The Women’s Tax Resistance League has decided to hold a protest meeting in
Hyde-park at , to express indignation at the imprisonment of Mrs. Kate
Harvey, who has for conscientious reasons refused to subscribe to the tyranny
of unrepresentative government. The speakers will be Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton
Parkes, Mr. H.W. Nevinson, and others.
we are holding an Indignation
meeting at Caxton Hall, the indignation expressed to be generally against the
Government, non-representation, mis-representation and imprisonment of
voteless women, and particularly against the sentence of two months’
imprisonment in the second division, which Mrs. Harvey is now serving in
Holloway because of her refusal to comply with the regulations of the
Insurance Act passed over the heads of women without consulting women. The
speakers will be Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard, Mrs. Kineton Parkes (of the
Women’s Tax Resistance League), Mrs. Mustard, and Mr. John Scurr. The chair
will be taken by Miss Nina Boyle at . Admission is free, and there will be no reserved seats. This
is the first of a series of political meetings to be held by the Women’s
Freedom League during the Parliamentary recess.…
At a public meeting held in Market-place, Bromley, Kent, on
, the following resolution was put
and carried with one dissentient:— “This meeting expresses deep indignation
at the imprisonment of Mrs. Harvey for non-payment of Imperial taxes, demands
her immediate release, and further demands that the Government act in
accordance with its own principles, and introduce a measure for Votes for
Women without delay.”
Mrs. Kineton Parkes, Secretary of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, reminds
us that Miss [Ethel] Sargant, the first woman to be appointed president of a
section of the British Association, is a keen Suffragist, and has worked for
the National Union for many years, being president of their Tunbridge Wells
Branch. She is also a tax-resister, and had goods seized and sold by public
auction in Cambridge this spring, and is sister to Mrs. [Mary] Sargant
Florence, the well-known decorative artist, one of the founders of the
Women’s Tax Resistance League.
A splendid open-air meeting, to protest against Mrs. Harvey’s imprisonment,
was held on at the Mound. We were
fortunate in having in the chair
Dr. Grace Cadell, who is
herself at this moment a “concrete example” of the form of militancy for
which Mrs. Harvey is suffering.
Dr. Cadell’s inability to
“appear personally” in court, as she is not a person, has been greatly
appreciated locally, but fortunately it does not extend to Suffrage
platforms!…
On Tuesday, , Dr. [Elizabeth] Knight and Mrs. [Hortense] Lane had a waggon sold for non-payment of taxes, Mrs. [Isabel] Tippett came to speak.
The auctioneer was very sympathetic, and allowed Miss [Anna] Munro to make a short speech before the waggon was sold.
He then spoke a few friendly words for the Woman’s Movement.
After the sale a meeting was held, and Mrs. Tippett and Miss Munro were listened to with evident interest by a large number of men.
The Vote and other Suffrage literature was sold.
In the evening a meeting was held on Cornhill.
A large audience gathered, and listened for an hour.
At the evening, as well as the morning meeting the logic of tax resistance was appreciated.
Ipswich may congratulate itself on a good demonstration.
We are very grateful to Dr. Knight and Mrs. Lane for giving us this opportunity of declaring our faith in “No Vote No Tax.”
Elizabeth Knight also penned a fundraising request for the same issue, to defray the costs of her defense and imprisonment.
A resolution on the militant policy declared that “We continue our policy of resistance to taxes and to the Insurance Act until a measure for Woman Suffrage is on the Statute Book; that Suffragists refuse subscriptions to churches and organised charitable institutions till the vote is granted, with a view to women making their power felt and to show the difference their withdrawal from religious and social work would make…”
Dr. Knight has not yet been consigned to Holloway to serve the sentence inflicted on her for her courageous resistance of Mr. [Lloyd] George’s extortions.
In the meantime, the Waggon was once more seized for taxes at Woodbridge, and Mrs. Tippett and Miss Munro took charge of the protest, which was made .
Miss Kate Raleigh gave a most interesting lecture on the “Daily Life of a Taxpaper [sic] in Ancient Athens” at Dr. Alice Corthorn’s drawing-room meeting held under the auspices of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, on .
Miss Raleigh held her audience spellbound as she showed the man’s day to be full of interests and life, while the woman had nothing beyond her weaving and spinning, even marketing being an excitement denied to her.
The chair was taken by Mrs. [Adeline] Cecil Chapman, who concluded her short speech with this advice to her audience:
“It’s dogged that does it — you must keep on and worry, worry, worry.”
A keen discussion followed, and a hearty vote of thanks was given to Dr. Alice Corthorn and Miss Raleigh.
Woman Scientist’s Protest.
On scientific instruments and book-cases belonging to Miss Ethel Sargent, Botanist of Girton College and President of the Botanical section of the British Association at the Birmingham Conference — a unique distinction — were sold at Girton as a protest against being taxed for national expenditure while she was denied a vote.
The sale attracted wide attention, and Miss Sargent’s dignified speech, maintaining that resistance to taxation without representation was “the only resource for voteless women,” made a deep impression.
Her speech was reported at length in the Press.
Forthcoming Sales.
, Mrs. Bacon and Mrs. Colquhoun will have goods sold for tax-resistance at , at Messrs. Westgate and Hammond, 81, South-street, Romford.
Procession from auction room to open-air protest meeting.
Speakers, Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes and Miss Nina Boyle.
, Drs. [Francis] Ede and [Amy] Sheppard will have goods sold for tax-resistance at at Messrs. Hawkings, 26, Lisson-grove.
Procession from Marble Arch Tube at sharp.
Speakers, Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. Kineton Parkes, and others.
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.
