s hopeless to have such bills introduced by
private members. _Women must turn their hopes to a bill introduced by the
government._ The present Liberal government needs only to treat the matter
seriously; then a woman's suffrage bill will be passed.

But the government has not treated the matter seriously; hence the
suffragettes have declared war. It is their determination to fight every
ministry which is not kindly disposed toward the suffrage movement.

The struggle is carried on by the following means: organization of
societies; meetings throughout the country; street parades and open air
meetings (especially significant are those of June 13 and 21, 1908); the
employment of first-class speakers, who make concise, clear, ingenious,
and stirring speeches; the raising of large sums of money (20,000 pounds,
_i.e._ $100,000 annually; there is a reserve fund of 50,000 pounds, _i.e._
$250,000); the publication of a well-managed periodical, _Votes for
Women_.[35]

The leaders are Mrs. and Miss Pankhurst, Mrs. Drummond, Annie Kenney, Mr.
and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence. These and the most determined of their
associates undertake to send deputations to the Liberal Prime Minister,
Mr. Asquith, and to ask the question in all public meetings in which
members of the Cabinet speak,--when will you give women the right to vote?

The deputations go to Parliament _because women, as taxpayers, have the
right to speak to the Prime Minister_, who continually receives
deputations of men. Since the Prime Minister does not wish to grant women
the right to vote, the deputations of women are prevented from entering
the Houses of Parliament by strong squads of police, both mounted and on
foot; and if the women do not desist from their attempt to make known to
the Prime Minister the resolutions of their meeting, they are arrested for
the disturbance of the peace, the interruption of traffic, or the
instigation of tumult and riot; they are arraigned in the _police court_
and are sentenced to imprisonment in the ordinary prisons. The Liberal
government stubbornly refuses to regard these women as political offenders
and to punish them as such.

The woman's suffrage advocates, who ask the Cabinet members questions in
public meetings, direct their questions to both friends and opponents of
woman's suffrage. For, they inquire, of what use are our friends to us if
they do nothing for us? The members of the English Cabinet have a joint
responsibility for t