Meeting at Steinway Hall

Extract from report from a police observer at a suffragette meeting held on 23 February 1911 (MEPO 3/203)

Transcript

Metropolitan Police
Marylebone Lane Station
“D” Division

February 23rd 1911.

Notes taken from a suffragette meeting held at the Steinway Hall on the 23rd. inst. at 8.pm under the auspices of the Womens Social and Political Union.

Mrs. Tuke, in the chair opened the meeting by welcoming new comers and explaining the meaning and the urgency of the Vote. Mrs Pertwee then addressed the meeting.

The other day a very determined anti-suffragette said to me, what do you think you can do with the vote when you get it, and I said when we do get it we shall concentrate our energies on the home. This brought a very sarcastic rejoinder, “the Cause first and the home anywhere”. It seems to me the two things are synonymous as the Cause is the home and the home is the Cause. A Member of Parliament told me that until women get the vote we shall get no good social legislation whatever. One begins to wonder what gagging Mr. Asquith will have in his mind on the 5th. of May, but one thing is certain and that is that we shall not be gagged. Women are ready to march in battalions on this crusade for liberty and justice. Now is the time to work, we have a majority of 264 in the House in our favour, and every hand should be at the wheel and there should be no slackness. The Actresses’ Franchise League are going to have a lorry in Hyde Park next to the anti-suffragettes, and they are going to have also Concerts and meetings in the East end.

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