On Wednesday last there was held at the Albert Hall
what it is not too much to say was one of the most impressive and most important public meetings ever held in this country, the anti-suffrage meeting presided over by Lord Cromer. We have dealt with its main features elsewhere, but may say here that while the Hall contained an audience of some 7,000 or 8,000, applications exceeding 20,000 were received. So admirable were the arrangements that the four or five persons who attempted to disturb the meeting wore quickly and easily disposed of and without undue violence. Letters of regret were received from the Prime Minister, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and Mr. Walter Long. The chief speakers beside Lord Cromer were Lord Loreburn, Lord Curzon, Miss Violet Markham, Mr. Harcourt, and Mr. F. E. Smith. We cannot give the names of all those on the platform, but may mention that they included, among Cabinet Ministers, Mr. McKenna, and Mr. Joseph Pease, and, among ex-Cabinet Ministers, Mr. Henry Chaplin, Lord St. Aldwyn, Lord Midleton, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, and Lord Eversley. Among persons of note were Lord Peel, the Duke of Norfolk, Sir Edward Clarke, Colonel Seely, Sir William Crookes, Mr. Frederick Harrison, and a host of other men of light and leading. The names thus recorded and the reports of the speeches do not, however, in any way convey the extraordinary character of the gathering. Those present felt that there was something about the meeting which separated it altogether from ordinary political demonstrations. It was a revelation of the deter- mination which exists among women quite as much as among men to prevent the extension of the franchise to women.
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