Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW : 1888 - 1954), Saturday 25 March 1911, page 7


NEW PLAN OF OBSTRUCTION BY

SUFFRAGISTS.

A boycott of the census is (says the "Daily Chronicle" of February 7) to be the latest method of the militant suffragists for calling attention to their claims to the vote.

The announcement was made by Mrs. Despard at a "King's Speech meeting" of the Women's Freedom League, held in the Caxton Hall. The census would cost a great deal of money, said Mrs. Despard, and involve an enormous amount of labor. So far as they were concerned, this census should not be taken.

"We shall prove," said Mrs. Despard, "whether there is a people, or whether there can be a people without the wo-men. We shall call upon women house-holders and women lodgers all over the country to refuse absolutely all informa-

tion when the census takers come round."

Women, she went on, had been proud to belong to the nation, but they had been denied their citizenship. Was it not logical, therefore, that they should say, "Very well; citizens we are not, and we shall not register ourselves as citizens?" That was logical, as a pro-test should be, and it would be effective.

Speaking of the preparations for the census, Mrs. Despard asserted that the officials were trying to get cheap labor: little girls from the schools at six and seven shillings a week.

Mrs. Despard added that the mem-bers were going to obstruct other Gov-ernment business and make other pro-tests, and they would stop the census boycott only when they had the prom-ise of the Prime Minister that a Wo-man's Suffrage Bill would be introduced

this session.

Tax resistance is to be another meth-od of obstruction, and Mrs. Despard, who has already been "sold up" twice for refusing to pay taxes, produced a third summons to which she intimated that she would pay no attention.