous account of the affair was given to a “Daily News and Leader” representative by Mrs. Charles Stansfield; a sister of Mrs. Wilks.
“Mr. Wilks is in prison,” she said, “because he has not got £37 to pay a tax on property he does not own and cannot control.
That is really the whole case.
Under the Income Tax Act the property of his wife is his property for the purposes of taxation, but under the Married Women’s Property Act it is entirely out of his control.
“Every man who is married to a woman with an income of her own is in that position; and if he cannot pay his wife’s taxes he is liable to imprisonment.
It seems to place an enormous weapon in the hands of rich wives.”
It seems that in and Mrs. Wilks refused to make any return of her income either to the Inland Revenue authorities or to her husband, and, in consequence, the furniture, which is hers, was seized and sold.
The Schoolmaster’s Plight.
“In ,” her sister explained, “she claimed that such distraint was illegal, asserting that under the Income Tax Act she, as a married woman, was exempt from taxation.
As a consequence, all taxes charged upon her were withdrawn, and the authorities contented themselves afterwards with making their claim, sometimes on Mr. Wilks, sometimes on both conjointly, and, finally, on him alone.
“All this is interesting,” she added, “as showing the ridiculous position that arises through the operation of the two Acts.
But the serious side of the matter is that Mr. Wilks is in prison for debt, and his position as a master in a London County Council school must be endangered.
He does not know for what period he will be in prison, and he has no possible way of settling the debt.”
Which prompted George Bernard Shaw to wax wittily (from the Barrier Miner):
Mr. G.B. Shaw was the chief speaker at a meeting held in Caxton Hall, London, by the Women’s Tax Resistance League last month, “to protest against the imprisonment of Mr. Mark Wilks for his inability to pay the taxes on his wife’s earned income.”
Sir John Cockburn was in the chair.
Mr. Shaw said that this was the beginning of the revolt of his own unfortunate sex against the intolerable henpecking which had been brought upon them by the refusal by the Government to bring about a reform which everybody knew was going to come, and the delay of which was a mere piece of senseless stupidity.
From the unfortunate Prime Minister downwards no man was safe.
He know of cases in his boyhood where women managed to make homes for their children and themselves, and then their husbands sold the furniture, turned the wife and children out, and got drunk.
The Married Women’s Property Act was then carried, under which the husband retained the responsibility of the property and the woman had the property to herself.
As Mrs. Wilks would not pay the tax on her own income Mr. Wilks went to gaol.
“If my wife did that to me,” said Mr. Shaw, “the very moment I came out of prison I would get another wife.
(Laughter.)
It is indefensible.”
Women, he went on, had got completely beyond the law at the present time.
Mrs. [Mary] Leigh had been let out, but he presumed that after a brief interval for refreshments she would set fire to another theatre.
He got his living by the theatre, and very probably when she read the report of that speech she would set fire to a theatre where his plays were being performed.
The other day he practically challenged the Government to starve Mrs. Leigh, and in the course of the last fortnight he had received the most abusive letters which had ever reached him in his life.
The Government should put an end to the difficulty at once by giving women the votes.
As he resumed his seat Mr. Shaw said — “I feel glad I have been allowed to say the things I have, here to-night without being lynched.”
A resolution protesting against the imprisonment of Mr. Wilks was unanimously carried.
Mr. Zangwill wrote, expressing sympathy with the protest, and said, “Marrying an heiress may be the ruin of a man.”
Anna Stout, wife of the former New Zealand prime minister Robert Stout, gave her opinions of the suffrage movement (as found in the Perth Western Mail), including these remarks:
…the Tax-Resistance League… secured hundreds of converts to the cause.
“Twenty-six million pounds” Lady Stout said, “are paid annually in taxes into the Treasury by English women, and naturally there is much resentment created when the injustice of their not having a voice in the expenditure of it is pointed out to them.
We appeal to their pockets first, but almost invariably find hearts and brains behind them.”
Urges This Method of Getting Jailed for Non-Militant Suffragettes.
The non-militant suffragettes of Britain have decided to “let slip the dogs of war” to help win the cause that window smashing, red pepper distribution, mall destruction, and other gentle forms of militant protest have been ineffective in promoting.
Mrs. [Ethel] Philip Snowden, whose husband is an M.P. for Blackburn, announced on in a talk before the Equal Franchise Society how the dogs were going to be utilized.
Any old dog will do.
Mrs. Snowden herself has a dog, the breed of which she did not mention, and Philip Snowden, M.P., is not responsible for the dog.
Mrs. Snowden herself must pay the license for the dog.
Mr. Snowden, as a Member of Parliament, is responsible for the other taxes of Mrs. Snowden, which she has refused to pay, declaring that taxation without representation is unjustifiable, a sentiment that has been uttered on this continent, but they cannot put Mr. Snowden in jail for the refusal of Mrs. Snowden to pay her taxes, as he is exempted as an M.P..
The proposition of Mrs. Snowden seems to squint at the acquisition by all British maids and matrons of dogs and the refusal of the owners to pay the dog license.
Mr. Snowden, M.P., may not even know that Mrs. Snowden, N.M.S. — non-militant suffragette — has a dog; but she has.
By buying up dogs of all sorts and refusing to pay the licenses the suffragettes may get into jail with facility and honor.
Why place a bomb on the front porch or spread carbolic acid in a mail box, when you may get jugged just as well merely by refusing to pay your dog tax?
Mrs. Snowden commented on the “outrageous incompetence of the Liberal Government” and said she felt that her party no longer could trust its affairs with the Liberals.
The physical force party, Mrs. Snowden said, might destroy the sympathy of the British public.
Mrs. Pankhurst had started a crusade that she could not control.
The doctrine that the end justified the means might wind up with the blowing off of [Prime Minister H.H.] Asquith’s head.
The dodging of the dog tax seemed to Mrs. Snowden the lever with which the non-militants might pry themselves into prison.
The possibilities were large.
Every male member of the audience admitted this.
Think of a lady who had accumulated a pack of hounds refusing to pay the licenses thereon and thus making herself liable to a life sentence!
If one dog sent you to prison for one month, how many months would you be forced to serve if you owned 100 or 200 dogs?
Meanwhile you might put on all the dogs blankets inscribed “Votes for Women” and turn them loose in the Strand to the confusion of the bobbies and Parliament.
Destraint has been levied upon [Mary Russell] the Duchess of Bedford, who, as a protest against the non-enfranchisement of women refuses to pay property tax for the Prince’s Skating Rink, which is owned by her.
The tax is eight months overdue.
(When she first announced that she would resist payment of the tax the Duchess of Bedford said:— “I am very strongly opposed to the militant tactics adopted by a portion of those who are in favour of women’s franchise, and I have therefore taken this, the only course open to me, which appears justifiable, of protesting against the way in which the question of woman suffrage has been treated by the Government.)
This is an interesting example of how the violent tactics of the most militant wing of the British women’s suffrage movement (which make today’s “black bloc” look like the kumbaya chorus) gave the tax resistance movement space to present themselves as the reasonable non-militant alternative.
At this time in the United States, by contrast, tax resistance was considered a far-out militant tactic only adopted by the most radical fringe of the suffragist movement.
Distraint was levied on the Duchess of Bedford for non-payment of taxes due in respect of Prince’s Skating Rink.
A silver cup was taken to satisfy the claim.
The Duchess, who refused to pay the taxes on suffrage grounds, has instructed the Women’s Tax Resistance League to point out that the distraint is quite out of order, because as a married woman she is not liable to taxation.
The assessment or demand not should have been served not upon her, but upon the Duke of Bedford.
“Obviously,” she adds, “it was not my business to point out the law to those duty it should be to understand it.”
Carrie Chapman Catt was an American suffrage activist who felt the need to distance herself from the militant tactics of some of her fellow-strugglers across the pond.
But she had kinder words to say about the tax resisters.
From the New York Sun:
“The non-militant organization that interested me most was the Tax Resistance League, which has an enormous influence in England just now.
I went to the sale of the Duchess of Bedford’s curios, on which she had refused to pay taxes.
A member of the league made a speech along the lines of no taxation without representation which had a familiar Fourth of July sound.
It was expressly stated that this was the Duchess’s manner of protesting against militancy, though I fancy we should have considered it rather militant here.”
“No Vote, No Helping Government,” Is Suffragettes Latest Slogan.
Homes Sold Over Women.
One Firm Soldier of “The Cause” Calm While Husband Languishes in Jail for Her.
London, — The suffrage impasse in England is to be solved by a new and startling campaign.
This is to take the form of resistance to paying taxes — and is to be run by all the militant suffragettes in the kingdom who have homes but no votes.
The militants themselves are already jubilant at the prospect of their success, and are asking what Mr. Lloyd-George can possibly do to make up for this leakage in the revenues of England.
This movement is seriously worrying Lloyd-George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and those unfortunate and always unwelcome officials — the tax collectors of England.
The women are either going to jail or having their jewelry and furniture distrained upon and sold by public auction, for the settlement of the Government’s claims.
Everyone of these public auction sales, too, is made the occasion for a grand procession of women tax resisters.
They march to the scene of the fray with drums beating and banners and pennons flying.
Some of the best suffrage speakers in the country are rallying to their aid.
Frequently thousands of people surround the auction halls and when the sale is over the “victim of distraint” mounts a platform outside the hall and addresses the multitude on the text “No Vote, No Tax.”
The suggestion that “taxation and representation should go together” and that “taxation without representation is tyranny” evidently appeals to the sense of fair play in a British crowd, so that converts are easily made, money comes rolling in, and propaganda goes merrily on.
Tax Resistance Three Years Old.
The Women’s Tax Resistance League started as a small cloud — no bigger than a man’s hand — in Lloyd-George’s financial sky, about three years ago.
That it has been growing steadily ever since is probably due to the fact that it is continually stirring the imagination and touching the sense of humor of the “man in the street.”
The society has been able to attain such proportions that shortly it will give a preconcerted “signal” to the women householders in every large city and town in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, causing a general “tax strike.”
Every sympathizer who is a householder will, at a given moment, openly refuse to pay any more imperial taxes until political representation is accorded her.
Some startling developments are likely to follow.
Among the important and extremely active members of the league are the Duchess of Bedford, whose husband owns over 84,000 acres of land and whose collection of pictures at Woburn Abbey is one of the finest and most historic in the world; Princess Sophia Dhulep Sing, an Indian lady, at present in residence in England; Beatrice Harraden, author of “Ships That Pass in the Night,” and Miss Clemence Housman, sister of Laurence Housman, whose fame as an author and artist are recognized in America as well as in his own country.
His “Englishwoman’s Love Letters” made quite a sensation over here some years ago.
All London was agog when it became known that the Duchess of Bedford, aided and abetted by the Women’s Tax Resistance League, had definitely and emphatically refused to pay property tax and house duty on one of her own houses.
People who were not versed in the law speculated as to whether Mr. Lloyd-George would have the courage to order the Duchess to be arrested like an ordinary commoner and dragged off to Holloway Jail, there to endure the rigors of a plank bed and jail fare or to win her freedom by resorting to the hunger strike.
Fortunately, however, such indignities are not necessary in collecting the King’s taxes in England if tax-resisting rebels possess furniture, plate, or jewelry upon which distraint can be made.
Mr. Lloyd-George’s emissaries were therefore able to seize and carry off a beautiful silver trophy cup from the Duchess’ collection of plate, and sell it by public auction.
The auction sale of the Duchess of Bedford’s silver cup proved, perhaps, the best advertisement the Women’s Tax Resistance League ever had.
It was made the occasion for widespread propaganda.
The newspapers gave columns of space to the event, while at the big mass meeting, held outside the auction room, Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, the secretary of the league; Mrs. Lilian Hicks, the honorary treasurer, and other Suffrage speakers held forth on the advisability and necessity of every self-respecting woman householder in Great Britain following the Duchess of Bedford’s lead.
Miss Clemence Housman’s Case a Poser.
The case of Miss Clemence Housman was really a “poser” for Mr. Lloyd-George.
It led to a long struggle between the woman and the authorities, and a denouement which was of the nature of an anti-climax for the Government.
The amount in question was an exceedingly small one — about $1 — but Miss Housman, incited and encouraged by the belligerent Tax Resistance League, refused on principle to pay.
As she had no goods on which to distrain, she was herself seized and thrown into Holloway Jail, there to remain until the tax was paid.
When it became evident that Miss Housman was a woman of determination and was quite prepared to spend the rest of her natural existence within the grim walls of Holloway Castle, the authorities reflected that the maintenance of a prisoner thirty or forty years in jail, and the public excitement this would involve, was too expensive and troublesome a method of collecting $1, so the doors of her cell were, after five days, thrown open and Miss Housman emerged a free and triumphant woman.
The most important and sensational event in the history of the tax-resistance movement, however, was the capture by the Government of the unfortunate husband of a woman tax-resister.
The case arose through the refusal of Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, as a Suffragist and tax-resister, to pay the tax levied on her earned income.
On two previous occasions this refusal had been followed by a distraint on her goods, but one of the peculiar anomalies of the income tax law, as distinct from the property tax in England is that, in spite of the Married Woman’s Property Act, a husband can be made liable for his wife’s income tax.
Dr. Elizabeth Wilks, realizing, therefore, that as a married woman she was not really liable to this taxation, informed the authorities that the claim should be sent not to her, but to her husband.
The government fell into the trap and sent the claim to Mark Wilks, a schoolmaster, who immediately declined to pay on the grounds that he had no legal means of ascertaining his wife’s income.
The treasury refused to accept this plea, and after a long correspondence decided to seize the person of Wilks and throw him into jail.
A public agitation was immediately started, among those who made strong protests on the platform and in the press being George Bernard Shaw, Sir John Cockburn, K.C.M.G., the Rt.
Hon. Thomas Lough, M.P., and Laurence Housman, with the result that Wilks, after being several weeks in jail, was suddenly released, no reason being given by the British Home Secretary for this act of clemency and wisdom.
The incident formed excellent subject for jest by all the humorous papers in England, and one of them suggested that now that husbands could be placed in durance vile for the non-payment of their wives’ income tax, it would be an excellent way for women who held the purse strings not only to get rid of lazy and troublesome husbands, but to have them maintained at the expense of the state!
Another ingenious form of protest adopted by women tax-resisters has been to refuse admission to the officials of the Inland Revenue who came to seize the goods, barricading their homes against the intruders.
Mrs. Dora Montefiore, a well-known Australian Socialist, was the first to adopt this novel method, and several others have since followed her example, the last being Mrs. [Kate] Harvey, whose house has been barricaded for months past.
Mrs. Harvey decided to resist Mr. Lloyd George’s insurance tax, and also refused to pay her gardener’s license.
In the meantime she took the precaution of getting a bill of sale on her furniture, so that the authorities, balked in every direction of their prey, have now seized the lady herself and committed her to jail for two months.
A vigorous agitation for her release is going on, and it is confidently expected that within a few days Halloway’s portals will again open wide and that a huge mass meeting already being organized, in Trafalgar Square, will publicly welcome her back to the arms of her fellow tax-resisters.
Primitive but effective means were resorted to by a bailiff, who, acting on a distraint order, sought to enter the house of a leading suffragette.
The lady in question was Mrs. Kate Harvey, of the Women’s Freedom League.
She had declined to pay taxes, and was being supported in her resolve by Mrs. Charlotte Despard, the well-known president of the league.
Mrs. Harvey resides in “Brackenhill,” a large mansion in Highland road, Bromley (Kent).
Failing to gain an entrance to the house, the bailiffs procured a battering ram, and, with the assistance of the police, accomplished his purpose at the end of two hours by smashing in the front door.
[Mrs. Harvey has for years been an ardent exponent of tax resistance.
In her goods were seized and sold for inhabited house duty, and her residence was barricaded against the King’s officers for eight months, entry by force being a last effected under a warrant.
On the same date Mrs. Harvey was sentenced to distraint or seven day’s imprisonment for a tax unpaid on a male servant.
Her companion, Mrs. Despard, has served two terms of imprisonment.]
Considerable difficulty attended the levying of a distress upon the goods of Mrs. Harvey, of the Tax Resistance League; at Bromley, Kent, on Tuesday.
Upon the arrival of a tax collector, a bailiff, and a police sergeant, they found the outer gate locked and the doors of the house barricaded.
The gate offered little obstruction, but to get the door of the house open was a difficult matter.
Finally, after a heavy beam was used as a battering ram, the door went in with a crash.
The door, however, led only to a narrow passage, where a still more obstinate door barred the way.
A crowbar, battering ram, and a small jemmy were here brought into use, but even with those it was nearly half an hour before the door, almost splintered, gave way.
Later, the hall was entered, where the tax collector was met by Mrs. Harvey and Mrs. Despard.
Here was little furniture visible, and it was not until a locksmith had forced the door of the dining room that the bailiff was able to place his levy upon goods.
The amount of the tax, it is understood, is about £15.
The remaining articles concern the resistance of Sophia Duleep Singh.
First, from the New York Herald:
Sophia Duleep Singh, of Woman’s Tax Resistance League, Refusing to Pay, Loses Gems.
A pearl necklace and a gold bangle studded with pearls and diamonds, belonging to Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, have been seized to satisfy fines and costs of about $80, which she was ordered to pay for keeping a carriage, a groom and two dogs without a license.
The jewels will be sold at a public auction.
The Princess is a member of the Woman’s Tax Resistance League.
Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, of Faraday House, Hampton Court, made her second appearance at Feltham Police Court, Middlesex, on .
She is a member of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, and was summoned for keeping a male servant, a carriage, and two dogs without licences.
The Magistrate imposed fines of £5 each in respect of the groom and carriage, and £1 5/ for each of the dogs, with costs amounting, to 18/.
Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, of Faraday House, Hampton Court, saw her jewels seized under a distress warrant rather than pay fines and costs amounting to over £16 for keeping a groom, a carrage, and two dogs without licences.
By order of the Justices of the Spelthorne Division of Middlesex, the jewels were offered for sale by public auction at the Twickenham Town Hall on .
The auctioneer (Mr. Alaway) explained that the jewels seized by the police consisted of a necklace, with 131 pearls, and a gold bangle, with a heart-shaped pendant, with a diamond centre surrounded with pearls.
He was proceeding with the sale when Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, who occupied a seat in the front of the hall, rose, and exclaimed:— “I protest against this sale, seeing it is most unjust to women that they should be compelled to pay unjust taxes, when they have no voice in the government of the country.”
The bidding started at £6, and when it had reached £10 the lot was knocked down to Miss Gertrude Eaton, a member of the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Bidding for the gold bangle started at £5, and only two other bids being received, it was sold to the same lady for £7.
In the Washington Herald, Clara Bewick Colby continued her impressions of the British women’s suffrage movement with a note on tax resistance:
There is a league existing for this very purpose to enroll women who are willing to have their property sold for taxes.
When a member is to be sold up a number of her comrades accompany her to the auction-room.
The auctioneer is usually friendly and stays the proceedings until some one of the league has mounted the table and explained to the crowd what it all means.
Here are the banners, and the room full of women carrying them, and it does not take long to impress upon the mind of the people who have come to attend the sale that here is a body of women willing to sacrifice their property for the principle for which John Hampden went to prison — that taxation without representation is tyranny.
Not of American Origin.
I always felt at home on these occasions as I saw the familiar mottoes ranged around.
I had supposed they were of American origin, as we had quoted them in our suffrage work; but I found that all the principles embodied in our Declaration of Independence belonged to an earlier struggle for freedom which had been won on British soil, and exactly the same as the women are waging now.
The women remain at these auctions until the property of the offender is disposed of.
The kindly auctioneer puts the property seized from the suffragists early on his list, or lets them know when it will be called.
The object lesson of the sale and the subsequent meeting on the street corner or in the nearest park carries the message to an outlying part of London, and to a people who otherwise would know nothing of the agitation.
The discrimination which the government shows on every hand is apparent in this matter of seizing goods, for some are never annoyed for their delinquent taxes, while others are pounced upon with severity.
The league makes resistance systematic and effective so that no effort is lost.
Sometimes no one will bid for the sufragist’s property and they carry it home again, but the government cannot seize it for that assessment.
Of all forms of militancy this is most logical, and it is one that women might well adopt everywhere, as it was inaugurated in America when the Smith sisters of Glastonbury, Conn., allowed their New Jersey cows to be sold year after year under protest.
Mrs. Despard, sister of Gen. Sir John French, who is president of the Woman’s Freedom League, has been sold out repeatedly, until she has around her only the barest necessaries of life.
There is an imperial tax for the non-payment of which the person and not the property is seized.
Miss Housman, sister of the distinguished dramatist, Lawrence Houman, lives with him, but owns a little property subject to the imperial tax.
It was only a trifle — four and six ($1.05) — but she refused to pay.
Various processes were served upon her until the sum had grown to about $15. She was warned repeatedly by the officer that she would be arrested if she did not pay, but she was obdurate.
At length the officer arrived to escort Miss Housman to Holloway jail.
He was very polite and took her in a taxi, which cost exactly the sum of the original tax.
(Here it would have been for that distance the sum of the tax and costs).
Miss Housman was from day to day interviewed by various officials to get her to pay her tax, which she declared she had no intention of doing.
The government was in a quandary.
There was a law to put Miss Housman in prison but there was no law to let her out until she paid the tax and costs.
The government offered to knock off the costs and let her off with the original four and six.
Miss Housman was still obdurate.
To all intents and purposes she was in Holloway for life.
To make capital of the situation and to keep up her courage the Tax Resistance League organized a procession to Holloway.
I was extremely glad to be on the spot and able to show that I was not a fair-weather suffragist, for the weather had been perfect on the occasions of the five processions in which I had already taken part in England, and this day was rainy and the streets muddy.
It was a long trudge the four miles to Holloway but many made it, and, lo! when we got in front of the frowning old fortress the meeting that had been planned for protest became one of victory, for the government had weakened and Miss Housman was free.
She was a very quiet, delicate woman who had never taken any other part in the movement, and she made her first suffrage speech this day under the walls of Holloway jail.
Miss Housman has just been called upon by the board of inland revenue to pay arrears on her taxes, and she has again expressed her determination to abide by “plain constitutional duty in refusing consent to taxation without representation.”
There is a general movement among tax resisters to send their dues to one or other by the national funds for relief labeled “Taxes withheld from the government by voteless women.”
Jail Procession Frequent.
How many times had the women gone to Holloway to welcome out the prisoners on the day of their release!
This was before the days of forcible feeding and the hunger strike which has made it necessary to take away the tortured victims in an ambulance and to a nursing home as quickly as possible.
In the earlier days they have often been met with bands, sometimes the horses would be taken off the wagon and young girls would draw it in a triumphal procession.
Then there was breakfast and speaking, and everything to make it a gala occasion.
I was present at one of these breakfasts in Queen’s Hall decorated with flowers and banners and with tables for hundreds.
It was a queer sensation in those days to look upon sweet and ladylike young women — I remember that on this occasion one was the niece of the violinist Joachim — and to know that they had actually been prisoners.
It was not long before they were looked upon as something sacred, as those who had made special sacrifices for the cause, and they wore badges to show that they had been prisoners and in every place were given the post of honor until their numbers mounted up to the hundreds.
One, of their favorite banners bears the inscription:
“Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor Iron bars a cage.”
I came across the poem the other day from which this is taken.
It contains four stanzas, written by Sir Richard Lovelace in prison in the middle of the seventeenth century.
The balance of the stanza quoted is:
“Minds innocent and quiet, take That for a hermitage. If I have freedom in my love. And in my soul am free. Angels alone, that soar above. Enjoy such liberty.”
We shall see in the next paper which will deal with Lady Constance Lytton’s two prison experiences, that this is the spirit that animates women in prison even when undergoing tortures.
They are upheld by a sense of devotion to a great cause, and they feel that they are enduring this for the sake of all women.
With such consecration there often comes to such prisoners a development of spirit that is truly marvelous.
All ordinary values have slipped away and the sense of personality is lost in the new sense of solidarity.
They are at one with all the suffering women and the wronged women of the past and of the present.
I never talked with one who regretted having gone through the tortures of the prison.
They are the birth-pangs of the new age.
Rides in the Wagon.
From this wonderful breakfast and the inspiring speaking I was privileged to ride with the group that accompanied the released prisoners to the suffrage headquarters.
Notwithstanding that the young girls dressed in white and harnessed to the wagon with their green, white and purple ribbons, had drawn the six women all the way from Holloway, they gaily took up the march and drew the wagon the additional two miles to St. Clement’s Inn.
There was one young woman not released with the rest because she had infringed a prison regulation and had written a letter to her mother.
She was to be out a week later, and the same demonstration was made for her, only varied with elaborate use of the Scotch heather which gave the colors of the Union, white, purple and green.
Again the girls drew the wagon from Holloway and the young Scotch woman who was being escorted away in triumph bore a banner with the words (warning Mr. Asquith) “Ye mauna meddle with the Scotch thistle, laddie.”
Mark Wilks was arrested and sent to Brixton Prison for failing to pay his wife’s income taxes.
The case became a cause célèbre in the British women’s suffrage movement and an embarrassment to the British government and its tax authorities.
This is a good example of how careful study of the law can help tax resisters find and exploit flaws that hold the tax system or its enforcement arm up to ridicule, make them unworkable, or make them vehicles for additional resistance or propaganda opportunities.
Ethel Ayres Purdie, resident tax law expert of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, discovered the vulnerability.
The Income Tax Act, she wrote, “is a most fearsome piece of composition.
Its language is archaic and tautological, it rises wholly superior to punctuation, and proceeds breathlessly through one hundred and ninety-four clauses.”
But one of those clauses held a fatal flaw.
The “Married Woman’s Property Act” of was a reform that allowed married women to maintain control of their property rather than relinquishing it to their husbands’ control upon marriage.
But the earlier () Income Tax Act still considered the husband to be solely liable for the income taxes of both the husband and wife.
At first, when Elizabeth Wilks began resisting her income tax, the government responded by seizing and selling her property, but when this quirk in the law was discovered, tax resisters like Wilks protested that the government could not legally seize her property since as a married woman her taxes were legally owed by the him in the marriage.
So the government went after Mark Wilks instead.
Mark Wilks, for his part, insisted that he could hardly fill out an income tax return since he had no legal right to demand information from his wife about her income!
Besides, his modest income and lack of property in his own name meant that he could not afford to pay the taxes on his wife’s considerably larger income (he did pay the tax on the portion of their joint income that was attributable to his own income, though his income was low enough that by itself it would not have been taxable).
“I am informed that I am liable for taxes levied on her income,” he wrote “while at the same time the law places all her property entirely beyond my control.”
Meanwhile, the Women’s Tax Resistance League trumpeted the arrest of Mark Wilks and his indefinite imprisonment — “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” — as proving their contention that not only should women resist the income tax, but that married women were not even legally obligated to pay it and those who were paying it were operating under a legal delusion.
The imprisonment of Mark Wilks was a propaganda coup:
For what do the arrest and imprisonment of Mark Wilks mean?
We are perfectly certain that it will not last long.
Stupid and inept as it has been, the Government, we are certain, will not risk the odium which would justly fall upon it if this outrage on liberty went on.
A Government which has much at stake and which lives by the breath of popular opinion cannot afford to ignore such strong and healthy protest as is being poured out on all sides.
To us, who are in the midst of it, that which seems most remarkable is the growth of public feeling.
In the streets where processions are nightly held, we were met at first by banter and rowdyism.
“A man in prison for the sake of Suffragettes!”
To the boy-mind of the metropolis, on the outskirts of many an earnest crowd, that seemed irresistibly funny; but thoughtfulness is spreading; into even the boy-mind, the light of truth is creeping.
If it had done nothing else, the imprisonment of Mark Wilks has certainly done this — it has educated the public mind.
Wilks was released after less than a month in prison, without official explanation, and without paying the tax.
A tax resistance campaign is almost always one that butts up against the law, and it can be helpful to have campaigners who know a thing or two about legal matters.
As Elizabeth Cady Stanton put it when she was considering a tax resistance campaign for women’s suffrage in America,
One thing is certain, this course will necessarily involve a good deal of litigation, and we shall need lawyers of our own sex whose intellects, sharpened by their interests, shall be quick to discover the loopholes of retreat.
Today I’ll summarize some examples of how legal study and the assistance of attorneys have made a difference in tax resistance campaigns.
Poll Tax rebels in Thatcher’s Britain
Understanding the law and the legal process was important in the poll tax rebellion — to give confidence to resisters, to support targets of government reprisals, and to make the process of tax enforcement costly and unmanageable.
Anti-poll tax volunteer Danny Burns writes:
In Bristol when the court cases started, each person with a summons, who rang into the office, was logged and sent an information pack.
The same personal attention was given to people with notices from the bailiffs.
At the peak of the campaign, the Bristol office was staffed morning and afternoon five days a week by different volunteers.
, it was receiving over 200 calls a week.
… [The volunteers included] at least five court support workers…
In every part of England and Wales local groups mobilised to provide support for non-payers in the courts.
Tens, if not hundreds of activists in each region attended legal briefing sessions.
These were run both by activists and sympathetic local lawyers.
People were given ideas about how they might disrupt or delay the court proceedings.
These included simple things, like asking for a glass of water because their throat was dry, demanding to see the identity cards of everyone present in court, to fainting in court or arranging for fire alarms to go off.
People were told to demand their rights to see and read every document which was produced as evidence against them.
They were also given briefings on the basic technical arguments.
By , when most of the court cases had started, virtually every Anti-Poll Tax Union in the UK had trained at least two or three of its members to become conversant with the Poll Tax law.
Throughout England and Wales over a thousand people were trained to do court support work and could quote the relevant legislation.
This is unique in the history of popular campaigning.
The Anti-Poll Tax Unions hoped to use the legal precedent of McKenzie versus McKenzie (), which said that a person can “attend a trial as a friend of either party (to) take notes and quietly make suggestions and give advice to that party.”
This person would be known as a “McKenzie friend.” McKenzie friends had no right to address the court, but they could advise the non-payer what to say.
In this way everyone would be able to offer technical defences and thereby delay the proceedings.
The campaign needed lawyers only in the most technical cases.
Lawyers were often seen as a liability, because they represented an individual client, and it was in their interest to get through the procedure as quickly as possible.
It was in the campaign’s interest for everything to proceed as slowly as possible.
Nevertheless, legal knowledge and guidance was essential.
This arrived with the creation of the Poll Tax Legal Group… [which] researched legislation and case law.
It set up a network of lawyers throughout England and Wales who could support the legal challenges of Anti-Poll Tax groups and produced over 30 accessible legal bulletins on the Poll Tax and a book called To Pay or Not To Pay.
These underpinned the legal needs of the movement and helped ordinary people to get to grips with the law they needed to use.
Delaying tactics were mixed with serious legal technicalities.
Councils were challenged for sending notices to the wrong addresses.
Given the rate at which people moved houses, it was difficult for the councils to keep up, and as a result many cases were dropped because people hadn’t received proper notice.
Big legal challenges were also made over “correct procedures.”
These came in the first few weeks and resulted mostly from the inexperience of councils in dealing with this sort of process.
The first day of Medina Council’s cases (on the Isle of Wight) is probably the most famous example.
The reminder notices were sent out with second class stamps, they consequently arrived late, people didn’t receive the statutory notice which they were entitled to, and the court threw out all 1,900 cases.
The council had to start again.
When police attacked an anti-poll tax demonstration in London, many of the demonstrators fought back, and hundreds were arrested.
Elements of the campaign leadership distanced themselves from the defendants, embarrassed to have the campaign associated with violence.
So other activists helped to form and coordinate an independent group — the Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign — with the following mandate:
The campaign will:
Unconditionally defend all of those arrested on .
Be controlled by and be accountable to the defendants
Be totally independent of any other organisation.
Seek support from the whole Anti-Poll Tax movement and all other sympathetic organisations.
Seek to co-ordinate the legal defence of all those arrested.
Seek to build a coherent picture of events of from the point of view of those arrested.
Publicise the points of view of defendants.
Raise money for a bust fund, controlled by the defendants to cover their legal and welfare costs.
Ensure that at all future Anti-Poll Tax events there will be proper legal cover and support for anyone arrested.
This will include an office and workers to visit places of detention and look after prisoners’ welfare.
Danny Burns again:
About a dozen people volunteered to carry out the court monitoring process.
They attended every hearing, systematically took notes of everything that was said, recorded the numbers of police officers and approached the defendants asking them to attend the now weekly TSDC meetings… By the summer, over 250 of the defendants had been contacted.
The TSDC ran advice sessions on prison, produced legal briefing notes and mailed out the minutes of the weekly meetings to every defendant every week.
A solicitors’ group was established with a core of three, but at the peak of early activity they managed to get over fifteen solicitors involved.
This proved important because the solicitors’ group managed to get hold of over 50 hours of police videos and handed them over to the campaign.
The police videos were crucial in getting a lot of people off, and a number of people in the campaign worked extremely hard editing videos and rejigging them for particular trials.
The solicitors’ group also got the Crown Prosecution Service to hand over a full list of all of the defendants and the names and addresses of their lawyers.
The lawyers were all contacted and, although many were initially reluctant to co-operate with the campaign, they soon realised that TSDC had a lot of information which their clients needed.
Every possible legal angle was pursued by the campaign’s legal team — down to legal definitions of what constituted a householder, making the councils prove that the person they had summonsed actually lived at the address, that they owned the property, etc., etc. We weren’t doing this because we had any illusions in the impartiality of the court system.
We knew that even though we were successful in finding various legal loopholes these would all be closed one by one and that the judges would be doing their best to facilitate the councils.
This was demonstrated most clearly when a judge in Swords invoked the Public Order Act to close several streets around the courthouse to prevent a protest outside it.
But by contesting every detail of every summons we could make the system unworkable.
There were tens of thousands of non-payers.
After several months the councils had only managed to get a couple of dozen cases through the courts.
Someone calculated that at the rate they were managing to proceed it would take them something like 220 years to process all the cases.
And it was costing them more in legal fees than they could ever hope to take back in charges — even if they managed to bully everyone into paying.
Any time the council did manage to get a court order, it was appealed — again the objective being to clog up the system.
George Cony’s aggressive lawyers
When Oliver Cromwell knocked the English king off his throne, he did so in part in the cause of Parliamentary democracy.
Upon assuming charge of the English government, however, he grew impatient with Parliament and decided to enact some taxes on his own.
One of Cromwell’s more radical supporters, George Cony, taking Cromwell at his word (Cromwell had said that “the subject who submits to an illegal impost is more an enemy of his country than the tyrant who imposes it”) decided to refuse to pay one of these arbitrary taxes.
Cony’s lawyers argued his case so successfully that Cony’s tax evasion case threatened to call the legal underpinnings of Cromwell’s regime into question.
The judges in the case seemed sympathetic, and Cromwell was so alarmed that he had all three lawyers imprisoned in the Tower of London until they repented, upon which the chief-justice who was hearing the case resigned.
Hugh Williams and the Rebecca rioters
Radical lawyer Hugh Williams was of great help to the Rebecca movement in Wales — some say he was more than a legal advisor, but one of the instigators of the movement, or even “Rebecca” herself!
One account says: “[Williams] did all the legal work for the rioters, also drafting various petitions for them.
He was a prominent member of the Chartist movement, acting as their solicitor, and he defended the prisoners at Welshpool Assizes in July, 1839, for taking part in the Chartist Riots.
He rendered similar services to the Rebecca prisoners gratuitously; but was eventually reported to the Lord Chancellor and struck off the Rolls.
He, however, continued to do a considerable amount of legal work, and whenever it became necessary for him to appear in court, he invariably employed [another attorney] to appear for him.”
His familiarity with the law and the legal process helped him help the Rebeccaites translate their grievances into formal petitions, which in turn helped the Rebeccaite “people power” movement effect change in government policy.
White supremacists in Reconstruction-era Louisiana
When white supremacists in New Orleans decided to actively withdraw their consent from the mixed-race Reconstruction government of “scalawags” and “carpet-baggers” there in , they formed “The People’s Association to Resist Unconstitutional Taxation” and declared a tax strike.
Fifty-eight New Orleans attorneys signed the following statement of support:
The undersigned attorneys at law, citizens of New Orleans, engage themselves, without compensation, and as a matter of public service, to defend professionally all citizens, residents, or property-holders in this city, who shall desire their assistance in resisting the collection by municipal authorities of the taxes known as the “school-tax,” the “park-tax,” and the “metropolitan-police tax,” and other taxes the collection of which may be lawfully resisted.
The Smith sisters of Glastonbury
Abby & Julia Smith refused to pay taxes to a local government that denied women the vote and that took advantage of this by excessively taxing women’s property in order to ease the tax burden on male voters and to redistribute the money to male patronage recipients.
In response, the government periodically seized and auctioned off the Smith sisters’ cows (“Votey” and “Taxey”).
That failing to discourage the Smiths, the town decided to fight dirty, and the Smiths fought back legally in a way that brought further attention to their cause:
[A]n inconspicuous advertisement in the Hartford Courant announced the sale at public auction of fifteen acres of Smith pasture land on , a date contrived to fall just before the grass would be cut.
Though the sisters set out on that day with ample funds, the collector adroitly shifted the meeting place, and when the two women caught up with the auction, the gavel had just gone down transferring for $78.35 land worth nearly $2,000 to none other than a covetous neighbor who had tried for years to get possession of it.
Abby and Julia were daughters of a lawyer.
They brought suit against tax collector George C. Andrews on the grounds that he had violated a law which plainly stated that movable property must first be sold for unpaid taxes before real estate could be seized.
The case was tried in the home of Judge Hollister of Glastonbury, who gave a verdict in favor of the sisters and fined Andrews damages of $10. Threatening terrible consequences, Andrews appealed the case.
The new trial, which lasted three days in the Hartford Court of Common Pleas, had a farcical aspect.
There were misplaced records; there was distorted evidence.
The judge, in absentia, reversed the Glastonbury decision and decided in favor of collector Andrews.
At this point the Smiths’ lawyer backed out.
Abby and Julia, both now in their eighties, began the study of law with the intention of conducting their own case.
Happily a capable lawyer finally agreed to place a second appeal before the Court of Equity.
For two years a wide and sympathetic public followed this devious litigation.
Across the nation, even in England and France, editors and columnists lauded the Glastonbury cows in prose and poetry.
Reporters visited the town, drank tea in the elm-shaded farmhouse, admired the cows, polled public opinion in Glastonbury, and returned with highly flavored and often inaccurate stories.
With whatever condescension these reporters arrived, they seem, one and all, to have found the Smith sisters irresistible.
The hospitality, wit, and charm of the two elderly spinsters captivated the world beyond Glastonbury.
When the final verdict was made in their favor, in , women the country over rejoiced.
To be sure, Julia and Abby did not vote in Glastonbury, but from that time on their property was undisturbed.
The Greek “Won’t Pay” movement
The current Greek “Won’t Pay” movement, which is resisting a number of stealth taxes the government has added to things like utility bills and road tolls, has also carried its struggle into court — at one point winning an injunction that forbade the state power company from cutting the power of people who were refusing to pay the new utility bill tax.
Newly-enfranchised Pennsylvania women
When women in Pennsylvania won the vote, many discovered to their chagrin that they had also become subject to taxes to which they had previously been immune.
Thousands of them, deciding the package was not worth it, decided to refuse to pay.
And they were able to take advantage of a quirk in an law that did not permit the authorities to send women to prison (though they could imprison men) for tax refusal:
Nothing herein contained shall authorize the arrest or imprisonment for non-payment of any tax of any female or infant or person found by inquisition to be of unsound mind.
It took a few years for the state legislature to pass a law allowing for the jailing of women who refused to pay their taxes.
Maurice McCrackin’s lawyers
Not all legal help is helpful.
When American war tax resister Maurice McCrackin was convicted of refusing to cooperate with an IRS summons, he was following a strategy of complete noncooperation that he kept following right into the courtroom — where he refused to stand for the judge, refused to plead to the charges, refused to answer questions, refused to consult with his court-appointed attorney, fasted while behind bars, and had to be wheeled into and out from his court appearances because he wouldn’t walk there under his own power.
For the same reason, upon his conviction, he emphatically said that he was not interested in pursuing an appeal: “I said I wanted to file no appeal, nor did I want steps taken to keep the door open, so an appeal could be perfected later.
I do not recognize any appeal on my behalf… My position is not changed.
This is a moral, not a legal, struggle.”
One of the lawyers who had been assigned to defend him, however, convinced that the judge had betrayed bias against McCracken in his statements from the bench, said that he intended to appeal anyway.
“Constitutionalist” tax protesters
And then there are the “Constitutionalist” “show me the law!”-style tax protesters.
For years they have been bedeviling the IRS with their baroque, ever-evolving, quasi-legal arguments and pleadings based on the real Constitution, or common law, or tortured interpretations of excerpts from a variety of cherry-picked statutes and court rulings.
While they typically know just enough about the law to get into trouble, without knowing enough to get out again, there’s no question that they cause headaches a-plenty for the powers that be.
Alas, this does not seem to actually be their objective.
Instead, they seem convinced that they’re not just whistling Dixie, but they’re right, and if they can just figure out how to pick the lock of the court system with the right argument, they’ll be able to walk out free into a new world where their Constitution holds sway and the perverters of the true law are vanquished.
Alas, most of what they have discovered is an enormous and inventive catalog of things that don’t work, so in spite of all of their creativity and effort, they have given the rest of us little to work with.
But if you ever have a “that’s so crazy it just might work!” idea about going up against the IRS, you might want to research these folks first — they may have already tried it.
And every once in a while they rack up a courtroom victory — not often one that amounts to much in real terms, but it fuels the movement.
One observer of the movement reacted to a twist of this sort by saying: “This is going to encourage thousands more people who were on the fence, who were paying taxes only because they were afraid they would be criminally prosecuted.
If too many people do this, the tax system will collapse because it is based on people voluntarily complying.”
(I’m most familiar with the U.S. variety, but similar groups exist in Canada, the U.K., and probably elsewhere.
Earlier this year in England, for instance, hundreds of Constitutionalist tax protesters stormed a courtroom where one of their number was on trial, whereupon they attempted to put the judge under citizens arrest, and began making their own rulings from the bench!)
Rallies outside the courthouse or prison are one way of supporting resisters who are looking at doing time for taking their stand (see The Picket Line for ), and supporting their families while they’re being held captive is another (see The Picket Line for ).
Other ways to show support are to accompany resisters as they go to prison, to visit them or correspond with them while they are inside, and to be there to meet them when they are released.
Today I’ll give some examples of these ways of showing support for imprisoned tax resisters.
Sylvia Hardy
Accompanying resisters to prison
When elderly council tax rebel Sylvia Hardy was threatened with jail in , her supporters organized a convoy of cars to accompany her to the jail as a show of support.
In , Annuity Tax resisters in Edinburgh, Scotland, would go to prison in a parade of protesters.
One description of such a procession read:
[H]e was marched off to the Calton Jail, accompanied by the usual hasty muster of people carrying flags and poles, having placards on which were a variety of devices and inscriptions…
His daughter, a fine young woman, in a fit of heroic indignation which overmastered her grief and the natural timidity of her sex, seized one of the flags, and would have walked before her father to prison with the crowd, but was prevented by him and the interference of the humane bystanders.
When Kate Harvey went to prison for her resistance as part of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, fellow-resisters Charlotte Despard and Mary Anderson accompanied her to the prison gates.
When Elizabeth Knight was imprisoned on similar charges, she was accompanied to Holloway by resisters Florence Underwood and Isabel Tippett.
Visiting resisters in prison
Thomas Story, an English Quaker who was visiting the American colonies, was able to help two Quakers from Rhode Island who were in prison for not paying a militia exemption tax after having been drafted and refusing to fight.
Story helped them hold a Quaker meeting in the prison itself, and also (having some legal experience) tried to assist them in court.
When Zerah Colburn Whipple was imprisoned for failing to pay a war tax in , it was a comfort to him to have friends on the outside trying to get in.
He wrote: “Our friend John J. Copp, proved himself a true friend indeed.
Knowing that I would be lonely in the jail, he visited me every day after he learned that I was there, and when the keeper refused him admission, he demanded it as his right to visit his client, and claimed the right to see me alone too, which was granted.”
The Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign helped to organize prison visits to people who had been imprisoned in the Poll Tax rebellion.
Corresponding with imprisoned resisters
I’ve done a lot of volunteer work with the Prison Literature Project in Berkeley, California.
Most of the letters we get are from prisoners requesting books — which makes sense, because that’s the sort of letter we explicitly ask for.
But a pretty hefty percentage of the letters we get are just expressing gratitude for the books and letters we previously sent — heartfelt, often heartbreaking gratitude, especially since many of the prisoners are of limited means and can barely afford to put a stamp on a letter.
This impresses on me how meaningful it is for people behind bars to get letters from friends outside.
The Anarchist Black Cross of New York City held a letter-writing evening for imprisoned war tax resister Carlos Steward in .
Brian Wright was the first person thrown in prison for Poll Tax resistance, during the rebellion in the United Kingdom, in .
While there he received over 800 cards and letters from supporters.
The Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign made it a policy to ensure that at least one personal letter per prisoner per week came from someone in the campaign.
When Kate Harvey had barricaded herself in her own home to try to defeat government attempts to seize her property for taxes, a supporter sent her a poem to keep her mood up:
Good luck, my friend, I wish to thee,
In thy brave fight ’gainst tyranny.
Bracken Hill Siege will bring good cheer
To those who hold our Freedom dear,
And fight the good fight far and near.
And when oppression is out-done,
And Liberty, at last, is won,
When women civic rights possess,
They’ll think, I hope, with thankfulness,
Of those who bore the battle’s stress.
When a Colorado doctor was jailed for refusing to pay federal income taxes that fund weapons of mass destruction, it was reported that “[l]etters of approval have been pouring in to Dr. Evans, and since he is only allowed to write very few, his mother in Philadelphia has taken up the task of acknowledging them, sending at the same time a typewritten sheet explaining the affair in detail.”
Welcoming resisters back from prison
The campaign to resist Thatcher’s Poll Tax organized a march to Brixton Prison, which held most of the resisters then in custody.
Police attacked the march and arrested 135 people.
“That evening,” says campaign volunteer Danny Burns, “volunteers were sent to every police station to welcome those who were released on bail.”
This served not only to show solidarity, but also to make the arrested people aware of the legal support available to them and to encourage them to cooperate in their defense.
When Constance Andrews of the Women’s Tax Resistance League was released after having been jailed for a week for failure to pay a dog license tax, “a very large crowd — described in the local press as ‘an immense gathering’ — collected outside the prison to cheer Miss Andrews on her release.”
A procession with suffrage banners walked along with Andrews as she walked from the prison to a reception held in her honor.
When Mark Wilks was released from prison for failure to pay his wife’s income tax in , the Women’s Tax Resistance League held a reception for the Wilkses, saying that “not only do they wish to do honour to those who have made such a brave stand for tax resistance, but to use the occasion, as one of many others, to keep before the public mind the necessity for the alteration of the laws.”
Katsuki James Otsuka served a 120-day sentence for refusing to pay war taxes to the U.S. government (and then refusing to pay the fine he was given for his initial refusal) in .
A group of supporters demonstrated outside the prison at the time of his anticipated release, though “four carloads of state police” broke up the demonstration at one point, smashing a picket sign that read “You did right in refusing to pay taxes for A-bombs.”
During the white supremacist rebellion against the Reconstruction state government in Louisiana a man named Edward Booth was imprisoned for 24 hours for refusing to pay a license tax.
[I]t was agreed among his immediate personal friends, the members of the tax resisting association and their sympathizers, to make a grand demonstration, at the hour of his release, and escort him to his place of business, to show their sympathies, and in what approbation he was held for having become the object of an oppression, in the defence of his personal rights.
Before the hour of his release, a large concourse of people assembled before the doors of the prison, to hail the deliverance of the prisoner, and the anteroom was thronged with friends anxious to proffer the hand of sympathy and condolence. …
Mr. Booth filed out of the room and stepped into a carriage in waiting, amid rousing cheers and a stirring air from the band.
The carriage led off, followed by the band and the large concourse of people, who gradually fell into an orderly line of twos, to the number of about 400.
The marchers hung an effigy of the Reconstruction governor from a lamp post while loudly cheering.
When the procession reached Booth’s place of business, he gave a speech thanking the crowd for their support and urging them to renew their resistance.
William Tait, editor of Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, was imprisoned for refusing to pay the Annuity Tax in that city, which went to support the official church, of which Tait was not a member.
After four days, he was released.
The Scotsman covered the story:
[Tait] stepped into the open carriage, drawn by four horses, which stood on the street…
At this moment, one of the gentlemen in the carriage, waving his hat, proposed three cheers for the King, and three cheers for Mr. Tait, — both of which propositions were most enthusiastically carried into effect.
The procession was then about to move off, when, much against the will of Mr. Tait and the Committee, the crowd took the horses from the carriage, and with ropes drew it along the route of procession…
As the procession marched along, it was joined by several other trades, who had been late in getting ready; and seldom have we seen such a dense mass of individuals as Prince’s Street presented on this occasion.
In the procession alone, there were not fewer than 8,000 individuals; and we are sure that the spectators were more than thrice as numerous.
Mr. Tait was frequently cheered as he passed along, — and never, but on the occasion of the Reform Bill, was a more unanimous feeling witnessed than on that which brought the people together yesterday afternoon.
Laurence Housman
wrote an autobiography called The Unexpected Years that includes the following story of his sister Clemence’s imprisonment for tax resistance during the women’s suffrage struggle.
I believed that tax-resistance, so organized that the government would be forced to seize not the goods but the persons of the resisters was the best and most constitutional lines for militancy to adopt.
But it required time — about eighteen months in my sister’s case — to materialize effectively.
And the Militant Leaders, always assuming that they were going to get the vote in a shorter time than that, though they did not discountenance it, refused to make it a plank in their organized policy.
They preferred the more spectacular and provocative course of deputations, election-fights, and interruptions at meetings.
It took my sister Clemence eighteen months and more to get the matter so arranged that, in her own words, she might give her vote against the Government “at the Holloway polling booth”.
It was not much satisfaction to her militant mind, to refuse to pay taxes, if in the end they could be distrained for.
A good many of the tax-resisters were content with that form of protest; it did not content her.
But the other and better way needed some planning; it also took time.
She rented a holiday cottage, stocked it with furniture not her own, went occasionally to stay in it, and, when the time came, refused to pay inhabited house duty which amounted to 4s. 2d.
In course of time, after repeated application, she was summoned, and law costs were added.
As there was nothing on which the court could distrain, the legal process went slowly on, and the Government, in its vain attempt to extract 4s. 2d. from a pocket which could not be picked, ran up a bill which amounted to several pounds.
When this enlargement of the debt failed to bring her to reason, arrest and imprisonment were threatened as the only alternative.
A polite emissary from Somerset House came and interviewed her; and we heard afterwards that he reported her as being “such a lady”, that it would only need the actual presentation of the warrant for arrest to bring about submission.
So the next day the warrant was presented, and, failing to take effect, the warrant officer retired for fresh instructions; and a day later did come with a reinforcement, and actually arrested her.
Like all good comedy there was in it an element of pain; but it was very funny.
My sister said, “Are you going to walk me to Holloway?”
“Oh, no!”
she was assured, “We shall take you in a taxi.”
“I shall not pay for it,” she said.
“Oh, no, of course not, we shall pay for it.”
I then offered to pay the extra sixpence, if I might come too.
They were most kind about it; one of them, to make room for me, went and sat by the driver; and so we all drove to Holloway, and as we passed through the gates, the taxi, for which the Government was paying, registered the exact amount of the original debt 4s. 2d.
A week later she was out again; and I heard then some of her experiences during that eventful week of enforced idleness.
Knowing her rapacity for work, “What did you do all the time?”
I asked.
“I sat and bubbled,” she said; and I realized that triumphant mental satisfaction might be, for a week at any rate, a good substitute for industry.
She was interviewed by the governor.
“How long are you in for?”
he inquired.
“For life,” she told him.
What did she mean by that?
She explained: “I am here until I pay; and I am never going to pay.”
And she never did, either then or afterwards, until she got the vote.
The medical officer came to see her twice; it was soon evident they wanted to release her on the score of health.
“You are eating too little,” he said.
“I am not a big eater,” she told him, “even though I lead an active life.
Here I am doing nothing, so I eat less.
But I am perfectly well, thank you,” That excuse having failed, after a week they let her out for no reason stated.
I heard shortly after from a mutual acquaintance that the governor had said to him, “What did those fools mean by sending us a person like Miss Housman?”
It is pleasant to know that officialdom sometimes looks foolish even to its own officials.
Housman also takes credit and/or blame for getting Bernard Shaw to speak at a rally for imprisoned suffragist Mark Wilks:
I must have been a considerable nuisance in those days to authors, actors, and others of my acquaintance, who were friendly to the cause but did not want to be bothered by it.
It wasn’t their job, any more than it was mine; and though most of our leading authors signed a declaration in favour, few of them did more.
I did on one occasion get Bernard Shaw to speak at a protest meeting over the imprisonment of Mr. Wilkes for his wife’s taxes, which she conscientiously had refused to pay.
That secured us a big meeting; he was genially brutal in his treatment of the situation, and made the unfortunate Mrs. Wilkes cry by declaring that, were she his wife, he would take all possible steps to divorce her for so callously allowing him to be imprisoned for her debts.
I had to speak after him, and I said, untruthfully, that I was sure he had not meant to be unkind.
I think he had meant to be, and thought that she thoroughly deserved it.
Mr. Wilkes was, in fact, a willing victim: though it was perfectly true that, with only a working-man’s wage, he was unable to pay the income-tax of a wife who was a successful medical practitioner.
Special mention must be made of one of the many Suffrage Societies which sprang into existence during the decade before the outbreak of war.
With the Freedom League originated the idea that in view of the dictum that taxation and representation must go together, a logical protest on the part of voteless women would be to decline to pay Imperial taxes until they should have a share in electing Members of the Imperial Parliament.
From onwards, Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard had adopted this form of protest, with notable results.
In the following year, some of her goods were seized, but difficulties occurred, as one auctioneer after another refused to have anything to do with selling them.
When one was finally found, the sale was attended by a large number of Mrs. Despard’s followers, who succeeded in holding up the proceedings until requested by her to desist.
When her piece of plate was at last put up for sale, the bidding was very brisk, and the article was eventually knocked down to a certain Mr. Luxembourg for double its estimated value.
This gentleman insisted on returning it to Mrs. Despard, who accepted it on behalf of the Women’s Freedom League, among whose archives, suitably inscribed in memory of the occasion, it holds an honoured place.
In subsequent years, various devices were adopted with the object of compelling Mrs. Despard’s submission.
Thus she, for whom prison had no terrors, was threatened with imprisonment in default of payment; she was summoned before the High Court, when, in her absence, judgment was pronounced against her.
On only two other occasions, however, was distraint levied.
, a separate society, with the above title, was formed, with Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes as secretary, for experience showed that a special knowledge of the technicalities of the law was necessary, and special machinery had to be set up.
Those who addressed themselves to this business were rewarded by the discovery of curious anomalies and irregularities of the law where women were concerned.
Thus, for instance, it was revealed that whereas married women are not personally liable to taxation (the Income Tax Act of never having been brought into line with the Married Women’s Property Acts), nevertheless payment of taxes was illegally exacted of them whenever possible.
With the assistance of the expert advice of Mrs. [Ethel] Ayres Purdie and others, many cases of injustice and overcharges were exposed and circumvented, Somerset House officials being mercilessly worried.
Imprisonments for Non-Payment of Taxes
It was in , that the first imprisonments in connection with this particular form of protest took place.
Miss [Constance] Andrews of Ipswich was sent to prison for a week for refusing to pay her dog’s tax, and about the same time, Mrs. [Emma] Sproson of Wolverhampton served a similar sentence for the same offence.
The latter was, however, rearrested, and sentenced this time to five weeks’ imprisonment, being placed in the Third Division in Stafford Gaol.
She thereupon entered on the hunger strike, and on the personal responsibility of the Governor, without instructions from the Home Office, she was transferred to the First Division, where she completed her sentence.
Imprisonments in various parts of the country thereafter took place with some frequency, but whenever possible this extreme course appears to have been avoided, and resisters’ goods were seized and sold by public auction, the officials reserving the right of adopting whichever course they deemed most suitable.
By this means, auctioneers’ sale rooms, country market-places, corners of busy thoroughfares, and all manner of unlikely spots, became the scene of protests and demonstrations.
Miss Housman’s Imprisonment
The case which excited the most interest was that of Miss Clemence Housman, sister of the well-known author, who, having stoutly declined to pay the trifling sum of 4s. 6d. (which by dint of writs, High Court Procedure, etc., in due course mounted up to over £6), and not having goods which could be seized, was arrested by the Sheriff’s Officer, and conveyed to Holloway, there to be detained until she paid.
A storm of protest arose, meetings being held at Mr. Housman’s residence in Kensington, outside Holloway Gaol, and in Hyde Park on .
After a week’s incarceration, Miss Housman, who had been singularly well treated in the First Division, was unconditionally released, and on inquiring of the Solicitor of Inland Revenue how she stood in the matter, she was informed that it was closed by her arrest and subsequent release.
By way of celebrating victories such as these, the League held a John Hampden dinner at the Hotel Cecil in , when some 250 guests assembled and listened to speeches from prominent Suffragists of both sexes, when we may be sure that the moral of the story of John Hampden was duly pointed, and many a modern parallel was quoted.
A novel feature of the evening’s proceedings was the appearance of a toast mistress, in the person of Mrs. Arncliffe Sennett.
Mr. Mark Wilks’ Imprisonment
In an incident occurred which illustrated both the anomalous position which married women occupy under the law and also the impossibility of enforcing the law where consent is withheld.
Dr. Elisabeth Wilks, being one of those who held with the Liberal dictum that taxation and representation should go together, had for some years past refused to pay her Imperial taxes, and on two occasions a distraint had been executed on her goods, and they had been sold by public auction.
Then it struck her that her “privileged” position under the law would afford her protection from further annoyance of this kind, and being a married woman, she referred the officials to her husband.
When application was made to the latter for his wife’s income tax return, he told the harassed officials that he did not possess the required information, nor did he know how to procure it.
After some delays and negotiations, the Treasury kindly undertook to make the assessment itself, charging Mr. Wilks at the unearned rate, though Mrs. Wilks was well known to be a medical woman, whose income was derived from her practice.
After over two years of correspondence and threats of imprisonment, since Mr. Wilks sturdily refused to produce the sum demanded, he was arrested on and conveyed to Brixton Gaol, there to be detained until he paid.
Still he remained obdurate, while friends outside busied themselves on his behalf.
Protests poured into the Treasury offices, Members of Parliament were inundated with the like, deputations waited on everybody concerned, and public meetings on the subject were held in great number.
The result was that, at the end of a fortnight, Mr. Wilks was once more a free man.
Other Tax-Resisters
Legislators had recently provided women with additional reasons for refusing to pay taxes.
In the National Insurance Act became the law of the land, and defects in that Act as far as it concerned women, which were pointed out at the time, have become more and more apparent every year that the Act has been in force.
Some few modifications were made in their favour, but they had no effective means of expressing their views.
Again, by means of a Resolution, which occupied a few hours of discussion on , Members of Parliament voted themselves a salary of £400 a year, and only one member, Mr. Walter McLaren, raised his voice to protest against the fresh injustice which this proposal inflicted on women, who were not only subject to legislation in the framing of which they had no voice, but were further called upon to pay those who thus legislated for them…
The Revenue authorities did not repeat the experiment of arresting any women resisters on whom it was not possible to levy distraint, with the result that the Women’s Tax-Resistance League claimed to have a growing list of members who paid no taxes, and who, in spite of repeated threats of imprisonment, were still at large.
Distraint for non-payment was, however, frequent, with the result that up and down the country, and as far north as Arbroath, the gospel of tax-resistance was carried, and secured many adherents, including members of the enfranchised portion of the community, some of whom, in their official capacities, gave public support to the rebels.
Many auctioneers of the better class refused to sell the goods of tax-resisters, and it is on record that one who had done so sent his fee as a donation to the League.
Two members of the League, Mrs. [Isabella] Darent Harrison of St. Leonard’s and Mrs. [Kate] Harvey of Bromley, barricaded themselves in their houses, and succeeded in keeping the officials who came to make the distraint at bay, the former for a period of several weeks, and the latter for a period of no less than eight months.
In both cases, an entry was eventually made by force, but much public sympathy was evinced in both cases, and crowded meetings of protest were held in the largest local halls available.
It is interesting to record that on , a statue was unveiled in the market-place of Aylesbury to the memory of John Hampden, who in the time of Charles Ⅰ. had refused the ship money which that monarch had illegally levied on his subjects.
The sum involved was the trifling one of 20s., but, rather than pay it, John Hampden suffered himself to be imprisoned.
He was subsequently released without a stain upon his character, and a statue to this rebel stands in no less hallowed a spot than the House of Commons, of which assembly he was a Member.
An application on the part of the Women’s Tax-Resistance League of the twentieth century to be officially represented at the unveiling by Lord Rothschild of the statue erected to his memory in Aylesbury was met with a refusal.
That the spirit which animated this seventeenth-century fighter was not, however, dead was evident when, at the conclusion of the official ceremony, a little procession of tax-resisters, supported by men sympathizers, approached the statue and silently laid a wreath at its foot…
Tax Resistance
Throughout tax resisters continued to defy the revenue officials, with varying results.
Among those who resisted paying their taxes for the first time may be mentioned [Mary Russell] the Duchess of Bedford, Miss Beatrice Harraden, Mrs. Flora Annie Steele, and Miss [Ethel] Sargant, the last-named of whom presided over a section of the British Association later in the year, being the first woman to fill such a position.
Mrs. Harvey successfully withstood another siege in connection with her inhabited house duty, and her goods, when eventually seized, failed to realize the sum required by some £8, for the uproar created in the auction-room by sympathizers was so great that the auctioneer abandoned his task.
Mrs. Harvey also refused to take out a licence for her gardener (by name Asquith), or to stamp his Insurance card.
For these two offences she was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, in default of a fine, but was released at the end of one month, in a very weak condition of health, which was in no way attributable to her own “misconduct.”
There were many other cases of resistance to the Insurance Act, it being an open secret that the Freedom League did not insure its employees.
Captain Gonne, who refused to pay his taxes as a protest against the treatment to which women were being subjected, was also arrested, but was released within a few hours, the reason being, so it was claimed, that in arresting him the revenue officials had been guilty of a serious technical blunder.
Several other resisters besides Mrs. Harvey barricaded their houses against the tax collector, and at Hastings the demonstration arranged in connection with the sale of Mrs. Darent Harrison’s goods led to an organized riot, the result being that the local Suffrage Club brought an action against the Corporation for damage done, which they won.
Undeterred by warnings that it would be impossible to hold a public meeting in Hastings in support of tax resistance, the League nevertheless determined to do so, and, as a matter of fact, everything passed off in a quiet and orderly manner, Lady Brassey being in the chair.
In subsequent years, this policy of open and constitutional rebellion on tax resistance lines has been maintained by Mrs. Darent Harrison.
