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Lord Pethick Lawrence will speak about the women's suffrage agitation of the early part of the century and give his opinion on its results, Lord Pethick Lawrence. It is exactly 40 years since my wife and I founded the newspaper Votes For Women to support the militant suffrage movement. It ran from 1907 to 1918, when victory was won. During that period

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great events in the campaign took place, tens of thousands of public meetings were held. One demonstration alone in Hyde Park was estimated by the Press at over a quarter of a million persons. A thousand women in protest against their exclusion from citizenship defied the law and suffered imprisonment. Many of them undertook the hunger strike in

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prison and were subjected to forcible feeding and later to the provisions of the Cat and Mouse Act. My wife was arrested and imprisoned several times and she and I were both arrested, together with the Mrs Pankhurst, in 1912 on a charge of conspiracy and sentenced to nine months imprisonment, though we did not serve the full term owing to our adoption of the hunger strike.

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When war broke out in 1914 women suspended their agitation and in 1918 a bill including women in the franchise passed both houses and received the Royal assent in 1928 a further Act was passed conferring full equality of franchise on the sexes. I am frequently asked today whether women's votes have promoted the interests of women

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and brought general benefit to the country; without hesitation I answer emphatically 'yes'. Today all the professions, and nearly all industrial vocations, are open to women and in the recent War they played a decisive part. Infant mortality is less than half what it was 40 years ago.

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Children's allowances are provided by law, comprehensive insurance is the right of all. Though much still remains to be done. Women, as an equal sovereign half of the human race, share with men the dangers, the responsibilities, the duties and the rights of our common humanity. These are the achievement of the successful 'Women's Revolution'

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and my wife and I are happy that we were privileged to play our part in it.