Between the time of my return to England in 1901, and 1904, when I began my first public protest against the payment of income tax, while I still had no political representation, my mind was slowly maturing and my heart opening out on the subject of many social questions, besides that of the political vote. But my two children were at school and I lived mostly in the country or stayed with my mother at Hove, so there was little chance of working in London. But I was able, soon after the new Local Government Act, allowing women to sit on Parish and Urban District Councils, came into force to do some organising in Sussex for the Local Government Society in Tothill Street, and this work, undertaken voluntarily, gave me a great insight into the working of the Act. I visited during that time every class of person who was likely to be interested in the working of the Act, from cottagers to Bishops, and learnt how everyone was looking forward to better water supplies and better lighting for the villages, not to speak of parish halls, libraries and baths, of which the Act was full of suggestions; but, alas, when talking things over with those experienced in Local Government, I soon became convinced that it was merely the skeleton of an Act, whose dry bones must be clothed with money, if its provisions were effectually to be carried out. However, I obtained in the end promises from two or three women to stand for the Councils, though at the same time I had more than one angry interview with Chairmen of Councils who threatened to resign if women were ever elected; for they asserted it would be quite impossible to discuss questions of drainage with women present. After this experience I felt how deficient my knowledge of drainage, ventilation and kindred subjects was and I took a course of studies at the Health Society in Berners Street. I would recommend the course to any young woman who has a home of her own to look after, even if she does not contemplate sitting on a Council. I have never regretted having acquired the special knowledge that the course offers, either when there has been illness in the home, or when taking a new house, when I have surprised the landlord by pointed enquiries into drainage, cisterns for drinking water, flues of chimneys, etc....

I had already, during the Boer War, refused willingly to pay income tax, because payment of such tax went towards financing a war in the making of which I had had no voice. In 1904 and 1905 a bailiff had been put in my house, a levy of my goods had been made, and they had been sold at public auction in Hammersmith. The result as far as publicity was concerned was half a dozen lines in the corner of some daily newspapers, stating the fact that Mrs. Montefiore’s goods had been distrained and sold for payment of income tax; and there the matter ended. When talking this over in 1906 with Theresa Billington and Annie Kenney, I told them that now we had the organisation of the W.S.P.U. to back me up I would, if it were thought advisable, not only refuse to pay income tax, but would shut and bar my doors and keep out the bailiff, so as to give the demonstration more publicity and thus help to educate public opinion about the fight for the political emancipation of women which was going on. They agreed that if I would do my share of passive resistance they would hold daily demonstrations outside the house as long as the bailiff was excluded and do all in their power outside to make the sacrifice I was making of value to the cause. In May of 1906, therefore, when the authorities sent for the third time to distrain on my goods in order to take what was required for income tax, I, aided by my maid, who was a keen suffragist, closed and barred my doors and gates on the bailiff who had appeared outside the gate of my house in Upper Mall, Hammersmith, and what was known as the “siege” of my house began. As is well known, bailiffs are only allowed to enter through the ordinary doors. They may not climb in at a window and at certain hours they may not even attempt an entrance. These hours are from sunset to sunrise, and from sunset on Saturday evening till sunrise on Monday morning. During these hours the besieged resister to income tax can rest in peace. From the day of this simple act of closing my door against the bailiff, an extraordinary change came over the publicity department of daily and weekly journalism towards this demonstration of passive resistance on my part. The tradespeople of the neighbourhood were absolutely loyal to us besieged women, delivering their milk and bread, etc., over the rather high garden wall which divided the small front gardens of Upper Mall from the terraced roadway fronting the river. The weekly wash arrived in the same way and the postman day by day delivered very encouraging budgets of correspondence, so that practically we suffered very little inconvenience, and as we had a small garden at the back we were able to obtain fresh air. On the morning following the inauguration of the siege, Annie Kenney and Theresa Billington, with other members of the W.S.P.U., came round to see how we were getting on and to encourage our resistance. They were still chatting from the pavement outside, while I stood on the steps of No. 32 Upper Mall, when there crept round from all sides men with notebooks and men with cameras, and the publicity stunt began. These men had been watching furtively the coming and going of postmen and tradesmen. Now they posted themselves in front, questioning the suffragists outside and asking for news of us inside. They had come to make a “story” and they did not intend to leave until they had got their “story.” One of them returned soon with a loaf of bread and asked Annie Kenney to hand it up over the wall to my housekeeper, whilst the army of men with cameras “snapped” the incident. Some of them wanted to climb over the wall so as to be able to boast in their descriptions that they had been inside what they pleased to call “The Fort”; but the policeman outside (there was a police man on duty outside during all the six weeks of a siege) warned them that they must not do this so we were relieved in this respect, from the too close attention of eager pressmen. But all through the morning notebooks and cameras came and went, and at one time my housekeeper and I counted no less than twenty-two pressmen outside the house. A woman sympathiser in the neighbourhood brought during the course of the morning, a pot of home-made marmalade, as the story had got abroad that we had no provisions and had difficulty in obtaining food. This was never the case as I am a good housekeeper and have always kept a store cupboard, but we accepted with thanks the pot of marmalade because the intentions of the giver were so excellent; but this incident was also watched and reported by the Press. Annie Kenney and Theresa Billington had really come round to make arrangements for a demonstration on the part of militant women that afternoon and evening in front of the house, so at an opportune moment, when the Press were lunching, the front gate was unbarred and they slipped in. The feeling in the neighbourhood towards my act of passive resistance was so excellent and the publicity being give by the Press in the evening papers was so valuable that we decided to make the Hammersmith “Fort” for the time being the centre of the W.S.P.U. activities, and daily demonstrations were arranged for and eventually carried out. The road in front of the house was not a thoroughfare, as a few doors further down past the late Mr. William Morris’s home of “Kelmscott,” at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson, there occurred one of those quaint alley-ways guarded by iron posts, which one finds constantly on the borders of the Thames and in old seaside villages. The roadway was, therefore, ideal for the holding of a meeting, as no blocking of traffic could take place, and day in, day out the principles for which suffragists were standing we expounded to many who before had never even heard of the words Woman Suffrage. At the evening demonstrations rows of lamps were hung along the top of the wall and against the house, the members of the W.S.P.U. speaking from the steps of the house, while I spoke from one of the upstairs windows. On the little terrace of the front garden hung during the whole time of the siege a red banner with the letters painted in white: “Women should vote for the laws they obey and the taxes they pay.”

Dr. Octavia Lewin's refusal to take out a licence for her armorial bearings was followed by a visit, on March 27 th , to Marylebone Police Court. Here she took the opportunity to explain to Mr Plowden that her motive in refusing this tax was in order to protest against bearing the burdens of citizenship as long as she was denied its privileges. Mr Plowden characterised this attitude as "ineffably silly," a remark which was indignantly hissed by the members of the Women's Freedom League who were present. The fine of £10 which was imposed, presumely represents the damage to the state done by the appearance of an engraved stag's head on Dr Lewin's teaspoons without a licence. To some minds it would undoubtedly seem "ineffably silly" to part with £10 in order to uphold a principle, but it is the kind of silliness which makes for the righteousness of a people, and we hope to see more of it.

On Saturday, November 4, Mrs. Harvey of "Brackenhill", Highland Road, Bromley, Kent, gave a most successful drawing-room meeting to a new and appreciate audience. Mrs Harvey, who is a loyal supporter of Tax Resistance and had a quantity of her household silver sold in June last, took this opportunity of placing before her friends and neighbours the many reasons which led her to take this action. Mr. Laurence Houseman was the principal speaker, and gave an address of deep interest and instruction on Tax Resistance from the historical standpoint.

On Thursday in last week, a bailiff, accompanied by a Bromley tax-collector and a policeman, forcibly entered the resistance of Mrs Kate Harvey, of the Women's Freedom League. Mrs Harvey's is a Tax Resister and for eight months her house, Brackenhill, Highland Road, Bromley, Kent, has been in a state of siege, the doors being chained and padlocked, while numerous bills until women were politically enfranchised. After filing a chain bound round the garden gate, and three men went to the back door, forced the lock, and gained admittance. In the presence of Mrs Harvey's secretary and servants, a distraint was levied on the dinning-room furniture. Mrs Harvey herself was absent when this action was taken.

As a sequel to Mrs Harvey's imprisonment for non-payment of the insurance tax and licence for manservants, meetings are being held every Monday and Wednesday night in the Market Square, Bromley, by the Women's Tax Resistance League and Women's Freedom League, Mrs Harvey being a member of both Societies. On September 10 th Mrs Cobden Sanderson presided over an attentive meeting and explained Mrs Harvey's resistance on the grounds that representation should accompany taxation. She was followed by two Californian ladies, Mrs Wilks and Miss Grover-Smith, both of whom now enjoy the vote in their own country and voted in the recent election for President Wilson. Mrs Wilks in a Unitarian minister, and worked for the suffrage for fifty years. 

A largely attended meeting was held at the mound on Saturday afternoon, to protest against the "vindictive" sentence of two months imprisonment passed on Mrs Kate Harvey of the Women's Freedom League who refused to pay insurance tax on behalf of her gardener, Asquith. Dr Grace Cadell, herself an Insurance Tax resister, took the chair. Dr Cardell remarked that although she has not paid the fine imposed she is not yet imprisoned, presumably because of the Clerk of the Court is unable to answer her question as to how a "person" in the eyes of the law. The close of the meeting found the audience in entire sympathy with the speakers, and with three dissentients the following resolution was passed, and has been sent to Mr McKenna, Home Secretary: "That this meeting protests with indignation against the vindictive sentences passed on voteless women and especially that on Mrs Harvey, and demands that the Government accord equal treatment to men and women under the law and under the constitution." 

The Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, residing at Hampton Road, Hampton Court, attended at Feltham Police Court yesterday upon summonses for refusing to pay taxes... She employed a groom without a licence, and also kept two dogs and a carriage without payment of the necessary licence. She came to court wearing the badge and medal of the Tax Resistance League and was accompanied by six other ladies including the secretary of the league, Mrs Kineton Parkes.

I am unable conscientiously to pay money to the state, as I am not allowed to exercise any control over its expenditure, neither am I allowed any voice in the choosing of members of Parliament, whose salaries I have to help to pay. This is very unjustified. When the women of England are enfranchised and the State acknowledges me as a citizen, I shall, of course, pay my share willingly towards its upkeep, if I am not a fit person for the purposes of representation, why should I be a fit person for taxation?

Tax resistance and resistance to enumeration under the Census of that year were mild forms of militancy now in vogue. The Women's Freedom League had hoisted the standard of "no vote, no tax" in the early days of its formation, and Mrs. Despard and others had suffered a succession of distraints, to the accompaniment of auction sale protest meetings. In November, 1910, the WSPU first adopted the same policy, and the Women's Tax Resistance was formed about this time. In May, 1911, two women were imprisoned for refusal to take out dog licences. A little later, Clemence Housman, sister of the author-artist, Laurence Housman, was committed to Holloway till she should pay the trifling sum of 4s. 6d., but was released in a week's time, having paid nothing.

The position in Wolverhampton in regard to tax resistance is certainly of interest to the supporters of militancy.

We do meet occasionally in the Suffrage movement, the woman with the pitiful tale: I should like to help you, but I dare not; my husband is against me. But it is, indeed, a revelation to meet an enthusiastic supporter with an equally sympathetic husband, who finds herself hampered, through the decisions of magistrates who hold the husband liable for the deeds of his wife.

Ever since I began to take a serious interest in politics I have believed in sex equality, and have never denied my wife the freedom that I myself claim, and, as I shall endeavour to show, it [is] because of this that I was convicted.

The humiliating position of the married woman, especially the working woman, is admitted by all Suffragists; but I never realised that she was such an abject slave so clearly as when I stood in the Wolverhampton Police Court, side by side with my wife, charged with aiding and abetting her to keep a dog without a license. The only evidence submitted by the prosecution (the police) that I actually did anything was that I presided at two meetings in support of the "No Vote, No Tax" policy of the Women's Freedom League. That I said anything that was not fair comment on the general policy of militancy there was no evidence to show; if, then, on this point I was liable, then all supporters of militancy are equally so. But I do not believe it was on this evidence that I was convicted. No. The dog was at my house, and cared for by my children during my wife's absence. In the eyes of the law, I was lord and master, so that my offence, therefore, was not that I did anything, but rather that I did not do anything.

I did not assert my authority, I did not force my wife into subjection, and however legal the magistrate's decision may have been, it certainly was not just.

It was the spirit of rebellion against injustice displayed by Mrs. Emma Sproson that first won for her my admiration. This admiration is far too deep rooted to be suppressed by the decision of magistrates.

I admire the rebel against injustice, man or woman, because I know that it is to them that all real progress is due. A friend once said to me, when criticising my wife, "But what would happen if all other women did as she is doing?" I replied: "They would get the vote to-morrow"; and he saw it. The pity is that others do not.

So I came home one day, early in 1917, to find a bailiff sitting in my flat. The bailiff was a real gentleman. He obviously hated his job, and since he must have retired long ago I shall do him no harm here by saying that he let me discover this by asking me not to let " them" know in Carey Street that he was at all friendly with me. It was not easy for either of us to remain enemies, boxed up as we were in the same room all day - I had let my largest room to a war worker - and very soon he was telling me about his son in the Army and I was converting him to votes for women. Under the circumstances it was difficult for him to stay the whole twenty-four hours in my apartment, although, when I pointed this out to one of the officials who came round, he replied stiffly, "Everything is proper under the Act," which gave me an idea for a French farce that I have never carried out. But the bailiff had finer feelings, and he made it as pleasant as he could for me by getting his meals elsewhere and going home at night and for weekends. To enable him to do this I promised him that I would remove nothing from the flat, and he was good enough to say that my simple word was enough for him. When at last the day came, quite six weeks later, on which they were to remove my furniture, he arrived in a state of deep distress at his usual hour after breakfast. I asked him if there was anything to be done about it, and he averted his face, as if ashamed to speak.