It is the fashion nowadays to attack Imperialism. Some talk about the
Empire and Imperialism as if it were something to decry and something
to be ashamed of. It seems to me that it is a great thing to be the inher-
itors of an Empire like ours ... [which is] great in territory, great in
potential wealth. ... If we can only realise and use that potential
wealth we can destroy thereby poverty, we can remove and destroy
ignorance, and we can create a people worthy to inherit this worthy
and magnificent Empire.Such an ideal could not be attained, Emmeline insisted, if class domination –
‘an enemy to real democracy’ – prevailed. ‘Some people have said that we may
see a Labour Government in this country. Well, we are not going to have that
or any other kind of class Government in the future.’ She continued, ‘Now that
we women have got the vote, we are going to have ... Governments formed,
without distinctions of class, without favour to any class, of the best citizens,
best in their instincts, best in their training, best in their experience to control
the affairs and destinies of this Empire of the future.’ She closed her speech by
calling upon the women in the audience to help the Women’s Party to achieve
these aims and to get rid of ‘this horrible, fanatical Bolshevism, which is seeking
to destroy the moral [sic] of the British people’.^64 Her hatred of Bolshevism, of
class consciousness, of class conflict, of the Labour Party had reached its apogee.
Never again would Emmeline turn her face to the socialism of men.
Emmeline was greatly relieved that the war was drawing to an end, an
armistice being called on 11 November. The carnage, especially amongst young
men in the trenches, had been horrendous. Ten million people had died and a
further twenty million had been mutilated.^65 There was scarcely a woman she
knew who had not lost a son, husband, relative or friend in a war that she, like
so many others, hoped would end all wars. The birth of Adela’s baby, a boy, as
the armistice was being agreed, was probably a bitter-sweet experience for
Emmeline; her renegade daughter, whom she had denounced on more than one
occasion, had named the child Richard, after her father.^66 The approaching
general election, however, barely gave Emmeline time to pause and think about
such matters since the Women’s Party sought to mobilise the new eight million
women voters.^67 Then suddenly Emmeline heard that Ethel Smyth, who was
back in England after service in Europe as a radiographer, was one of the thou-
sands stricken down by the influenza epidemic which was stretching the
medical services to the limit. Despite her hectic schedule, the loyal friend
arrived on Ethel’s doorstep with a nursing volunteer. When Ethel’s own doctor
pronounced her case as ‘very serious’, Emmeline promptly took command of the
situation and summoned Dr. Chetham Strode who devotedly attended, unpaid,
her own adopted children. It was to Dr. Strode ‘directly, and indirectly to Mrs.
Pankhurst’, that Ethel later claimed she owed her life.^68
Emmeline was now caught up in a flurry of excitement; parliament had
passed a bill which made women eligible to stand for election to the Commons,
LEADER OF THE WOMEN’S PARTY