Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/160

 they and others, who formed a large and important delegation to the then Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, were told that no pledge could be made on behalf of the Liberal Government that a measure for woman suffrage would be introduced by it during its lifetime, the members of the Social and Political Union determined on open warfare against the Government. They were fortified in their decision by the Prime Minister, himself a sympathiser with the aims of the women, who recommended them to 'pester' those responsible for the opposition to this question. The first acts of militancy took the form of questioning Cabinet Ministers at their public meetings. Sometimes these questions were courteously answered, but generally they were tossed aside by the chairman with laughter, or with words calculated to wound or enrage the questioner. Frequently the women who questioned were roughly put out of the meetings. Then when they found they could get no serious answers to their questions the women turned to heckling the Ministers, and interjected, after the fashion of men, more or less relevant observations. For this they were brutally handled by enraged stewards, and suffered every indignity at their hands. Some were charged, sentenced, and imprisoned for creating disturbances for which they were really not responsible.