those of others pressing for women’s war work came to fruition when, on 18
March 1915, the Board of Trade issued a circular calling upon women able and
willing to work to enter their names in a new Register of Women for War
Service with a view to meeting both the present and future needs of national
industry during the conflict.^33 A week later, when she was in Paris to greet
Christabel who had just returned from America, Emmeline told Nancy Astor
that the government’s decision to mobilise women widened the scope of the
WSPU which would hold special women’s meetings to get them to enlist. ‘As
we are engaging halls now I shall be glad if Mr. Astor can let us have his
promised cheque to meet these expenses’, she stated tactfully. Emmeline also
explained how The Suffragettewould be relaunched to give a clear lead to
women. ‘Their natural love of peace is causing some suffragists to take action
greatly to be deprecated. They are being made use of by very dreadful people
without knowing it. This must be counteracted & the “Suffragette” will be
useful for the purpose.’^34
The theme of women suffragists and peace was very much in Emmeline’s
mind at this time since the well-known English pacifist, Emily Hobhouse, and
some Dutch suffragists were organising an International Congress of Women to
be held in The Hague from 28 until 30 April, in the hope of bringing peace.
The decision split in two the women’s movement world-wide. In Britain,
Millicent Garrett Fawcett of the NUWSS promptly condemned the move, as
did Emmeline. ‘[I]f you take part in any of these peace movements, you are
playing the German game and helping Germany. ... It is for us to show a strong
and determined front’, she pronounced to loud applause at a speech delivered in
Liverpool.^35 For Emmeline, further salt was rubbed into her wounds since Sylvia
announced her intention of attending the conference while Adela also adhered
to its aims. Emmeline had already been outspoken about what she termed ‘the
peace-at-any-price crowd’ and emphasised that suffragettes supported the war so
that ‘for generations to come we may be spared war’.^36 She now lost no time in
making her views public again to the press which applauded the stand she took.
When interviewed by the Sunday Pictorialabout the peace conference, she
forcefully replied, ‘It is unthinkable that English-women should meet German
women to discuss terms of peace while the husbands, sons and brothers of those
women are the men who are murdering our men on the seas and who have
committed the awful horrors of the war in Belgium and elsewhere.’ The reporter
firmly endorsed Emmeline’s views, including her public disapproval of Sylvia’s
intention to be present. ‘It is the act of a true citizen, of a mother who deserves
well of the State.’^37
The Home Secretary, McKenna, once Emmeline’s old enemy, now found
himself in agreement with her views and so contrived to prevent British women
travelling to the International Congress. Before the war, British travellers could
travel abroad without a passport but fears about spying and other undesirable
wartime activity led to the introduction of passports. When Sylvia applied for a
passport to attend the conference, her application was refused while permission
WAR WORK AND A SECOND FAMILY