of the Cat and Mouse Act as adequate to deal with the situation and proposed to
proceed against WSPU subscribers by criminal and civil actions to make them
personally responsible for damage done so that insurance companies would seek
to recover their losses. ‘We have only been able to obtain this evidence [about
subscribers] by our now not infrequent raids upon the offices’, he proudly
boasted. ‘If the action is successful in the total destruction of the means of
revenue of the Women’s Social and Political Union’, he continued, ‘I think we
shall see the last of the power of Mrs. Pankhurst and her friends.’^40 ‘Mrs.
Pankhurst’ was not amused. ‘McKenna’s speech!!’ she wrote to Ethel. ‘He will
not let us die, you see, humane man, but will bring us to death’s door as often as
he can, and so hopes to make us permanent invalids. Well, we shall see!’^41
In the midst of these crises, the ‘problem’ of Sylvia appeared again for
Emmeline. Sylvia had decided that a new initiative should be launched to break
the deadlock with Asquith who insisted that the WSPU demand for a limited
franchise for women, based on a property qualification, was undemocratic, and
that the women’s movement had not attracted the masses. Sylvia’s suggestion to
her East London Federation that the members of a deputation to the Prime
Minister should be elected at large rallies, open to the public, which should also
decide upon the terms of the suffrage demand, was warmly welcomed. At huge
public meetings, an almost unanimous decision was made to demand a vote for
every woman over twenty-one years of age. When Sylvia wrote to Asquith,
asking him to receive the six working women representatives on the evening of
10 June or an earlier date, he refused. She then informed him that she would
repeat her hunger and thirst strike, in and out of prison, until he agreed to do so,
a move that her followers feared would cost her life. Too weak after her imprison-
ment to walk in the procession, Sylvia was carried on a stretcher and soon
arrested as police dashed in, using their truncheons freely in the ensuing struggle.
The march continued on its way and the working women representatives gained
admittance to the Commons, although Asquith refused to meet them. They did,
however, put their case to the Liberal Chief Whip and to other MPs.^42
After the failure of the procession, the East London Federation worked tire-
lessly to rally more support for their initiative, enlisting the help of the United
Suffragists whose members included well-known ex-WSPU supporters, such as
Henry Nevinson and Evelyn Sharp. Norah Smyth, acting in good faith, wrote
to Emmeline, imploring her to bring the WSPU into the campaign. Emmeline
was both angry and grieved. She sharply replied to Norah that the East London
Federation’s actions were not in conformity with WSPU policy and also
suggested that the imprisoned Sylvia should not risk her health by continuing
with her threatened hunger and thirst strike when released. ‘Tell her I advise
her when she comes out of prison to go home and let her friends take care of
her.’ Norah was shocked by the reply while Sylvia scolded her for sending a
letter to her mother. ‘Did you not understand in Paris that no family or other
considerations are permitted to intervene?’^43 The bitter Sylvia did not know
that her mother was plagued with pangs of maternal guilt, at least for a short
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