Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
women’s suffrage movements →
British women’s suffrage movement →
Clemence Housman & Laurence Housman
Rooting their rejection of the law’s authority in the principle that “government without the consent of the governed is tyranny,” [suffragettes] claimed the right to withhold consent until they received representation in Parliament.
Withholding consent provided an especially compelling argument where women could establish that they fulfilled the responsibilities of citizenship but lacked basic political rights.
Tax resistance formed an important part of suffragettes’ overall strategy to reject the legal obligations of women who lacked representation, drawing upon an older tradition of tax resistance in England for its authority.
WTRL member Mrs. Darent Harrison invoked that history in her assertion of a “sense of intimacy and spiritual kinship which must exist between all who have ever defied the law of the day, in defence of eternal justice, and in obedience to the call of public duty.”
The WSPU decided to resist payment of income taxes in .
The WFL urged “no vote — no tax” .
Drawing once again on historical precedent, the suffragettes argued that in , the king illegally levied taxes, whereas voteless women were illegally taxed by Parliament, an even more serious offense, since it occurred at a time of representative government.
Militants believed that, by refusing to pay taxes without representation, women would force Parliament to grant votes to women.
Tax resistance was frequently presented as part of a larger strategy, as in when Charlotte Despard defined WFL tax resistance as part of a larger general strike of women, which would extend to the refusal to bear children, to manage their homes, or to fulfill any of the citizen duties they currently performed.
Tax resistance proved to be the longest-lived form of militancy, and the most difficult to prosecute.
More than 220 women, mostly middle-class, participated in tax resistance , some continuing to resist through the First World War, despite a general suspension of militancy.
Suffragettes resisted payment of two general categories of tax: the first included property tax, inhabited house duty, and income tax; the second, taxes and licenses on dogs, carriages, motor cars, male servants, armorial bearings, guns, and game.
Contemporaries had several theories regarding tax resistance’s appeal.
Suffragette speaker and sympathizer Laurence Housman cited the clarity of tax resistance’s logic as a primary reason for its popularity.
Suffragettes’ tax resistance also cut across organizational lines.
The formation of the Women’s Tax Resistance League in brought women together from numerous organizations, including not only the WSPU, WFL, and NUWSS but also the London Society for Women’s Suffrage, Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Association, Church League for Women’s Suffrage, Free Church League, Catholic Women’s Suffrage Society, Actresses’ Franchise League, Artists’ Franchise League, and the Women Writers’ Suffrage League.
This comes from the edition of New Zealand’s Evening Post, and concerns tax resistance as practiced by English women’s suffrage activists:
Miss Clemence Housman, sister of Mr. Laurence Housman, has gone to prison as a protest against taxation without representation.
The paper Votes for Women thus details the circumstances: Two years ago Miss Clemence Housman took a house, for which she was taxed inhabitated house duty, to the amount of 4s 6d.
This, since she was denied all Parliamentary representation, she refused to pay.
Then, in spite of their assertion that “taxation without representation is legalised robbery,” the Government, tried, by means of threats and legal proceedings, to extract from Miss Housman the tax for which she is allowed no vote.
In Miss Housman received a letter from tho Board of Inland Revenue, stating that legal proceedings had been taken for the recovery of the inhabited house duty, amounting to 4s 6d, and that unless the tax, plus the costs and out-of-pocket expenses, amounting to £4 18s 6d, were paid steps would be taken for her arrest and imprisonment, but that, as they were unwilling to resort to extreme measures, if Miss Housman would pay the tax and the bare out-of-pocket expenses, amounting to £2 10s, they would waive the matter of costs.
These terms, since she refused to countenance taxation without representation at all, Miss Housman refused.
The department then sent another letter, a copy of which appeared in last week’s Votes for Women, stating that unless the sum of £2 14s were paid within four days the writ would be lodged with the sheriff at once.
To this Miss Housman replied that though she could not conscientiously pay the tax she was ready to conform to the law in other respects, and that on , she would be at her house at Kensington .
The department replied that this date would not be convenient, and nothing further was heard of the matter for some time, until Miss Houseman received personal intimation that on she would be arrested.
The officials, however, did not put in an appearance until , when at Miss Housman was arrested and taken to Holloway.
The day on which the Government threatened the arrest, a protest meeting was held outside Miss Housman’s residence at Kensington.
The speakers included Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Miss Nina Boyle, Mrs. Kineton Parkes, and Mrs. [Caroline] Fagan, of the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Mr. Laurence Housman, who presided, explained the circumstances.
On the Saturday night, a large crowd gathered outside Holloway Prison, and was addressed by Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, a daughter of Richard Cobden.
Before they dispersed, they gave three rousing cheers for Miss Housman, which, Votes for Women says, it is hoped reached the lonely prisoner in her cell.
On , a magazine called The New Age published “A Women’s Suffrage Supplement” in which a number of people were asked to respond to the following questions:
What in your opinion is the most powerful argument (a) For, or (b) Against woman’s suffrage?
Is there any reasonable prospect of obtaining woman’s suffrage in the present Parliament, and this immediately?
Have the militant methods in your opinion failed, or succeeded?
What alternative methods would you suggest?
Some of the answers touched on the tax resistance campaign for women’s suffrage, though most of these simply mentioned the power of the “no taxation without representation” argument.
Laurence Housman was an exception, and promoted a stronger tax resistance campaign:
The methods which I believe will be effective to this end are not an alternative to, but an extension of, militancy.
Tax-resistance should be conducted not merely on passive lines, but so as to insure that the Government secures no penny of profit from the women whom it taxes against their will.
This can be done in ways that will involve no unequal struggles with the police, and I believe that in the near future it will be done — that women will “take back” in value all those forced levies and deductions of income tax at the source (the return of which, on demand, has been refused by the authorities) in such a way that, though it will involve no danger to any member of the community, will effectually make taxation without representation unprofitable to the Government that attempts it.
To me this seems an absolutely right principle — no act of revenge, but a clear demonstration of a constitutional claim which the public will not fail to understand.
And if the women recognise the principle as right, then the cost to the Government of unconstitutional taxation will be an accurate measure of the women’s desire for political enfranchisement.
. —
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.
On , Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes addressed a meeting of the members of the Fleet National Union on the principles of tax resistance, and a ballot was taken in order to instruct delegate how to vote at July Conference.
On , a drawing room meeting was given by Mrs. [Louisa] Jopling Rowe in her large studio, and she herself presided.
Speeches were made by Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan, Mrs. Kineton Parkes and Mr. Laurence Housman, the latter dealing in a most interesting and exhaustive way with the tax resistance movement from an historical point of view.
A very successful protest was made at Finchley on in connection with the seizure of property belonging to Miss [Sarah] Benett, late hon. treasurer of the W.F.L.
By courtesy of the auctioneer, Miss Bennet, was allowed to explain her reason for resisting payment of taxes.
A very successful open-air meeting was held afterwards.
Mrs. [Edith] How Martyn announced that Mrs. [Emma] Sproson, a member of the National Executive of the Women’s Freedom League, was serving a term of seven days’ imprisonment in the third division for refusing to pay her dog license.
This was the third time Mrs. Sproson had suffered imprisonment in connection with the militant suffrage agitation.
The Women’s Freedom League had taken up tax-resistance as a part of their propaganda three years ago.
Mr. Keir Hardie had stated in the House of Commons that twenty-five million pounds flowed yearly into the coffers of the national exchequer as a result of the indirect taxation of women.
If that money could be withheld, or if all women who were directly taxed would refuse to pay until they were enfranchised, they would not long have to wait for their political emancipation.
The speaker then dealt with the political situation as regards the Women’s Bill.
On , Miss Constance Andrews — our honorary organizer for the East Anglian district — was arrested and taken to Ipswich gaol, there to spend a week because she refused to pay her dog tax.
Here was a chance for the local branch, and they seized it.
I went down on , and we soon got all the preliminary arrangements made for a welcome to Miss Andrews.
The little town has been buzzing with suffragettes and their doings.
Everyone has been talking of Miss Andrews and our preparations to receive her.
Open-air meetings, bill-distributing, the carrying of trimmed posters, pushing the decorated coster’s barrow (covered with The Vote and posters) through the town, — all have served to draw the attention of the townsfolk to the fact that something unusual was astir.
Our two meetings on Cornhill were well attended, and the behaviour of the crowds was remarkably good.
On morning a very large crowd — described in the local press as “an immense gathering” — collected outside the prison to cheer Miss Andrews on her release.
Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard — “the grand old lady of the Women’s movement,” to quote again from the East Anglian Daily Times — drove up in an open cab, with Mrs. [Isabel] Tippett and Mrs. Bastian.
Shortly after her arrival Miss Andrews was released, a photographer standing on a wall opposite the prison gate being the first to give the news.
The outer gate opened, and as our ex-prisoner came out a lusty chorus of “hurrahs!” showed the sympathy of the crowd.
Mrs. Despard said a few words of welcome, and then we formed up in a little procession behind the Ipswich “Dare to be Free” banner, and walked to our rooms in Arcade-street, the cab with Miss Andrews in Mrs. Tippett’s place bringing up the rear.
The large crowd followed us all the way, and enquiring heads were thrust through open windows all along the route.
On our arrival at the rooms, we found a dainty breakfast set out for us at long tables, placed at right-angles to each other.
Japanese table napkins, floral decorations, placards on the walls, all were in the green, white and gold.
After breakfast Mrs. Hossack, from the chair, paid a warm tribute to Miss Andrew’s work.
Mrs. Despard, in her own inspiring way addressed the gathering after the enthusiastic singing of “For she’s a jolly good fellow,” and Miss Andrews gave us a vivid account of her life in prison.
Among other things, she said there were only four other women besides herself in prison.…
…Altogether we feel that Miss Andrews has done a great service to the local work by her protest and imprisonment, and made possible a splendid week’s work, which we hope will leave a lasting impression.
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.…
(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.
The statue of John Hampden, presented to the county of Buckinghamshire by Mr. James Griffiths, of Long Marston, in commemoration of the Coronation, was unveiled at Aylesbury on by Lord Rothschild.
There was a large gathering, representative of Buckinghamshire generally.
After some difficulty the Women’s Tax Resistance League received the assurance that they would be able to pay their last tribute to the great Tax Resister.
At the close of the unveiling ceremony a procession of members of the League crossed the market square to the statue, the crowd readily making way, while police lined the short route.
On behalf of the League, two delegates, Miss Gertrude Eaton and Miss Clemence Housman, laid a beautiful wreath at the foot of the statue.
It was made of white flowers, on which, in black letters, were the words, “From Women Tax Resisters.”
Within the circle of flowers was a ship in full sail with the name of John Hampden in gold letters on the streamers.
The ship was made of brown beech leaves (the beech is the tree most famous in Buckinghamshire) and white flowers.
Emblems were also laid at the base of the statue from the Irishwomen’s Franchise League [this was corrected in a later issue; it was actually from the Irish League for Women’s Suffrage] (a harp in Maréchal Niel roses), the Gymnastic Teachers’ S.S. (blue immortelles and silver leaves), and the London Graduates Union (a laurel wreath).
Among those present were Mrs. [Myra Eleanor] Sadd Brown, Mrs. [Mary] Sergeant Florence, Dr. Kate Haslam, Mrs. [Ethel] Ayres Purdie, Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, Miss [Minnie?] Turner, M.A., Miss [Maud?] Roll, Mr. Lee and Mr. Sergeant.
Tax Resistance: The Situation at Bromley.
“My goods are not yet seized for non-payment of taxes. I am still barricaded.
“Outside the gate!
“A most uncomfortable position for the tax collector!
But, while offering sympathy, I feel the experience will be beneficial.
There is nothing so enlightening as a little ‘fellow-feeling.’
Nothing like going ‘there’ to learn the discomforts of being where the woman is, and should be, according to the gospel of the man at Westminster.
Bolts and bars are never pleasant things to deal with — from outside!
They are terribly, cruelly hard to remove when fixed by men driven by fear to protect an unjust wall of separation.
But walls must yield to pressure, and the women gather, intent on ‘breaking down’; content, if need be, to ‘be broken.’
While men, relying on their fastenings, ignore the trembling of foundations, women know the wall is doomed, and when it falls they will flock in to do the bidding of the “Anti” — to scrub and clean, to mind the babies, to stay in the home — the National Home.”
K[ate]. Harvey.
Meetings in the Market-square, Bromley.
Meetings are now being held every evening in the Market-square, Bromley, and are exciting wide interest.
Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard was the speaker at the first, and told the crowd why Mrs. Harvey was making this emphatic protest against taxation without representation.
Mrs. Despard’s own experiences aroused much interest.
The following evening Mrs. [Isabel] Tippett spoke, and still larger crowds gathered to hear her.
By news of these regular meetings had spread, and the audience was ready to receive the speakers.
The “Antis” are showing themselves — a sure sign of our success — but the chief argument they bring forward, in the form of questions, is that of physical force: because women do not fight they should not vote.
Mrs. Merivale Mayer, the speaker on , was able to show how beneficial the women’s vote had proved in Australia, and told of the surprise of Australian politicians that the Mother Country still refuses to give the women the chance to stand side by side with men in the fight against evil.
The police are exceedingly kind — and evidently interested.
More Tax Resisters.
On , at Redding, goods belonging to Professor Edith Morley were sold.
Speakers: Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, Miss Gertrude Eaton.
Also goods belonging to Miss Manuelle, at Harding’s Auction Rooms, Victoria Station, W.
Speakers: Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan, Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, Dr. [C.V.] Drysdale; and at Working, silver, the property of Mrs. Skipwith, was sold.
Speakers: Mrs. [Barbara] Ayrton Gould, Mrs. Kineton Parkes.
On , at Southend, silver belonging to Mrs. Douglas Hameton and Mrs. [Rosina] Sky was sold.
There was a procession with brass band prior to sale, and also a very successful protest meeting.
Speakers: Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, Mrs. Kineton Parkes, Mr. Warren.
The need for women to be on the watch is strikingly shown in the news of her experiences which has been sent us by Miss Clara Lee, of Thistledown, Letchworth, who points out how she forced an admission of error from the Inland Revenue Authorities.
She writes thus:—
As a tax resister, the following experiences prove the carelessness of Government officials.
Having refused to pay Inhabited House Duty (8s. 9d.) to the local collector, I was reported by him to the surveyor for this district, who sent a demand containing two inaccuracies.
I wrote to point that one ought not to have occurred, seeing that we had had compulsory education since ; the other, he would see did not agree with the original:—
Local Demand.
s.
d.
Schedule A
5
0
House Duty
8
9
Surveyor’s Demand.
£
s.
d.
Schedule A
0
5
0
Schedule B
1
1
5
House Duty
0
8
9
Schedule B, I found, applied to nurseries and market gardens.
So I wrote pointing out that the nearest connection I had to either, was that under the Lloyd George Insurance Act I was classed with agricultural labourers.
To this I received the following letter:—
4, Cardiff-road, Luton, .
Inland Revenue — Surveyor of Taxes.
Madam, — Referring to your letter of , I much regret that £1 1s. 5d. was included upon your demand note in error — the entry relating to the next person upon the collector’s return. — Yours faithfully,
(Signed) G.R. Simpson.
Is this the exactness of the work for which women, as well as men, pay so heavily?
How long would a commercial firm exist, if it allowed such errors?
How long would the public tolerate such mistakes by women workers in our hospitals and elsewhere?
The title of idiot, lunatic and criminal must revert to the people responsible for such a condition of things.
The 8s. 9d. Inhabited House Duty has now been deducted from my claim of return Income-tax; this seems an unusual proceeding.
Mrs. [Kate] Harvey’s barricade is still unbroken.
Again congratulations.
Among the events of last week were:—
Drawing-room Meeting, , at Hans-crescent Hotel.
Hostess: Mrs. Alfred Nutt.
Chair: Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan.
Speakers: Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson, and Rev. Hugh Chapman.
Drawing-room Meeting, , at 17, Kensington-square, W. Hostess: Lady Maud Parry.
Chair: Lady Maud Parry.
Speakers: Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, Mr. Laurence Housman.
Sale of goods, the property of Miss Maud F. Roll, on , at Rotherfield.
Speakers: Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, Miss Honnor Morten, and Dr. C.V. Drysdale.
The principle of the enfranchisement of women having been established by the
passing of the Representation of the People Act of
, the Committee of the Women’s Tax
Resistance League have decided to dissolve.
At the outbreak of war, it was felt by a majority of the members of the
League that, at the moment of national crisis, they could not continue their
tax resistance, and it was therefore decided to suspend all active propaganda
till the end of the war. The Committee, however, to the last moment held a
watching brief, and representatives of the League have attended conferences
and meetings of the Consultative Committee, before and during the passage of
the Bill, and they were prepared to call members together should the need
have arisen. Happily all danger is now over, and we may rejoice on the
partial victory obtained.
Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes has written a little book, to which Mr.
Laurence Housman has contributed an introduction, giving an account of the
work done and the part played by the Women’s Tax Resistance League in the
achievement of victory, and it is hoped that this will be published at the
end of the war. It is also hoped that a meeting of old members of the League
may be arranged when that happier time arrives.
A protest meeting was held at Highbury Corner on , as a result of the sale of Dr. [Winifred S.] Patch’s goods last week, owing to her refusal to pay taxes.
Miss Guttridge was in the chair, and there was a good attendance.
The speakers were Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard and Mr. Laurence Housman.
Mrs. Despard, in the course of her speech, said that the Woman Suffragists were going to adopt measures of coercion towards the Government.
They were going to “stop the traffic.”
Mr. Laurence Houseman took up the phrase.
He said, “Stop the traffic, and you have found the solution of the situation.
Bad government makes government expensive.”
He spoke of the spirit of liberty which is latent in every human being — the spirit of liberty which is always roused to its fullest force under tyrannical oppression.
That spirit was awake in the women who are fighting for the Franchise to-day.
He thought that most of the men of this country did not realise the spirit of that fight because they had come by their own votes too easily.
They had practically been born to the Vote.
They had come into it too long after their fathers’ fight for it to feel its true basis of liberty.
He remarked that wherever Mrs. Despard went to-day the Government became an object of ridicule.
She ought to be in prison, as she had refused to pay the Imperial taxes, but they were afraid to put her there — (laughter and cheers) — and she would not go to prison because she was more logical than the Government.
If they gave her representation she would agree to taxation — the two must go together.
It was disgraceful in a democratic country that women like Mrs. Despard, who have done noble work for the community in general, should be shut out from the Parliamentary administration of the people’s interests.
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.
“We began with a Mud March; I wonder whether we shall end with one!”
So said a marcher afternoon; the relentless rain and the merciless mud gave point to the observation.
Neither rain nor mud deterred the women from their protest procession long ago, nor did they have any daunting effect on in the march from Kingsway to Holloway.
The change in attitude of the onlookers was extraordinary and emphasises the educative influence of such demonstrations.
No word of scorn or ridicule was heard on ; such words have passed; little but amazement remained, amazement at the courage shown in trying weather conditions.
Truly it was a brave show.
Bands and banners lend splendid aid on such occasions, but the gratifying sight was to see the solidarity and co-operation of many societies.
The Women’s Tax Resistance League led the way, and were followed by the Women’s Social and Political Union, the Women’s Freedom League, the New Constitutional Society, and Actresses’ League, the Fabian Women’s Group, and, finally, the men’s societies; the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage, the Men’s Political Union for Women’s Enfranchisement, and the Men’s Committee for Justice to Women.
Faithful friends these, whose help is always available, and one could not help noticing that some of the men were bringing up their small sons in the way they should go!
Let us hope that the boys will not have to do much more marching for the Suffrage Cause!
An hour of it!
Who can describe the determination and courage needed?
But we arrived, and in a very few minutes the chairman, Miss Christabel Pankhurst, was in her place on the cart, surrounded by the speakers.
One’s eyes were rivetted by the sight of the tall, self-possessed lady, quiet and undemonstrative, who scarcely twenty-four hours before had been inside those prison walls.
The singing and the enthusiasm were to reach her in her cell, but the action of the authorities in releasing Miss Housman enabled her to be the seen instead of the unseen centre of the demonstration.
Her words, too, carried great weight.
Humorously she contrasted the treatment of men voters and of voteless women: agents to do everything for the men, motors to take them to the polling booth.
Turning to the prison, Miss Housman exclaimed dramatically, “Holloway is woman’s polling booth; it is there that I have been able to register my vote against a Government that taxes me without representation.”
Only words of courtesy were heard concerning all the officials with whom Miss Housman had come into contact, and she was cheered to the echo when she declared that, glad as she was to be outside Holloway, she was ready to go back again to win the fight for the recognition of woman’s citizenship.
“If that great act of justice, the Conciliation Bill, fails to carry next year, there will be not merely one but hundreds of women in prison to make the nation realise that justice is not being done.”
Thus spoke Mr. Laurence Housman, whose pride in his sister’s devotion to the woman’s Cause was shared by those who listened.
Women were only doing what men had gloried in doing in times past, he added, they were struggling for constitutional liberties; women, too, had caught the spirit of democracy.
Mrs. Despard, heedless of the drenching rain, made an appeal which touched the hearts of all who heard it; she rejoiced in the victory won by Miss Housman’s courageous act of self-sacrifice, and said that tax resistance was drawing women together in a bond as strong as death.
She laughed to scorn the idea that men had all the chivalry and clear-sightedness, women the tenderness and self-sacrifice; neither sex had a monopoly of these qualities, but she looked for the coming of the new day when man and woman should stand side by side as equals.
Miss Adeline Bourne, speaking for the actresses, amused the audience by insisting that if women united in a protest such as Miss Housman had made, the Government would be powerless to deal with them.
Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parkes, who succeeded Miss Pankhurst in the chair as soon as the resolution had been moved, gave some remarkable facts as to the predicament of the officials with regard to women tax resisters; amazing differences of treatment were recorded for the same offence, as also the practical sympathy of some who have to carry out a disagreeable duty towards women resisters.
The resolution, which was passed unanimously and with enthusiasm, ran as follows:
That this meeting, held at the gates of Holloway Gaol, congratulates Miss Clemence Housman on her refusal to pay Crown taxes without representation, a reassertion of that principle upon which our forefathers won the constitutional liberties which Englishmen now enjoy, and also upon the successful outcome of her protest.
It condemns the Government’s action in ordering her arrest and imprisonment as a violation of the spirit of the Constitution and of representative government; and it calls upon the Government to give votes to women before again demanding from Miss Housman or any other woman-taxpayer the payment of taxes.
Miss Housman’s communication to the Home Secretary, asking for information as to a definite term of imprisonment, contains so able a statement of her point of view that it should be widely known.
It runs thus:—
That she has resolved to abide by the conditions by law appointed for a woman who, lacking representation, has personally fulfilled a duty — moral, social, and constitutional — by refusing to pay taxes into irresponsible hands.
But, while willing to satisfy the requirements of the law at the expense of her personal liberty to any extent, she learns that no limit has been set to these claims either by statute or by judgment, and she believes that it rests with his Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Home Department to rectify what she feels to be a grievance not intended in such a case as hers.
She begs, therefore, that he will be so good as to define her term of imprisonment, and she desires this not on personal grounds only, but that, thereby, the comparative cost and value of a woman’s liberty and a man’s vote may be officially recorded for the understanding of others, women and men.
A large and enthusiastic crowd listened in Hyde Park on morning to Mrs. Clarkson Swann, who explained fully the Conciliation Bill now before Parliament, and to Mrs. Emma Sproson, who has recently served six weeks in Stafford Jail for non-payment of her dog-tax.…
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.”
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.
Hon. Secretary: Miss
[Mary] Hare, 8, San Remo, Hove
Members of the Freedom League in Brighton and Hove are taking interest in
the Tax Resistance Meeting, to be held in the Hove Town Hall on Wednesday,
Mrs. [Caroline] Fagan and Mrs.
[Margaret] Kineton Parkes will speak, and Miss Hare will take the chair. It
is hoped that there will be a good attendance, as all are welcome.
On , a crowd of
Suffragists of all shades of opinion assembled at Hawking’s Sale Rooms,
Lisson-grove, Marylebone, to support
Dr. Frances Ede and
Dr. Amy Sheppard, whose goods
were to be sold by public auction for tax resistance. By the courtesy of the
auctioneer, Mr. Hawking, speeches were allowed, and
Dr. Ede emphasized her
conscientious objection to supporting taxation without representation; she
said that women like herself and her partner felt that they must
make this logical and dignified protest, but as it caused very considerable
inconvenience and sacrifice to professional women, she trusted that the grave
injustice would speedily be remedied. Three cheers were given for the
doctors, and a procession with banners marched to Marble Arch, where a brief
meeting was held in Hyde Park, at which the usual resolution was passed
unanimously.
On , Mrs. [Kate]
Harvey, of “Brackenhill,” Highland-road, Bromley, Kent, gave a most
successful drawing-room meeting to a new and appreciative audience. Mrs.
Harvey, who is a loyal supporter of Tax Resistance and had a quantity of her
household silver sold in , took this
opportunity of placing before her friends and neighbours the many reasons
which led her to take this action. Mr. Laurence Housman was the principal
speaker, and gave an address of deep interest and instruction on Tax
Resistance from a historical standpoint. Mrs. Louis Fagan presided, and made
an eloquent appeal for sympathy and support for this phase of the Suffrage
movement, and short speeches were also made by Mrs. [Anne] Cobden Sanderson
and Mrs. Kineton Parkes. Sales are expected in Reading and Holborn during the
coming week.
Nothing daunted, Mrs. Kate Harvey, of Bromley, has plunged into the fray again.
In default of payment, the tax-collectors have once more broken the barricades at Brackenhill, and ear-marked goods for a forced sale.
An ingenious plan of protection had been devised and carried out, and the King’s officers wrestled with the fortifications for two hours before an entry was effected by means of a battering-ram!
The sale will take place on , and all friends and members who will give their support at the protest should hasten to send their names in to Headquarters.
It is probable that the sale will be on the premises, as for some reason or other the authorities appear nervous about the prospect of a disturbance if the affair is held in a more public spot.
As the protests of Mrs. Harvey are now recognised and appreciated at their true value by the people of Bromley, we have no difficulty in interpreting the nervousness as a fear that too great a demonstration of sympathy for the “offender” might make the task of the officials even more thankless than usual.
Miss Lena Ashwell addressed a crowded audience at the Suffrage Club, St. James’s, , under the auspices of the Women’s Tax Resistance League.
Mrs. [Caroline] Louis Fagan presided.
Miss Ashwell said that taxation was the thing on which men succeeded in getting the vote, yet women had been constantly told that they had nothing to do with taxation.
With her peculiar charm she gave account of her interview with Mr. Lloyd George when, with other members of the League, she stated her position under the Income Tax Act.
“I had heard that this most charming and unreliable of men had the power to convince you of his own point of view, whatever your previous attitude.
I therefore took the precaution to write down all I meant to say.”
But all that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could say when pressed for amendments of the law, was that ‘the Treasury would lose by it!’ ” Miss Ashwell showed how hardly the Insurance Act dealt with the domestic servants, but it revealed a mass of misery among women hitherto unsuspected.
The Press accepted with callousness such facts as that a woman and child managed to live on 4s. a week.
“Women,” she added, “must organise as never before!”
On a drawing-room meeting was given at Harley-place by Dr. Handley Read and Dr. Constance Long, when Mr. Laurence Housman spoke on the necessity for Tax Resistance on the part of voteless women in order to make the Government realise the far-reaching spirit of revolt among all classes of women.
Speeches were also made by Dr. Constance Long, Mrs. [Margaret] Kineton Parks, and Mr. Vernon Compton.
On , Mrs. Skipwith, who lent her drawing-room in Montagu-square and presided over the meeting, said she had twice resisted her taxes and felt that the protests had been very valuable to the Cause.
Miss Abadam was the speaker, and made a most earnest appeal to women to realise their enormous responsibility if they continued to subscribe money to the Government under existing conditions.
The December monthly meeting will be held on at the offices of the League, 10, Talbot House, 98, St. Martin’s-lane.
Miss Winifred Holiday will preside, and members who have successfully evaded payment of taxation will give their experiences.
Tea will be served at , and the meeting will begin at .
Members are invited to bring friends.
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 .
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.”
When people are arrested, tried, or imprisoned for tax resistance, their comrades have sometimes used this as an occasion to hold rallies or other demonstrations.
This shows support for the people being persecuted, demonstrates determination in the face of government reprisals, and can be a good opportunity for propaganda.
Here are some examples:
When Russell Kanning was convicted for leafletting at the IRS office in Keene, New Hampshire, supporters demonstrated at the jail, holding up “Free Russell Kanning” signs.
Supporters of jailed war tax resister Russell Kanning protest near the IRS office in Keene, New Hampshire
During the Dublin water charge strike, according to one organizer:
“The campaign immediately took a decision that when any individual was summonsed to court, we would turn up and contest every case — and that we would turn up in force. …
And when the first court appearances took place, over 500 people turned up outside Rathfarnham courthouse to support their neighbours.
We marched to the courthouse, had stirring speeches, several songs including ‘You’ll never Walk Alone’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and an amazing sense of our unbeatability.”
Sylvia Hardy, an elderly woman from Exeter, refused to pay her council tax, calling it highway robbery that the tax rates have risen by double-digits per year, while her pension rises at only 1.7% annually.
When she was summonsed to court, she walked alongside banner-waving supporters and was met by a crowd of supporters outside the courthouse.
Another pensioner who refused to pay his council tax bill for similar reasons, David Richardson, was taken to court in .
About fifty supporters demonstrated outside, singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” for Richardson.
Brian Wright was the first person imprisoned for failure to pay Margaret Thatcher’s “Poll Tax” — 700 people held a rally outside the prison to show support.
Other prisons holding poll tax resisters were later picketed by protesters.
When J.J. Keon, a Socialist from Grafton, Illinois, was jailed for refusing to pay what he contended was an illegal poll tax in , Socialist Party spokesman Ralph Korngold came to town and gave a speech outside the prison urging people to join Keon in resisting and to ask why no rich tax dodgers were behind bars.
Maurice McCrackin was jailed for war tax resistance in .
While there, war tax resister Richard Fichter picketed the federal prison camp where he was held.
Before that, he’d picketed the courthouse where McCracken was being tried.
When the IRS took war tax resister Ed Hedemann to court in to try to force him to turn over financial documents to the agency, some 25 supporters, waving signs and handing out leaflets, joined him to demonstrate outside the courthouse before the hearing.
Prior to war tax resister Frank Donnelly’s sentencing on tax evasion charges in , dozens of supporters rallied outside the courthouse.
One supporter noted that “[i]n addition to showing up at his sentencing, Donnelly’s friends in Maine threw three ‘Going-Away-To-Jail Parties’ for Donnelly in the days leading up to his prison sentence.
In one party surprise, Donnelly cut into a fresh Maine blueberry pie, and he found a file baked into the pie.”
The women’s suffrage movement in the United Kingdom was particularly noted for its courthouse and jailhouse rallies:
When Clemence Housman was jailed for failure to pay about $1 of tax in — with the authorities telling her that they were authorized to keep her in jail until she paid up, however long that took — the Women’s Tax Resistance League held a protest outside the prison, and “gave three rousing cheers for Miss Housman, which… it is hoped reached the lonely prisoner in her cell.”
The league then organized a procession to the prison gates.
The four mile walk, over muddy streets on a rainy day, ended in a surprising victory, as the government had thrown in the towel and released Housman — without getting a penny from her — after five days.
When a Women’s Suffrage wagon full of activists descended on the courthouse where Janet Legate Bunten was being charged with refusal to take out a license for her dog, the authorities panicked.
“The court was twenty minutes late in taking its seat,” a sympathetic observer noted, “and it was freely rumoured that the reason of the delay was that more police were sent for to be in attendance before the proceedings began!
There certainly was an unusual number present for so insignificant a court.”
The Women’s Tax Resistance League organized “a great gathering” to support Kate Harvey who was charged with ten counts of failing to pay national insurance taxes on her gardener’s salary.
Following the sentence, they shouted “Shame!” to the judge, then held a “poster parade” to the town square and held a mass meeting there.
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.
