Press Cuttings | Page 2

Votes for monkeys! (He posts himself on the hearthrug, and
awaits the enemy.)
THE ORDERLY (outside). In you go. (He pushes a panting Suffraget
into the room.) The person sir. (He withdraws.)
The Suffraget takes off her tailor made skirt and reveals a pair of
fashionable trousers.
MITCHENER (horrified). Stop, madam. What are you doing? You
must not undress in my presence. I protest. Not even your letter from
the Prime Minister--
THE SUFFRAGET. My dear Mitchener: I AM the Prime Minister. (He
tears off his hat and cloak; throws them on the desk; and confronts the
General in the ordinary costume of a Cabinet minister.)
MITCHENER. Good heavens! Balsquith!

BALSQUITH (throwing himself into Mitchener's chair). Yes: it is
indeed Balsquith. It has come to this: that the only way that the Prime
Minister of England can get from Downing Street to the War Office is
by assuming this disguise; shrieking "VOTES for Women"; and
chaining himself to your doorscraper. They were at the corner in force.
They cheered me. Bellachristina herself was there. She shook my hand
and told me to say I was a vegetarian, as the diet was better in
Holloway for vegetarians.
MITCHENER. Why didnt you telephone?
BALSQUITH. They tap the telephone. Every switchboard in London is
in their hands or in those of their young men.
MITCHENER. Where on Earth did you get that dress?
BALSQUITH. I stole it from a little Exhibition got up by my wife in
Downing Street.
MITCHENER. You dont mean to say its a French dress?
BALSQUITH. Great Heavens, no. My wife isnt allowed even to put on
her gloves with French chalk. Everything labelled Made in Camberwell.
She advised me to come to you. And what I have to say must be said
here to you personally, in the most intimate confidence, with the most
urgent persuasion. Mitchener: Sandstone has resigned.
MITCHENER (amazed). Old Red resigned!
BALSQUITH. Resigned.
MITCHENER. But how? Why? Oh, impossible! the proclamation of
martial law last Tuesday made Sandstone virtually Dictator in the
metropolis, and to resign now is flat desertion.
BALSQUITH. Yes, yes, my dear Mitchener; I know all that as well as
you do: I argued with him until I was black in the face and he so red
about the neck that if I had gone on he would have burst. He is furious

because we have abandoned his plan.
MITCHENER. But you accepted it unconditionally.
BALSQUITH. Yes, before we knew what it was. It was unworkable,
you know.
MITCHENER. I dont know. Why is it unworkable?
BALSQUITH. I mean the part about drawing a cordon round
Westminster at a distance of two miles; and turning all women out of it.
MITCHENER. A masterpiece of strategy. Let me explain. The
Suffragets are a very small body; but they are numerous enough to be
troublesome--even dangerous--when they are all concentrated in one
place--say in Parliament Square. But by making a two-mile radius and
pushing them beyond it, you scatter their attack over a circular line
twelve miles long. A superb piece of tactics. Just what Wellington
would have done.
BALSQUITH. But the women wont go.
MITCHENER. Nonsense: they must go.
BALSQUITH. They wont.
MITCHENER. What does Sandstone say?
BALSQUITH. He says: Shoot them down.
MITCHENER. Of course.
BALSQUITH. Youre not serious?
MITCHENER. Im perfectly serious.
BALSQUITH. But you cant shoot them down! Women, you know!
MITCHENER (straddling confidently). Yes you can. Strange as it may

seem to you as a civilian, Balsquith, if you point a rifle at a woman and
fire it, she will drop exactly as a man drops.
BALSQUITH. But suppose your own daughters--Helen and Georgina.
MITCHENER. My daughters would not dream of disobeying the
proclamation. (As an after thought.) At least Helen wouldnt.
BALSQUITH. But Georgina?
MITCHENER. Georgina would if she knew shed be shot if she didnt.
Thats how the thing would work. Military methods are really the most
merciful in the end. You keep sending these misguided women to
Holloway and killing them slowly and inhumanely by ruining their
health; and it does no good: they go on worse than ever. Shoot a few,
promptly and humanely; and there will be an end at once of all
resistance and of all the suffering that resistance entails.
BALSQUITH. But public opinion would never stand it.
MITCHENER (walking about and laying down the law). Theres no
such thing as public opinion.
BALSQUITH. No such thing as public opinion!!
MITCHENER. Absolutely no such thing as public opinion. There are
certain persons who entertain certain opinions. Well, shoot them down.
When you have shot them down, there are no longer any persons
entertaining those opinions alive: consequently there is no longer any
more of the public opinion you are so much afraid of. Grasp that fact,
my dear Balsquith; and you have grasped the