SUFFRAGISTS IN PRISON. (Hansard, 20 June 1912)

§ Mr. KEIR HARDIE
I desire to refer to the question which was raised during Question time this afternoon on the case of the women political prisoners and the action of the Home Office in differentiating between one class of political prisoner and another. The House will remember that the leaders of the women's suffrage movement were sent to nine months' imprisonment for inciting others to commit offences, and that subsequently to the sentences being pronounced the Home Secretary removed the three prisoners from the second division, to which they had been committed, and is having them treated as first-class misdemeanants. He did so, I believe, on the understanding that the three accused persons should give an undertaking that they would not abuse the privilege of being treated as first-class misdemeanants by conducting the movement while they were in prison.

§ Mr. KEIR HARDIE
Then, I understand, the undertaking was that they would not incite others to commit acts of violence during the time they were confined in prison. A demand has since been made that the rank and file of the movement, who had carried out the instructions of the leaders, and were 1972 sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying from two to six months, should also be transferred to the first division. The Home Secretary refused to make the transfer, and we are entitled to ask why, if the leaders who gave the advice which the rank and file carried out are to receive special treatment, the others should not also do so? When the matter was first raised in this House the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent (Mr. John Ward) asked the Home Secretary whether there would be any distinction of class in connection with these prisoners, and whether rich women would not receive special treatment, or the poorer women receive inferior treatment. The Home Secretary at once gave an undertaking that that should not be the case. I submit that one reason why the leaders were treated as they have been, and the rank and file were treated differently, is because the leaders moved in higher social circumstances for the most part. I hope the House will agree, if a political offence is to receive special treatment—as I hold it should—that that special treatment should apply impartially to the rank and file alike. The result of the refusal to transfer the rank and file to the First Division is that a hunger strike has again broken out. I would ask the House to remember that the object which the hunger strikers have in view is to secure that their treatment shall be that usually accorded to political prisoners in all other countries and now being accorded to their own leaders. The Home Secretary may reply that if this concession is now made it will be followed by other demands. That is a possibility which I am not called upon to discuss. We are called upon to discuss the particular case now before us, which is that the rank and file offenders shall be placed in the same category as their leaders. May I mention to the House what forcible feeding means. We are told it is frequently applied to lunatics and to persons who are too weak to take food in the ordinary way. But these cases are entirely different from that of the women who 1973 refuse to take food in order to accomplish a certain end, and who violently resist the insult that is heaped upon them by this method of forcible feeding. Already one man has gone mad under the treatment. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] I do not want to go into controversial points. I thought the point was universally admitted. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] It is by those who know the facts.

§ Mr. McKENNA
There was a special inquiry.

§ Mr. KEIR HARDIE
I will leave that for a moment. I do not wish to raise controversial points. The man went mad under forcible feeding. [Laughter.] If hon. Gentlemen find that a joke I do not envy them their sense of humour. [An HON. MEMBER: "The Home Secretary denied it."] I am not concerned with what the Home Secretary denies; I am concerned with the facts of the case. Will the House allow me to refer to a case, the facts of which have been supplied to the Home Secretary on more than one occasion, as illustrating what forcible feeding under the present administration may mean. One lady was sentenced in connection with the women's movement to a term of imprisonment on 9th March. She took part in the hunger strike. It commenced on the Tuesday following her conviction. On the Wednesday the prison medical officer, Dr. Sullivan, decided to have her forcibly fed. The lady pointed out that to feed her by the nose, which is the usual method, was a physical impossibility owing to a fracture, but despite that the medical officer and the attendant three successive times forced the food down from the nostril, but it came out through the mouth. I ask the House to realise the horror of that kind of thing for a refined lady. It is no use asking why she did not take it. The point is that the strike was on. [An HON. MEMBER: "She was a blackleg."] The point is the terrible method of feeding by the nostrils and never by the mouth. Surely even those who laugh at a case like this will admit that if feeding by the nose was found to be impossible, the mouth method ought to have been tried. On the next day four separate attempts were again made, and then had to be given up, blood and mucus coming from the woman's mouth as a consequence of the efforts. I ask the House of Commons is this the kind of thing to be made a joke of and treated as a matter of no account? The 1974 leaders of the movement themselves who are receiving forcible feeding are joining with the rank and file in the hunger strike. Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, when committed to prison, had this letter sent on her behalf from her medical attendant to the prison doctor. Dr. Katherine Chapman, who has been Mrs. Pethick Lawrence's medical attendant for some time, wrote as follows:— I have known Mrs. Pethick Lawrence for some years and know that she has a chronic gastric condition which from time to time becomes acute. A few months ago I had her under my care, when she was suffering from ulceration, and she exhibited symptoms of gastric ulcer. She was somewhat relieved by treatment, but I believe the condition is still latent, as some of the symptoms remain. I trust the contingency of forcible feeding will not arise; but in the event of such an experiment being tried on Mrs. Lawrence, I can safely say, without fear of exaggeration, that her life will be placed in immediate danger. I ask the Home Secretary whether he is prepared to take the risk which that condition of things implies by insisting upon forcible feeding rather than transfer the rank and file who are in prison to the same status as their leaders. [An HON. MEMBER: "Threats."] There are no threats about it. I am alluding to the Report of the responsible medical authority pointing out what may be the consequences. She has pleaded several, times for permission to see Mrs. Lawrence. That has been refused. Mrs. Pankhurst has on several occasions asked that her medical adviser shall be allowed to see her. That has been refused. [An HON. MEMBER: "Quite right, rich woman."] Unfortunately, Mrs. Pankhurst is not a rich woman. She works for her living, and earns it. I want to ask the House whether it is prepared to say that these women, rich and poor alike, are to be subject to this kind of treatment. The Home Secretary has the matter in his own hands. If one of these women should happen to die under this treatment no justification whatever will satisfy the people of England that such an occurrence should be allowed to take place because of the harsh administration of the law and the refusal of the Home Office to treat leaders and followers alike and have them all consigned to the first division.

§ Mr. McKENNA
I am afraid, in reply, I shall have to express myself somewhat shortly, and I hope the hon. Member will not think I am unduly curt. He has given me notice of a number of other points that he has raised, but the particular case in which he described circumstances of particular cruelty he has given me no notice of, and in the absence 1975 of any further information on the subject he must forgive me if I do not accept his statements until I am able to verify or contradict them. He has raised the case of Mr. Ball, who, he alleges, went mad through forcible feeding. That charge was made in this House, and in consequence of it we had an independent medical inquiry, and the doctor found that Mr. Ball did not go mad in consequence of the forcible feeding.

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
Why was he removed to the asylum?

§ Mr. LANSBURY
The man never went mad in prison until he was brutally and. cruelly fed under the prison treatment. Everyone knows that.

§ Mr. McKENNA
rose—

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
Why was he removed from the prison to the madhouse?

§ Mr. LANSBURY
Of course he went mad after you forcibly fed him. [An HON. MEMBER: "Keep quiet."]

§ Mr. McKENNA
Hon. Members expressed a desire that an independent medical inquiry should be held. The conclusion of that inquiry was as here stated—

§ Mr. T. M. HEALY
Did he find what drove him mad?

§ Mr. McKENNA
If the hon. Member would put a question on the Paper I will give him the fullest information on the subject. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil charged me with having drawn a distinction between rich and poor. As a matter of fact among those who are called the rank and file there is one rich enough to buy up all the rest. There is no distinction made between rich and poor as regards forcible feeding in those cases. Whether they are leaders or rank and file precisely the same course will be taken as in other cases. If the medical adviser of the prison advises me that the state of health of any of the prisoners is such that forcible feeding could not be administered with safety forcible feeding will not be administered, but in every other case, be they leaders or rank and file forcible feeding will be adopted if they do not take their food in the ordinary way. What is the case that the hon. Member brings forward in regard to Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and the hunger strikers, who at 1976 the same time provide my hon. Friend with a medical certificate, which I am asked to accept as an assurance to me that she is not fit to be forcibly fed, in order that I may destroy in her case the prison rules. There is not much courage in a hunger strike dictated by the leaders on those terms. If the medical adviser of Holloway Prison advises me that Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence or Mrs. Pankhurst, or any of the rank and file are not in a state to be forcibly fed, I will deal with them as with others. But if they can stand it they will have to submit, as the doctor is bound to submit them to such measures as will secure that they shall remain in life. They cannot be allowed in prison to starve themselves. We can never allow a prisoner, by refusing food, to be the cause of his own destruction. The hon. Member describes them as political offenders. A political motive neither aggravates nor extenuates an offence. They are committed to prison for having broken the law. We do not recognise in the law of this country political offenders. They must undergo their term of punishment like any other prisoners; they must submit to the ordinary prison rules, and they will receive the same consideration upon the merits of every case as would be given to any other prisoners who have committed a like offence. The hon. Gentleman stated, it is true, that before Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence and Mrs. Pankhurst were placed in the first division they had given assurances that they would not use the privileges which they received to renew the offence. Upon that undertaking I placed them in the first division upon the advice of the judge, who told me that he would have placed them in the first division on his own responsibility when passing sentence if they had given him that undertaking at the trial. No similar circumstances exist in the case of the other offenders. They are not charged with inciting others, and so long as they remain in prison they cannot break the windows of inoffensive tradesmen; but I have said this to them, that if any of them will give me an assurance that they will not again break the law they shall be free of prison to-morrow.