Tax Resistance protests are multiplying throughout the land, and signs are not wanting that the seedling planted by the Women’s Freedom League is developing into a stalwart tree.
This form of militancy appeals even to constitutionally-minded women; and the ramifications of tax resistance now reach far beyond the parent society and the other militant organisations, necessitating the expenditure of great energy on the part of the officials who work under the banner of John Hampden — the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard is no longer even asked to pay her taxes; the Edinburgh Branch of the W.F.L. is in almost the same happy position; Mrs. [Kate] Harvey has once more heroically barricaded Brackenhill against the King’s officers, and Miss [Mary] Anderson has again raised the flag of revolt in Woldingham.
Dr. [Elizabeth] Knight, with praiseworthy regularity, refuses to pay her dog license and other taxes in respect of a country residence; and these protests never fail to carry to some mind, hitherto heedless, a new sense of the unconstitutional position women are forced to occupy in a country that prides itself on being the home of constitutional Government.
Activities of the Tax Resistance League.
Last week we had five sales in different parts of the country.
On three Tax Resisters at West Drayton and two at Rotherfield, made their protest.
Miss [Kate] Raleigh, Miss Weir, and Miss [Margory?] Lees had a gold watch and jewellery sold on the village green, West Drayton; speakers at the protest meeting were Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, Mrs. Hicks, and Miss Raleigh.
Miss Koll and Miss Hon[n]or Morten, of Rotherfield, had a silver salver and gold ring sold from a wagonette in the village street; speakers at the protest meeting were Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson and Mr. Reginald Pott.
Miss Maud Roll presided.
On Mrs. [Myra Eleanor] Sadd Brown gave an at home at her house when short speeches were made by the Hampstead Tax Resisters who were to have their goods sold on , and by Mrs. [Louisa] Thompson Price, whose case is being further looked into by Somerset House.
There was a very good attendance and many new members were gained for the League.
On , sales took place at Hampstead and at Croydon.
Misses Collier, Mrs. Hartley, Mrs. Hicks, and Dr. Adeline Roberts had their goods sold at the Hampstead Drill Hall and at the protest meeting the speakers were Miss Hicks and Mrs. [Margarete Wynne] Nevinson.
The goods of Miss [Dorinda] Neligan and Miss James were sold at Messrs. King and Everall’s Auction Rooms, Croydon; the protest meeting was addressed by Mrs. Kineton Parkes.
On the sale took place of a ring, the property of Mrs. [Adeline] Cecil Chapman, President of the New Constitutional Society, and wife of Mr. Cecil Chapman, the well-known magistrate, at Messrs. Roche and Roche’s Auction Rooms, 68A, Battersea-rise.
Mrs. Chapman made an excellent protest in the auction room, and afterwards presided at the protest meeting, when the speakers were Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. Kineton Parkes, and Mrs. Teresa Gough.
Sequel to Hastings Riot.
As a result of the disgraceful scenes at Hastings on , Mrs. Darent Harrison appealed to the magistrate on Tuesday.
A large number of sympathisers were present and Mrs. [Jane?] Strickland, president of the local National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, spoke, and Mrs. Darent Harrison.
The magistrate said the matter was not within his province and the Watch Committee must be referred to.
We hope that the result may be adequate police protection when the resisters hold the postponed protest meeting.
We learn from Miss Mary Anderson that her house has been “entered” by the authorities, and that some of her goods, among them a copy of the famous picture, “Hope,” by G.F. Watts, have been seized to pay the taxes claimed by a Government which denies representation to women.
The sale will take place at Woldingham on , and will be followed by a meeting in the Public Hall.
All friends are cordially invited to be present, especially those living in Croydon, Thornton Heath and South London district.
On Dr. [Elizabeth] Knight was summoned to appear at the Woodbridge Police-court for non-payment of her dog-tax.
As it was not convenient for her to attend, Miss [Constance] Andrews went in her place again to protest against taxation without representation.
She was supported by Miss Bobby and Miss Pratt.
The Woodbridge Police-court compares very favourably with the London ones, and patience is not lacking in the way it was at Marlborough-street.
When our case came on Miss Andrews asked to be allowed to make a statement; this was refused, but she made it all the same, and it took the form of a Suffrage tax-resistance speech.
In reply to a question why Dr. Knight did not appear, it was pointed out she had professional duties to attend to, and they might take the form of certifying a man to be insane thereby depriving him of his vote, while she herself was not counted capable of exercising one.
After some consultation a fine of 30s. and 14s. cost was levied; failing this, distraint and in default 7 days’ imprisonment.
Whereupon the Suffragists made a further protest in court, and then held a meeting outside.
Miss Andrews addressed an orderly crowd for forty minutes, one man who tried to create a disturbance being promptly ejected.
The next act of this annual drama will be the sale of the wagon which has become historic in the history of tax-resistance.
At Balham.
On , Miss Helen Smith’s goods were sold for tax-resistance at Philip’s Auction Rooms, Balham.
Mrs. Tanner spoke on behalf of the Freedom League, of which Miss Smith is a member.
Mrs. [Leonora?]
Tyson took the chair.
Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes and Mrs. Teresa Gough also spoke.
The crowd was very large and quite orderly.
The speakers had an excellent hearing.
The resolution of protest was passed with only a few dissentients.
Women’s Tax Resistance League
Our members are still protesting against the sale of their goods to pay King’s taxes.
On , goods belonging to Miss [Ina] Moncrieff were sold at Harding’s Auction Rooms, near Victoria Station.
Miss Hicks and Mrs. Kineton Parkes spoke at the meeting, and a neighbourhood that was once distinctly hostile has become thoroughly sympathetic.
On , Mrs. Portrey’s goods were sold at the Harrow.
A garden-party was given by Mrs. Huntsman, of the Women’s Freedom League, and the procession to the auction-room started from her house, it being a joint demonstration of the Tax Resistance and Freedom Leagues.
Mrs. Kineton Parkes presided, and Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard and Mr. Laurence Housman spoke at the open-air meeting to a large crowd, which was gradually won over to sympathy with the arguments of the resisters, and finally passed a resolution approving tax-resistance.
The Branch wishes to express its very hearty thanks to our President and Mr. Laurence Housman for the splendid speeches they made at our garden meeting on .
Six new members were enrolled, and £4 8s. taken in collection.
A large crowd assembled and the meeting was in every way a great success.
After tea a procession was formed up to go to the protest meeting which was to be held after the sale of Mrs. Portrey’s goods for tax-resistance.
Mrs. Kineton Parkes made a splendid protest in the auction-room, and an open-air meeting followed, at which Mrs. Despard, Mrs. Parkes and Mr. Housman all spoke again.
The tax-resistance banners and the W.F.L. pennons marching down in procession created a great effect in Wealdstone.
Scotland — Edinburgh.
Suffrage Shop, 90, Lothian-road.
We have not yet quite arrived at the happy state of “not even being asked to pay our taxes.”
About ten days ago we received once more the Sheriff Officer’s intimation that if the tax be not paid within three days our goods would be seized and sold, and now await developments, as needless to say the tax remains unpaid.…
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.
Few places could seem so unpropitious as a field for Suffrage propaganda as Bromley, in spite of the constant presence of a Suffragist of the calibre of Mrs. [Kate] Harvey; yet, strange to say, the outcome of her protest meeting on Monday was more than gratifying, and the event must be chronicled as an unmitigated success.
By the skilful handling of Miss Munro, a dense crowd which threatened disorder settled down to listen in patience to four speeches of more than average excellence; and when at the close three cheers were raised for Mrs. Harvey, there was a definite show of goodwill and appreciation of the attitude and view which inspired the protest.
From early in the day Mrs. Huntsman and a noble band of sandwich-women had paraded the town announcing the sale and distributing leaflets.
In the afternoon a contingent of the Tax Resistance League arrived with the John Hampden banner and the brown and black pennons and flags.
These marched through the town and market square before entering the hall in which the sale and meeting were to be held, and which was decorated with the flags and colours of the Women’s Freedom League.
Mr. Croome, the King’s officer, conducted the sale in person, the goods sold being a quantity of table silver, a silver toilette set, and one or two other articles.
The prices fetched were trifling, Mrs. Harvey desiring that no one should buy the goods in for her.
Much hostility was displayed throughout the proceedings; and several Freedom Leaguers were of opinion that it was long since so much unpleasantness had been experienced as during the day’s campaign.
When the Inland Revenue vacated the rostrum and Miss [Anna] Munro took the chair, an ugly spirit appeared to possess the meeting for a few brief moments; but it was charmed away by the chairman’s tact and firmness, and an excellent and most courteous hearing was given to all the speakers — melting, towards the end, into real sympathy.
The first speech was from Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, in her most spirited style, winning a hearty meed of applause; and she was followed by Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, who has an admirable “way” with a crowd.
Miss [C. Nina] Boyle then spoke, provoking much amused laughter; and the last speaker, Miss Hicks, closed the “case for the defence” with a well-pointed and finely-balanced argument.
After that came questions, which Miss Munro dealt with in her usual adroit manner.
The audience departed well satisfied and good-humoured, and several new members were won.
Tea was served at Brackenhill after the meeting, a party of ten having been entertained to lunch earlier in the day by Mrs. Clarkson Swann.
In the forenoon Mrs. Harvey and some of her friends, including Mrs. Snow, Mrs. Fisher, Miss Boyle, Mrs. Kineton Parkes, Mrs. Clarkson-Swann, and some members of Mrs. Harvey’s household held rendezvouz at the local Sessions Court to hear the case against Mrs. Harvey in respect of not paying a tax on her gardener.
As when Dr. [Elizabeth] Knight was summoned, the representative of the London County Council brought his case into court in the most slovenly, scandalous fashion — these cases furnishing a lurid light on the way the liberties of the public are held cheap by careless authorities.
A spirited defence, which made the cocksure representative aforesaid look extremely foolish, was put up by Mrs. Harvey’s counsel; the verdict of the court being 30s. fine, and costs.
Mrs. Harvey declared she would not pay fine or costs, and the ultimate verdict was “distraint or seven days” — in the second division.
Among those who were at Bromley for the protest were Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. Huntsman, Mrs. Kux, Mrs. Macpherson, Mrs. Smith, Miss F[lorence].
A. Underwood, Miss Howard, Miss Rowell, Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. [Emily] Juson Kerr, Miss Barrow, and Miss Taylor.
In pursuance of our policy of tax-resistance, the Women’s Freedom League has decided to resist the Insurance Act on the ground that we refuse to acquiesce in any legislation which controls the resources of women without the consent of women.
We are now threatened with prosecution by the Insurance Commissioners, but it remains to be seen whether the latter will make good their case.
