Speaking at a woman suffrage demonstration at Richmond on Saturday
last, Mrs. Fawcett dealt at length with the movement in favour of subjecting the woman suffrage ques- tion to the Referendum. Neither Mr. Asquith nor Sir Edward Grey had said anything about it when their pro- mises were made, nor had Mr. Lloyd George gone back on his declaration at the Horticultural Hall. In an interview on the previous Wednesday the Chancellor of the Exchequer bad authorized the Women's Liberal Federation to make any use of the declaration they pleased. The Referendum agitation, continued Mrs. Fawcett, was an anti-suffrage plot from beginning to end, engineered by two very clever and unprincipled men, one belonging to one party and one to the other. It is understood that Mr. Churchill and Mr. F. E. Smith are the persons indicated. The list of those who will appear on the platform at the anti-suffrage meeting in the Albert Hall, fixed for February 28th, now includes sixty- six peers, sixty members of Parliament, and five members of the present Cabinet—Lord Loreburn, Mr. Lewis Harcourt, Mr. Hobhouse, Mr. McKenna, and Mr. Pease.
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