The Home Secretary said that the phenomenon they had to deal with had no precedent in history. The number of women actually committing crimes was small, the number of sympathisers with them extremely large. But the number of militants committed to prison in 1906, the first year of the agitation, was 31; in 1909 it was 156; in 1911, 188 (six being men); in 1912, 290 (two being men); in 1913, 183, and in the current year 108. The "Cat and Mouse" Act had therefore greatly reduced the number of offences, but these had become much more serious. He did not think the irritation which was the aim of the campaign would recoil on the Government. Dealing with the recent acts of rudeness to the King, he said that while all subjects had the right of petitioning His Majesty in respectful language, there was no right to a personal audience of him; the Home Secretary's duty was to submit petitions to him and advise action on them, and they were presented even if the action requested was illegal, unconstitutional, or impracticable. The militants' action had been an effective advertisement, and he wished that the Press would not give it prominence. On the other hand, many of the fires attributed to the suffragettes were really cases of ordinary crime, and the whole number was an insignificant percentage of the total. He discussed the four alternative methods proposed of treating the militants. (1) To let them die was the most popular, but he had the authority of a great medical expert for saying that they wished, and actually tried, to die in prison. Such deaths would be the greatest possible incentive to militancy, and, as they multiplied, there would be a violent reaction against the Government. Even supposing the necessary Act were passed relieving the prison officials of responsibility, a humane prison doctor could not let a woman die whose only offence had been obstructing the police. (2) Supposing they were deported, say to St. Kilda, if it were not treated as a prison they would be speedily rescued; if it were, they would still refuse food. (3) To treat them as lunatics would require medical certificates, which would not be given. (4) To give them the franchise was hardly a remedy for the existing lawlessness. They were, in fact, more severely punished by their hunger-and-thirst strikes than by imprisonment. Statistics showed that the "Cat and Mouse" Bill had been effective. Of the eighty-three persons discharged under it, fifteen had given up militancy, six had fled the country, twenty were in hiding, possibly abroad; the rest, mostly women who had obstructed the police in the recent procession to Buckingham Palace, were either legally at large or were at addresses known to the police. Just before the Act came into force, a report had been made to him showing that the women coming into prison were physically defective; they were sent there to die, and the offenders were paid to commit crime. The Act had been effective