[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Two London publications, in particu-32t h e s o u t h a f r i c a n wa r a n d a f t e r , 18 9 9 – 19 0 6lar, reveal the impact of opposition to the war on radical suffragists’ think-ing.An evening newspaper, the Echo, purchased early in 1899 by FrederickPethick Lawrence, barrister and radical, after a visit to South Africa per-suaded him that the British government was inciting unrest among its sub-jects in the Transvaal, provided daily coverage and assessments of the grow-ing crisis.The New Age, subtitled “A Weekly Record of Christian Culture,Social Service, and Literary Life,” offered a range of progressive opinion onthe implications of the war for Britons, Afrikaners, Africans, and other peopleof color in South Africa.38These publications not only produced a critique of the war and of the cyn-icism of the British government’s exploitation of the franchise issue but alsoexpanded prevailing understandings of citizenship and voting rights.Warwould be desirable, the Echo argued in September 1899, if the British onlysought to avenge earlier military defeats at the hands of the Afrikaners.Agovernment serious about gaining political rights for British working menin the Cape Colony would use arbitration rather than military force.39 InJune 1899, the New Age asserted that “democracy demands enfranchisementeverywhere” and suggested that any attempt to enfranchise the Uitlanders bemet with a struggle on behalf of those Indians in the Cape Colony who hadlost their rights in 1886.40 By August, the journal admonished that democ-racy meant “the rule of all the people, by all the people, for all the people,regardless of race, of colour, of sex, or any of those distinctions which haveheretofore prevailed, and served to divide the people, and render the manysubordinate to the few.”41 A subsequent editorial urged enfranchised whitemen in South Africa—Afrikaner and Briton—to extend the franchise to in-digenous Africans, thus demonstrating that Britons “interpret civilisation asthe art of living together.” 42These newspapers took up the question of women’s enfranchisementwith a new urgency, foreshadowing the tenor and rhetoric of much early mil-itant suffragism.As early as July 1899, an article on “The Woman Question”in the New Age made an analogy between the condition of British women andthe Uitlanders.The following week, the same column suggested that womenform a “‘deeds not words’ secret society,” and vow “to do justice, love, andmercy.”43 In September 1899, the column “Woman’s World” suggested thatBritish women watched not only the Uitlanders but also their own leaders forpolitical guidance: “Our statesmen [are] showing us that they consider thequestion of the political enfranchisement of the Outlander a matter of su-preme importance.They tell us that the unenfranchised must inevitably bewronged or stultified.” Regardless of the war’s outcome, the article urged, thisexample “should cause [women] to rise in mass and claim their own rights.”44Indeed, opposition to the war among radical suffragists would provide im-petus for militant action.Dora Montefiore, a onetime Liberal turned social-ist activist, developed an analysis of women’s relationship to the state duringthe war that would have significant consequences for the future of the suf-frage movement.45 Early in the conflict, Montefiore published an influential33t h e m i l i ta n t s u f f r a g e m ov e m e n tessay in the Ethical World, a weekly paper edited jointly by Stanton Coit, min-ister of the South Place Ethical Society, and J.A.Hobson, known for his vig-orous denunciation of capitalist interests in South Africa as the instigators ofwar.46 Montefiore drew an analogy between the voteless women in Britainand the Uitlanders, the difference between their subjection being one of du-ration.She conceded that the five- to seven-year waiting period negotiatedfor the Uitlanders was politically unacceptable to the British government;nevertheless, she reminded her readers, British women who acted as citizenswould never attain citizen rights at home
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]