Dec. 14, 1911, about three weeks after he had received the
suffragists, and in the course of his remarks to them he said: "As an
individual I am in entire agreement with you that the grant of the
Parliamentary Vote to women in this country would be a political
mistake of a very disastrous kind." This went far to invalidate the
fair-seeming promises to us given about three weeks earlier. How could
a man in the all-important position of Prime Minister pledge himself
to use all the forces at the disposal of the Government to pass in all
its stages through both houses a measure which might include the
perpetration of "a political mistake of a very disastrous kind"? A
member of Mr. Asquith's own party who took part in the anti-suffrage
deputation interpreted this expression of his chief as an S.O.S. call
to his followers in the House to deliver him from the humiliation of
having to fulfil the promises he had given us. Every kind of intrigue
and trick known to the accomplished parliamentarian was put into
operation. Every Irish Nationalist vote was detached from support of
the Bill. A description of one of these discreditable devices, among
them an attempt to hold up the N.U.W.S.S. to public contempt as
purveyors of "obscene" literature, will be found in a book by myself
called The Women's Victory and After, published in 1920.

The first result of these intrigues was the defeat of the
Conciliation Bill, by 14 votes only, on March 28, 1912. This was
hailed as an immense triumph by the anti-suffragists, as indeed in a
sense it was, for exactly the same bill had been carried by the same
House in 1911 by a majority of 167; but it was a triumph which cost
the victors dear, especially when the tricks and perversions of truth
came to light by which it had been achieved. From this time forward
public opinion was more decided in our favour and the general view was
that the Government had treated us shabbily.

The progress made by the Government in pressing forward their
Electoral Reform Bill was not rapid. When it was at last introduced it
was discovered to be not a Reform Bill, but in the main a Registration
Bill. In the second reading debate Mr. Asquith described his Bill as
one to enfranchise "male persons only," and said in regard to women
that he could not conceive that the House would "so far stultify
itself as to reverse the considered judgment it had already arrived
at" earlier in the session. It was a "considered judgment" t