By six o’clock, about 60,000 people had assembled in front of the platform
built in the gardens of the Ministry of Munitions. Emmeline was inside, having
led the deputation to Lloyd George. She put her case ‘clearly and concisely’,
reported theDaily Chronicle, and there was no mention of the vote. ‘We want to
make no bargain to serve our country’, the astute WSPU leader insisted. A roar
of cheering went up when Emmeline, Lloyd George and other members of the
deputation came out onto the platform.^56 A jovial and accommodating Minister
of Munitions welcomed the deputation, congratulating them on the procession
and humorously pointing out that he had been a victim on occasions of the
organising capacity of women which was so amply demonstrated that day. He
also explained that although the government had agreed to pay the same rate of
wage for piece-work to women as to men, Mrs. Pankhurst had asked for more
than that, namely the same rate of wages for time-work. A confident Emmeline,
determined not to be putty in the hands of the Munitions Minister, immediately
interrupted him, expanding on her point that equal pay for time-work was a
means to prevent the sweating of women in munitions factories; untrained and
unskilled women could not be expected to turn out as much as the skilled men
they replaced and were in danger of working longer hours in trying to do so. An
amiable Lloyd George regretted that the government could not grant equal pay
for time-work but gallantly emphasised that ‘Mrs. Pankhurst is perfectly right in
insisting that there should be a fixed minimum, which would guarantee that we
should not utilise the services of women in order to get cheap labour.’^57
The cordial relationship between the Minister of Munitions and the WSPU
leader was commented upon favourably by the press, including the New York
Journalwhich ran the headline ‘The Ablest Woman, the Ablest Man in
England, Once They Were Enemies, War Has Made Them Friends’.^58 The day
after the procession, the press carried an article by Emmeline that expanded
further her views about the importance of equal pay, and her vision for the
future. ‘If at the end of this war there can be ushered in, for the benefit of men
and women alike, a reign of liberty, equality, fraternity, to adopt the three
watchwords of our allies the French, then we shall find ourselves in the essen-
tials of life not poorer, but infinitely richer than we have ever been before.’^59
Her message struck a resonant chord in the British public. She was hailed as a
patriotic heroine, a national asset in the country’s hour of need, praise that
grated with her pacifist daughters. Sylvia had already written to Lloyd George
trying to secure, without success, pledges as to equal pay for both piece-work
and time-work. Adela had joined the recently formed Women’s Peace Party.
While her mother often ended rallies such as that of 17 July by joining in the
singing of the National Anthem, Adela’s peace meetings usually closed with the
singing of the American anti-war ditty, ‘I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier / I
brought him up to be my pride and joy / Who dares to put a musket on his
shoulder / To kill some other mother’s darling boy?’^60
Emmeline’s estrangement from her two youngest daughters must have
brought her sadness and, perhaps, partly accounts for her decision earlier in the
WAR WORK AND A SECOND FAMILY