“These facts are incontrovertible, and though the Home Office is quite satisfied that in both cases the prison officials performed their duty in the most exemplary fashion, your readers will form their own opinions of the justice of a Government Department which brings accusations of untruthfulness against an individual whilst refusing the only means by which the truth can be established.
My brother did not give up his efforts till in April Mr. Winston Churchill, the new Home Secretary, who was well known to him, came to stay at Knebworth, his country place. Mr. Churchill read through the whole case, until he came to the report of the letter to my mother written on the slate. “’Twould be hopeless,” he said, “to bring forward any complaint with this letter in the background.” I don’t know, of course, what they had made of it, as it had been rubbed out long ago, but I know that I had not told my mother anything of the treatment. I had said that the forcible feeding was “only pain”--so it was.
In the autumn of this year, 1910, I had a slight heart-seizure. I got out of bed in the morning, and was taken with paralysis down one side. I could not move for about an hour, when I managed to crawl back to bed. I had a nurse for six weeks and then it was over.
On June 12, 1910, I received a letter from Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, in which she told me that I had been made a paid organizer to the Union, at £2 a week, and that the committee wished to make this appointment retrospective for the past six months from January, 1910. I felt very much honoured and pleased. It enabled me to take a small flat in London near the Euston Road, so that I was not far from the office at Clement’s Inn and close, too, to a good many railway stations. It was quicker for me than having to go home to the country when I was on speaking tours, and also far more convenient for the London work.
In February, 1910, a truce was called after the elections. Mr. Gladstone, made Lord Gladstone, went to South Africa as Governor-General, and he was succeeded by Mr. Winston Churchill at the Home Office. Mr. Brailsford had spent much time and effort negotiating between all the Suffrage parties in the House of Commons, and he as secretary, and my brother, Lord Lytton, as president, negotiated a committee for the “Conciliation Bill.” This is the Bill in full:--