should have their lives made as secure a possible) ... that we ought to
go right to the root of the matter and see that those who have the
responsibility of the future, the women of the country, the mothers of
the nation, whose employment costs so much risk of human life,
should be made absolutely secure.With prophetic words, she closed her speech crying, ‘We believe that this cause
of the emancipation of women is not only the greatest cause in the Twentieth
Century, but we believe it is also the most urgent and the most necessary.’^44
Such arguments held some sway. The Second Conciliation Bill had gained
wide-spread support throughout the country, resolutions in its favour had been
passed by eighty-six city, town and urban district councils; even the ILP, from
which Emmeline had resigned four years earlier, had passed a resolution calling
for an ‘immediate settlement of the question of the enfranchisement of women
on the same terms as men’.^45 The bill passed its second reading on Friday, 5
May, by the enormous majority of 167. When Emmeline announced the news at
a vast meeting held that evening at Kensington Town Hall, there were
prolonged and enthusiastic cheers. ‘Let us make up our minds to-night to put all
else aside’, she pleaded with her audience, ‘and to work as we have never
worked before’ in order to make certain that facilities for the bill were granted
this session of parliament.^46
When Asquith had pledged in the autumn of 1910 that, if a Liberal govern-
ment were returned to power, facilities would be given for a women’s suffrage
measure, he was careful to say that this would be in the next parliament, not in
the next session. This was an anxious time for Emmeline. She wrote to
Elizabeth Robins on 26 May, ‘So far nothing but rumours as to the Govt’s inten-
tions!!!’ Elizabeth had been trying to arrange for the WSPU leader and Ethel
Smyth to visit her that weekend, but it was impossible, Emmeline insisted since
Ethel was busy while she was not spending the weekend with the Lawrences at
Holmwood but had engagements in London. ‘Perhaps when you come to
London for the 17th we could lunch together. If you will eat with me I’ll try to
secure her.’^47
Emmeline, who had been somewhat chilly when she first met Ethel was now
involved in what Ethel termed ‘the deepest and closest of friendships’.^48 Ethel’s
country cottage, namedCoign, was a frequent retreat for the WSPU leader, a
place where she could relax and talk over her anxieties with a trusted comrade
and share home comforts. The only other inhabitants at the cottage were a
large, shaggy, grey, Old English sheep-dog called Pan, and a rather quiet, middle-
class housekeeper. Aileen Preston remembered that in the early summer of 1911
she often drove the WSPU leader toCoign. ‘It was a wonderful trip. Dr. Ethel
could improvise, and keep Mrs. Pankhurst perhaps an hour or an hour and a
half, perfectly happy just sitting in her drawing-room, playing to her.’ Although
Ethel was no great singer, she was well known for her versatility when seated at
a piano where she could play a variety of orchestral parts and sing the various
THE TRUCE RENEWED