Mr. Asquith’s Government to prevent Mrs. Pankhurst from doing a 100 per
cent efficient piece of reconstruction work, both here and in Europe, they were
making another mistake’.^4 No stranger to controversy, Emmeline was unruffled
by the incident as she prepared to travel north, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, in
order to begin a long winter journey to Victoria and then Vancouver, Canada,
where she was to speak under the auspices of the Women’s Canadian Club.
Arriving in Vancouver in late November, Emmeline received a warm
welcome from the club women who held a reception in honour of ‘one to
whom thanks is due for woman suffrage, in the British Empire, at least’.^5
Representatives were there not only from the Women’s Canadian Club but
also from the Women’s New Era League, Woman’s Forum, Women’s
Conservative Association, Women’s Liberal Association, and the Widows,
Wives and Mothers of Great Britain’s Heroes’ Association. The themes of her
talks in the city were similar to those she had been delivering for the last few
years. Thus on 27 November, she spoke to a packed theatre of 1,200 on ‘Class
co-operation versus class war’. It was an ‘inspiring address’, interrupted with
‘frequent outbursts of applause’, claimed the Victoria Daily Times. ‘Mrs.
Pankhurst brought all the oratorial fire and enthusiasm with which she gained
the admiration of both supporter and opponent during her long and strenuous
campaign for women’s suffrage ... the gospel of Imperialism could have no
better disciple than this clever woman.’
Emmeline opened her address by stating her belief in the greatness of the
British Empire ‘and in its duty and responsibility to the rest of the world’. She
then went on to decry the class war which was evident in all corners of the
globe and, in particular, expounded how the cult of Karl Marx had inspired
Bolshevism, which was ‘the absolute negation of everything we have been
taught to look upon as right in our civilization – patriotism, religion, family life
and the relationship between father and child, husband and wife’. The prole-
tariat, as the lower classes call themselves, she continued, say they cannot hope
to rise to the level of the middle class or bourgeoisie and so must drag the bour-
geoisie down so that both ‘wallow in a common misery’. ‘I take issue at once
with that theory’, cried Emmeline, amid applause. ‘I say it is possible to level up
the masses to the place of the middle class.’ In conclusion, she appealed for co-
operation by the people of the British Empire against the monster of
Bolshevism, outlining her plan for an improvement in social conditions in a
society based on Christian ideals.^6
This was Emmeline’s fourth tour of Canada and her warnings about
Bolshevism and class conflict had a particular edge. As Mitchell notes, despite
the many parades during the spring and summer to welcome back Canadian
troops who had fought bravely, especially at Ypres, in the Battle of the Somme,
and in the offensive of 1918 that finally broke German resistance, there was a
profound discontent amongst the people, partly inspired by the socialist revolu-
tion in Russia. The civic authorities had reacted with alarm to a spate of strikes,
and brought in federal police and troops to crush them. Between 1896 and
LECTURER IN NORTH AMERICA