But these explanations failed to reassure many faint-hearted doubters, for though they agreed that in theory the independent policy was well enough, they felt convinced that in practice it was doomed to fail. They freely admitted that the women, by their clever speeches and the undeniable justice of their cause, would be almost certain to convince the electors that they were in the right, but they urged that the British elector was a hard-headed individual, who could never be induced to throw aside his party politics and to cast his vote on this one issue alone, especially as this issue was a women's question that did not directly affect him. So these critics agreed that the policy would "be possible with an electorate of heroes, but not with average men." For this reason it must fail. But in spite of these gloomy predictions the Women's Social and Political Union held to its course, and did not swerve one hair's-breadth from the plan of campaign that it had laid down. An anti-Government election policy has frequently been employed by men politicians; notably by the Irish under Parnell. In the course of the agitation for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, Mrs. Josephine Butler and her colleagues fought the Government at many by-elections, but with that exception an anti-Government by-election policy had never been adopted by women. In following it out now, when many members, even of our own Committee doubted its wisdom, and few were really enthusiastic in its favour, Christabel Pankhurst, its originator in this case, gave evidence of that keen political insight and that indomitable courage and determination which are so essential to real leadership, and which have since enabled her to steer the Suffragette ship through so many dangerous shoals and quicksands. On August 14th the three Suffragettes, "Mr. Asquith's Prisoners," as they had been called, were released from Holloway. They were all cheerfully and bravely uncomplaining. Mrs. Knight and Annie Kenney were both white and feeble-looking but only spoke of their anxiety to be of service to the cause, whilst Mrs. Sparborough, though she had got rheumatism through being made to scrub the stone floor of her cell without a kneeler, made light of the imprisonment, saying that she had felt peaceful and happy and had sung hymns to herself to drive her loneliness away.