Sir,
On my return home after some weeks absence, I have read in your columns a report of the Suffragist meeting held on 30th January.

I notice that the meeting was held under the auspices of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. It was claimed for this body that it was non-militant and non-party, but apparently this claim was put forward by the chairman of the meeting, and by the chairman only. None of the speakers seem to have thought it worth while to urge this claim – possibly from notives of discretion. It was left for Mr McNeill Martin to refer to this omission which he thought was a great pity. Personally, I think it was more that a pity. It was an evasion. It was the duty of the speakers to show that the Union they represented came before the public with clean hands, to point to instances in which the Societies concerned had denounced and reprobated the senseless and cruel outrages which have been inflicted on all classes by the hysterical hooligans who glory in the debasement of their sex as a means of attaining the vote. I am aware that there have been sporadic cases of individuals belonging to this or that society, expressing their disapproval of the action of the militant section. But in all such cases as have come to my notice, the outrages have been deplored as hindering the case of Woman Suffrage. This seems to have been the main, if not the sole, reason for the censure. The inherent wickedness and folly of the acts themselves have not been condemned, but emphasis has been laid on the bad tactics of the lawbreakers in exasperating public opinion. So might a man denounce dishonesty on the ground that it does not pay.
Further, the claim of the National Union to be non-party requires elucidation. It was announced not long ago that the Union had decided to support the Labour candidate in future elections, inasmuch as the Labour Party was the only one that put forward Woman Suffrage as a plank in their platform. This simply means that Unionist Woman Suffrage are to throw over their principles as Unionists and to make common cause with a party that is in favour of Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment, and Universal Suffrage – a party that opposes the maintenance of a strong Navy and that loses no opportunity of belittling the Army. Surely this is party politics; nay more, it is a prostituted form of party politics, commonly called ‘log-rolling’.
A man who recently was convicted of firing a haystack was sentenced to five years imprisonment, from which ‘hunger-striking’ will not save him. A woman can burn down a historical house with its priceless art treasures and simply because of her sex is released after a few days’ incarceration. There is certainly inequality in the law as regards man and woman, which in this connection at least might well be redressed.
Yours faithfully
C A Edes
6th February 1914