CHAPTER III.
THE PARLIAMENTARY STRUGGLE.
§ 1.
In the general election of 1880 Bradlaugh was at length elected member for Northampton. He had fought the constituency for twelve years, and had been defeated at three elections, at one of which he was not present. As has been made plain from the story of his life thus far, it was his way to carry out to the end any undertaking on which he entered, unless he found it to be wholly impracticable; and he was very slow to feel that an aim was impracticable because it took long-continued effort to realise it. He seems first to have thought of standing for Northampton about 1866. At that time Northampton was already reckoned a likely Radical constituency, not so much on account of its Parliamentary record as on the strength of the Radical element in its population. The trouble was that for long the bulk of the workers were not electors. His eloquence could win him a splendid show of hands in the market-place, but the polls told a different tale. The Whiggish middle classes were in the main intensely hostile to him, on political as well as on religious grounds; and the influence of pastors and masters alike was zealously used against him. After the passing of the Household Suffrage Act of 1868, however, the constituency became every year more democratic. The Freehold Land Society, some of whose founders and leading members were among his most devoted and capable followers, created year after year scores of freeholds, the property of workers, in a fashion that has finally made Northampton almost unique among our manufacturing towns. The electorate, which in 1874 had stood at 6829, had in 1880 risen to 8189; and of these it was estimated that 2,500 had never before voted. Of the new voters, the majority were pretty sure to be Radicals, and as Bradlaugh's hold on the constituency had grown stronger with every struggle, it began to be apparent to many of the "moderate Liberals" that a union between their party and his must be accepted if the two seats were not to remain in Tory hands. In the early spring, however, the confusion of candidatures seemed hopeless. Mr (now Sir) Thomas Wright of Leicester stood as a Liberal candidate at the request of a large body of the electors, and though not combining with Bradlaugh, deprecated the running of a second and hostile Liberal candidate. Other Liberals, however, brought forward in succession three candidates, of whom the once well-known Mr Ayrton was the most important. He, however, failed to gain ground, partly by reason of the qualities which had made him a disastrous colleague to Mr Gladstone's ministry, partly by reason of coming to grief in a controversy with Bradlaugh as to the facts of the agitation for a free press, and free right of meeting in Hyde Park, in regard to which Mr Ayrton claimed official credit. His candidature finally fell through when he met with an accident. A Mr Hughes was brought forward, only to be removed from the contest by an attack of illness. Mr Jabez Spencer Balfour, of recent notoriety, made a very favourable impression, but could not persuade "moderates" enough that the Liberals ought to unite with the Radicals. A little later Mr Labouchere was introduced, and giving his voice at once for union, found so much support that Mr Wright, with great generosity and public spirit, shortly withdrew, giving his support to the joint candidature of Bradlaugh and Labouchere, who stood pretty much alike in their Radicalism, though the latter was described in the local Liberal press as the "nominee of the moderate Liberals." As he explained in his own journal, a man who was a moderate Liberal in Northampton would rank as a Radical anywhere else. The joint candidature once agreed upon, victory was secure.
The Tory candidates were the former sitting members, Mr Phipps, the leading local brewer, and Mr Merewether, a lawyer. Their platform opposition was not formidable, and the greatest play on their side was made by the clergy and the press, who sought to make the contest turn as far as possible on Bradlaugh's atheism and on his Neo-Malthusianism. Nearly all the Established Church clergy, and some of the Nonconformists preached fervently against the "infidel." On the Sunday before the election the vicar of St Giles' intimated that "to those noble men who loved Christ more than party, Jesus would say, 'Well done!'" and on the day before the poll many thousands of theological circulars were showered upon the constituency. On the other hand, the deep resentment of Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy felt by a great part of the nation led to unheard-of concessions on the part of the Nonconformists. The late Mr Samuel Morley, a representative Dissenter, wealthy and pious, being appealed to for an expression of opinion on the Northampton situation, sent to Mr Labouchere a telegram—soon repented of—"strongly urging necessity of united effort in all sections of the Liberal party, and the sinking of minor and personal questions, with many of which I deeply sympathise, in order to prevent the return, in so pronounced a constituency as Northampton, of even one Conservative." At the same time Mr Spurgeon was without the slightest foundation described in the Tory press as having said, with regard to the fight at Northampton, that "if the devil himself were a Liberal candidate, he would vote for him;" and it was supposed that the anecdote affected some votes.
But before any of these episodes had occurred, Bradlaugh was tolerably well assured of victory. His organisation, then controlled by his staunch supporter Councillor Thomas Adams, who lived to be Mayor of Northampton, was perfect; and he knew his strength as nearly as a candidate ever can who has not already been elected. The combination of his forces with those of Mr Labouchere of course strengthened him; yet such was still the strength of religious animosity that though the joint candidature stood on the footing of a strict division of votes, every elector having two, for the two seats, the Liberal press still encouraged "plumping," and many then, as later, voted for Mr Labouchere who would not vote for Bradlaugh, thus provoking a smaller number of the latter's supporters to "plump" for their man in turn. The result was that the election figures stood:—Labouchere (L.) 4518; Bradlaugh (R.) 3827; Phipps (C.) 3152; Merewether (C.) 2826.
No sooner were the results known throughout the country than the Northampton election became a theme of special comment, and of course of special outcry from the defeated party. One journal, the Sheffield Telegraph, which about the same time described the Scriptural phrase about the dog and his vomit as a "popular, though somewhat coarse saying," designated Bradlaugh as "the bellowing blasphemer of Northampton." Mr Samuel Morley was hotly assailed, and promptly wrote to the Record a pitiful letter of recantation, which ended:—
"No feeling of pride prevents my saying that I deeply regret the step I took, which was really the work of a moment; and I feel assured that no one who knows me will doubt that I view with intense repugnance the opinions which are held by Mr Bradlaugh on religious and social questions."
To which Mr Bradlaugh in his own journal replied that he had had no part whatever in the appeal to Mr Samuel Morley, and that he would have been elected all the same if Mr Morley had done nothing, adding the following:—
"We have no knowledge of the opinions of Mr Morley except that he is reputedly very rich, and therefore exceedingly good; but we must express in turn our intense repugnance to the conduct of Mr Morley, who having accidentally been betrayed into an act of kindness to a fellow-creature, regrets the act when pressure is brought to bear upon him by a pack of cowardly and anonymous bigots, and couples the public expression of his regret with a voluntary insult to one for whom Mr Morley publicly expressed great respect on the only occasion on which the two have yet come publicly in contact."
Mr Spurgeon, who had been quite falsely accused of avowing readiness to welcome the devil as a Liberal candidate, had the manliness to declare, while indignantly repudiating that latitudinarian doctrine, that Mr Bradlaugh's claims to be returned to Parliament were not to be measured by his piety or orthodoxy.
§ 2.
But the question was soon carried into a greater arena. The elections were over in April; on 3rd May Parliament assembled, and Bradlaugh's first problem was to choose his course in the matter of the oath of allegiance, the taking of which by members of Parliament is still made a condition of their taking their seats. It has long been felt by the thoughtful few, even including Theists, that oath-taking, a barbaric and primevally superstitious act under all circumstances, is gratuitously absurd in the case of admission to Parliament, where it serves to bring about the maximum of religious indecorum without in any way affecting the action of anybody. Originally set up in the reign of Elizabeth, the Parliamentary oath was maintained in the interest of disputed dynasties, though it was notoriously taken by hundreds of men who were perfectly ready to overthrow, if they could, the dynasty to which they swore allegiance. Now that there is no longer any question of rival dynasties, and that no instructed person disputes the power of Parliament to abolish the Monarchy, the oath of allegiance is maintained by the stolid unreason which supports the monarchic tradition all round. State after State has abandoned the practice as absurd; but Britain clings to it with hardly even a demur, save from men of the chair. France since 1870 has had neither oath nor affirmation, though, if oaths could be supposed to count for anything, the Republic might fitly have exacted them. Since 1868 affirmation has been substituted for the Parliamentary oath in Austria; and congressmen and senators in the United States have their choice between swearing and affirming. Neither oath nor affirmation is exacted in the German Reichstag, though the members of the Prussian Diet, like those of the States General of Holland, still swear. In Italy, the performance is attenuated to the utterance of the one word "Giuro," "I swear." In Spain, where it has never deterred rebellion, the oath, as might be expected, remains mediævally elaborate.
Before Bradlaugh's time the oath in England had been adapted to the requirements of Catholics, Quakers, and Jews successively, the resistance increasing considerably in the last case. O'Connell's refusal to take the Protestant oath of supremacy in 1829, when there were three separate oaths—one of allegiance, one of supremacy, and one of adjuration—led to the passing of an Act permitting Catholic members to take the Catholic oath, already provided under the Catholic Relief Act for use in Ireland. Protestant public opinion avowedly regarded all Irish Catholics with distrust as being disaffected, but the Tory leaders being committed to Catholic Emancipation, the resistance was overpowered. The next extension took place under Whig auspices.
In 1833 the Quakers, who in the case of Archdale in 1699 had been held incapable of sitting in Parliament by reason of their refusal to swear, were allowed to affirm, first by resolution of the House, later by Act. This was done at the instance of a Quaker member, Sir Joseph Pease, who besides being rich enjoyed personally the respect latterly accorded to his sect by those which formerly persecuted it.
Then came the case of the Jews, first raised in the person of Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, in 1850. There was now a triple Protestant oath, and an alternative Catholic oath, the theoretically dangerous church being allowed to swear in its own way; but for the small community of Jews there was no formula, and the Jewish banker had to choose between exclusion and swearing "on the true faith of a Christian." He omitted these words from his oath, and was accordingly declared disentitled to sit, the House at the same time formally resolving to take Jewish disabilities into its consideration at the earliest opportunity in the next Session. In 1851, another Jew, David Salomons, returned for Greenwich, refused to take the oath in the Christian form, formally resisted the Speaker's ruling against him, was formally removed, and was excluded from his seat. Not till 1858 was the relief given. In that year a single (Christian) oath was substituted for the triple asseveration of the past, and on the re-elected Baron Lionel again refusing it, he was allowed, by resolution of the House, to swear without the Christian formula. In 1859 he, with Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild and Salomons, was again sworn theistically. Finally, in 1866, by the Parliamentary Oaths Act, the oath was made simply theistic for all, the familiar expletive "So help me God" being held sufficient to associate the First Cause ethically with the proceeding in hand.
This movement was doubtless due to a certain semi-rational perception of the futility of oaths in general, as being a vain formality to honest men, and a vain barrier to others. Sir William Hamilton, a thinker so fervent in his instinctive Theism that he undid his philosophy to accommodate it, had in his day created a strong impression by his essays (1834-5), on the right of Dissenters to be admitted into the English universities, in which he emphatically reiterated the declaration of Bishop Berkeley—made when the oath test was in fullest use—that there is "no nation under the sun where solemn perjury is so common as in England." "If the perjury of England stand pre-eminent in the world," said Hamilton, "the perjury of the English Universities, and of Oxford in particular, stands pre-eminent in England." Doctrine like this had made for an abolition of oaths which could easily be classified as "unnecessary," and for the simplification of those retained; but though the very step of reducing the act of imprecation to a curt conventional form meant, if anything, the belittling of the act of imprecation as such, the Parliamentary formula had for half a generation remained unchallenged. John Mill had in 1865 sworn "on the true faith of a Christian," and a good many Agnostics and Positivists have since unmurmuringly invoked the unknown God. It was left for Bradlaugh to attempt a departure from the course of dissembling conformity. When he stood for Northampton in 1868 (as he stated in answer to Mr Bright on the second select committee of 1880), he had gravely considered the question of oath-taking, there being then no possibility of affirmation. Believing now that he had the right to affirm under the Act which permitted affirmation to witnesses, he felt bound to exercise it.
As every step in his action has been and still is a subject of obstinate misconception and wilful falsehood, the story must be here told with some minuteness. The usual statement is that he "refused" to take the oath of allegiance. He did no such thing. A professed Atheist, he had been the means of bringing about the legal reform which enabled unbelievers to give evidence on affirmation, albeit the form of enactment was, to say the least, invidious. A great difficulty is felt by many Christians in regard to the abolition of the oath, in that they fear to open the way for false testimony by witnesses who would fear to swear to a lie, but do not scruple to lie on mere affirmation. It is for Christians to take the onus of asserting that there are such people among their co-religionists; and they have always asserted it in the House of Commons when there is any question of dispensing with oaths. And it was on this plea that the first Act framed to allow unbelievers to give evidence on affirmation was made to provide that the judge should in each case satisfy himself that a witness claiming to affirm was not a person on whom an oath would have a binding effect. That is to say, he was to make sure that the witness was not a knavish religionist trying to dodge the oath, in order to lie with an easy mind. It was the duplicity of certain believers, and not the duplicity of unbelievers, that was to be guarded against, though, of course, the only security against the lying of believers in answer to the judge was that a known conformist would be afraid publicly to pretend that he had scruples against the oath. But the main effect of the clause, framed to guard against pious knavery, was to stigmatise unbelievers as persons on whom an oath would have "no binding effect." An ill-conditioned judge was thus free to insult Freethinking witnesses, and even a just judge was free to embarrass them by an invidious question, since the bare wording of the Act enabled and even encouraged the judge to ask them—not, as he ought to have done, whether the oath was to them unmeaning in respect of the words of adjuration, but—whether the oath as a whole would be "binding on their conscience."[121] While recognising the invidiousness of such a question, Bradlaugh always claimed to affirm in courts of law, though to him, as to most professed rationalists, the repetition of an idle expletive was only a vexation, and in no way an act of deception, when made the inevitable preliminary to the fulfilment of any civic duty. He had openly avowed his opinions, and if the oath was still exacted, the responsibility lay with those who insisted on it. On his return to Parliament he felt that not only would it be inconsistent for him to take the oath if he could avoid it, but it would be gratuitously indecorous, from the point of view of the believing Christian majority. Sitting in the house before the "swearing-in," he remarked to Mr Labouchere that he felt it would be unseemly for him to go through that form when he believed he was legally entitled to affirm. And in this belief, it must always be remembered, he had the support of the former Liberal law officers of the Crown, who had privately given it as their opinion[122] that he was empowered to affirm his allegiance under the law relating to the affirmation of unbelievers. With that opinion behind him, he was in the fullest degree entitled—nay, he was morally bound as a conscientious rationalist—to take the course he did. Other rationalists, real or reputed, were returned to the same Parliament. Professor Bryce, as candidate for the Tower Hamlets, had been assailed as an Atheist, and was yet returned at the head of the poll. Mr Firth had been similarly attacked, but was nevertheless carried in Chelsea. Neither of these gentlemen, however, made any public avowal, direct or indirect, of heresy. Mr John Morley, who was justifiably regarded as a Positivist or Agnostic on the strength of his writings, when elected later made no demur to the oath; and Mr Ashton Dilke, who afterwards avowed his heterodoxy in the House of Commons,[123] also took it without comment. It was left to Bradlaugh to fight the battle of common sense—I might say of common honesty, were it not that long usage has in these matters wholly vitiated the moral standards of the community, and honourable men are free to do, and do habitually, things which, abstractly considered, are acts of dissimulation.
§ 3.
Bradlaugh's first formal step after obtaining the opinion of the last Liberal law officers and privately consulting the officials of the House, was to hand to the Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir Thomas Erskine May, on May 3rd, a written paper in the following terms:—
"To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.
"I, the undersigned Charles Bradlaugh, beg respectfully to claim to be allowed to affirm as a person for the time being by law permitted to make a solemn affirmation or declaration, instead of taking an oath."
He had already explained, in answer to the questions of the Clerk, that he made his claim in virtue of the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866, the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Amendment Act, 1870, which "explains and amends" the Act of 1869. The Clerk formally communicated these matters to the Speaker (Sir Henry Brand), who then invited Bradlaugh to make a statement to the House with regard to his claim. Bradlaugh replied:
"Mr Speaker,—I have only now to submit that the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866, gives the right to affirm to every person for the time being permitted by law to make affirmation. I am such a person; and under the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Amendment Act 1870, I have repeatedly for nine years past affirmed in the highest Courts of Jurisdiction in this realm. I am ready to make the declaration or affirmation of allegiance."
The Speaker thereupon requested him to withdraw, and formally restated the claim to the House, remarking that he had "grave doubts" on the matter, and desired to refer it to the House's judgment. On behalf of the Treasury bench, Lord Frederick Cavendish, remarking that the advice of the new law officers of the Crown was not yet available, moved that the point be referred to a Select Committee. Sir Stafford Northcote, the Tory leader in the Commons, was at this stage not actively hostile. A man of well-meaning and temperate though meagre quality, made up of small doses of virtues and capacities, well fitted to be a country gentleman, but of too thin stuff and too narrow calibre to be either a very good or a very bad statesman, he was a Conservative by force of tradition and mental limitation, and a partisan leader in respect of his pliability to his associates. As his biographer puts it, he was "not recalcitrant to compromise" in matters of party strategy and leadership. Being personally willing to substitute affirmation for oath,[124] he seconded the Liberal motion without any show of animus, and only some of his minor followers, as Earl Percy and Mr Daniel Onslow, sought to effect the adjournment of the debate. This attempt, however, was not pressed to a division, and the Select Committee was agreed to.
Only a few of the speeches in the House thus far had indicated a desire among the Tory party to make Bradlaugh the victim of their feud with the Liberals. But outside the House, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, member for Portsmouth, speaking at Christchurch, had already publicly declared his intention to oppose Bradlaugh's entry: the broaching of the oath question in legal and other journals before the assembling of Parliament having given to such politicians their cue. Over and above the purely factious motive of such men, and of the mass of the Tories, there was the motive of genuine religious malice; and the two instincts in combination wrought memorable results.
On 10th May Lord Richard Grosvenor, the Liberal Whip, announced to the House the names of the proposed members of the Select Committee whose appointment he should move next day:—Mr Whitbread, Sir J. Holker, Mr John Bright, Lord Henry Lennox, Mr W. N. Massey, Mr Staveley Hill, Sir Henry Jackson, the Attorney-General (Sir Henry James), the Solicitor-General (Mr Farrer Herschell), Sir G. Goldney, Mr Grantham, Mr Pemberton, Mr Watkin Williams, Mr Spencer H. Walpole, Mr Hopwood, Mr Beresford Hope, Major Nolan, Mr Chaplin, and Mr Serjeant Simon. Although the motion was not to come on till next day, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff sought, in despite of the Speaker's opposition, to raise at once a debate on the legitimacy of the Committee; and on the following day he was able to do so. He moved "the previous question," and pronounced the course taken "inconvenient, unprecedented, and irregular," although it had been agreed to by his nominal leader; thus beginning the tactic of independent action which served to mark him off with three colleagues,[125] as constituting a "fourth party" in the House, the other three being the main bodies of Liberals and Tories, and the Irish Home Rulers. The debate, once begun, was carried on with great violence and recklessness, Mr Stanley Leighton alleging that Bradlaugh had been pressed on the Northampton constituency by the Liberal "whip," prompted by Mr Gladstone; and Sir R. Knightley affirming that the election had been determined by the interference of Mr Samuel Morley. A member known as F. H. O'Donnel, but originally named Macdonald, an Irish Catholic, asserted that Bradlaugh had "explained religion as a disease of the brain, and conscience as a nervous contraction of the diaphragm." After more random discussion the House divided, when there voted for the appointment of the Committee 171, against it, 74, giving a majority of 97 to the Government. Most of the Conservative leaders walked out of the House before the division, thus already showing a disposition to surrender to the irresponsibles on their side.[126]
Already, too, there began to be apparent what can now no longer be disputed—the mismanagement of the Speaker. Only bad judgment or partiality could account for his permission of such gross irrelevance as filled the speeches of Mr Leighton and Mr F. H. O'Donnel, alias Macdonald. On the language of the latter now forgotten personage Mr Bradlaugh thus commented in the National Reformer:—
"I remember, fourteen or fifteen years ago, when the countrymen of that member's constituents came to me for help and counsel. The honourable member professes to now represent those Irishmen who then sought and had my aid; and on Tuesday he in effect told the House that it ought to exclude from it one who did not believe in God, and had no standard of morality. But I see from the division list that the 'third party,' of which he pretended to be the spokesman at the election of the Speaker, went into the lobby opposed to that into which their leader went, so that the really Irish members did not forget old ties."
Unfortunately the latter tribute was not long to be deserved.
On 20th May the Select Committee presented its report. There had been eight members in favour of the view that Bradlaugh was legally entitled to affirm, and eight against; and the casting vote of the chairman, Mr Spencer H. Walpole, was given for the Noes. It was said, and it was believed by Mr Bradlaugh, that Sir John Holker had avowed a belief that his claim was valid, but Sir John Holker on the Committee voted with his party. Save for the fact that the Noes included Mr Hopwood, the vote would stand as a purely party one, the rest of the Noes being Conservatives, while the rest of the Liberals took the affirmative side. And so general was the attitude of reckless prejudice that we still find the Chairman's son giving a flatly misleading account of the situation. Mr Spencer Walpole, in his work on "The Electorate and the Legislature"[127] published in 1881, and re-issued in 1892, has made (p. 75) this statement (italics ours):—
"In 1880 ... the legislature was suddenly confronted with a new dilemma. The borough of Northampton sent a representative to Parliament who refused to take an oath—not because he had any conscientious objection to be sworn, but because an appeal to a God—in whom he had no belief—seemed to him an idle formula which was not binding on his conscience."
Since Mr Walpole has chosen to print and reprint this maliciously untrue statement, and takes no notice whatever of published protests against it, I am obliged to say in so many words that he, a professed historian, is here grossly perverting history. Much might indeed be set down to his carelessness. Issuing in 1892 the second edition of what should be an authoritative treatise, Mr Walpole inserts (p. 77) a passage as to Parliamentary affirmation which is completely quashed by the passing of Mr Bradlaugh's Affirmation Act of 1888. Of this Act, in 1892, Mr Walpole does not seem to have any knowledge; but however he may contrive to overlook such a fact as this, he cannot have been unaware in 1880 that Mr Bradlaugh did not refuse to take the oath, and that he repudiated the expression that the oath would not be binding on his conscience,[128] repeatedly declaring that any promise he made would as such be binding on his conscience, whether or not an idle formula should be appended to it. Bradlaugh's position on this point was always explicit; for him a promise, however embellished, was a promise which as an honourable man he was bound to keep. By the majority of the British House of Commons it is still implicitly ruled that a certain promise would not necessarily be binding on the consciences of Christian members unless accompanied by the popular imprecation "So help me God."
The decision of the first Select Committee, on the casting vote of the chairman, at once carried the question to a new phase. Bradlaugh immediately published a statement[129] of his position as to the oath, the taking of which he now held to be forced upon him by the refusal of the right to affirm.
It ran:—
"When elected as one of the Burgesses to represent Northampton in the House of Commons, I believed that I had the legal right to make affirmation of allegiance in lieu of taking the oath, as provided by sec. 4 of the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866. While I considered that I had this legal right, it was then clearly my moral duty to make the affirmation. The oath, although to me including words of idle and meaningless character, was and is regarded by a large number of my fellow-countrymen as an appeal to Deity to take cognizance of their swearing. It would have been an act of hypocrisy to voluntarily take this form if any other had been open to me, or to take it without protest, as though it meant in my mouth any such appeal. I therefore quietly and privately notified the Clerk of the House of my desire to affirm. His view of the law and practice differing from my own, and no similar case having theretofore arisen, it became necessary that I should tender myself to affirm in a more formal manner, and this I did at a season deemed convenient by those in charge of the business of the House. In tendering my affirmation I was careful, when called on by the Speaker to state my objection, to do nothing more than put, in the fewest possible words, my contention that the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866, gave the right to affirm in Parliament to every person for the time being by law permitted to make an affirmation in lieu of taking an oath, and that I was such a person, and therefore claimed to affirm. The Speaker, neither refusing nor accepting my affirmation, referred the matter to the House, which appointed a Select Committee to report whether persons entitled to affirm under the Evidence Amendment Acts, 1869 and 1870, were under sec. 4 of the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866, also entitled to affirm as Members of Parliament. This Committee, by the casting vote of its Chairman, has decided that I am not entitled to affirm. Two courses are open to me—one, of appeal to the House against the decision of the Committee; the other, of present compliance with the ceremony, while doing my best to prevent the further maintenance of a form which many other members of the House think as objectionable as I do, but which habit and the fear of exciting prejudice has induced them to submit to. To appeal to the House against the decision of the Committee would be ungracious, and would certainly involve great delay of public business. I was present at the deliberations of the Committee, and while, naturally, I cannot be expected to bow submissively to the statements and arguments of my opponents, I am bound to say that they were calmly and fairly urged. I think them unreasonable, but the fact that they included a legal argument from an earnest Liberal deprives them even of a purely party character. If I appealed to the House against the Committee, I, of course, might rely on the fact that the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, Sir Henry Jackson, Q.C., Mr Watkin Williams, Q.C., and Mr Sergeant Simon, are reported in the Times to have interpreted the law as I do; and I might add that the Right Honourable John Bright and Mr Whitbread are in the same journal arrayed in favour of allowing me to affirm. But even then the decision of the House may endorse that of the Committee, and should it be in my favour, it could only—judging from what has already taken place—be after a bitter party debate, in which the Government specially, and the Liberals generally, would be sought to be burdened with my anti-theological views, and with promoting my return to Parliament. As a matter of fact, the Liberals of England have never in any way promoted my return to Parliament. The much-attacked action of Mr Adam had relation only to the second seat, and in no way related to the one for which I was fighting. In 1868 the only action of Mr Gladstone and of Mr Bright was to write letters in favour of my competitors, and since 1868 I do not believe that either of these gentlemen has directly or indirectly interfered in any way in connection with my parliamentary candidature. The majority of the electors of Northampton had determined to return me before the recent union in that borough, and while pleased to aid their fellow-Liberals in winning the two seats, my constituents would have at any rate returned me had no union taken place. My duty to my constituents is to fulfil the mandate they have given me, and if to do this I have to submit to a form less solemn to me than the affirmation I would have reverently made, so much the worse for those who force me to repeat words which I have scores of times declared are to me sounds conveying no clear and definite meaning. I am sorry for the earnest believers who see words sacred to them used as a meaningless addendum to a promise, but I cannot permit their less sincere co-religionists to use an idle form, in order to prevent me from doing my duty to those who have chosen me to speak for them in Parliament. I shall, taking the oath, regard myself as bound not by the letter of its words, but by the spirit which the affirmation would have conveyed had I been permitted to use it. So soon as I am able I shall take such steps as may be consistent with parliamentary business to put an end to the present doubtful and unfortunate state of the law and practice on oaths and affirmations. Only four cases have arisen of refusal to take the oath, except, of course, those cases purely political in their character. Two of those cases are those of the Quakers John Archdale and Joseph Pease. The religion of these men forbade them to swear at all, and they nobly refused. The sect to which they belonged was outlawed, insulted, and imprisoned. They were firm, and one of that sect sat on the very Committee, a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council and a member of the actual Cabinet. I thank him gratefully that, valuing right so highly, he cast his vote so nobly for one for whom I am afraid he has but scant sympathy. No such religious scruple prevents me from taking the oath as prevented John Archdale and Joseph Pease. In the cases of the Baron Rothschild and Alderman Salomons the words 'upon the true faith of Christian' were the obstacle. To-day the oath contains no such words. The Committee report that I may not affirm, and, protesting against a decision which seems to me alike against the letter of the law and the spirit of modern legislation, I comply with the forms of the House."
As might have been expected, this decision to take the oath evoked fresh outcry, and this time some Freethinkers joined. The most injurious attack of this kind came from Mr George Jacob Holyoake, who had long been on strained terms with Bradlaugh, and avowedly regarded him with disfavour as a too militant Atheist. Before the assembling of Parliament Mr Holyoake, in answer to a correspondent who asked him whether Mr Bradlaugh would take the oath, had written to the effect that Mr Bradlaugh had taken the oath scores of times before, and would doubtless do so now. This remark had reference to a long-standing dispute as to the propriety of oath-taking by a Freethinker under any circumstances. Before the reform of the law which permitted unbelievers to affirm, Mr Bradlaugh had without hesitation taken the oath in courts of law, holding the forced formality a much smaller matter than the evil of a miscarriage of justice. Mr Holyoake condemned all such oath-taking; but it was pointed out that while he was in business partnership with his brother Austin, the latter, a highly esteemed Freethinker, had taken the oath wherever it was necessary for the purposes of the business. This, of course, would not altogether set aside Mr G. J. Holyoake's argument, if put forward only as a statement of his own position; but he was not content with that. After avowing his expectation that Bradlaugh would take the oath, he expressed surprise and reprobation when Bradlaugh proposed to do so. Needless to say, such a deliverance was eagerly welcomed by Bradlaugh's enemies, and zealously used against him; as it was when repeated by Mr Holyoake in the following year, with expressions about Freethinkers being made to hang their heads for shame by the action of their nominal leader. Were there not reason to presume that Mr Holyoake would not now repeat or defend his former language, it might be fitting to endorse here some of the very emphatic comments made on it at the time by Mrs Besant and others. It may suffice to say, however, that Mr Holyoake had never before taken such an attitude against Freethinkers who took the oath; that he had once himself expressed readiness to take it in court if it were regarded as a civil act, and not as a confession of faith (exactly Bradlaugh's case); and that he later seemed to other Freethinkers to quash once for all his own case by justifying quite gratuitous acts of conformity and co-operation with churches whose teaching he held to be false. The common sense of nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand Freethinkers, including attached friends of Mr Holyoake, decided that such an act of enforced ceremonial as official oath-taking by an avowed Atheist surrenders no jot of principle or self-respect, particularly when the Atheist is openly striving for the abolition of all such compulsions. Of all Freethinkers who have taken oaths in England, Bradlaugh was the very least open to the charge of temporising; and the expressions used by Mr Holyoake at different times in this connection as to "apostolic" conduct have been, to say the least, unfortunate as coming from a professed Freethinker, not usually acquiescent in orthodox phraseology.
§ 4.
The document above quoted, announcing Bradlaugh's intentions, was dated 20th May, the date of the Committee's report. On the following day Bradlaugh went to the House to take the oath and his seat. Immediately on his presenting himself, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff rose and objected to the oath being administered, whereupon Mr Dillwyn protested against the interruption. The Speaker now made the fatal mistake of allowing the interruption to be carried out. It is established by the highest possible authority—that of the present Speaker—that the holder of the Chair as such had and has no right to permit any such intervention between an elected member and the statutory oath. Sir Henry Brand, intimidated by the action of men like Wolff, weakly stated that he "was bound to say he knew of no instance" in which such an intervention had taken place; but "at the same time" he would allow Wolff so to intervene. That personage then made a speech, resting on the two arguments that Atheists who had made affirmation in the law courts thereby admitted that an oath "would not be binding on their conscience," and that Bradlaugh had further, in his "Impeachment of the House of Brunswick," affirmed that Parliament "has the undoubted right to withhold the Crown from Albert Edward Prince of Wales." The hon. baronet "could not see how a gentleman professing the views set forth in that work could take the oath of allegiance." It was in the course of this speech that the hon. baronet was understood by all his auditors to say, of the sects permitted by law to affirm, that they "had a common standard of morality, a conscience, and a general belief in some divinity or other."[130]
The Tory case against Bradlaugh's admission to Parliament was thus at the outset a combination of a moral subterfuge and a notorious political fallacy. All concerned knew perfectly well that the oath was habitually taken by men to whom the adjuration was an idle form, and that their consciences could only be "bound" by the simple promise. It had further been ruled by the highest judicial authority, in the cases of Miller v. Salomons, and the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Company v. Heaton, that the essence of the oath consisted in the promise, and not in the words of imprecation. Yet further, Wolff had before him, and in his speech quoted from, the statement above cited, in which Bradlaugh expressly declared that he held himself bound, in taking the oath, "not by the letter of its words, but by the spirit which the affirmation would have conveyed had I been permitted to use it." These words he suppressed. On the other hand, as regards the point of allegiance, he was negating the whole established doctrine of the British constitution. It is a commonplace of that doctrine that Parliament can repeal, as Parliament passed, the Act of Settlement. The contrary is now maintained by nobody, and was not really maintained even by Burke, in his furious feint of disputing the constitutional principle in his "Reflections." As the law stands, any member of Parliament is entitled to move constitutionally for the abolition of the Monarchy. The oath, framed though it be for the dynasty, and not for the State, promises allegiance to the sovereign as by the law established. If the law in future quashes sovereignty, there will be no sovereign to whom to bear legal allegiance.[131]
But such protests as those of Wolff were perfectly fitted to serve the turn of the Tory party in a campaign of faction. The cue of shocked piety and the cue of "loyalty" came alike easily to the representatives of the feudal and the capitalistic interests; and the "bag-baron" and the "crag-baron" vied with each other in the display of sham godliness and sincere zeal for the Throne. Never was there such a reek of cant in St. Stephen's before. All the English gift for hypocrisy, unrivalled in Europe, was brought to bear on the task. Alderman Fowler, a fitting exponent of the cult of Mammon in His sacred city, followed up Wolff with a petition emanating from bankers and merchants, all praying with one consent that an unbeliever in their gods should not be allowed to sit at Westminster. The honour of God was avowedly the one concern of the Alderman and of the men, so many of them gross with fortuitous gain, who made him their mouthpiece. And those strategists who knew the imperfect efficacy of bogus religion as a means of keeping an Atheist member out of his seat, took care to supply the additional weapons needed.
Mr Gladstone met Sir Henry Wolff's motion with a counter motion for the appointment of a fresh select committee to consider Bradlaugh's competence to take the oath—a sufficiently unwise course, in view of the action of the previous committee. At once, however, the official Tories gave their full support to Wolff's motion, declaring that the matter should not even go to a committee. Mr Gibson, formerly Attorney-General for Ireland, argued that Bradlaugh had deserved all that befell him for raising the question. "The hon. member might have taken his seat without opposition, but he had chosen to obtrude himself on the House and the country. He must therefore accept the grave responsibility of thus thrusting his opinions on the House." Observe the situation. Bradlaugh had acted not only as a scrupulous man in his place was bound to do, but as a man careful of other men's susceptibilities would do. Had he simply taken the oath, he would certainly have been yelled at as a hypocrite, and further as a blasphemer. The point had been publicly discussed in the press beforehand, and his enemies were prepared. Trying to avoid at once inconsistency and scandal, he quietly and circumspectly sought to make affirmation. The right to affirm was denied him in committee by the champions of the oath, joined by one conscientious Liberal. When he then came to take the compelled oath, these men and their fellows assailed him as one who "obtruded his opinions"; and Mr Gibson, their spokesman, proceeded to allege in so many words that the member for Northampton had "walked up the floor of the House with that oath and Book before him and declined to take the oath." It was a falsehood; and Mr Gibson himself had just before, in the same speech, admitted that Bradlaugh had "claimed for himself, in careful and guarded language, the right to make an affirmation."
There are many points in the story of this struggle at which it is hardly possible to abstain from imputing wilful falsehood to some of the actors. But on this point it seems right to conclude that one or other form of prejudice or passion made men all round incapable of realising when and how they grossly perverted a simple fact. It was not merely the factious Tories who repeated the mis-statement, though they naturally used it most industriously. Mr Chaplin, M.P., was reported in two newspapers as having asserted that at a public meeting on 1st June "Mr Bradlaugh announced his intention of refusing the oath, and asked that he might affirm instead." Mr Chaplin, at the time of speaking, was a member of the second select committee appointed to sit on the oath question, and Bradlaugh indignantly protested to the Chairman, who was again Mr Spencer Walpole. Mr Chaplin, after some fencing, declared that the report was inaccurate. Baron Henry de Worms, another of the champions of Omnipotence, publicly averred[132] that "he was in the House when Mr Bradlaugh came to the Speaker and said he could not and would not take an oath which in no way bound him, as he did not acknowledge any God." Challenged as to this statement, Baron Henry de Worms avowed that the words from "which" onwards were his own comment, but could not see anything unwarrantable in the previous statement as to the facts. Such were the notions of truth and honour among English—and other—oath-taking gentlemen and noblemen with which Bradlaugh had to contend. And he was only in part supported by the remarks of Mr John Morley in the Fortnightly Review for July 1880:—
"There is no precedent for Mr Bradlaugh's case, for the simple reason that there is no precedent for the frank courage with which he has considered it desirable to publish his views as to the nature of an oath. That the oath is just as meaningless, so far as its divine appeal is concerned, to many past and present members of the House of Commons as Mr Bradlaugh protested it would be to him, no one doubts. Whether and how far he was justified in asking to be sworn, after he had declined to be sworn, is a different question. Whatever the answer to that may be, it cannot at least be said that the course adopted by Mr Bradlaugh involved the surrender of any principle."
The last clause is so candid that it is a pity Mr Morley should have "considered it desirable" to fortify his own position by penning that above italicised. He had previously spoken of Bradlaugh's "pertinacity" in "parading" his views—a statement which obtrudes its inspiration. When a leading Liberal publicist wrote so, the godly multitude naturally asserted in chorus that Bradlaugh had first ostentatiously refused to take the oath, and then insisted on taking it. Dean Boyd, of Exeter, capped the record by asserting that when Bradlaugh first "advanced to the table of the House," he "openly, boldly, and defiantly affirmed that he believed there was no such being as a Deity."
In the frame of mind represented by a variety of such utterances as these, the House of Commons deliberated on Mr Gladstone's motion that the question of Bradlaugh's competence to swear should be referred to a second special committee. On the second day of the debate, Sir Stafford Northcote, the nominal leader of the Conservative party in the House, accepted the position into which he had been ignominiously forced by irresponsible and even semi-defiant adherents, and opposed the appointment of the Committee. He is reported as saying:—
"Without raising any question as to whether there is anything irreverent in the course which the hon. member proposes to take, it seems to me that we, in allowing him to take it, should be incurring a responsibility from which our better judgment ought to make us shrink"
—a fair sample of the hon. baronet's forcible-feeble oratory. Some Tory speakers, as Earl Percy, admitted that "the hon. member, to do him justice, had sought to avoid taking an oath to which he attached no sacred character"; but these ingenuous combatants were concerned only to prevent the House from "incurring the guilt of an act of hypocrisy," and had no anxiety about avoiding an act of iniquity. When John Bright met the subterfuges of the Opposition with the retaliatory criticism of which he was a master, the temperature naturally rose. If, he asked, they set up the principle of a creed test, where were they going to end? Would they next question members known to be unbelievers, though not publicly professed ones? As certain Conservative members were actually known by their comrades to be Gallios in these matters, Bright's challenge created the appropriate resentment, as did his emphatic avowal, "One thing I believe most profoundly, that there is nothing amongst mankind that has done more to destroy truthfulness than the forcing of men to take an oath." But the memorable part of his speech was this:—
"I have no right to speak of the member for Northampton. I think it never happened to me more than once to address to him a single sentence, or to hear any expression from him. I never saw him to my knowledge but once, before he appeared in this House; but he is returned here by a large constituency, to whom his religious opinions were as well known as they are now to us.... Now, I have no doubt whatever, though I have no authority to say so, that the oath as it stands is binding on the conscience of the member for Northampton, in the sense that an affirmation would be binding on his conscience—that the words of the oath, so far as they are a promise, are words which would be binding upon him, but that their binding character is not increased by the reference to the Supreme Being, of whose existence, unhappily as we all think—such is the constitution of his mind, and such has been the constitution of many eminent minds of whom we have all heard—he is not able to form that distinct opinion and belief which we, who I think are more happy, have been able to do. Therefore if he were to come to the table and to take the oath as it is, and as he proposes to take it, I have no doubt that it would be binding on his conscience as my simple affirmation is binding on mine; because in my affirmation there is no reference to the Deity. I make a promise. My word is as good, and is taken to be as good, as your oath. (Loud Ministerial cheers.) And that is declared by an irrevocable Act of Parliament. And if Mr Bradlaugh takes this oath, as he proposes to take it, I have no doubt that, though the last words of the oath have no binding effect upon him, yet his sense of honour and his conscience—(Opposition laughter, and cries of 'Hear, hear' from some Ministerialists)—his sense of honour and his conscience would make that declaration as binding on him as my affirmation is on me, and as your oath is on you."
Among those who joined in the brutal laughter of the gentlemen of the Conservative party at these passages were men who had committed bribery, unscrupulous stock-jobbers and company promoters, men about town, topers, libellers, and liars. But some who thought it fitting to laugh with these would be normally classed as chivalrous and well-bred gentlemen.
The debate remained picturesque to the close. Lord Randolph Churchill, who has within the present year proved afresh his capacity to create a Parliamentary sensation, protested that "if the words 'so help me God' were held to be a mere superstitious invocation, the idea or the faith which had for centuries animated the House of Commons that its proceedings were under the guidance of Providence would lose its force, and would very soon have to be abandoned altogether." The better to exemplify the energy of the divine supervision, the noble lord, after quoting a somewhat strong passage from Bradlaugh's "Impeachment of the House of Brunswick," threw the pamphlet violently on the floor of the House, in parody of Burke's performance with the daggers. Baron de Worms hazarded the proposition that "this was an irreligious, not a religious question." The late Mr Thorold Rogers, an economist whose incapacity for logical thought led to his not unsuccessful cultivation of the department of historical detail, made a foolish and offensive speech on the Liberal side, setting out with a statement of his sense of intellectual superiority to Bradlaugh. "In his opinion, a person who recognised no law beyond that of his own mind, and such scanty rules as he thought fit to lay for his own guidance, very much weakened his own character and lessened the value of his own life and acts." Further, Mr Rogers had over and over again found "in the course of the study of history" that Atheists were Conservatives; and he cited in proof the names of Hobbes, a Theist; Hume, who till the latter part of his life was an emphatic Deist; and Gibbon, who was one till his death. "He knew something of the political views of educated sceptics; and when this unhappy gentleman became a little better educated it would undoubtedly be found that he was migrating towards the opposite benches." After other remarks to similar effect, Mr Rogers provoked even the protest of the much-tolerating Speaker by charging the Tories with being indisposed to "act as generously as they did in their sports, and to give a little law even to vermin." For this felicitous figure Mr Rogers made a stumbling apology. On this being privately repeated, Bradlaugh, with his usual magnanimity, later forgave the speech as a whole.
Where a professed Radical could be thus insolent, on the score of his sense of superiority to opinions which he was incapable of discussing, the language of the customary Tory may readily be imagined. The revelations of ardent piety made by some eminent capitalists and company-promoters were unexpectedly gratifying to the religious feelings of the nation; and the unrelieved malignity of the personal allusions of these and other Christians to a man precluded from turning unto them there and then the other cheek, proved the injustice of the charge that this is an age of lukewarm religious convictions.
After two days of largely irrelevant debate, Wolff's motion was rejected by 289 votes to 214—a result not ungratifying to the Tories, as showing that already certain Liberals had taken their side. A select committee of twenty-three was duly appointed, the Tories being defeated in an attempt to strengthen their representation on it. The members were:—The Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, Messrs Bright, Chaplin, Childers, Sir Richard Cross, Mr Gibson, Sir Gabriel Goldney, Mr Grantham, Mr Staveley Hill, Sir John Holker, Mr Beresford Hope, Mr Hopwood, Sir Henry Jackson, Lord Henry Lennox, Mr Massey, Major Nolan, Messrs Pemberton, Simon, Trevelyan, Walpole, Whitbread, and Watkin Williams. The Committee began by examining Sir Thomas Erskine May as to precedents; and Mr Bradlaugh was allowed to put questions to him likewise, bringing forward precedents Sir Thomas had not noted, among them the important case of Sir Francis Bacon, who, as Attorney-General, was challenged for breaking the law in making oath that he was duly qualified to sit, when, as a practising barrister, he was legally disqualified under an Act of Edward III. (It was in this case that the House ruled: "Their oath their own consciences to look unto, not we to examine it.") After Sir Thomas May, Bradlaugh was himself examined, and conducted his case with the lawyer-like exactitude and the more than lawyer-like concision and cogency which even his enemies admitted to belong to all his legal pleadings.[133] He pointed out that if it were competent to the House to interfere between a member and the oath, the first forty members sworn in a Parliament might prevent the sitting of any of the rest; and that if he were held legally incompetent to make affirmation of allegiance, he stood legally bound, as an elected member, to take the oath, no matter what his opinions were. He formally stated—
"That there is nothing in what I did when asking to affirm which in any way disqualifies me from taking the oath.
"That all I did was—believing, as I then did, that I had the right to affirm—to claim to affirm, and that I was then absolutely silent as to the oath.
"That I did not refuse to take it; nor have then or since expressed any mental reservation or stated that the appointed oath of allegiance would not be binding upon me.
"That, on the contrary, I say and have said that the essential part of the oath is in the fullest and most complete degree binding upon my honour and conscience, and that the repeating the words of asseveration does not in the slightest degree weaken the binding effect of the oath of allegiance upon me."
These explicit statements he repeated again and again in answer to questions, saying once:—
"Any form that I went through, any oath that I took, I should regard as binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree. I would go through no form, I would take no oath, unless I meant it to be so binding."
This emphatic explanation was given in reply to a question on what is, to my mind, the only obscure point in his examination. Asked: "Do you draw any distinction between the binding effect upon your conscience of the assertory oath, as it is called, and the promissory oath?" he answered—
"Most certainly I do. The testimony oath is not binding upon my conscience, because there is another form which the law has provided which I may take, which is more consonant with my feelings. The promissory oath is and will be binding upon my conscience if I take it, because the law, as interpreted by your Committee, says that it is the form which I am to take, and the statute requires me to take it."
There is here, I think, a momentary confusion among the terms "assertory," "promissory," and "testimony"; and the phrase "not binding on my conscience" is also used in a sense probably not intended by the questioner, and not that intended by Bradlaugh in his next answer, above quoted. The "because" is inconsequent. What he meant to convey was simply that he expressly rejected the testimony oath because in giving evidence he was free to affirm; whereas he was compelled to take the oath of allegiance, there being no legal alternative in the opinion of a Committee of the House. He had been forced to submit in the law courts to the invidious formula that the oath was not binding on his conscience, because it had been expressly ruled in law[134] that if a witness simply said "I am an Atheist," the judge was bound to infer that an oath did not "bind" him. But Bradlaugh's answers to the Select Committee, taken together, made it superfluously clear that in the natural sense of the words he held any formula of promise he took to be binding on him, whether with or without an imprecatory tag. And inasmuch as members of the Committee nevertheless thought fit afterwards to allege that he had all along declared the contrary with regard to the oath, we are driven to one of two conclusions. Either (a) these gentlemen hold that a formal public promise is not fully binding on their consciences unless they add "so help me God," or something of the sort, and that an Atheist cannot be more conscientious than they; or (b) they deliberately chose to bear false witness for party purposes. And it finally matters little which conclusion we draw; for the acceptance of the first leaves open the chance of the second being true also.
The Committee, after a variety of votes, finally reported to the effect that Bradlaugh, by simply stating [though in answer to official question] that he had repeatedly affirmed under certain Acts in courts of law, had brought it to the notice of the House that he was a person as to whom judges had satisfied themselves that an oath was "not binding on his conscience"; that, under the circumstances, an oath taken by him would not be an oath "within the true meaning of the statutes"; and that the House therefore could and ought to prevent him from going through the form. They further suggested that he should be allowed to affirm with a view to his right to do so being tested by legal action, pointing to the nearly equal balance of votes in the former committee as a reason for desiring a decisive legal solution.
For this report of course only those members are responsible who voted for its main clauses. Under this reservation it falls to be said that the use made of the mean technicality of an oath being held not "binding on the conscience" of an Atheist was in itself profoundly unconscientious. That formality was, to begin with, expressly intended to prevent the evasion of the oath by religious knaves, and not at all to imply that an Atheist who took the oath could not be believed. What was more, Bradlaugh had only specified the Evidence Amendment Acts in reply to the express challenge of the Clerk of the House of Commons. To turn an accidental ambiguity to the account of an iniquity, to decide that a man was untrustworthy under the pretext of a legal subterfuge, was merely to show that the oath is less than no security for right action, and that under its cover men can far outgo the lengths of injustice that they are likely to venture on in the name of simple law. In the words of Bright, who opposed the conclusion come to as "absolutely untenable," "the course taken was one involving a mean advantage over Mr Bradlaugh." What the proceeding proved against Bradlaugh was simply this: that he had done wrong in ever accepting, even as a technical phrase, the juridical formula that an oath as a whole is not "binding on the conscience" of one to whom an imprecation is an idle barbarism. He ought in the law courts to have repudiated even the technical shadow of an implication that a rationalist's word is worth less than a religionist's oath. Nothing but persistent resistance will ever make tyrannous religion give way to justice; and he, who was habitually accused of gratuitously defying religion, had simply not defied it enough. And the lesson taught to other rationalists by his struggle is this, that oath-taking must in future be stigmatised and warred against as implying not a higher but a lower moral standard than that of rational ethics. Men who must swear to be believed are not to be believed.
§ 5.
On 21st June, a few days after the presentation of the Committee's report to the House, Mr Labouchere moved a resolution to the effect that Bradlaugh be allowed to make affirmation instead of taking the oath—the course the Committee had recommended. He had previously given notice of a general Affirmation Bill, but had postponed the discussion of it, pending the report. He now moved his resolution, after presenting a petition in support of Bradlaugh from some thousands of the people of Northampton, on the heels of a large Tory petition, also from Northampton, praying that Bradlaugh "might not be permitted to take the holy name of God in vain." Mr Labouchere in an extremely able and persuasive speech dwelt on the prime fact that the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866 gave to all persons legally qualified to affirm in courts of law the right to affirm in Parliament, and that by later Acts Bradlaugh was entitled to affirm in courts of law. [The opposition view presumably was that the Act of 1866 could only refer to persons then entitled to affirm; but no argument to that effect appears on the reports consulted by the present writer.] He further warned the enemy that if they carried their hostility to the point of unseating Bradlaugh, he would simply be re-elected—a statement which evoked confident "No's" from members whose faith in Deity was more deep than philosophical; and remarked what was perfectly true—that there were "exceedingly few persons in Northampton of Mr Bradlaugh's views" on religious matters. Sir Hardinge Giffard (now Lord Halsbury) rang the changes on the argument about obtrusion of views; and pietists like Alderman Fowler and Mr Warton expressed afresh their corpulent horror of Atheism. One Irish member, Mr Arthur O'Connor, took occasion to protest—in a debate on a proposal to permit an affirmation—against letting Bradlaugh take the oath; and the Speaker seems to have made no objection. On the other side, Mr Hopwood, whose vote in the first committee had possibly permitted all the trouble, made a powerful speech against the "obtrusion" argument, which, as he justly said, amounted to telling Bradlaugh, "If you had come to the table with a lie on your lips, we would have allowed you to be sworn." But again the great speech in the debate was Bright's. The remark, "There are many members of this House who take the oath and greatly dislike it," was his first home-thrust; and soon, after a temperate and weighty argument, he nobly repeated his declaration of belief in the honour of the Atheist, whose opinions were probably as repugnant to Bright as to any other man in the House. "I pretend," he said—and his voice rose with his theme,—"I pretend to have no conscience and honour superior to the conscience of Mr Bradlaugh. (Ironical cheers from the Opposition.) It is no business of mine to set myself up—perhaps it is no business of yours to set yourselves up—(cheers)—as having conscience and honour superior to that which actuates Mr Bradlaugh." He went on to protest that the course taken by the majority of the committee was "one involving a mean advantage over Mr Bradlaugh." The speech, however, mainly ran to perfectly judicial argument; and it was the obvious determination of the Tories to give no ear to argument that evoked the flashes of feeling which lit it up. Bright having said that the oath was now made a theistic test, where before it had been a Protestant and a Christian test, a "No," came from Mr Spencer Walpole, the Chairman of the Committee. "Why," retorted Bright, "the right hon. gentleman must have forgotten everything in the committee; he cannot have been conscious of his own opinions. Why, surely the object of this motion is to establish the test of theism." There were again "No's" from the party which denies; and Bright, after establishing his point, thrust afresh. "The theistic test," he repeated, "is proposed by the member for Portsmouth—the front bench opposite appears to have abdicated entirely—there is now only an abject, a remarkable submission to gentlemen who sit in the lower part of the House." A plain statement of the obvious fact that Wolff was establishing a precedent for intervention elicited more blatant "No's," and Bright began to warm up to his peroration. He reminded the House that a Positivist or Comtist who had been concerned in the issue of an anti-theistic pamphlet might quite as plausibly be challenged as Mr Bradlaugh; going on to speak of certain Positivists as "some men for whom I have the utmost respect in regard to everything but their opinions on the question of religion, which I deplore, and in connection with which I can only commiserate them. But," he went on, correcting the touch of superciliousness,—
"I know that many people have much greater power of belief than others have; and I am not one of those—having myself passed through many doubts—to condemn, without sympathy at any rate, those who are not able to adopt the views which I myself hold. (Hear, hear.) Now, sir, only one word more. There are members of this House of different Churches, but generally all, I trust, of one religion—of the religion which inculcates charity, and forbearance, and justice, and even generosity. There are those who belong to the Roman Catholic Church. I need not remind them of what they and their ancestors have gone through in Ireland—(hear)—for the last 200 or 300 years or more, or of how long a time they were kept out of this House, and by the very same class of arguments which the honourable and learned member for Surrey used. (Cheers.) He tells us that for a very long time past there has been a gradual relaxation. Yes, no doubt. Did he ever sit among those who have promoted those relaxations? I have been here for thirty-seven years, and I have heard these questions discussed over and over again; but I never found that the time had come when the party opposite, represented by gentlemen who now sit there, were willing to make these relaxations. They submitted not to argument, not to sentiments of generosity or of justice; they submitted only to a majority which sat on this side of the House. (Cheers.) Then there are the Nonconformists. I am told that there are some Nonconformists even—but I think it is rather in the nature of a mistake or a slander—who have great doubts as to how they should vote on this occasion. It is occasions like this that try men and try principles. (Hear, hear.) Do you suppose that in times past the Founder of Christianity has required an oath in this House to defend the religion which He founded? Or do you suppose now that the supreme Ruler of the world can be interested in the fact that one man comes to this table and takes His name—it may be often in vain—(murmurs)—and another is permitted to make an affirmation, reverently and honestly, in which His name is not included? But one thing is essential for us, the House of Commons representing the English people, which is, to maintain as far as we can the great principles of freedom—freedom of political action and freedom of conscience."
An allusion to the remark of Mr Labouchere that the Northampton constituency in the mass had no sympathy with Bradlaugh's theological opinions evoked another Conservative laugh, and Bright continued:—
"Well, hon. gentlemen who know nothing about it laugh at that. I think it very possible that, finding that Mr Bradlaugh in his political opinions was in sympathy with them, those electors so little liked the political opinions of hon. gentlemen opposite that they preferred Mr Bradlaugh, with his political opinions, to some opposing candidates who have represented them, and whose religious views might have been entirely orthodox. (Hear, hear.) ... To a large extent the working people of this country do not care any more for the dogmas of Christianity than the upper classes care for the practice of that religion. (Cheers, and loud cries of 'Oh,' and 'Withdraw.') I wish from my heart that it were otherwise. (Cheers, and renewed cries of 'Withdraw.')"
Despite the Tory wrath, there was no withdrawal.
This great speech was followed, after the adjournment, by one from Gladstone, less powerful because less fired with moral feeling, but eloquent, cogent, and unanswerable, save for the slip of the statement that Bolingbroke, the Theist, was "without any religious belief at all."[135] Yet the end of the debate—after a series of speeches, including one by Sir Henry Tyler in which he brutally dragged the name of Mrs Besant into his attack on Bradlaugh—was that only 230 voted for Mr Labouchere's motion, and 275 against. This was on 22nd June. What Bright had thought could not be had taken place, though the Nonconformists were not the bulk of the Liberals who enabled the Tories to trample underfoot the first principles of Liberalism. Thirty-six Liberals and thirty-one Home Rulers voted in the majority, and doubtless joined in its exultant cheers.
A number of Liberals, further, were absent without pairs. There were found among the allies of tyranny representatives of nearly all of the sects which had themselves suffered persecution, Catholics, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Jews, as well as members of the Established Church. When, therefore, Mr John Tenniel in Punch caused his weekly contribution to the gaiety of his nation to take the shape of a cartoon joyfully representing Bradlaugh as "kicked out," with a crumpled paper in his hand bearing the legend "Atheism," he was more than usually in touch with the social sentiment of which he is the leading artistic exponent. Our "English love of fair play" was never more neatly illustrated, even by that "primitive pencil."[136]
The action of the Home Rulers is perhaps specially notable. Some of them later pretended that their hostility to Mr Bradlaugh was due to a single vote he gave on the Arms Bill. It will be seen that they opposed him in great force before he had ever had a chance to vote at all, and this on a simple claim that he should be allowed to make affirmation. Mr Justin M'Carthy, in keeping with his general attitude on religious questions, sought from the first to exclude the Atheist from Parliament. The only other plea open to the majority was that Bradlaugh had "forced his Atheism on the House." This was the line taken, for instance, not only by Sir Hardinge Giffard, but by Sir Walter Barttelot, a typical Tory squire and "English gentleman," who just before Bradlaugh's death in 1891 won for himself some credit by a frank tribute to his honesty of character. Were it not for the countenance given by Mr John Morley at the time to a patently unjust account of Bradlaugh's action—an account which Gladstone as well as Bright then explicitly contradicted—one would be disposed to point to the general repetition of the untruth by the Tory press and party as proving how worthless a thing the "honour and conscience" of English gentlemen is in matters of public action. It is a matter of simple fact that Bradlaugh all along anxiously sought to keep his Atheism out of cognisance of the susceptibilities of the House;[137] and it is perfectly certain that had he come forward to take the oath at the outset, he would not only have been afterwards vilified by the Opposition as a blasphemous hypocrite, but would have been challenged all the same by Wolff and the rest. The matter had been openly discussed beforehand. There is thus no conclusion open save that the majority in the vote on the affirmation motion did a gross injustice; and though the really religious men in the House, as Gladstone and Bright, were mostly on the other side, and the religiosity of the aggressors was in many cases a nauseous farce, it must be assumed that religion counted for much[138] in the matter. Parnell in the next stage of the question avowed that he had been on Bradlaugh's side from the first, but had found himself opposed on the point by "the great majority of the Irish members." There would seem to be no doubt that the Catholic priesthood—actively represented by Cardinal Manning—determined the action of Parnell's followers, and later his own. It is perhaps not unprofitable to reflect that most of the "Liberal" wrongdoers have since paid some penalties. Some dozen lost their seats at next election on the Bradlaugh issue. The Home Rulers have felt to the full the power of fanaticism against themselves; and Parnell, who later yielded to the bigotry of his party, lived to know all the bitterness of religious injustice. A minor Scotch Liberal then on the wrong side, Mr Maclagan, has lately been unseated by clerical effort; and doubtless others could testify that they who draw the sword of bigotry tend to perish by it. It would doubtless be giving an undue air of moral regularity to the business to lay any stress on the final political fate of Northcote, who in the Bradlaugh struggle made himself the catspaw of the worst section of his followers. He certainly had his due reward.
§ 6.
Being thus expressly denied the right to affirm by a vote of the whole House, Bradlaugh promptly reverted to his position that if he could not affirm, he was legally bound to take the oath and his seat. A committee had declared by a casting vote that he could not affirm, and left him to swear. The House referred the point of his swearing to a larger committee, which decided by a majority that he could not swear, but recommended that after all he be allowed to affirm. The House stood by the finding of both committees in so far as it was hostile, and overruled that of the second in so far as it was favourable. It remained to fight the whole House on the point of the oath.
On 23rd June, after the "prayers," which remain one of the institutions of the House, Bradlaugh walked to the table amid some cries of "Order," and spoke to the Clerk. The Speaker then formally intimated to him the decision of the House, and called upon him to withdraw. Amid roars of "Withdraw" from the furious mob of Tory members, Bradlaugh contrived to let the Speaker understand that he claimed to be heard. He had to withdraw while the question was discussed, and when Mr Labouchere sought to move that he be heard, the Speaker had to rise to secure order. On grounds not easily inferred, the House, suddenly changing its temper, with very little dissent agreed to let Bradlaugh be heard at the "Bar," which was at once drawn across the bottom of the House, and at which he proceeded to speak, as represented in the admirable portrait done after his death by Mr Walter Sickert. This, his first speech at the Bar of the House,[139] I have heard described as perfect by some Liberals who thought less highly of the three others it was his lot to make from the same place. It is perhaps the most vividly impressive, but only, I think, because it was the first. Certainly it is the most memorable address of challenge ever made to the House, though it has all the straightforward, terse simplicity of Bradlaugh's general speaking, which was never rehearsed. It was measured and controlled throughout. The mean insult of a "Hear, hear" when he asked, "Do you tell me I am unfit to sit amongst you?" did not discompose him. "The more reason, then," he went on, "that this House should show the generosity which judges show to a criminal, and allow every word he has to say to be heard." Even in rebuking the most dastardly attack made upon him in the House he was gravely dignified.
"I have to ask indulgence lest the memory of some hard words which have been spoken in my absence should seem to give to what I say a tone of defiance, which it is far from my wish should be there at all; and I am the more eased because although there were words spoken which I had always been taught English gentlemen never said in the absence of an antagonist without notice to him, yet there were also generous and brave words said for one who is at present, I am afraid, a source of trouble and discomfort and hindrance to business. I measure the generous words against the others, and I will only make one appeal through you, sir, which is, that if the reports be correct that the introduction of other names came with mine in the heat of passion and the warmth of debate, the gentleman[140] who used those words, if such there were, will remember that he was wanting in chivalry, because, while I can answer for myself, and am able to answer for myself, nothing justified the introduction of any other name beside my own to make a prejudice against me. (Cheers, 'Question,' and cries of 'Order.')"
He went on to deal with the common objection to his action:—
"It is said, 'You might have taken the oath as other members did.' I could not help, when I read that, sir, trying to put myself in the place of each member who said it. I imagined a member of some form of faith who found in the oath words which seemed to him to clash with his faith, but still words which he thought he might utter, but which he would prefer not to utter if there were any other form which the law provided him; and I asked myself whether each of those members would not then have taken the form which was most consonant with his honour and conscience. If I have not misread, some hon. members seem to think that I have neither honour nor conscience. Is there not some proof to the contrary in the fact that I did not go through the form, believing that there was another right open to me? ('Hear, hear' and 'Order.') Is that not some proof that I have honour and conscience?"
The most searching thrusts were delivered with entire amenity.
"It is said that you may deal with me because I am isolated. I could not help hearing the ring of that word in the lobby as I sat outside last night. But is that a reason—that because I stand alone, the House are to do against me what they would not do if I had 100,000 men at my back? That is a bad argument, which provokes a reply inconsistent with the dignity of this House, and which I should be sorry to give."
And no less measured was the warning that the struggle would not end with his exclusion:—
"Do you mean that I am to go back to Northampton as to a court, to appeal against you? that I am to ask the constituency to array themselves against this House? I hope not. If it is to be, it must be. If this House arrays itself against an isolated man—its huge power against one citizen—if it must be, then the battle must be too. But it is not with the constituency of Northampton alone...."
The peroration was as austere as the rest of the speech:—
"I beg your pardon, sir, and that of the House too, if in this warmth there seems to lack respect for its dignity; and as I shall have, if your decision be against me, to come to that table when your decision is given, I beg you, before the step is taken in which we may both lose our dignity—mine is not much, but yours is that of the Commons of England—I beg you before the gauntlet is fatally thrown down—I beg you, not in any sort of menace, not in any sort of boast, but as one man against six hundred, to give me that justice which on the other side of this wall the judges would give me were I pleading before them."
Then ensued a fresh debate. Northcote at some length expressed himself to the effect that there was nothing to be said. Gladstone at similar length agreed. The Speaker asked whether Bradlaugh should be called in, and after some confused discussion Mr Labouchere was allowed to move that yesterday's resolution be rescinded. Mr Gorst moved the adjournment of the debate; but on an appeal from Gladstone, Mr Labouchere withdrew his motion. The Speaker then recalled Bradlaugh to the table, and informed him that the House had nothing to say beyond calling upon him once more to withdraw. Bradlaugh replied: "I beg respectfully to insist upon my right as a duly elected member for Northampton. I ask you to have the oath administered to me, in order that I may take my seat, and I respectfully refuse to withdraw." The helpless Speaker "thought it right to point out to the hon. gentleman" what he had pointed out before. Again Bradlaugh replied: "With respect, I do refuse to obey the orders of the House, which are against the law;" and the Speaker had to appeal to the House "to give authority to the Chair to compel execution of its orders." Gladstone remained silent, despite calls for him, and Northcote in his flabbiest manner proceeded to move, "though I am not quite sure what the terms of the motion should be, that Mr Speaker do take the necessary steps for requiring and enforcing the withdrawal of the hon. member for Northampton." The Speaker confusedly explained, to the perplexity of the House, that according to "former precedents" the motion should simply be "that the hon. member do now withdraw"—precisely what he had already declared to be the resolution and order of the House. The motion being challenged, there voted for it 326, and only 38 against, the Government having chosen to give effect to the vote of the majority of the day before. The scene now became still more exciting. On the Speaker's again calling on Bradlaugh to withdraw, he answered: "With submission to you, sir, the order of the House is against the law, and I respectfully refuse to obey it." The Speaker then called on the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove him, and that officer, coming up, touched him on the shoulder and requested him to withdraw. He said, "I shall submit to the Sergeant-at-Arms removing me below the bar, but I shall immediately return to the table," and he did so, saying on his way back towards the table, "I claim my right as a member of the House." Again led back to the bar by the officer, he again walked up the floor of the now tempestuous House, saying "in a voice rising high above the din" (says a contemporary report), "I claim my right as a member of this House. I admit the right of the House to imprison me, but I admit no right on the part of the House to exclude me, and I refuse to be excluded." Again led to the bar by the Sergeant-at-Arms, he awaited the action of the House.
His action had been taken with a forethought. He was determined to force the House to further steps, and to make its path a cul de sac. The Speaker again appealed to the House for orders, and Northcote, making an effort to get up a state of vigorous purpose in himself, conscious the while that the moral right was all on the other side, once more took action. He somewhat disappointed the followers who had led him by remarking: "I am quite sure that none of us are disposed to make any personal complaint of the conduct of the hon. member. We know that he is in a position which calls for our consideration, and that we must make all proper allowance for the course which he may think it right to take." Complaining that the duty ought to have been taken up by the leader of the House, Northcote proceeded to move that Bradlaugh, having defied the House, be taken into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. Gladstone once more explained that he thought those who had got the House into the trouble should get it out, and wordily went on to indicate that he thought the Opposition were taking a consistent course. But again a discussion arose. Mr Labouchere began by remarking on the position of a citizen sent to prison for doing what some high legal authorities thought he had a perfect right to do. Mr Courtney suggested that the arrest be formally carried through to permit of the legality of the House's course being tested on a writ of habeas corpus. The appearance of a shorthand writer at the bar taking notes led to a question of order; and the Speaker explained that he was there by authority, reporting the proceedings, "not the debate, which would clearly be out of order." A friendly motion for the adjournment of the debate was made, discussed, and withdrawn. Another was made by Mr Finigan, a friendly Irish member, and seconded by Mr Biggar; but only five voted for it and 342 against. Mr Parnell then made the very creditable speech in which he avowed his dissent from the majority of the Home Rulers; and some of these in turn expressed their dissent from him. At length Northcote's motion was carried by 274 votes to 7. The result was received "without any manifestation of feeling," and members laughed when the Speaker announced the resumption of "the private business." Already the majority had begun to feel that its triumph was a fiasco. In an hour the Sergeant-at-Arms, called upon by the Speaker to report, announced to the House that "in pursuance of their order and Mr Speaker's warrant, I have taken Mr Bradlaugh, the member for Northampton, into custody."
He was in the "Clock Tower"—in a room, that is, on the second story of that part of the House—whither he had gone with the slight requisite show of formal resistance, passing first a short time in the Sergeant's private room. There he was visited by Parnell, Mr O'Kelly, Mr O'Connor Power, Mr Finigan, and Dr Commins, all of whom expressed their cordial sympathy. The imprisonment was a farcical form. A constant stream of friends visited him; and he went about the business of fighting his battle in the country as he would do in his own rooms. On the very evening of his arrest a Committee was formed to secure his liberation, and an appeal drawn up in its name by Mrs Besant. This was distributed by thousands next day; and a fresh petition for signature was likewise framed and sent out broadcast at once. But the democracy did not wait for petitions. The moment the news of the House's action reached the public, a cry of indignation arose, loud enough to alarm Beaconsfield,[141] on whose urgent advice (so it was said at the time) Northcote on the next day moved for Bradlaugh's unconditional release, which was hurriedly agreed to. The stultification of the majority was now complete; and the course taken by Northcote thus far may stand as a fair sample of modern Conservative statesmanship—the policy of irrational resistance, on no better principle than that of partisan habit, ending in ignominious collapse. Still the cry of protest swelled in volume. In less than a week two hundred meetings were held throughout the country to pass resolutions in Bradlaugh's favour; Radical and Liberal clubs and societies of all kinds sent their messages of protest and appeal; and Liberal members who had voted on the Tory side were sharply called to account. Even before matters had come to a crisis, abundant proof was given that a large and earnest minority were dead against the policy of intolerance. In May Mr Labouchere had given notice of a Bill to permit affirmation by any member in place of the oath of allegiance; and by 6th July there had been presented 462 petitions in favour of that measure, with 40,434 signatures, largely obtained through the organisation of the National Secular Society. The effect of these and other displays of popular feeling began to be seen in the House. Liberal members who had voted on the Tory side out of fear of the bigots in their constituencies began to hesitate. On 28th June leave was given to Mr Labouchere to introduce his Affirmation Bill, which was read a first time. The Government, however, took the view that Bradlaugh's rights ought to be legally determined in respect of the state of the law at the time of his election; and instead of supporting or giving facilities for Mr Labouchere's Bill, they proposed the compromise of moving that the excluded member be allowed to affirm pending the legal settlement of his position. This was accepted; and, on 1st July, Mr Gladstone moved as a standing order that members-elect be allowed, subject to any liability by statute, to affirm at their choice.
This was of course the signal for a fresh storm. On Mr Gladstone's preliminary motion that the Orders of the Day be postponed, Mr Gorst pronounced the motion disorderly, and opposed the proposal in advance as being to the effect that "the House should break the law, in order to smuggle Mr Bradlaugh into the House." Gladstone, in moving his order, was studiously moderate, giving as a reason for the Government's not introducing a Bill the impossibility of having the question calmly discussed in the then state of feeling, while urging the necessity of preserving the dignity and decency of the House as a reason for doing something. He went on to defend Bradlaugh fully and forcibly against the charge of having "obtruded his Atheism" on the House, and wound up with a calm contention that it was the duty of the House to further the claim of any member to take his seat under a given law, leaving it to be settled in the law courts whether his claim was valid. Northcote opposed, arguing that there was no fear of a repetition of the scene of last week, since the Speaker could give instructions that Mr Bradlaugh be not allowed to enter the precincts. To accept the motion "would be to some extent humiliating to the House."[142] No question of justice or righteousness was raised by the Tory leader. One of his followers, Lord Henry Scott, advanced the pious proposition that "the mere affirmation of a person who did not believe in a Supreme Being could not be regarded as a binding engagement upon him." Another ignoramus named Smyth explained that the "test of Theism" "pervaded the whole body of the Constitution, of which, like the soul of man, it was the animating principle." "Let Atheists be admitted within its walls, and there would be Atheistical legislation.... Such teaching it was that led to the outbreak of the French Revolution." Thus were old lies made to support new. An Irish Catholic named Corbet spoke of "Mr Bradlaugh's Byzantine doctrines of morality," either forgetting that Byzantium was the typical Christian State for a thousand years, or desiring to asperse the Christian Church which had all along been the great rival of his own. Mr A. M. Sullivan, another Catholic, made a rabid speech, supporting the cause of religion with the plea, "Where was the class that was oppressed now? It was nothing but an individual." He went on to avow that he sought to keep Mr Bradlaugh out of Parliament on the score that his Malthusianism, "taken in conjunction with his Atheistic opinions, struck fatally at the foundation of civil society." The Church of the confessional is naturally zealous for the sacredness of the family; and the Church of the Inquisition for the "foundations of civil society." Men who regard the hamstringing of cattle as at most a pity are naturally warm on the subject of rational control of human procreation. On the other hand, Parnell "wished, as an Irish Protestant, with the utmost diffidence, to say a few words in explanation of the vote he would give to-night." Already he seemed shaken by the resistance of his followers; and he was at pains to say "he regarded the religious tenets of Mr Bradlaugh and his doctrines with reference to over-population as abominable"—a deliverance which reads dramatically in connection with the close of his own career, when an only less insensate and irrational ethic than his own gave the sanction for similar vilification of himself. There was finally a ring of anxious bravado in his avowal that "it was personally an odious task for him to take the course he should on this occasion"—(this after he had voluntarily gone to shake hands with Bradlaugh after the arrest)—"but if he had to walk through the lobby alone, he should deem himself a coward if he did not act up to his conviction."
Less self-regarding, and much more helpful, was the speech of Mr Richard, the most impressive in the debate. Mr Richard was one of the extremely few Christians who keep one set of gospel passages so constantly in view as never to be led into imitating the rest. He never echoed their words of execration. His very rebukes to his fellow-Christians for their pious scurrility were gentle; and he must have caused some searchings of heart when he observed that "no man who watched what went on, on the first day of the present Parliament, when hon. members were squeezing round the table, and scrambling for the New Testaments amid laughter—('No, no,' and Ministerial cheers)—no man could have watched that scene, and believed that the act had any of the solemnity of a religious act about it." When the otherwise pious Wolff followed, the altered balance of feeling was shown by impatient interruption of his remarks. An exceptionally offensive Catholic, named M'Coan, was called to order by the Speaker for the remark that "a more offensive representative of Atheism never was seen" than Bradlaugh. Finally, after General Burnaby had mentioned that "the Chief Rabbi, although refusing to interfere with political questions, felt very deeply on this subject," the vote was taken, and by 303 votes to 249 Gladstone's motion was carried.
Bradlaugh was now free to make affirmation, and did so next day. Almost immediately on taking his seat he had occasion to vote, and immediately thereafter he was served with a writ to recover a penalty of £500 for illegal voting. The writ had apparently been prepared beforehand. The suitor was one Henry Lewis Clarke, the tool of Mr Newdegate, M.P.,—the latter, a man of the most restricted understanding, notorious as an old opponent of the admission of Jews to Parliament and a rabid assailant of Catholicism, but now eager to combine with Jews and Catholics against the Atheist. A few days afterwards a similar writ was served at the instance of one Cecil Barbour, of Nightingale Lane, Clapham; and yet a third was given notice of; but the work was left to Mr Newdegate's employee.[143] A new stage in the struggle had now been reached.
§ 7.
For nine months—that is, while Parliament sat in the period July-March 1880-81[144]—Bradlaugh now sat in the House, doing his work with intense and continuous application, though all the while there hung over him the shadow of a ruinous litigation. He had taken the risk. On 8th July the Government were asked by Mr Norwood, a hostile Liberal, whether they would instruct the law officers of the Crown to undertake his defence in any suit brought against him; but the answer was, of course, in the negative; and Bradlaugh rose to explain that he had had no communication with either Mr Norwood or the Government on the subject. A fortnight later a Bill was zealously forced through both the Houses to indemnify Lord Byron, who had sat and voted without being sworn, against any action for penalties. Bradlaugh had the experience of helping to safeguard the peer from the prosecution laid against himself.
His Parliamentary activity was many-sided, including as it did the charge of the interests of endless correspondents in all parts of the world who had grievances to redress and claims to put. But above all he devoted himself to the interests of Ireland and of India, the one still suffering from an imperfect realisation of her needs by English Liberals; the other from the general neglect of Liberals and Tories alike. The gratitude of the people of India has been freely given for his service; that of the majority of the Irish members was naturally not prompt. They had wronged him, and so could hardly forgive.
Such a frenzy of malevolence, further, as had been aroused among bigots of all Churches by Bradlaugh's entrance into the House, was slow to decline. Whether outside the House or inside, he was furiously aspersed. A Bill to exclude Atheists was early introduced by Sir J. Eardley Wilmot,[145] and petitions in support of this were largely signed, though wholesale subscription by the children of Sunday Schools was in many cases found to be necessary to fill the sheets. But petitions for his exclusion were a small part of the storm of malice that assailed him. It would fill a volume to recite or even cite the hundreds of denunciations—often vile and grossly libellous, and nearly all implying a religious motive—which were poured forth against him week by week. Clergymen naturally formed the bulk of the assailants; and of these the State Church furnished the largest contingent, all grades of the hierarchy being represented; but the President of the Wesleyan Conference, on behalf of the Conference Committee, presented a hostile petition to Parliament; and the secretary to the same Conference issued a circular calling upon the various Wesleyan bodies to join in the general movement against the Atheist. Protestants vied with Catholics in the foulness of their abuse, the ferocity of their enmity.
On the other hand, it must be put on record that in every church, in varying numbers, there seem to have been lovers of freedom as well as persecutors. Some of the most forcible and earnest letters sent to the newspapers on Bradlaugh's behalf were written by clergymen of the Church of England; and many Nonconformist clergymen spoke out on his side ably and warmly. At a Church Conference, more than one priest of the Establishment defended him bravely and well. Even from within the pale of the Church of Rome there came voices of protest against the intolerance of the majority. On 27th June 1880 the "Home Government Association" of Glasgow sent to Bradlaugh a resolution of the majority of its members to the effect "that this meeting of Irish Roman Catholics ... most emphatically condemns the spirit of domination and intolerance arrayed against you, and views with astonishment and indignation the cowardly acquiescence, and in a few instances active support, on the part of a large majority of the Irish Home Rule members to the policy of oppression exercised against you." Bradlaugh was peculiarly quick to appreciate such messages of sympathy and fairness from religious opponents. The words of Bright on his behalf in the House brought tears to his eyes; and he never forgot to be grateful for them. In his own journal, immediately after his entrance to the House on tentative affirmation, he printed the following appeal:—
"Now that the fierce struggle is over, and that I am really in full enjoyment of the right and privilege which the people of Northampton gave me on the day of the poll, I beg my friends not to mar this triumph by any undue words of exultation or ungenerous boast. If bitter bigotry and Tory malice have been active against me personally, there has been also honest, earnest piety, in despite of the foulest and most persistent misrepresentations, enlisted in the grand array on behalf of right. If some clergymen have been cruel and unjust in language and conduct, there have also been preachers who have been most generous and kindly. Do not let our Freethinking friends remember so much what we as a party have done towards the result, as what has been done for us by religious men, notwithstanding the cry of heresy. If the heart of the great Nonconformist party had not been brave and just, the fight, instead of being so far over, would yet have to be fought. The speeches of religious men like William Ewart Gladstone, John Bright, Henry Richard, and Charles Stewart Parnell—each representing a varying shade of Christian belief, and each a most earnestly religious man—must more than outweigh, and cause our friends to pass by, the rabid, raving, fanatical outpourings and deliberate misrepresentations which have disfigured the Parliamentary discussions on this subject. When the reader remembers that the very vilest mis-statements and coarsest caricatures of my language and conduct have been circulated to every member of Parliament, ... it makes worthy of the strongest praise the high-minded conduct of those Nonconformists in the House of Commons who have declared for justice despite all."
But no good-feeling on his part or on that of the tolerant religious minority could stay the torrent of libel and vituperation; and a paragraph penned a month later shows how the majority bore themselves:—
"Many of my good friends have—during the progress of the bye-elections which have taken place at Oxford, Scarborough, Berwick, Wigton, and other boroughs—written indignantly as to the exceedingly wanton and coarse personal slanders which, chiefly for electioneering purposes, have been circulated against me by the Conservatives in order to induce votes against supporters of the Government. It is a little difficult to know how properly to deal with these most indefensible and cowardly attacks. By the law as it stands no action can be maintained for any spoken words unless an indictable offence is charged in the slander, or unless actual special pecuniary damage can be shown to have resulted, which latter is of course not in question.... Thus, Sir John D. Hay—who in the Wigton election has descended to a lower depth of coarseness and falsehood than any other Parliamentary candidate[146]—could not be sued for damages.... The journals may of course be sued; but even if this is a wise course, the case is not easy. I am now proceeding against the Yorkshire Post for one very gross libel, and in the proceedings, which will be very costly, am actually required to answer voluminous interrogatories, not only as to all the doctrines I have taught and works I have published or written during the whole of my life, but also to works I happen to have referred to.... In the indictment against the editor of the British Empire[147] I shall probably have to bring a large number of witnesses from various parts of England to speak as to what has happened at lectures as far back as 1860. The fearful cost in this case (in which, being a criminal procedure, counsel must be employed) can only be fairly estimated by professional men.... I refrain from commenting on the infamous, most cowardly, and utterly uncalled-for attacks made on Mrs Besant by Sir John Hay and the Glasgow News, as these will in all probability be submitted to another tribunal."
Some of these proceedings had to be abandoned, so enormous was the burden.
A leading part had been early taken in the outcry against the Atheist by the leading representative in England of the Church of Rome, Cardinal Manning. In a highly declamatory and malevolent article contributed to the Nineteenth Century, that ecclesiastic took the line of appealing to the spirit of traditional national religiosity, grounding his case not on any tolerable form of Christian doctrine, but on the ignorant instinct that he knew to underlie the orthodoxy of the Protestant Churches, as of his own. He lauded the English people, regardless of its attitude to his own Church:—
"It knows nothing," he declared, "of a race of sophists who, professing to know nothing about God, and law, and right and wrong, and conscience, and judgment to come, are incapable of giving to Christian or to reasonable men the pledges which bind their moral nature with the obligations necessary for the command of fleets and armies, and legislatures and commonwealths."
Of the historic fact that the English people had once brutally persecuted the Quakers, but had latterly allowed them to dispense with oath-taking, he disposed by saying that they were allowed to affirm because they were known to be deeply religious, and therefore trustworthy:—
"But let no man tell me that this respectful confidence is to be claimed by our Agnostics; much less by those, if such there be, who, sinking by the inevitable law of the human mind below the shallowness and timidity of Agnosticism, plunge into the great deep of human pride, where the light of reason goes out, and the outer darkness hides God, His perfection, and His laws....
"There still stands on our Statute book a law which says that to undermine the principles of moral obligation is punishable by forfeiture of all places of trust (9 and 10 Will. c. 32, Kerr's Blackstone, iv. 34, 35, note), but there is no law which says that a man who publicly denies the existence of God is a fit and proper person to sit in Parliament, or a man who denies the first laws of morals is eligible to make laws for the homes and domestic life of England, Scotland, and Ireland."
The whole article was in this strain, as far removed from political science as from the charity which is conventionally associated with the Christian name. And though all the while it was notorious that the ignorant and superstitious of the Cardinal's own Church are the least to be believed, whether on oath or without oath, of all quasi-civilised men, the rancorous rhetoric of the Romish priest counted for something with the class of Protestant bigots who, hating Rome, hate reason so much more as to be ready to work with even Rome against it. And yet Manning, in his work on "The Present Crisis of the Holy See," had declared that "England has the melancholy and bad pre-eminence of being the most anti-Catholic, and therefore the most anti-Christian, power of the world." Thus can fanatics manœuvre.
Among other libels, the ancient fable of the watch, the story of which has been told in an earlier chapter, was at this time made to do special duty, the flight of Edgcumbe being insufficient to set up hesitation on the subject among the mass of the orthodox. Some assailants, however, showed much discretion when challenged. Thus one J. F. Duncan, a Wesleyan minister of Nottingham, who in his pulpit described "that man from Northampton" as a "blot on the British escutcheon," and as a "wretch" who gave his Maker five minutes to strike him dead, was told that unless he apologised at once, criminal proceedings would be taken against him. He instantly replied: "I am this morning honoured with your communication, and have to say in reply that I know nothing of newspaper reports of my sermons, but if any remarks of mine have been offensive to you, you have my retractation and apology at once." A line in the Reformer tells how "J. H. Martin Hastings, a professedly religious person, having grossly libelled Mr Bradlaugh, now, under threat of criminal proceedings, sends us his retractation and sincere apology."
Some persons, offered an opportunity for a much-needed apology, did not avail themselves of it, the risk of criminal proceedings being absent. The following correspondence sets forth one such case:—
"To the Lord Norton,
June 25th, 1880.
"My Lord,—In the lobby of the House of Commons this afternoon your lordship said in my hearing, 'Mr Bradlaugh ought to be flogged in Trafalgar Square,' to which I at once replied to you that it was ungentlemanly and impertinent to offer me an insult at a moment when I could not return it.
"I now beg to ask your lordship for some explanation, at the same time informing you that several members of the House of Commons whom I have consulted on the subject advise me that your lordship's carefulness in being ill-mannered and insulting three feet outside the House of Commons precludes me from submitting the matter to the Speaker, and I can therefore only place this letter before the public with such answer as your lordship may be pleased to send me.—I have the honour to be your lordship's obedient servant,
Charles Bradlaugh."
"35 Eaton Place, June 26th, 1880.
"Sir,—In reference to your letter just received, the facts are these:
"I was yesterday in a crowd at the door of the House of Commons, waiting to get into the gallery for the Irish Compensation debate. You came out and passed into the lobby. Some one pointed you out to me. The observation was made, how much trouble one man's desire for notoriety could give. I added that a desire for notoriety might be gratified by a public flogging in Trafalgar Square. You seem to have imperfectly overheard the last words on returning to the House, and connected your name with them. I certainly had no idea of suggesting a mode and place of treatment for any particular case. You came up to me and said, 'You should not insult a man in his presence.' I replied that I had said nothing to you.—Obediently,
"Norton."
Bradlaugh's fingers must have itched to apply to Lord Norton's person the chastisement which his lordship had prescribed for him. Less well-bred people than his lordship expressed their sentiments to Bradlaugh by letter, being denied the opportunity of insulting him in his hearing. In the Reformer of 12th September he writes:—
"I was sorry that Mr Dillon thought it necessary to call the attention of the House to the threatening letters which had been sent to him. When I was fighting for my seat in the House, I received at least threescore letters threatening my life. I put them all in the waste-paper basket, although one or two of the communications were works of art, and decorated with skulls, cross-bones, bleeding hearts, and daggers. There is always a fair proportion of lunatics who in times of excitement write strange letters to public men."
His laugh over these things was entirely genial. At no period of his struggle, and on no provocation, did he ever show a touch of that general embitterment which so many men feel towards society on the strength of an ill-usage either imaginary or trifling in comparison with what he underwent. But the wrongers, as always, could not forgive. There was no slackening in the output of Conservative defamation, the device of saddling Bradlaugh's Atheism on the Gladstone Government being too congenial to be abandoned. As Lord Henry Lennox had put it in an inspired but unguarded moment, it was felt to be good Tory policy to "put that damned Bradlaugh on them." Sir Hardinge Giffard (now Lord Halsbury) publicly and falsely asserted in November that before the election the Liberal whip, Mr Adam, had written to the Northampton electors, asking them to return Bradlaugh; going on to add that this step "had never been disavowed or disapproved by the Liberal leaders"—an extremity of false witness memorable as coming from a man who was soon to be made Lord Chancellor. Such a lead was of course zealously followed. And the average upper-class Liberal, while reluctantly voting with the Government in the matter, indemnified himself by insolence to the man over whom the trouble had arisen. There are always in the Liberal party men loyal to it as a faction, while caring little for its principles in themselves, and bearing small goodwill to those more advanced adherents who give pause to the weaker brethren. This state of mind may account for the gratuitous offensiveness, though hardly for the inaccuracy, of one utterance by Mr Marjoribanks (now Lord Tweedmouth) in an address to his constituents at Duns in November 1880:—
"It was in his opinion a great pity that the electors of Northampton should have elected a man to be their representative whose views, moral, religious, and social, were such as were Mr Bradlaugh's specialty, and not only his specialty, but his means of subsisting. (Applause.) It was a pity, too, that when Mr Bradlaugh had been elected he had not followed the example of far greater men, such as Mill and Hume, who were to some extent sharers in his beliefs, or rather his disbeliefs, but who had quietly gone to the table and taken the oath, and said no more about it. Then, again, it was a pity that when Mr Bradlaugh claimed to affirm, he was not at once allowed to do so at his own risk. Of one thing, however, he was perfectly sure, and that was, that the House of Commons was perfectly right in the distinct and peremptory refusal which Mr Bradlaugh's demand to take the oath met when it was ultimately made."
It is not necessary here to go into Mr Marjoribanks' estimate of the relative greatness of Bradlaugh and Joseph Hume, or of the merits of Bradlaugh's views. It is not such judgments as his that determine a man's standing with his generation, or with posterity. The remark as to "means of subsisting," also, may be left to supply its own commentary. More recently the same speaker has emphasized his objection to some action of some journalists by remarking that it was done for a livelihood; a judgment which strikes at the whole mass of the Christian clergy, and which would seem to imply that a rich man is to be pardoned for saying a false or a base thing where a hireling is to be doubly denounced. A man who has never had occasion to do anything for a livelihood presumably sees such things in a different light from those who lack his pecuniary advantages; and though a professing Christian is supposed to hold that the labourer is worthy of his hire, Lord Tweedmouth doubtless remains satisfied with the ethics of his youth. Mr Chamberlain has indicated similar views. Suffice it here to point to Bradlaugh's whole career for the proof of the utter sincerity of his propaganda. But to praise Mill and Joseph Hume for taking an oath "on the true faith of a Christian," and to blame Bradlaugh for choosing rather to affirm when he believed an affirmation was open to him, is to set up an ethic which one would hardly expect any professed Liberal to avow. As for the "distinct and peremptory refusal," no such thing had taken place. What the House had distinctly refused was to allow the affirmation; and in the division on that point Mr Marjoribanks had not voted for Mr Labouchere's motion; whereas he had voted for Mr Gladstone's motion referring the oath question to a select committee. When a politician can thus deal with simple historical facts, his opinion on weightier issues is apt to lose even the significance it would normally have. Other Liberals added their quota. Lord Sherbrooke, writing in the Nineteenth Century, spoke of the oath which Mr Bradlaugh "at first refused and afterwards was ready to take." His Lordship had once spoken of Disraeli as possessing a "slatternly and inaccurate mind." No milder epithets could well be applied to himself in the present case. But for all these endless insults and wanton slanders Bradlaugh had seldom anything save a restrained and dignified rebuke. When Mr Grantham, Q.C., M.P. (now Mr Justice Grantham), spoke of him as gaining his livelihood "by the circulation of obscene literature," he remarked in his journal that there was one homely Saxon word that would meet the case. He might reasonably have said that there were several, of varying length.
It was noticeable that all of these insults were uttered in Bradlaugh's absence, or in periodicals where he was allowed no reply. From the first he had been refused the right of reply in the Nineteenth Century. Men did not now venture to attack him in the House; but they were bold when among their constituents, especially in the rural districts. On his own part he was scrupulous to give no just cause for offence. One journalist recklessly represented him as having once obtruded himself on the ceremony of prayers in the House, when in point of fact he had been accidentally shut in, and had remained motionless where he stood. We have seen how he besought all of his freethinking followers to beware of seeming to presume on the vote in his favour. During the autumn of 1880 there was much discussion of the question of the Burials Bill, a test which served to show the amount of good-will subsisting between bodies of citizens professing belief in the same God and the same sacred books. Dissenters were fit to swear and sit in the House of Commons, but from the Church point of view were not fit to be buried "on their own recognisances," so to speak, in the public churchyard. The Tories in their traditional fashion opposed all concession, arguing that if dissenters were allowed to hold their own services, Atheists and heathens would follow. One Conservative member, named St Aubyn, pictured Atheists holding "indecent orgies over the bodies of the dead." Considering that drunkenness at funerals had been a reproach to Christendom for centuries; that it was common in Presbyterian Scotland within the century; and that Irish wakes are still customary, the suggestion may serve to measure the "honour and conscience" of the speaker, who further signalised himself by admitting, as a lawyer, that Bradlaugh had a legal right to sit in the House, while he confessedly opposed his taking his seat. In view of the general state of the Christian mind, Bradlaugh abstained from speaking on the subject in the House, and the National Secular Society decided to present no petitions in support of the Bill, lest they should thereby injure its chances. They had their thanks in a speech from Mr Osborne Morgan, who asked in Wales whether it was "reasonable to keep four millions of Nonconformists knocking at the churchyard gate for years because a handful of Secularists wanted to enter with them?" Any suggestion, however indirect and unobtrusive, that Secularists were entitled to the rights of other citizens, was sure in those days to elicit some display of animosity from the majority of those who call their creed a religion of love. Upright and scrupulous Nonconformists there were in the House, such men as Richards and Illingworth, who were faithful to the principle of equal liberty, and sought to carry it out; but the feeling that Secularists were as much of a nuisance dead as alive was the prevailing one.
Among the Irish members, finally, the full power of the Catholic priesthood was exerted to the utmost. Bradlaugh did the Home Rulers careful and continuous service in the House, besides publishing in his journal many articles and paragraphs in support of the Parnell movement. When the Chief-Justice of Ireland made a scandalous exhibition of judicial prejudice in regard to the Parnell trial before the case was heard, Bradlaugh denounced it as an "impudent manifesto." At the same time, nothing would induce him to cater for Irish or any other support at the expense of truth and fair play, and he protested against Irish wrongdoing no less promptly, though more gently, than against the wronging of Ireland. Any such display of impartiality served the majority of the Catholic Home Rulers as a political pretext for an antagonism motived either by religion or fear of priestly influence; and when Bradlaugh protested against the Irish tactics of obstruction and scurrility—tactics which he always refused to employ—they deliberately represented him as supporting coercion, though he not only spoke repeatedly against the Coercion Bill and published in his journal a number of articles emphatically condemning it,[148] but actually moved the rejection of the Bill on the second reading, when Parnell had taken flight to avoid arrest. By this time Parnell had given way to the pressure put upon him by his followers, by the priests, and by the Irish press, and had joined them in aspersing Bradlaugh as the enemy of Ireland. None the less did he continue his Parliamentary labours in the Irish as in other causes. A reference to Hansard shows that in the months July-March 1880-1 (in only five of which, however, did Parliament sit) he was one of the most usefully industrious members in the House; and so much was abundantly admitted by his fellow-members, including even some opponents. Running over the scanty reports of his work, we find him pleading for Maories and Hindus, urging reform of the Criminal Code, asking the House to reject the Lords' amendments on the Ground Game Bill, moving for a select committee on perpetual pensions, challenging Indian finance, resisting the prohibition of Sunday funerals, calling for returns of national revenue and expenditure, working hard on the Employers' Liability Bill of 1880, protesting against the plank bed for prisoners, protesting against the flogging of soldiers,[149] besides putting questions on behalf of aggrieved correspondents everywhere.
It was within this period that he came before the public in a new light, through having been challenged to fight a duel by a wild French député, M. Laisant, who declared in the Chamber, 27th December 1880, that he had precise information proving Bradlaugh to be a Prussian spy. Declining to go through the ceremony of the duel, Bradlaugh invited M. Laisant to lay the matter before a jury of honour of six—three to be English M.P.'s of whom M. Laisant should name one, and three French Deputies of whom Bradlaugh should name one. The matter, like the regulation French duel, came to nothing. But Bradlaugh had a very real fight before him at home.
§8.
Meanwhile the litigation forced upon Bradlaugh by the policy of the Government was proceeding, heaping up debt and preparing disaster. After some distant skirmishing on points of form, the action of Clarke came on in the Court of Queen's Bench on 7th March 1881, before Mr Justice Mathew (a Roman Catholic) who, being newly appointed, was only that morning "sworn in." When the case was called, the junior counsel for the prosecution applied for an adjournment on the score that his leader, Sir Hardinge Giffard, was absent, and he, the junior, did not feel able to argue the case. Bradlaugh curtly explained that "Sir Hardinge Giffard has on more than one occasion refused to consult my convenience," and declined to agree to the adjournment. Giffard then appeared. Stripped of minutiæ as to demurrers and cross-demurrers, the arguments were:—
For the plaintiff: That the defendant was not in law entitled to make affirmation of allegiance as he had done, the laws permitting such affirmation having been "intended" to cover only persons holding religious beliefs—i.e. beliefs as to a Deity and a future state.
For the defendant: That the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866 expressly provided that every person "for the time being by law permitted to make a solemn affirmation or declaration instead of taking an oath," should be entitled to make affirmation in Parliamentary matters; that the Evidence Amendment Act of 1869 enabled any unbeliever to give evidence in any court of justice on the presiding judge being satisfied that an oath would not be binding on his conscience; that the further amending Act of 1870 defined the term "judge" as covering any persons legally authorised to administer oaths for the taking of evidence; and that the Speaker was so authorised. Therefore defendant was entitled to affirm allegiance. "I contend," said Bradlaugh, "that all enabling clauses in statutes must be interpreted liberally, not restrictively, in favour of the person claiming the benefit, and not harshly against him."
The one technical weakness of the case was that nowhere had the legislature explicitly said that persons with no religious belief should be free to make affirmation of allegiance; though to found on this omission would be to assume that the legislature, while thinking the oath could advantageously (for that was avowed in the preambles) be dispensed with in the taking of evidence, thought it could not be dispensed with in the formality preceding entrance into Parliament.
On that point, however, Mr Justice Mathew founded his judgement, which was delivered on 11th March. The Evidence Acts, he decided, were clearly "intended to remove restrictions upon the admissibility of witnesses with a view of promoting the discovery of the truth," and "had no other object." The Acts of 1866 and 1869-70 must not be read together, because the legislature could not be supposed to have "intended" them to be so read. To this argument—one of the two mutually exclusive methods of interpretation of law which judges employ at their choice—Mr Justice Mathew added a pointed comment on one of the defendant's arguments. Bradlaugh, he said, had "attempted to show that the privilege of sitting in either House of Parliament was analogous to the 'privilege' of giving evidence in a court of justice." On which his lordship absurdly remarked that "no one who was free to choose his words and had a preference for accuracy of expression would speak of the discharge of the all-important and anxious duty of a witness as a privilege." It plainly follows on this, either that the work of a member of Parliament is not an "all-important and anxious duty," or that it is not a privilege. The first alternative is absurd; the other quashes the judge's argument. Further, it is the historical fact that Bradlaugh and other Freethinkers had regarded the power of giving evidence in court as a privilege, and had so described it. It may suffice to give these grounds, for the view of many of us is that the decision was unjust. But neither at this nor at any other time was Bradlaugh known even in private to question a judge's fairness. His loyalty to the established system of "justice" was absolute.
Judgment being given for Clarke, Bradlaugh applied for a stay of execution (as to the costs), with a view to an appeal; and the judge assented. On 14th March, when Bradlaugh was rising in the House to present a petition, Mr Gorst interposed with the objection that his seat was now vacant, and took occasion to assert that to his knowledge no notice of appeal had been given in the case. A discussion ensued, in which Mr Labouchere read a letter from Mr Bradlaugh to him, telling that he had instructed his solicitor to give the formal notice of appeal, and would prosecute it without delay, and offering to vacate his seat, if thought fit, to save time. Lord Randolph Churchill suggested that they had "no security" that the appeal would be made till nearly the end of the statutory twelve months. The point being dropped, Bradlaugh on 23rd March moved the Court of Appeal to expedite the hearing. As the appeal was "from an interlocutory order, and not from a final decision,"[150] it could be taken promptly, and on 30th March it was heard before Lords Justices Bramwell, Baggallay, and Lush. Bradlaugh began by arguing that Clarke was not legally entitled to sue, the Act founded on by him having been repealed by another which did not re-enact permission to anybody to sue. Going over the other ground afresh, he argued that the Act of 1866 made no exclusion of any class of persons whatever; and that the legislature ought therefore to be held as having desired to enable every class of citizens—an argument much more cogent, to the lay sense, than the contrary inference drawn by Justice Mathew. The arguments were long and intricate on both sides; and one of Bradlaugh's remarks in his closing address shows to what length of speculativeness they sometimes went: "The learned counsel said the word 'solemnly' could not mean 'sincerely,' because there was already the word 'sincerely' in the declaration. By the same process of reasoning the word 'sincerely' cannot be construed to mean 'truly' because there is also the word 'truly' in the affirmation. I think it is better to confine ourselves to law, and not go into philology." Towards the close, on a question as to whether their lordships' judgment was to be judicial or extra-judicial on both points raised, Bradlaugh remarked, "The House of Commons has been very generous in its treatment of me, and I am anxious to reciprocate that generosity," adding a hope that their lordships would not think he was pressing his point unduly. "If you will allow me to say so," replied Lord Justice Lush, "you have argued the case with great propriety as well as great force." But the judgment (delivered on 31st March) was again hostile, being to the effect that Clarke was entitled to sue, and that Bradlaugh was not entitled to make the Parliamentary affirmation. The reason given by Lord Bramwell, the presiding judge, was that the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866 would only permit affirmation to persons already entitled, like the Quakers, to make affirmation "not on particular occasions but on all occasions when they would otherwise have to take an oath." Unbelievers not being thus already entitled (having only the right to affirm as witnesses), Bradlaugh was not entitled to affirm by the Act of 1866, read in connection with others which did not give a complete qualification. That is to say, as I understand him, Lord Bramwell argued that the Act of 1866 was meant to give the right of affirmation in a particular case to persons who already had it in all possible cases. It sounds sufficiently absurd, and I may have failed to follow the reasoning; but I can arrive at no other interpretation of his words as published. Lords Justices Baggallay and Lush concurred. The latter put it that the "every other person" in the Act of 1866 "must mean every other person in a like position with Quakers," that is, persons having "a perfect immunity from taking the oath in all places and on all occasions." "Therefore I feel no doubt whatever that the true construction of this sentence is that Parliament never intended to allow every person whomsoever when elected to appear before the House of Commons, and on stating that he had a conscientious objection to the oath, being permitted to make affirmation." Nobody, as it happened, had ever said so. But Lord Justice Lush's confident conclusion as to the intentions of Parliament involves this: That Parliament, knowing there were Atheist members, deliberately chose to have them take the oath, rather than let them make affirmation. To this outrageous conclusion all these judges are shut up; for there is not a word in any of the Acts about excluding Atheists; and if the "intentions" of the legislature are to be looked for—thus argued Sir Hardinge Giffard in this very case—"the language must be clear and unequivocal." So say we all. But the judges expressly inferred exclusive intentions from the mere absence of special detail in the inclusive language. They would not infer friendly intention from friendly language; but they would infer hostile intention from no language at all.
Bradlaugh's seat was now vacant in law; and he at once stood for re-election. All along the great majority of his constituents had stood by him cordially and courageously. A series of crowded public meetings, some addressed by himself and Mr Labouchere, some by leading local politicians, protested against the injustice done to member and constituency at each new stage of the process of exclusion, and now that the constituency was called upon to express its feeling at the polls it effectively responded. A certain number, of course, were detached from Bradlaugh by the storm of obloquy which beat upon him, and this the more readily because they had accepted the joint candidature with reluctance; but the great majority stood staunch, despite desperate efforts to turn them. As Bradlaugh told at the time, the constituency was flooded with pamphlets containing
"not only what I have said and what I have written, taken out of its context and distorted, but containing things I have never said and have never written, and never dreamt of saying or writing. Books that I have neither written nor published, but which were supposed to be obnoxious, have had extracts taken out from their medical parts and circulated, and the physiological part of the Knowlton pamphlet, for which I was indicted, was taken separately and sent by post to each of the electors. The vilest things have been said. Some of my foes have been more foul than even I had thought possible."
The dirty work was largely done by a person named Varley, known as "a tradesman of Notting Hill." Further, a notice was served on the electors assuring them that Bradlaugh had vacated his seat "as if he were dead"; and on the comedy side of the contest the Conservative candidate, whose name figured on his bills in the alliteration "Corbett and Christianity," fortified his position in his electoral address by the appeal: "I am intimately connected with a family in your own county (that of Sir Charles Isham), which is well known to you, and members of which have at former periods had the honour of representing their native county in Parliament."
On the other side, a considerable amount of goodwill to Bradlaugh was shown in the Liberal press. The Christian Globe, declaring "unhesitatingly that the member for Northampton should be allowed to affirm, if he desires it," remarked that "Mr Bradlaugh has his faults, but he is a man of cleanly, decent, orderly life—a man of brains and ability, and of sterling courage as well." The Daily Chronicle testified that he had "made a decided and creditable mark in the House of Commons by his ability, his moderation, and his general deportment." Even the Times bore witness:—"Mr Bradlaugh has his compensations. It is something to have displayed forensic ability so conspicuous. It is only fair to him to allow that many, whom the choice of Northampton naturally did not content, have been conciliated by Mr Bradlaugh's manly and moderate attitude." The more Radical Weekly Dispatch declared that "no other new member of this new House of Commons has so much distinguished himself for political integrity and shrewdness, or given such evidence of statesmanlike qualities." Even in the House itself, Sir John Holker had observed that Bradlaugh had shown himself "a skillful debater, an eloquent man," whose "voice and tongue had an influence on the debates." More solid than these testimonies were the thousands of subscriptions, mostly small, but ranging from twopence to £5, sent in to meet the election expenses. This help from the workers was the kind of sympathy that always touched Bradlaugh to the quick.
The upshot of the fight (9th April 1881) was that Bradlaugh received 3437 votes, being 390 less than at the general election, while the Conservative candidate got 3305, being 153 more than the former Tory vote. Some 150 electors had turned round, while some 240 nominal Liberals had abstained—not a very bad result under the circumstances. The narrow majority of 132, however, gave sufficient encouragement to the Tories in the House to stick to their policy of exclusion; and anger at defeat did the rest. One journal, whose name it will be charitable to suppress, deplored that the reluctance to fight a seat against "a Yahoo like Bradlaugh," with whom even that "association" would be "pollution," had prevented the advent of a better Tory candidate than Mr Corbett.
§ 9.
Parliament being in recess, it was only on 26th April that Bradlaugh was able to present himself once more on the field of battle. Sir Stafford Northcote, courteously enough, as Bradlaugh acknowledged, wrote him beforehand, intimating that he felt himself bound to object as before to the oath-taking. This he did as Bradlaugh was about to be sworn. The Speaker confessed that "undoubtedly a proceeding so regular and formal" as the oath-taking "ought under ordinary circumstances to be continued without interruption," but in view of the former resolution of the House he felt bound to allow the intervention. Bradlaugh interposed a request that he should be heard before the House came to a decision; but it needed the special interposition of the Speaker to get him a hearing for the bare request from the shouting Tories. Northcote spoke on the customary lines. Bradlaugh had been legally declared unentitled to affirm; but on the other hand, it would be "profanation" for him to take the oath—albeit everybody knew it had been taken by dozens of Atheists. And the old dishonourable equivoque once more did duty: "it had been clearly shown that Mr Bradlaugh did not regard the oath as having any binding effect on his conscience." The mover of the amendment in Bradlaugh's favour, Mr Davey, was much interrupted, as was Bright when he proceeded to support it. Interrupting Bright was never profitable. His first allusion to religious disability evoked the customary imbecile correction, "irreligious disability." The answer was prompt:—
"Hon. members say 'irreligious disability.' Well, you have objected before to the admission of the Roman Catholics. ('Hear, hear.') You objected to them because of their religion, which you deemed to be false—(loud cries of 'No' and 'Yes')—and the religion you deemed to be false you would now seem to consider much better than no religion at all. On the same ground you refused for many years the claims of the Jews to be admitted to this House, and you have now raised exactly the same question—('No' and 'Hear')—but in a more offensive form—('Oh' and cheers)—because you aim your shafts at a particular individual, who cannot be said to represent a class."
Once more Bright defended Bradlaugh from the impudent charge that he had "obtruded his opinions on the House." His declaration that Bradlaugh's ground for proposing to affirm "was a ground honourable to himself—it was in point of fact a tenderness of conscience, as I should call it," drew "loud laughter" from the conscientious gentlemen of the Opposition. Bright pressed his point all the harder:
"I think it a gross unfairness—it was then and is now—to bring forward the fact that he himself preferred to affirm rather than take the oath, and then upon that to assume that the oath would not be binding upon his conscience.... He states in the most distinct manner that the words of the oath are binding upon his conscience—binding upon his honour and conscience. If that be so, you have no right to assume that the oath is not binding upon his conscience. You might as well tell me that the oath is not binding upon my conscience."
Later in the speech came a shrewd thrust:—
"If it be permitted to make these assumptions with regard to the hon. member for Northampton, why is it not equally right to make them with regard to other persons—I will mention no names—in this House or outside this House, who either publicly or privately have expressed the same opinions as are assumed to be held by Mr Bradlaugh? But nobody proposes to put any questions to them. (Cries of 'Name.') It is admitted now that if Mr Bradlaugh had come to the table and said nothing about the affirmation—I do not hesitate to say that it is to his credit that he did not take that course—and had offered to take the oath, no question would have been asked, but he would have been allowed to take the oath just as other members of the House."
Another reference to Bradlaugh's conscience brought out the cry, "What is its value?" from a Conservative member, and Bright commented mildly enough:—
"I must express my regret at what I must call the almost violent temper with which some hon. gentlemen come to the consideration of this question. I can feel the greatest charity for a member of this House who in my opinion holds views on religious matters which appear to me so extraordinary and so unfortunate.... There has been no member of this House who has conducted himself with greater propriety and decorum—(cheers)—and he has brought to our discussions at least an average—perhaps more than an average—ability; and there is not a single word he has uttered, not a single act he has committed, which in the slightest degree ought to bar him from taking his place in this assembly of gentlemen. (Cheers.) I would ask hon. members to think for a moment whether it is in accordance with that Christianity which they presume so much to defend that they should now at this time, after many years, almost centuries, of discussion of questions of this nature, determine to raise up another barrier against the civil freedom which our constituencies believe they enjoy."
The use of the quotation:
"Bigotry may swell
The sail he sets for Heaven with blasts from Hell"
was perhaps the most resented item in the speech; and Mr Gorst, who followed, thought it judicious to assert that on his side of the House "there was no disposition to treat this question in the spirit of intolerance and bigotry which the right hon. gentleman had done his very best to stir up.... It ought to be treated purely as a question of legality." But in a few minutes Mr Gorst arrived at the further conclusion that "to say that this was a question for the courts of law was absurd."
Bradlaugh then made his "Second Speech at the Bar." He first reminded Mr Gorst, who had argued from his old answer to the Committee on the point of the oath, that that answer was given unwillingly and after objection to its being put. In another preliminary paragraph he remarked: "My return is untainted. There is no charge of bribery, no charge of corruption, nor of inducing men to come drunken to the polling-booth." ("Hon." members who had done these things had had no scruple about taking the oath, nor had the House ever shown much resentment at contact with them.) Mr (now Sir) Edward Clarke had during the debate spoken of Bradlaugh's "making an avowal of opinions to the House" on a former occasion, and had contended that the dignity of the House was now involved.
"I have never," said Bradlaugh, "directly or indirectly, said one word about my opinions, and this House has no right to inquire what opinions I may hold outside its walls. The only right is that which the statute gives you; my opinions there is no right to inquire into. I shelter myself under the laws of my country. This is a political assembly, met to decide on the policy of the nation, and not on the religious opinions of the citizens."
He was accordingly meeting the Conservatives, as represented by Mr Gorst, on their own ground. On the question of dignity, raised by Mr Clarke, he asked:
"Do you mean that I can injure the dignity of this House? this House which has stood unrivalled for centuries? this House, supreme among the assemblies of the world? this House, which represents the traditions of liberty? I should not have so libelled you."
The most direct thrust in the speech is perhaps the following:—
"What will you inquire into? The right hon. baronet would inquire into my opinions. Will you inquire into my conduct, or is it only my opinions you will try here? The hon. member for Plymouth [Mr E. Clarke] frankly puts it—opinions. If opinions, why not conduct? Why not examine into members' conduct when they come to the table, and see if there be no members in whose way you can put a barrier? ('Hear, hear.') Are members, whose conduct may be obnoxious, to vote my exclusion because to them my opinions are obnoxious?"
Here again the tone is not deprecatory:—
"The right hon. baronet has said there has been no word of recantation. You have no right to ask me for any recantation. Since the 9th April you have no right to ask me for anything. If you have a legal disqualification, petition, lay it before the judges. When you ask me to make a statement, you are guilty of impertinence to me, of treason to the traditions of this House, and of impeachment of the liberties of the people."
And the close—it cannot be called a peroration—makes no abatement of emphasis:—
"I ask you now, do not plunge me into a struggle I would shun. The law gives me no remedy if the House decides against me. Do not mock at the constituencies. If you place yourselves above the law, you leave me no course save lawless agitation, instead of reasonable pleading. It is easy to begin such a strife, but none knows how it would end.... You think I am an obnoxious man, and that I have no one on my side. If that be so, then the more reason that this House, grand in the strength of its centuries of liberty, should have now that generosity in dealing with one who to-morrow may be forced into a struggle for public opinion against it."
Mr Gladstone followed with a carefully subdued speech, in which, however, he remarked: "Mr Bradlaugh is upon his trial before the House; but the House also, permit me to say it with great respect, is upon its trial," and he proceeded to cite against the opposition the authority of
"Sir George Grey, who was an ornament of the House for fully forty years, and who has not ceased to take a lively interest in its proceedings. I hold in my hand his written opinion, expressed in the most decisive terms, and he has the fullest conviction that the opposition to the taking of the oath by Mr Bradlaugh ought not to be permitted by the Chair."
He further bore laudatory witness to Bradlaugh's behaviour in the House:—
"Every man must in common fairness admit that Mr Bradlaugh is to be credited with the best and highest motives. He is under a primâ facie and presumptive obligation and duty, having been elected by a constituency to present himself at the table as the only means of fulfilling his duty to them. On the other hand, I need not animadvert upon his conduct. It is generally admitted that his conduct while he sat on those benches was the conduct of a man of great ability, integrity, and honour."
Incidentally, the Premier mentioned that the authority of Sir John Holker was with those who held that the House had no right to interfere; and he put to the Opposition, at some length, the plain logical outcome of their action, namely, that they were bound, in every case in which a member's opinions were known from any source to be irreligious, to refuse that member the oath. The argument was unanswerable; but it was not argument that was to be met. After a long debate the House divided, when 208 members voted for Northcote's motion, and only 175 against.
Then came another "scene." Bradlaugh came to the table and made his old protest: "The resolution of the House is against the law, and I respectfully refuse to withdraw." The Speaker, as before, asked for "instructions." Northcote asked Gladstone to propose something. Gladstone "left it to the majority to carry out their own vote." Northcote, after lecturing the Premier for dereliction of duty, moved "that Mr Bradlaugh be ordered to withdraw." Gladstone warmly demanded to know on what grounds he was lectured. Mr Labouchere interposed with a warning, and proposed to divide, but at the request of Mr Bright withdrew the motion. The Speaker again asked Bradlaugh to withdraw, and Bradlaugh again refused. The Sergeant-at-Arms was then called on to remove him, and did so in the former fashion, Bradlaugh returning from the bar to the table as before, protesting against physical force, and asking the House "not to put me to the indignity of a physical struggle." Again the Speaker "threw himself upon the House for instructions," and the House called for "Northcote" and "Gladstone"; but neither leader responded. A member asked whether Mr Bradlaugh had not already been ordered out. The Speaker helplessly explained that the order "only extended to the bar of the House and no further," on which Bradlaugh moved back to the bar and stood there. Northcote rose and feebly protested that he "was only prevented from moving that Mr Bradlaugh should be committed by the feeling that Mr Bradlaugh was encouraged by the Government in his resistance." Gladstone "entirely repudiated and repelled the statement," considered the accusation groundless and wanton, and called upon his right hon. antagonist to "point to the facts on which he has made so grave a charge to the House." Northcote suitably replied, and Gladstone again repudiated, intimating that he "should not take any steps in this matter until the time came when it appeared to him he could do it with advantage to the House." Thereupon Mr Cowen moved the adjournment of the House, which was eagerly agreed to. Only in that fashion was the House able for the time to get out of the ignoble dilemma in which it had been landed by a cowardly cabal of bigots and faction-fighters. Northcote did not dare again to move Bradlaugh's committal, but did not dare to confess it; and there was nothing to do but run away.
Next day, however, the trouble began afresh. Bradlaugh again presented himself, and was once more removed to the bar, where he stood as before. Mr Labouchere now asked whether the Government would give facilities for the Affirmation Bill he had introduced last session; and Gladstone in his lengthiest manner evolved the answer that it would depend on whether the Bill was to be opposed. Mr Labouchere and others passed on the appeal to Northcote as directly as the forms of the House permitted; and Northcote, as lengthily as Gladstone, made answer to the effect that "a measure of the kind" would have his "careful consideration," but he could agree to nothing "in the nature of a bargain." The truth was, of course, that Northcote could not answer for his more unscrupulous followers, but dared not admit as much; so the debate went on in the diffusest House-of-Commons manner. After a long speech from Bright, Mr Hubbard, losing patience, and having no judgment to lose, asked "What use were the police, or officers of the House, if they could not protect the House from the intrusion of people who had no business there?" No answer being vouchsafed from the deaf heavens, Mr Walter pompously explained that in his opinion Mr Bradlaugh ought to be allowed to affirm, but that no unbeliever ought ever to be allowed to take the oath. "It was idle to say the House had not official cognisance of the fact that the hon. gentleman belonged to a sect which did not believe in the existence of God." Another long speech from Gladstone left the situation unchanged. Mr Newdegate intimated that if neither leader moved the arrest of Mr Bradlaugh, he would, if necessary, do it himself. Still the debate rolled on. Mr Chaplin admitted that Bradlaugh while in the House "had acted with great ability and great moderation," but then he had "openly avowed," etc., so they could not stand by, etc. They commenced their proceedings with prayer, and invoked the aid of the Supreme Being to guide them in their labours. On the obvious efficacy of the appeal, Mr Chaplin did not dwell. A dozen more speakers followed, some of them—as Alderman Fowler and Mr Warton—declaring that they would oppose any bill; while one Maciver intimated that he "intended on Thursday to ask the Prime Minister whether he would introduce a short measure for the partial disfranchisement of Northampton." At length, on no assurance from Northcote, but simply on a favourable expression of feeling from Sir Walter Barttelot, Mr Labouchere's motion for the adjournment of the House, under cover of which the whole long-drawn discussion had taken place, was by leave withdrawn; and Bradlaugh withdrew to await the action of the Government.
On the 29th April Gladstone did announce the intention of the Ministry to introduce an Affirmation Bill, whereupon Lord Randolph Churchill announced his intention to oppose it; and the early stages of the measure were systematically hampered. Bradlaugh published in his journal an "Appeal to the People," in which he asked them to "speak out clearly, distinctly, thoroughly, and at once on this issue;" and he again held a great town's meeting at Northampton. After a long and brilliant speech, ending with the words, "In this struggle some one must recede, some one must bend, some one must break. This I do pledge myself, that if health do keep, and life do hold, I will never give way," there was a loud tempest of applause, at the close of which he rose again and asked the audience, "Have you still confidence in me?" and "Will you stand by me in this fight?" Every hand went up to both questions with fresh storms of cheering, and Bradlaugh answered "Then on my honour, if I live, we will win."
The House, however, did not mend its ways. On 2nd May Gladstone moved that the other Orders of the Day be postponed for the Oaths Bill, and Churchill opened the debate with a vulgar and violent harangue, which ended with a hope that the Tories would "give no facilities for placing in that House brazen Atheism and rampant disloyalty." Several followed suit; and Northcote, seeing his followers leading him as usual, made one of his flabby speeches in deprecation of anything like speedy action in the matter. The measure must be discussed "upon its own merits, and not with reference to the circumstances and position of any given individual;" and there must be no "semblance of hurry for the purpose of avoiding a scandalous scene." In fine, there should be no alacrity. Gladstone extensively assented, agreeing to allow an interval after the introduction of the Bill; but a number of Tories threw over their leader, and one Lewis moved the adjournment of the debate. This failing, the Home Rulers raised a dispute on procedure, whereafter the Attorney-General, Sir Henry James, introduced the Bill. In the course of his speech Sir Henry cited the admission of Northcote to the effect that he did not object to Bradlaugh sitting in the House, but to his taking the oath. The unhappy Northcote, pressed on all sides, made the pitiful explanation that when he said so he only wanted to raise the point of the oath; but he did not now wish to be understood as having no objection to Bradlaugh's presence in the House.
Adjourned till Friday the 6th May, the debate was then proposed to be postponed till the 10th, whereupon Mr A. J. Balfour—who now for the first time interposed in the controversy within the House—objected to the Government's course as being taken "not to give relief to any large class of Her Majesty's subjects, but to deal with an individual." Sir Richard Cross, who was reminded that he had admitted there was no way out of the difficulty save by legislation, granted that he was of that opinion, but avowed that he would all the same oppose any attempt to give facilities for Bradlaugh's admission. On a division on the amendment the Government had only a majority of 6 votes—128 to 122. On their motion being put substantively, a new discussion arose, the Tories moving the adjournment of the debate. Bright made an impressive speech, in which he "ventured to say that if the Bill were passed there were scores of members who would prefer to make an affirmation," but obstructive speaking went on, Mr T. P. O'Connor, among others, ridiculing Bright's speech, and charging him with having "insulted the religious feeling of the Irish people" earlier in the evening. After hours of time had been spent, the Government, at three o'clock in the morning, agreed to the adjournment; but on Tuesday morning, when the question was raised after one A.M., the obstruction was continued on precisely the same lines, and the ministry gave up their plan of a "morning" (i.e. afternoon) sitting. Lord Henry Lennox's principle of "putting that damned Bradlaugh on them" was now felt by his party to be an inspiration worthy of the common cause. Bradlaugh's admission stood indefinitely adjourned, so far as the Government were concerned. But they had still to reckon with Bradlaugh himself.
Giving due notice, he presented himself at the House next day, and the now customary scene was enacted. The Speaker made his usual appeal, and Sir Stafford Northcote moved "that the Sergeant-at-Arms do remove Mr Bradlaugh from the House until he shall engage not to further disturb the proceedings of the House." On challenge, he explained that by this he meant that Bradlaugh should "not come within the door kept by the doorkeepers." To this motion Gladstone agreed, asking his followers to do likewise. It "relieved the Government," as the journals noted at the time, "of the necessity for pushing on the Parliamentary Oaths Bill."
Bradlaugh for his part decided not to renew his attempt until the Irish Land Bill had got through the House. So much consideration he thought the Government were entitled to, and no amount of injustice from Irishmen could induce him to put in jeopardy a measure of justice to Ireland. On this decision he promised the Sergeant-at-Arms not to attempt any forcible entry of the House without giving him full notice.
§ 10.
Meanwhile the battle of opinion went on outside the House. It was noticed at the time, as a significant fact, that in the newspaper war on the subject nearly every attack on Bradlaugh was anonymous, or signed with initials, while nearly every defence of him was signed. His friends fought for him with his own spirit. A "League for the Defence of Constitutional Rights" was founded in his support; and an "anti-Atheistic Committee" was formed on the other side, with an office in the Strand, and with the name of Sir Bartle Frere figuring in its propaganda. On this Bradlaugh struck out as he seldom did. "At least very shame," he said, "should have made Sir Bartle Frere hesitate before he paraded his blood-and-shame-stained name in a crusade against me." The "anti" Committee held a ticket meeting in Exeter Hall, at which a Secularist who had a platform ticket learned from a member of the Committee, a magistrate, that the Committee had engaged for the evening six prize-fighters, with instructions to "stop the mouths of Mr Bradlaugh's friends with their fists." The meeting was presided over by Earl Percy, and among the speakers was the Varley before mentioned. "Bradlaugh's friends" filled the street outside and carried counter resolutions. Indoors the promoters had the services of the police in tearing up the tickets of any comers who were pointed out to them as Freethinkers, and in ejecting the presenters; while disorder was created by the further ejection from the platform of a number of Freethinkers who had gone thither with proper tickets.[151] No less than two hundred policemen had been supplied by the Home Office. After this naturally there was some disturbance. According to Canon Taylor, one of the speakers, "for an hour and a half it was scarcely possible for the different speakers to get a hearing, except a few sentences at a time; and when 'God save the Queen' was sung the Atheists in every possible way showed their disloyalty." The resolution of the promoters was declared carried; but the Rev. Canon "was alarmed to see such a large minority, extending from beneath the platform to the other end of that large hall, composed of men and, he was grieved to say, women." (The boys present, it may be inferred, belonged to the Young Men's Christian Association.) And this alarmingly large minority, when the "contrary" vote was taken, "rose with the greatest possible manifestations of dissent, and with the waving of handkerchiefs." Quite a number of similar meetings in the provinces failed more or less badly. On the other hand, Bradlaugh in person held crowded meetings, free to all, in many towns, getting an ovation everywhere, in addition to which scores of resolutions and petitions in his favour were sent to the House by Liberal and Radical clubs. A mass meeting held at St James's Hall under the auspices of the Constitutional Rights League, finally, was packed to the door. Among the speakers were three clergymen, one belonging to the Church of England, Admiral Maxse, and Mr Labouchere; and no dissentient vote was given on the resolutions in Bradlaugh's favour. One of the Nonconformist ministers who spoke, the Rev. Mr Sharman, told how Plymouth Liberals had sent to Northcote the telegram: "We protest against your effort to deprive Northampton of one-half of its representation as being revolution in the name of Conservatism and robbery in the name of religion." The Rev. Stewart Headlam said of Bradlaugh:—
"I know the great work he has done in the east of London for the moral condition of the people. I know how he has got hold of hundreds of people whom we clergy have been utterly unable to reach; and ... I am certain that the work he has done in the east of London has been of the greatest moral use for the elevation of the people."
Bradlaugh, on his own part, paid one of his many tributes to Gladstone.
Of this meeting no report appeared in the leading Liberal paper, the Daily News, then understood to be mainly owned by Mr Samuel Morley, before mentioned. This was unhappily not the only instance of a Liberal journal perverted by private motives to the side of bigotry in Bradlaugh's case. Mr Joseph Cowen, M.P., owner of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, who had long been on friendly terms with him, and who had volunteered the expression of approval of Bradlaugh's action when he was imprisoned in the Clock Tower, now took the line of charging him with inconsistency in proposing to take the oath, though it was for trying to take the oath in the previous session that he had been imprisoned. And Mr John Morley, then editing the Pall Mall Gazette, not only gave prominence in that journal to utterances hostile to Bradlaugh, such as that of Mr Holyoake, but suppressed letters in his favour, even when sent by a literary man of good standing like Mr Moncure Conway. Mr Morley, while of course condemning the Tory tactics, now blamed Bradlaugh for proposing to take the oath at all, though he had before spoken of him as "parading his views," and though, when he previously accused him of first "declining" the oath and then asking to take it, he had not condemned oath-taking by an unbeliever. Bradlaugh pointed out that voluntary abstention from taking the oath would have made his seat void in law, to which the Gazette editorially answered by expressing its confidence that if Bradlangh had simply refused to take the oath, the House would not have dreamt of unseating him on that score. On the strength of that conviction the Gazette editor wrote:[152]—
"We have not concealed our opinion that Mr Bradlaugh would have consulted his own dignity by refusing to take the oath, and fighting out an issue which could only have one end." And again:[153] "The national belief in the existence of a Deity will not be lessened by the fact that Mr Bradlaugh and men like him are no longer called upon to use a form which in their lips is an indecent piece of mockery."
When later elected himself, Mr Morley made no attempt to act on the rule he had thus laid down or caused to be laid down for another man.
It is a curious and a melancholy illustration of the instability of human character that while Mr Morley was partly playing into the hands of the spirit of injustice, Mr Goldwin Smith, who now wears its livery, was emphatic on the other side. He thus wrote in his Toronto journal, the Bystander, in April 1881:—
"To the shame of British civilisation and religion, the attack upon Mr Bradlaugh and upon the civil rights of his constituents goes on, and has been technically successful in a court of law. The ringleaders are scamps, putting forward religion as a pretext for political persecution. It is Sandwich over again denouncing Wilkes for impiety. Set a coronet on Mr Bradlaugh's head, give him a large fortune, make him a Tory in politics, and though he were the most offensive of Atheists, and the most profligate of debauchees to boot, he would have these crusaders at his feet.... If Parliament allows a fine to be levied on Mr Bradlaugh for taking the seat to which he had been duly elected it will undergo a far greater disgrace than any that can be inflicted upon it by obstruction."
Doubtless Mr Goldwin Smith, writing in Canada, did not feel the burden which weighed on Liberal respectability at home, the more so as he had never professed himself a rationalist.
§ 11.
The lawsuit raised by Clarke on behalf of Mr Newdegate still went on its difficult way, Bradlaugh fighting it inch by inch and point by point. On 2nd May 1881 he argued before the Lords Justices of Appeal a point on which he had previously been stopped, and on which no judgment had been given. This was as to the validity of the "replication," in which Bradlaugh argued that, as he had actually made affirmation, he could not properly be sued (as he had been) for sitting and voting without taking the oath. The judges ruled that as he was not in their opinion entitled to affirm, the fact of his affirming was not a valid answer. Defeated here, Bradlaugh decided next to endeavour to overthrow the action on what he described as a pure technicality, the argument that, as the writ was dated 2nd July 1880, and the vote sued on had been given on that day, the action had been brought too early, "for that the writ must be held to have been tested at the earliest possible moment of the 2nd of July, and therefore prior to the sitting and voting for which the penalty is claimed." This point was raised on 16th and 17th May before Lord Chief Justice Coleridge and Mr Bowen, on Clarke's counsel moving for judgment, and Bradlaugh advanced a long and learned argument on the point. Judgment was delayed, and the legal point was tried on 20th and 21st June, before Justice Denman and Watkin Williams, on the plaintiff's amended statement, Bradlaugh demurring. His demurrer was overruled, Justice Denman admitting that the point raised was "true as a general rule of law," but not applicable to this case; and his lordship gave this singular reason: "For a legal fiction is for the purpose of doing justice, not for defeating it." It was not suggested that justice was being done in the case in hand; but if Bradlaugh's argument were to hold good, it might be defeated in somebody else's case. "No rule of law," said Justice Watkin Williams concurring, "compels us so to violate common sense and plain understanding," another decision worth remembering in the present connection. Bradlaugh drily wrote in his journal: "I think the decision of Justices Denman and Watkin Williams is in accordance with common sense, but I do not think it is consonant with common law." He added: "I shall, of course, appeal against the decision. The next step will probably be the trial at Nisi Prius"—that was, the trial of the matter of fact as to the exact hour of issuing the writ, which had still to be proved by oral evidence before a jury.
That trial took place before Mr Justice Grove and a special jury, in the Queen's Bench Division, on 19th, 20th, and 22nd July; and the cross-examination of witnesses by Bradlaugh elicited, for one thing, that Newdegate was the financial backer of Clarke's action, and, for the rest, that the evidence of Newdegate and his principal witnesses on the question of the time of issue of the writ was rather worse than worthless. Newdegate had a very bad time of it in the witness-box, and the verbatim report of his cross-examination[154] may be recommended to legal students as illustrating the value of the testimony of an English gentleman and magistrate who believes devoutly in God, and holds that no unbeliever can be believed. A worse appearance has seldom been made in the witness-box by a man of standing; and in the case in question it was only surpassed in importance by the exhibition made by Newdegate's principal legal witness—a gentleman who was proved to have expressed his surprise that another legal gentleman should consent to give evidence for "a man like Bradlaugh." The whole report is a singularly dramatic comment on the proposition that oaths secure truthful evidence. Probably no competent and unbiassed person who now reads it will have any difficulty in concluding that the writ had actually been taken out at least an hour before Bradlaugh had given the vote on which it proceeded, and that at least three witnesses swore to falsehoods. Bradlaugh categorically asserted in Court that Newdegate had lied; and Newdegate's evidence was hardly the worst.
The facts of the case may now be historically stated with tolerable confidence. Newdegate had been afraid that a friendly action would be brought against Bradlaugh, in which case Bradlaugh would not have to meet the £500 penalty. Newdegate desired that Bradlaugh should be mulcted; and he had actually been indecent enough to block the Bill of Indemnity introduced on Bradlaugh's behalf by Mr Labouchere. Nay more, in opposing the motion that Bradlaugh be permitted to sit on affirmation, he had argued that it was beneath the dignity of the House to lay a trap for a man and leave him to be caught in it by any one who cared to prosecute. Yet after saying this, he gave a bond of indemnity to Clarke, the common informer, for suing Bradlaugh; and he had apparently selected Clarke—a nondescript person, sometimes called a surveyor, sometimes an accountant, but professionally neither—because, having little or no means, he could not be made to pay costs in case of Bradlaugh winning the action.[155] Such a litigant would not stick at trifles. In concert with his legal advisers, Newdegate, to forestall the friendly action, had the writ ready for serving before Bradlaugh had voted. This, at least, seems to be pretty clearly revealed by the extraordinary prevarications of Newdegate and his witnesses.
The case ended oddly. The jury, after being locked up for nearly an hour, intimated that they were not likely to agree; and the judge asked whether a majority verdict would be accepted. Bradlaugh offered to do so, but Newdegate's counsel declined. After nearly an hour more, however, the jury agreed on their verdict; and it was for the plaintiff, Clarke. It was understood that they had agreed to give their verdict by majority. Bradlaugh tersely remarked in his journal: "The ultimate verdict a little disappointed me: I had thought that I had won." Certainly the judge's summing-up had seemed to be in his favour.
As usual, he appealed. Like Ben Bolt in the novel, he was "bad to beat." He appealed for a new trial, on the ground that the verdict was "against the weight of the evidence." But that was not all. Newdegate, having confessed giving a bond of indemnity to Clarke, had laid himself open to a return action, under a form of law, for the offence of "maintenance;" so on 27th July Bradlaugh accompanied Mr (now Sir) George Lewis, the famous solicitor, to Bow Street Police Court, where Mr Lewis moved for a summons against Newdegate, and another against his solicitor as accessory. The magistrate, Mr Flowers, was somewhat taken aback. "Is it not rather——" he began. "Yes," said Mr Lewis promptly; "and so is the action against Mr Bradlaugh. Mr Newdegate asks for strict law against Mr Bradlaugh, who now asks in return that strict law may also be enforced against Mr Newdegate." The summonses were granted.
Next day, 28th July, and on 1st August, Bradlaugh argued before Justices Grove and Lindley his motion for a new trial on the question of time in the Clarke case. Finally (8th August), after a request from the Court for affidavits had been followed by an extremely improper step on the part of Newdegate's solicitor, who actually sent some affidavits privately to Mr Justice Grove's house, the Judges gave a rule nisi for a new trial on the ground urged. This rule could not be argued till November, and if it were then made absolute the new trial could not take place till after Christmas, so that Newdegate was once more intercepted. The criminal summonses, on the other hand, did not come on till 20th September, for reasons which will appear in the next section, and when heard were dismissed by the magistrate, Mr Vaughan.
"He was of opinion that complainant had not shown that the maintenance of which he complained came within the meaning of the statute. Though the statutes of Richard II. and Henry VIII. did undoubtedly refer to crimes and imprisonment for maintenance, still it was most singular that no indictment could be found for violation of these statutes. It seemed to him that the proceeding was an obsolete one, and that the criminal law ought not to have been invoked for a purpose of this description, when it was open to Mr Bradlaugh ... to apply to the common law courts.... Old statutes had been searched out in order that proceedings—which he could not help thinking had been taken to gratify a very unfriendly feeling on Mr Bradlaugh's part—might be instituted in the hope that Mr Newdegate would be committed for trial."
The licence of general criticism taken by our magistrates has seldom been more strikingly exemplified; and no one but a prejudiced magistrate, probably, would have had the assurance to condemn a litigant for "unfriendly feeling" towards a declared enemy who had wantonly and zealously sought to ruin him.[156] The deliberate setting aside of the statutes as obsolete, too, while a civil action was admitted to lie, was an act of lenity to Mr Newdegate, contrasting favourably with the attitude of other judges towards Bradlaugh. But the fact that a civil action remained open was sufficient for Bradlaugh's purposes; and already Newdegate had begun to repent somewhat of his zeal. His costs were accumulating, and still the hoped-for prey was out of his reach. A circular was accordingly issued on his behalf by Captain Bedford Pim, who felt "strongly that Mr Newdegate, M.P., should not be allowed to suffer for his spirited and patriotic action against Atheism, and that some steps should be taken to bear him harmless in the struggle upon which he has so nobly entered."
§ 12
In the interval between the issuing and the hearing of the summonses for maintenance, something more serious had occurred. When the Government had in May decided to postpone their Oaths Bill, Bradlaugh, while acquiescing perforce in the delay, had renewed his platform agitation with redoubled energy, preparatory to forcing a fresh contest on the House if need were. The situation grew worse instead of better. Between 20th June and 4th July he had had a formal correspondence with Mr Gladstone on the subject. "You are aware," wrote Mr Gladstone, declining the request for an interview, "to how considerable an extent Liberal and public interests have been brought into prejudice by untrue suppositions as to communication between you and the Government." Bradlaugh answered by a detailed statement of his action, which had been guided by a desire to avoid embarrassing the Ministry; and Gladstone in reply acknowledged this; but later (28th June) intimated that they proposed to try to close the Session early in August, and they could not hope to carry any strongly controversial measure after the Land Bill. This intimation was made definite in a letter of 2nd July, and Bradlaugh was once more left to his own devices. He chose his course at once. First he addressed to the Speaker, under date 4th July, a formal letter, setting forth his contention as to the illegality of the House's action on 10th May. He was advised, among other things, that the excluding order of that date did not authorise the Sergeant-at-Arms to use force, and that the use of force to prevent his re-entry would be illegal.
"I beg therefore, sir," he went on, "most respectfully to give notice that I claim to disregard the order of the House, ... and to treat the same as not requiring obedience from me, on the ground that such order is absolutely illegal.... In the name of the law, sir, and of my constituents, I also most respectfully give notice that I shall, in the manner and at the time provided by the standing orders of the House, again present myself at the table of the House, to complete the fulfilment of the duty imposed on me by law."
On this declaration he set about acting. He had had no encouragement whatever to hope for justice save under pressure. Northcote, who had no moral motive for his action, was open to no moral appeal. To him Bradlaugh addressed a public letter (1st July 1881), which to-day needs neither adding to nor taking from. After a recital of the facts, it ran:—
"At first, though I disagreed with you, I thought you honest, for you had the repute of an honourable man, and you said that it was not from any desire to prevent my taking my seat, but from a desire to prevent the profanation of the oath, that you were prompted to act as you did. You had been present in the House when John Stuart Mill took the oath, and you raised no objection. You have been present in the House when other members, whose heresy is matter of common repute, took the oath, and you have rested silent. Yet I counted you a fair English gentleman, and I believed your word in any case. But now, from your speeches outside the House, I find that you claim to hinder me from sitting in Parliament, whether by complying with the law as it now stands, or by means of any change which may be proposed to meet your objection. At Manchester you justified your action on the ground that there was a general feeling in the country against me personally[157]—a dangerous argument, even if it were well vouched. But how is this feeling to be tested? Nearly all the meetings called against me have been lamentable failures, despite the most ridiculous precautions. Almost every meeting called in my favour, and this whether or not I have been personally present, has been an enthusiastic success.
"And yet the very vilest means have been resorted to to damage me in the public mind. In your presence at Manchester, and without one word of rebuke from you, one distinguished and noble member of your party repeated against me some of the utter falsehoods of the Varley pamphlet, although I had given you in writing my distinct assurance of the untruthfulness of much of that pamphlet.... To make a show against me, petitions have been sent round the country to hundreds of Sunday Schools, and little children by the score have been compelled to affix their signatures. Two petitions presented by yourself from Glasgow and York contain hundreds of signatures of lads and girls under twelve years of age. Orange Lodges, Roman Catholic organisations, and the machinery of the English Church Associations have been utilised to procure signatures."
Northcote replied:—
"I cannot admit that there is any foundation for the charge of illegality which you make against the House of Commons. But I must decline to enter into controversy with you upon the general subject of your case. I can only say that I have acted from a sense of public duty, and from no personal motives; and that I see no reason for doubting the propriety of the course which I have pursued."
But even those Liberal members who had voted on his side were for the most part quietly acquiescent in the injustice done, regarding a wrong to one "unpopular" man as a small matter. The only member who persistently protested was Mr Labouchere, for whose courage and constancy throughout the whole struggle no words of praise could be too high. In the circumstances there was nothing for it but to rouse the country, and this Bradlaugh did as only he could. It is difficult now to realise the enormous amount of energy he had to spend. While his cases were pending in the higher courts, he was doing three men's work outside. Thus in the week 18th to 24th July we find him spending three days fighting his case in the hot and crowded Court; holding three night meetings in London; attending a Freethinker's funeral (where the sight of the grief of the widow and children made him quite break down); speaking at a great demonstration of miners in the north; giving three lectures in South Shields; and holding a huge gathering in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. He knew he was drawing terribly on a constitution which, though of a giant's strength, had for many years been doing giant's work; but he never flinched in a battle while he had any strength left. His plan was to evoke a clear expression of feeling on behalf of his claim in all the large towns, to hold a mass meeting in Trafalgar Square, and then again to present himself at the House; and if the House had been capable of looking at the issue half as reasonably as the constituencies did, it would have been promptly settled. Wherever Bradlaugh went, he got unanimous votes in his favour. At one stage he reckoned that out of a series of audiences amounting in numbers to 75,000, only two hands had been held up against his claim. It was wonderful to see how he swayed audiences against their own prejudices. He must have been listened to by thousands of men who disliked him and his opinions equally; but they simply could not resist the appeal for a just judgment. I well remember how, when he spoke in Edinburgh in 1881, he extorted a vote from a general audience there. The body of the hall was filled with middle-class citizens, few of whom had any sympathy with his propaganda, and many of whom must have strongly resented his "notoriety;" in the gallery were a number of Tory students, with the manners of their kind; and post-cards had been freely circulated with a view to an organised opposition. At the outset the students did their best, but Bradlaugh's voice rose easily above their din; a quick repartee or two to their interruptions turned the laugh against them, and soon he was quietly listened to.[158] At the close he made the usual call for a show of hands on his claim. As one of the promoters of the meeting, I was interested in watching the manner of the response; and I can still see the respectable church-going shopkeepers slowly and as it were compulsorily raising their right hands at the call of the Atheist and Republican. Only some dozen, as far as I remember, voted "on the contrary." This was in an audience mainly unsympathetic. At Trafalgar Square, of course, he was in a dense army of enthusiastic supporters, including many delegates from provincial towns. The Dublin Freeman then, owned by Mr E. D. Gray, and the organ of Mr Parnell's party, intimated beforehand that "no large assembly can take place within a mile of Westminster Palace and the police will very summarily dispose of Mr Bradlaugh's ragged followers." The police made no such attempt; and it was well they did not, for the followers were neither ragged nor timorous, and their blood was not just then very cool.
This was on 2nd August; it was on the next day that Bradlaugh again presented himself at the House; and then occurred the crowning episode in the struggle—crowning alike in point of the dastardliness of the tactic employed against him and the desperation to which it momentarily moved him.
His unanswerable contention was that the House was bound to do something to settle the case. It ought either to declare his seat vacant or take some course to permit of his sitting. To keep an elected member out of his seat without disputing the validity of his election was a course which only a majority of professed lawbreakers could consistently take; and the resolution excluding him from the House was merely a puerile evasion by the majority of the legislative problem they had raised. When, however, Bradlaugh presented himself afresh, that puerile policy was adhered to, only in a fashion that developed puerility into brutality. The Liberal Government acquiescing in the vote of the majority, the matter was left to the police, who treated it as a police question, some of them behaving with that exuberance of insolence and ruffianism which they so often and so naturally bring to their task. Their way of seizing him angered him in a way in which he had never been angered before. A few extracts from the newspaper accounts of the time will suffice to tell what happened:—
"Mr Bradlaugh, after having waited till the Speaker had taken the chair, claimed admission to the House. He was in the first place opposed by the regular officials. 'I am here,' he said, 'in accordance with the orders of my constituents, the electors of Northampton; and any person who lays hands on me will do so at his peril!'" Attempting to enter the House, he was seized by the messengers, but their resistance being insufficient to overcome the force they roused him to use, the police were called upon. "It was said by Inspector Denning that four ordinary men certainly could not have expelled Mr Bradlaugh, and that the ten constables, all remarkable for strength and activity, who were engaged in forcing him down the lobby stairs, found their task far more arduous than they had expected." They had him by the throat, arms, and collar, and he had some of them in the same hold. "The strong, broad, heavy, powerful frame was hard to move, with its every nerve and muscle strained to resist.... The sight, little of it as was seen from the outside, soon became sickening.... An almost deathlike pallor had spread over Mr Bradlaugh's sternly-set features; he was gasping for breath, his body was bent, and he was in a state of exhaustion painful to see. His black frockcoat was much torn, his collar and shirt disarranged, and he himself in a condition of intense mental excitement and bodily prostration.... The Trafalgar Square phrase that this man might be broken but not bent occurred to minds apprehensive at the present appearance of him.... His face was deathly white, and there was about the mouth an expression of determination, which those who witnessed it cannot readily forget. Overborne by the desperate struggle, he fainted, but soon recovered when water was brought to him."
When Bradlaugh appeared at the door in the grasp of the police there was a cry of wrath from the assembled crowd, which told of a source of "force" that might conceivably be tapped. At another door Mrs Besant stood, at the head of a mass of followers, who, hearing vaguely of what was happening, were urgent in their demand to be let take the law in their own hands. A word from her, a word from him, would have sent the multitude headlong into the House. They were not a chance London mob: they included thousands of staunch working men from all parts of the country, who had attended the demonstration the day before. They were wroth with the callous iniquity that had been and was being worked by the majority inside. And Bradlaugh, standing bruised and shaken and insulted on the steps, hardly able to breathe, but with the fury of physical struggle still upon him, had a supreme temptation. In his first anger, alluding to the brute force used against him, he had said to Inspector Denning, "I shall come again with force enough to overcome it;" but he did not carry out his threat, though he might have done it on the instant. Had he but lifted his hand to beckon, the ten policemen would have been tossed aside like chaff by the host of his infuriated friends; the House could have been stormed, and his enemies could have been kicked wholesale into the river. With a supreme effort, he controlled himself, and forbade all outbreak; proceeding further to go through the form of trying again to enter the House, so that Inspector Denning should have to make a form of resistance, on which he might found an action. It was well. But it is believed that there are still some who, perfectly recognising the superiority of the course actually taken, can never wholly stifle, on retrospect, an obscure and unreasoned but haunting wish that the multitude had taken its own way, sacked the House, and thrown, if not the Speaker and his wig, at least Lord Randolph Churchill, and Sir Stafford Northcote, and Sir Henry Wolff, comrades three, into the Thames, that ancient river and unclean.
The picture as it stands is memorable enough. I have been told that James Thomson the poet, the estranged friend of Bradlaugh's youth, was among those at the gates; that he turned pale at the sight of the struggling group; and that his companions could hardly withhold him by force from rushing to his old comrade's help.
English gentlemen in general, of course, did not feel about the matter in that way. Bradlaugh told:—
"On Wednesday last I saw more than 150 members of the House of Commons gathered to witness, for the first time in English history, the cowardly and shameful use of overwhelming brute force in order to prevent a duly-elected member of that House from complying with the law. Most of these members seemed to enjoy the scene; one, Montague Scott, climbed to the top of a pillar, so that he might have a good (and safe) view; another, Alderman Fowler, actually followed to the very bottom of the stairs, encouraging with voice and gesture those who were using force against law. A few, a very few members, protested against this conduct towards one of their fellow-members."
Fowler had shouted "Kick him out." He afterwards denied doing so. Bradlaugh on this wrote:—
"I see that Alderman Fowler in his place in the House of Commons denies my statement. I can only say that it is quite impossible I can be mistaken, for I saw Alderman Fowler stand, occasionally making jeering gestures, for nearly ten minutes after this, within four or five feet from me while I was recovering from the exhausting effects of the struggle."
Others saw the same. Concerning Fowler it is not necessary to investigate: his denial may stand for what it is worth; but it is quite certain that scores of members had looked on gleefully. Such creatures can our "English gentlemen" become, under the inspiration of their religion and their politics.
Inside the House the matter was at once raised by Mr Labouchere, who moved as a matter of privilege that the resolution of 10th May only excluded Bradlaugh from the outer doors of the Chamber, and not from the lobbies, and that the officers of the House, in excluding him completely, had acted without authority. The Speaker stated that the officers had acted under his directions. Mr Gladstone lengthily argued that there were "three distinct grounds" on which it was to him "quite plain that the motion could not be sustained." Northcote naturally approved altogether of the Speaker's action. Sir Wilfred Lawson contrived, despite interruptions, to make a good fighting speech on the main question, under cover of a proposed amendment, which turned out to be a motion for the rescinding of the resolutions of 26th April and 10th May. Mr Cowen invited the Government to say whether they would reintroduce their Oaths Bill next session, but no response was given; and the discussion drifted on in the usual wasteful way. Mr Biggar observed that on personal grounds he was indisposed to vote on Bradlaugh's side in the matter, because Bradlaugh had voted for the expulsion of Irish members earlier in the year, but he would vote against it as a bad precedent. The level of the debate was raised by a dignified speech from Bright, who irregularly appealed to the Opposition to think of what they were doing; whereupon Lord John Manners' made the pragmatic reply that might have been expected from that feudal personage. On the moving of an amendment approving what had been done, Gladstone diffusely intimated that it would be out of order for him to answer Mr Cowen's appeal. After much talk a vote was taken, when 7 voted for Mr Labouchere's motion and 191 for the amendment, a number of Radicals walking out to avoid voting. To the amendment, put as a substantive resolution, Mr Ashton Dilke moved a fresh amendment asserting the need for legislation, but this was disallowed as irrelevant. Sir Wilfred Lawson tried another, which fared no better. Mr Callan rose to explain that whereas Mr Bright had described Bradlaugh as being reduced to a fainting condition, he had put one of the officers in a far worse condition by his grip of that officer's throat—a statement which, despite its source, was not wholly untrue. Finally the resolution approving the course taken was allowed to pass, whereupon Mr Labouchere gave notice that he would again raise the main question on going into Committee of Supply.
§ 13.
Thus once more was the day of reckoning put off, the more decisively because an early result of the scuffle for Bradlaugh was a dangerous attack of erysipelas in the arm—the same arm which had suffered from the Tory bludgeons in 1878. He was able, indeed, though sorely shaken, to speak at the Hall of Science in the evening, when he appealed to his followers to avoid all violence. He was able to attend the law courts at Westminster on the 5th, when a House of Commons policeman, seeing him, fled indoors to give warning. On the same day Bradlaugh attended at the Westminster Police Court to apply to the magistrate, Mr D'Eyncourt, for a summons against Inspector Denning for the assault of the 3rd—not the ejection by the police, but the later formal resistance to Bradlaugh's entrance. This was a purely formal action, Bradlaugh having testified in his speech at the Hall of Science that Mr Denning personally had managed his unpleasant task with all possible consideration. The magistrate, laying significant stress on the action of the Speaker and of the House, declined even to grant the summons. One of his explanations was that "society has a right to protect itself against intrusion," and his tone throughout showed sufficient animus.
Having thus done what he could, Bradlaugh had to own himself disabled, and go to the seaside under medical treatment. On his arrival at Worthing, when he had wearily taken his place in the fly, a clergyman walked up, stared hard at him, and then said in a loud voice: "There's Bradlaugh; I hope they'll make it warm for him yet." The enemy in general behaved with their accustomed generosity. The Irish Times led the way with an intimation that he was malingering, stating further that the Irish members had opposed him because he "supported the Coercion Bill." The North Star repeated the charge of malingering with exuberant brutality. The St James's Gazette spoke of Bradlaugh as having behaved "like a drunken rough," further repeating the lie that he had "originally refused" to take the oath. Others rated him for his constant appearances in the law courts. The Standard, on being courteously asked to insert a letter correcting a misrepresentation, suppressed it. Liberals, professing to deprecate the course taken, yet palliated it; and Professor Thorold Rogers, among others, declared that nothing the House of Commons could do was illegal. The ministerial journals, of course, condemned him, telling him he had "lost friends" by his attempt. He was to sit still and wait till the Ministry should have the courage to make an Affirmation Bill a Cabinet question—a course which they refused from first to last to take, though it would at once have compelled their deserters to return to their allegiance. On this it may here suffice to say, once for all, that the justification given for Gladstone's course in the matter simply serves to show how low are the standards of our "Christian" statesmanship down to the present day. The justification is that Gladstone was bound to refrain from "compromising" his party by making the admission of the Atheist a Cabinet question. The good of the party must override the claims of justice. Mr Gladstone's memory is welcome to all the credit which such an argument will gain him from a posterity probably devoid of his sense of religious enlightenment. It will be a doubtful certificate of the foundations he claims for his morality, that while conscious of "bloodguiltiness" in the matter of the Transvaal, he declined to incur for conscience' sake the trivial and transient odium of having made justice to an Atheist a decisive demand as between him and certain of his followers. I am not here putting the opinion of Bradlaugh—whose chivalrous respect for Gladstone prevented him from passing any such criticism, whatever he may have thought in his heart—but laying down what seems to me the only doctrine worthy of conscientious democrats.
It is satisfactory to be able to record that whilst the worst of the Tory and clerical party exulted in Bradlaugh's physical ejection, many religious men were moved by it to new sympathy with him. One esteemed Churchman wrote as follows:—
"After reading of the violence unjustly perpetrated on you yesterday by the order (or, at least, with the sanction) of a so-called Liberal majority, I desire, though an entire stranger to you, to offer you my sympathy. I never read anything which warmed me more than this account. If the present Cabinet does not secure your admission to the House in some way or other, I can only wish they may be turned out of office. The name of 'Christian' and the religion of 'Christ,' which I venerate, they make odious. As if Christianity could ever be less than common justice! I don't know what more I can do than say, 'Go on!' and 'Go in!' And if others feel as I do, you will be pushed into your place by a whole nation, with a much more irresistible force than has been used by a contemptible clique to keep you out.—I am, very respectfully and heartily, your well-wisher,
"E. D. Girdlestone."
Needless to say, a number of Liberal journals, though less emphatically, protested likewise. All along, indeed, there were more voices for justice in the Liberal press than in the House, despite the common sense of a need to disclaim sympathy with the wronged man's "opinions." On the other hand, a number of pious persons, none giving their names, but all stating that they were Christians, wrote to assure the disabled man that he was going to hell. One promised to help him thither by shooting him if he again tried to take his seat. Two wrote that they prayed he might not recover, and many imbeciles sent tracts and religious books.
Of another order was the enmity of Sir Henry Tyler, who, feeling now safe in Bradlaugh's enforced absence, made an attack in the House of Commons on the Hall of Science science-classes and their teachers—an attack which he might have made while Bradlaugh sat, but did not. The argument was that science classes taught by atheists should be excluded from the South Kensington system. Of the teachers, three were women, viz. Mrs Besant and the Misses Bradlaugh; and as even the pious majority did not care to back up such an outrageous attack, it came to nothing. Mr Mundella, the Minister concerned, even went out of his way to vindicate the classes; and the press mostly supported him. As a matter of course, the classes had been taught on strictly scientific lines.
In a few weeks from the date of his injury Bradlaugh was about again, lecturing, and speaking at demonstrations. His doctor advised him to go abroad, but he had his law cases before him, and felt he must buckle to work. At the beginning of September he published a fresh appeal "to the people," and on the 5th of that month he spoke at a potters' demonstration at Hanley, despite continued suffering in the arms. In his own journal, too, he once more took up the cause of Ireland—which indeed had all along been advocated in its columns—disregarding entirely the treatment he had had at the Irish members' hands. But stiffer work was before him, in the trial of his appeal against the decision of Justices Denman and Watkin Williams, on the legal or technical point, as to the validity of a writ dated on the day of the ground of action. This appeal was argued before Lord Coleridge and Lords Justices Baggallay and Brett, on 12th and 14th November, partly on different lines from those gone upon in the first instance. Bradlaugh was complimented by the judges on his "able and ingenious argument;" and the discussion between him and them is indeed a very pretty piece of high-class legal fencing. Sir Hardinge Giffard, who throughout these cases makes no great show as a pleader, did not attempt to deal with the most difficult point at all, and his junior did still worse; but their lordships dealt with it fully and carefully; and Bradlaugh handsomely acknowledged their rectitude, though they decided against him. His first care was to make sure that the plaintiff should not be allowed to tax his costs until final judgment on the other appeals to the House of Lords; and this was granted. The wolves were thus still kept at bay.
Next came on the pleading on the rule nisi for a new trial on the point of fact as to whether Clarke's writ (which specified no act of voting) had not been issued before the act of voting on which it was afterwards formally founded. This was heard on 2nd and 3rd December by Justices Denman and Hawkins, who went into the details with minute circumspection. Bradlaugh explained that his argument involved a charge of wilful perjury against James Stuart, the clerk employed by Newdegate's solicitor, who had been a principal witness in the previous trial. He further pointed out that Newdegate's secretary, Hobley, had given a hopeless set of contradictions in cross-examination; and after the notes of that evidence had been read, Mr Justice Denman observed: "I am bound to say that after the searching cross-examination, which no counsel could have conducted more ably, it is hardly wonderful that Mr Hobley was very confused." It required no more than the reading of the rest of the evidence to satisfy the judges that the case for a new trial was fully made out; and they stopped Bradlaugh in his argument to say so. In regard to the special point of the time of the division in which he voted, the actual evidence of reporters was against Bradlaugh, making it earlier than he did; but when the judges checked his calculations they could find nothing wrong with them; and the evidence discrediting that of Stuart was too strong to be dismissed. After a good deal of vacillation, Clarke and Newdegate decided to appeal against the decision allowing a new trial, Newdegate in particular having reason to avoid one if possible.
§ 14.
Northcote's excluding resolution of 10th May being only valid for the session in which it was passed, Bradlaugh was free to enter the House as before, on the first day of the new session. He announced his intention to do so; and on the day of reassembling he kept his word. In the interim an incessant discussion on the case had been going on in the press and on the platform. Tory speakers, as a rule, alluded to him with insult, sometimes of the basest description. One, Lord Ebrington, described him as a person who, but for a legal quibble, "would be in jail at this moment for publishing an obscene, indecent book." Another, Mr Orr-Ewing, spoke of Bradlaugh as circulating "filthy books, calculated to ... drag hundreds down as low as the brute beasts that perish." Most of the Tory speakers dwelt either on his having "first refused to take the oath" or "obtruded his views on the House," or "declared the oath would not bind his conscience;" and scarcely one omitted to add untruth to insult. The "profanation of the oath" was never alluded to without a shudder. On the Liberal side some members altruistically urged upon Bradlaugh to stand aside "for a few years" to let opinion ripen; and of the many who spoke in favour of his admission nearly all thought it necessary to disclaim with "pity" or "abhorrence" all sympathy with his opinions. Of all these disclamatory gentlemen, there was not one whose name had then, or has now, the slightest philosophic authority; but though one or two admitted that they did not know the nature of the opinions which they all the same disclaimed, none seems to have been moved to avow that the subject was beyond his capacity.
Throughout the country, as all along, Liberal opinion was in advance of the action of the majority in the House; but the Times carefully suppressed the reports of meetings held in Bradlaugh's favour, and even of friendly allusions in members' speeches, and the Daily News at times exhibited equivalent traces of the ownership of Mr Samuel Morley. On the other hand, the cause of justice had some unexpected adherents. Lord Derby, speaking at the Liverpool Reform Club, frankly avowed that he "utterly disbelieved in the value of political oaths," and expressed a hope that no further attempt would be made to prevent Bradlaugh from taking the oath if he wanted to. Some groups of dissenting clergy, too—in particular the Unitarians—petitioned for the abolition of the oath or the permission of affirmation. But as against the possible gain from such declarations there was to be set the systematic and energetic hostile action of the Church of England. One Diocesan Conference passed a resolution calling on Churchmen in both Houses of Parliament to resist any measure which would admit "professed infidels" into Parliament. There was no objection to the admission of infidels who were not "professed." Another interesting exhibition of Conservative ethics came from Mr Gorst, Q.C., who, at a banquet at Chichester, in presence of the Dean, avowed that "he was not a person who pretended to have any great horror of the offence of bribery." Bradlaugh, who took a different view, had earlier taken occasion to speak of another of his assailants as a political scoundrel, in respect of being a convicted briber.
On the 7th of February 1882, when Bradlaugh as before presented himself at the table of the House, he was as before interrupted by Sir Stafford Northcote, who made his customary motion. This time, however, it was rested on the ground that Bradlaugh had admitted himself to be a person of a class on whom the law declared an oath had "no binding effect." Thus the Opposition stood explicitly on the nefarious application of an ambiguous legal formula, which, as has been above shown, was not at all framed to carry the meaning thus put upon it. On this occasion nothing seems to have been said by the Tory leader in his opening speech about "profanation."
Bradlaugh withdrew to the bar pending the discussion, and Sir William Harcourt, in Gladstone's absence, briefly moved the previous question. Newdegate followed with an imbecile speech, which supplied a useful measure of the minds of those who had supported him throughout the country. He pointed to the history of France, protested against the proposed Channel Tunnel, and argued that to admit Bradlaugh would be "to destroy the distinctions between the basis of government in the two countries." Further,
"let them compare the condition of the two countries. While the wealth and the population of France were stationary, and the prestige of her arms was gone, England's wealth had increased and her kingdom expanded into empire. The fundamental difference between the two countries was this—that in the coronation oath taken by the Sovereign, and in the oath taken by members of both Houses of Parliament, a Deity was recognised, and the people venerated the obligation. There was but one other country in the world besides England that had not been conquered or had not suffered from revolution, and that was Russia.... Both countries based the claim of their Government to the respect of their subjects upon the Word of God. The United States had not adopted that system, and they had seen a civil war and two Presidents murdered there."
Bradlaugh was then allowed to make his Third Speech at the Bar. He struck briefly but sufficiently at the speech of Newdegate; and once more nailed down the eternal misrepresentation as to his having "paraded his opinions." When he reminded the House that his letter of 20th May was outside the House, and that he had objected to the Committee taking cognisance of it, the Opposition laughed. He reminded them that judges give a silent hearing to a man pleading his case. "If you are unfit to be judges, then do not judge." Again he put the plain dilemma: "If what I did entitles the House not to receive me, why has not the House had the courage of its opinions and vacated the seat?" Then came a graver challenge:—
"I have read within the last few days words spoken, not by members of no consequence, but by members occupying high positions in this House, which made me wonder if this is the House of Commons to which I aspired so much. I have read that one right hon. member, the member for Whitehaven[159]—(laughter from the Ministerial side)—was prompted to say to his constituents that I was kicked downstairs last session, and that he hoped I should be again. If it were true that I was kicked downstairs, I would ask the members of the House of Commons on whom the shame, on whom the disgrace, on whom the stigma? I dare not apply this, but history will when I have mouldered, and you too, and our passions are quite gone. But it is not quite true that I was kicked downstairs, and it is a dangerous thing to say that I was, for it means that hon. members who should rely on law rely on force. It is a dangerous provocation to conflict to throw to the people. If I had been as wicked in my thought as some members are reported to have been in their speech, this quarrel, not of my provoking, would assume a future to make us all ashamed."
As the speech went on, he came into more and more sharp conflict with his antagonists.
"Does the House," he asked, "mean that it is a party to each oath taken? ('Hear.') There was a time when most clearly it was not so a party. There was a time when the oath was not even taken in the presence of members at all. But does the House mean it is a party now? Was it a party the session before last? Was it a party when Mr Hall[160] walked up to that table, cheered by members on the other side who knew his seat was won by deliberate bribery?—(loud Opposition cries of 'Order')—bribery sought to be concealed by the most corrupt perjury. Did the House join in it? (Renewed cries of 'Order.') If the House did not join in it, why did you cheer so that the words of the oath were drowned? Was the House a party when John Stuart Mill sat in this House?"
After repeating his former explicit declaration that the words of adjuration would in no way weaken the binding effect of the promise on his honour and conscience, he was met by jeers, and he began: "Members of the House who are ignorant of what is honour and conscience," meaning to add "in the case of a non-religionist" or words to that effect. He was again interrupted by loud cries of "Order" and "Withdraw" from the men who had just been insulting him en masse. He asked to be allowed to finish his sentence, but was still interrupted by the mob of hon. gentlemen on the Opposition benches. "These," he cried, pointing at the rowdies, "these are my judges." There was a silence, and he went on. His blood was up, and he spoke at greater length than before, dwelling among other things on the scene of August, and indignantly rebuking those who had exulted in it. In conclusion, he offered to stand aside for four or five weeks if the House would in that time discuss an Affirmation Bill. Nay, if they feared to make it a Bradlaugh Relief Bill, he would resign his seat and stand for re-election. The Liberals cheered at this, and he ended: "I have no fear. If I am not fit for my constituents, they shall dismiss me, but you never shall. The grave alone shall make me yield."
Mr Labouchere, speaking next, stated that he had had sent him over 750 fresh petitions, signed by about 170,000, in favour of Bradlaugh being allowed to take his seat, and that other Liberal members had received petitions signed by about 100,000 more. He proceeded to challenge Northcote to abide by his own declaration of the previous year, that the question should be legislated on by the Government; and Northcote rose to make a second speech. He too, he averred, had received many petitions, and among others one from Northampton, "signed by 10,300 persons, giving their occupations and addresses"—a manifest prevarication, inasmuch as many of the 10,000 must have been the wives and children of the Tory electors.[161] On the Government amendment he objected to "profanation of the oath;" and as to the obstruction of the Oaths Bill last session, he reminded the Government that though they had certainly been somewhat obstructed, they might at any later time have put the Bill first on a Government night. As before, however, the Tory leader declined to make any "bargain." Gladstone replied, pointing out that it had been quite impossible for the Ministry to push the Oaths Bill as suggested, and declining to promise that the Government would give precedence to an Oaths Bill. They should let Bradlaugh swear, and take his chances in the law courts as before. On this theme he rang the changes, without much energy. After a number of minor speeches the House divided, when there voted for Northcote's resolution 286, and for the previous question only 228. Such a vote served to dispose of the view which had been advanced by some Liberals, that the minority of 26th April 1881 was due to the absence of many of their party who were prolonging their holiday, while all the Tories were in town for Beaconsfield's funeral. Some seventy "Liberals" had now deliberately stayed away (among them being Mr Goschen, Sir John Lubbock, Sir E. Reed, and Sir A. Gordon), while the whole Parnellite members present voted with the Tories. Five Scotch, eight Irish, and fifteen English Liberals did the same, among the latter being Mr Samuel Morley and Sir Edward Watkin.
Immediately on the vote being announced, and the question being put, Bradlaugh presented himself afresh, refusing as formerly to obey the resolution. The usual appeal from the Speaker elicited the usual motion from Northcote, which being carried, Bradlaugh said: "It would be undignified in me to indulge in any other kind of contest on the floor. I respectfully obey the House, and withdraw below the bar." The struggle was now apparently reduced to something like a recognised set of moves, all of which had been made and might be in due course made again; and Bradlaugh for the present was left to attend every meeting of the House, sitting beyond the bar, but without the power of voting or speaking.
Bradlaugh at once appealed to his constituents to choose whether or not he should resign; and they promptly decided that he should not; while some thirty indignation meetings were held throughout the country within a week, all condemning the action of the House of Commons. The law advisers of the Crown further formally declared on challenge that the seat was not vacant; and Bradlaugh wrote Gladstone, formally asking whether he was prepared to do anything. Gladstone on 18th February formally replied that he was not. Bradlaugh then took a new step, forcing the question on the House more determinedly than ever.
On Monday, 20th February, Mr Labouchere formally moved in the House that a new writ be issued for Northampton, seeing that Bradlaugh had been prevented from taking the oath and his seat. Churchill moved to amend the motion by substituting a description of Bradlaugh as "disqualified." The Attorney-General formally opposed, and the perplexed Northcote did likewise, being guided by the sole fact that the motion was proposed by Bradlaugh's friendly colleague. After a debate, in which Northcote was dishonest enough to assert once more that Bradlaugh had "claimed" to be "a person on whose conscience the oath was not binding," the amendment was negatived, as was the proposition that the words proposed to be left out should be left in. The resolution was thus left at a stand at the word "who;" and on the unfinished sentence the House proceeded to divide. When it seemed as if the "Noes" would "have it" without a division, Bradlaugh moved from his seat and stood at the bar; but on Mr Labouchere's challenging a division he returned. On the vote being taken there were 307 "Noes" to 18 "Ayes." The House thus explicitly refused to decide that the seat should be vacated, though they were all the while preventing it from being taken.
Bradlaugh was once more at the bar when the tellers announced the figures. Immediately he walked up the floor to the table, members looking on without excitement, counting on a repetition of the old scene. But this time "the scene was changed." While members waited for the usual action of the Speaker, it suddenly dawned on them that Bradlaugh had a book in his hand—it was the regulation "New Testament"—and was taking the oath of his own accord! He had gone through the whole mummery before the excited House could collect its faculties, and he duly finished by subscribing a written oath on a sheet of paper with a pocket pen. The Speaker was on his feet; the Clerk had come half-way to meet Bradlaugh; and Northcote had risen to speak, and sat down again, speechless. The Speaker mechanically called on Bradlaugh, as usual, to withdraw below the bar. He did so, but in doing it announced that he should return and take his seat, which he did, seating himself on a back bench. The Speaker solemnly charged him with disobedience, to which Bradlaugh blandly responded that he had obeyed them, and had taken his seat in addition, having first taken the oath. On the Speaker insisting, however, he once more withdrew beyond the bar, sitting under the gallery as before. Churchill, collecting himself more promptly than his leader, argued that Bradlaugh, having taken his seat "without taking the oath," "was as dead," and moved that the seat be declared vacant. The Attorney-General professionally pointed out that to vacate the seat under the statute the offending member must vote or sit during a debate. He suggested that the House had better adjourn the discussion, which it did after much further speech-making, in the course of which Churchill declared that Bradlaugh had "deliberately insulted the House," not for the first time; other members of similar dignity speaking to similar effect.
Next day the debate was resumed. Gladstone made a long and scrupulously bland speech, in the course of which he endured much contradiction of those who thought him insufficiently zealous for the honour of Omnipotence, concluding by saying that he left it to the majority to act for themselves. Northcote was laboriously indignant, and lengthily led up to a motion "that the Sergeant-at-Arms be instructed to prevent Bradlaugh from entering the precincts of the House," which motion, on the correction of the Speaker, he converted into an amendment to that of Churchill. A dispute arose on behalf of Dr Lyons, who had on the previous night given notice of a more drastic motion, but had not "caught the Speaker's eye" when he rose before Northcote. Then the debate drifted on; some members drivelling, some ranting, some platitudinising. At length Churchill's motion was negatived, whereupon Dr Lyons proposed his declaring Bradlaugh incapable of sitting, as an amendment to Northcote's. The pious Lyons was of opinion that "behind the particular issue there lay a great moral question," which, however, he did not specify. Again the debate rolled on. At length it was noticed that Bradlaugh had once more taken his seat within the House. The Speaker challenged him, and Bradlaugh began to explain that he proposed to "ask the indulgence of the House," when his voice was drowned in yells of "Order." The Speaker then solemnly charged him afresh with disobedience, and called "the attention of the House to that circumstance." Gladstone rose in response to calls; but the Speaker hastily interposed to call upon Bradlaugh to withdraw beyond the bar, which he did, formally protesting. Gladstone blandly observed that there was now no disobedience to deal with, and that it was not incumbent on him to do anything. Northcote arose in a state of ostensible but flabby indignation, and declared that "he must say there was a limit" to his "very moderate line." He now proposed to withdraw his amendment and substitute a motion of expulsion. Gladstone suavely intimated that he should not object to the withdrawal of the amendment, and Dr Lyons was induced to withdraw his likewise. The motion for expulsion, on the ground that Bradlaugh had, "in contempt of the authority of the House, irregularly and contumaciously pretended to take the oath," was then put, and Gladstone intimated in a period that he would not oppose. Mr Labouchere dropped the very apt remark that "he had always found that when the House was exercising judicial functions it got into an unjudicial frame of mind," and pointed out that Bradlaugh's action had been taken to obtain a case for legal judgment, and could not reasonably be termed "insulting." On a division, 291 voted for the amendment proposing expulsion and 83 against; some Liberals salving their consciences with the formula that "the House must maintain the authority of the chair."
A new point was raised by the intimation of one of the tellers that Bradlaugh had voted in the division. He had thereby completed the legal circumstances for a test case. The Speaker again asked for instructions, but Northcote, rather than begin a fresh debate, let the matter pass. Then arose the question, energetically put by Mr Storey, whether Bradlaugh should not be heard afresh in his defence; but this too had to be dropped. On the substantive motion being put, 297 voted with Northcote, and 80 against; and a motion for a new writ was at once agreed to by Mr Labouchere.
§ 15.
Not only his constituents, but the people generally, gave Bradlaugh their instant and warm support. At a great Sunday meeting at Manchester, to which hundreds of men had trudged many miles through the rain in the early morning, over hills and moors, from the country round, some of them only to find the hall full to the door, he had a reception which brought tears to his eyes. At Northampton, of course, the struggle was desperate. Mr Samuel Morley, bent on making reparation to his Deity for his one act of rational tolerance, followed up his many Tory votes by a letter to the Northampton Nonconformists, asking them to vote for the Tory candidate as an "act of allegiance to God;" but, on the other hand, the Radical Association of Bristol (the town for which he sat), who had by this time, after twice hearing Bradlaugh, determined to unseat their member, sent 3000 copies of an address begging the Northampton electors to return Bradlaugh by an overwhelming majority of votes. A meeting of delegates from some scores of workmen's clubs in London sent down 10,000 copies of a similar appeal. When Bradlaugh went down, thousands of people lined the streets to see him pass to say a few words in the Market Square. Radicals came from other towns to help in the canvassing, and Mr Labouchere gave his powerful aid. The Tories, on their part, did their utmost, using, if possible, viler weapons than before; and meantime they had been adding every possible vote to the register. The insolence of the Tory candidate to the workers was such that several of his meetings were broken up. The outcome of desperate efforts was that Corbett, the Tory, received rather more of the new votes than Bradlaugh, the figures being 3796 to 3688, a majority for Bradlaugh of 108 (2nd March 1882). In the fury of despair, the Tories had demanded a re-count of the votes, but this had only altered the majority by three. The betting fraternity, who had mostly laid their money on the side of "religion," were naturally enraged; and Corbett was reported to say on leaving, "I shan't come back to your dirty town any more." When the news spread, the fury did. One academic ruffian wrote in the Saturday Review:—
"The average Northampton elector and the rascal who shot at the Queen, while the average Northampton elector was voting for Mr Bradlaugh, probably acted from motives not dissimilar in kind, though the acts to which those motives led differed in degree of heinousness."
Journals which had predicted that Bradlaugh would be defeated, now propagated the lie that he had been carried by terrorism—their own terrorism having failed. By the workers in general the news was received with delight; in most towns it was waited for on the evening of the election with intense excitement, and acclaimed with unbounded enthusiasm. The House of Commons, however, was not to be turned from its evil courses.
On 4th March Northcote notified Bradlaugh of his intention to take the same course as formerly if he presented himself, and to make a motion on the writ if he did not. Bradlaugh replied, saying he presumed the motion would be one to promote the legislation which Northcote had often said ought to take place. "I congratulate you," he concluded, "on the return of at least yourself to some respect for the law, and beg to assure you that I shall in such case do my best to help you to avoid further embittering a conflict of which I am sure you must feel heartily ashamed." On Monday, 6th March, Northcote asked the Speaker whether the resolution of 7th February was still in force, and was answered in the negative. He was proceeding to say he would make a motion, when successive protests against the interruption were made by Mr Labouchere and Mr Dillwyn. The Speaker overruled both, and Northcote moved that Bradlaugh, should he present himself, be not allowed to take the oath. On the Liberal side, Mr E. Marjoribanks (now Lord Tweedmouth) moved as an amendment a resolution that it was desirable so to alter the law as to permit any elected member to take the oath or make affirmation, at his choice. With the worst of bad taste, Mr Marjoribanks, who had before declared his preference for decorous hypocrisy, went on to explain that he was "one of the very large section of that House who regarded Mr Bradlaugh's conduct both within and without that House with something very like disgust and indignation," and to describe the recent oath-taking as an "unworthy manœuvre"—a display of class hatred which may serve to suggest the nature of the feeling on the Tory side. Mr Labouchere, after defending his colleague, undertook for him that if the amendment were carried he would not present himself until a decision was come to. Gladstone formally approved of the amendment; but after a long debate of the usual kind, it received only 244 votes against 259, to the wild delight of the Opposition. Twelve Liberals, including Mr S. Morley, Mr Torrens, and Mr Walter; and twenty-six Home Rulers, including Mr McCarthy and Mr Sexton, had voted with Northcote.
The Liberal press was now nearly unanimous for legislation and even the Pall Mall Gazette went so far as to say: "All that is wanted is that the Government should pluck up a little more moral courage, and recognise that even in practice honesty is the best policy." In the foreign press, the general judgment was that the House of Commons was systematically disgracing itself. The Government, however, proposed nothing, leaving the Oaths Bill in the hands of the "disgusted" Mr Marjoribanks; while in the Upper House Lord Redesdale had on 7th March introduced a Bill providing that a declaration of Theism should be compulsory on all members of Parliament and peers. This measure, he explained, he introduced "from a deep sense of what was due to Almighty God." A little later, on its discussion, his lordship withdrew it "in deference to Lord Salisbury."
Bradlaugh, on his part, after consultation with his committee in Northampton, and after publishing a telling "Address to the Majority" for general circulation, decided that his future course must be one of systematic agitation in the constituencies. The Constitutional Rights League was reconstituted; an election fund was begun for the purpose of contesting certain seats held by renegade Liberals; and in these constituencies the Radicals quietly went about the work of making them untenable. Already a Liberal candidate had been defeated on the score of the insolence of his language towards Bradlaugh's supporters, Mr Samuel Morley had been called upon by the Bristol Radical Association to resign; other members had been sharply censured in their constituencies; and it was plain that it only needed time to ensure the unseating of most of the renegades. For the present nothing was to be hoped for from the Government; and a fresh notice by Mr Labouchere of a motion for leave to introduce an Affirmation Bill was blocked by Earl Percy. Thus the men who shrieked against "profanation" resisted all the while every attempt to make oath-taking by unbelievers unnecessary. Finally, a petition by the Northampton electors to be heard at the bar of the House was dismissed by the Speaker as unentitled to a hearing; and a notice of motion on the subject by Mr Firth never got to a hearing. There was clearly nothing for it but to carry war into the renegades' country. On the subject of the Speaker's action generally, Bradlaugh contented himself with penning a very temperate but very weighty paragraph:[162]—
"I am just a little troubled how to decide one or two points. The Speaker of the House of Commons is the first commoner in England, and his judgment on the various points from time to time submitted to him is practically without appeal. It is impossible to suspect him of intentional unfairness; he is a clear-sighted and courteous gentleman. Yet some of his decisions seem so conflicting that I fail in understanding how he reconciles them to himself. On the 21st February he held that Mr Labouchere was entitled, under the then circumstances, as of privilege, to move for a new writ for Northampton. On the 24th March, under precisely similar circumstances, Mr Speaker ruled that such a motion could not be made as one of privilege. On the 6th March, without any reason given whatever, except that I might come some time or other, the Speaker allowed Sir S. Northcote to raise the question of my right to my seat as one of privilege; but the Speaker now refuses to allow Mr Labouchere to raise as one of privilege the fact that one of the seats for Northampton is now in fact unfilled. On the 15th February the Speaker held that the resolution of the 7th February, which is directly in the teeth of the Standing Order of 30th April 1866, does not conflict with that order. On the 9th day of March he held that the resolution of the 6th March, which does not say one word about my coming to the table to take my seat, does so prevent my coming to the table, and that the same resolution, which does not mention my introducers or in any way forbid them introducing me, does in point of fact so act as a prohibition that he will hold any attempt to introduce me as disorderly and irregular. When my constituents wrote him, the Speaker answered that they must approach the House by petition. When they do approach by petition, he rules that their application has no privilege."
The dilemma, as between imputing to Sir Henry Brand unfairness, and pronouncing him to have failed in his duty, must be left here as Bradlaugh left it.
§ 16.
All the while the manifold litigation set up by the action of the House was moving on its slow way. The appeal of Clarke against the judgment of Justices Denman and Hawkins allowing a new trial had been heard on 21st February by Lords Justices Brett, Cotton, and Holker (the latter newly appointed), and these judges ruled that no new trial could take place, thus reversing the decision appealed against.
An independent comment on this judgment, which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette at the time, may be here cited:—
"The Court of Appeal holds that they [the Judges of the Queen's Bench Division] ought to have closed their eyes to everything but the partial evidence given at the trial, some of which at all events both the Court of Appeal and the Court below pronounced to be unsatisfactory. Nor does it seem perfectly fair to make so much as Lord Justice Brett does of the imputation of perjury to one of Mr Newdegate's witnesses. The Lord Justice himself admits that there were blemishes in his testimony, and that he 'somewhat prevaricated and coloured his evidence, etc.' We fail to see 'the enormous difference' between evidence of this character and perjury, at least for the purpose of such an action. If a man is to be condemned in a penal action he has a right to insist that it shall be on perfectly honest and straightforward evidence only."
The curious reader who cares to form his own opinion on the subject of the evidence referred to will do well to turn to the verbatim report preserved in the National Reformer.
The Clarke-Newdegate combination seemed now to see their way partly clear to their great end of making Bradlaugh bankrupt. On 29th March they moved before Justice Grove and Baron Huddleston for judgment—that is, for power to compel Bradlaugh to pay the penalty sued for and the costs. Bradlaugh admitted that at that stage he could not resist a judgment for the penalty, but resisted the motion so far as it claimed costs. To this the judges agreed; and on 30th March they gave judgment for the penalty, but reserved the costs pending the appeal to the House of Lords. Bradlaugh had thus to pay £500 into Court within fourteen days. Already, too, he had had to give securities for £500 on the appeal to the House of Lords, in addition to the £200 he had paid down according to rule. For these heavy payments he had to go into debt, his normal means of earning his livelihood being in part suspended by the very lawsuits themselves.
In course of the arguments on the plaintiff's appeal it was noticeable that Justice Grove pointed to the possibility of an action against Newdegate for maintenance, and, on Bradlaugh mentioning that the magistrate had dismissed the summonses against Newdegate and his solicitor on the ground that the law was obsolete, observed, "But it is by no means obsolete. I set aside an agreement for maintenance only a little while ago."
Another item was added to the imbroglio of litigation by the friendly action of Alderman Gurney of Northampton, on behalf of the Liberal and Radical Union there, against Bradlaugh for not taking his seat—a step taken by way of getting a legal deliverance. Bradlaugh formally demurred that he had been illegally hindered by the House of Commons. When the case came on before Justices Manisty and Watkin Williams on 15th May 1882, the judges warily declined to give any judgment, on the score that the action was friendly, that the pleadings had been drawn so as to compel a decision in Bradlaugh's favour, and did not disclose all the facts of the case. Yet they excluded no material fact; and a friendly action for a precisely similar penalty had been heard and decided before in the historic case of Miller v. Salomons, while, as a solicitor wrote to Bradlaugh, "it is a matter of everyday occurrence in the Chancery Division for friendly actions to be brought to get a judicial decision on questions arising out of settlements, etc." In the present case it seemed pretty clear that the judges were simply very much concerned not to come in conflict with the legislature. The pleadings were however readjusted, and the case stood for re-hearing before a jury.
Still another complication was perforce set up by an action brought by Bradlaugh in April against Mr Erskine, the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons, for the assault of 3rd August—a step made necessary by the police magistrate's refusal of a summons against Inspector Denning for his formal assault; and by the risk, which was soon realised, that the Gurney action would be denied a hearing. The matter being brought before the House on 8th and 9th May, the Attorney-General was directed to defend Mr Erskine, Sir Hardinge Giffard suggesting that those who assisted in bringing such an action should be prosecuted according to old precedents for breach of privilege. Such a prosecution, if laid, would have struck at Messrs Lewis & Lewis, Bradlaugh's solicitors in the matter, and at the committee of the Constitutional Rights League, who had also instructed them.
And yet one more step in this bewildering litigation was taken on 9th May, when Bradlaugh moved before Lords Justices Brett and Cotton for leave to appeal against so much of the three orders of the Court of Appeal, dated 31st March 1881, 14th November 1881, and 23rd February 1882, as awarded costs. The application was of a highly technical character, and was dismissed, everything being now left to the House of Lords when it should hear the appeal.
§17.
The agitation in the constituencies was carried on throughout the spring and summer with an energy worthy of the cause. In addition to the crowded meetings which he held in dozens of the larger provincial towns, the Constitutional Rights League arranged for three more great demonstrations in London—two on 10th May, and one on Sunday, 14th May. On the 10th was held, first, an immense mass meeting in Trafalgar Square, attended by delegates from over a hundred towns, and addressed by, among other speakers, the Rev. Mr Freeston of Stalybridge, Mr Ashton Dilke, Mr Labouchere, and Mr Broadhurst; and in the evening a second audience packed St James's Hall to the doors. On the Sunday an enormous mass meeting took place in Hyde Park, the attendance being estimated at 70,000 or 80,000. At all of these meetings Bradlaugh's claim was affirmed with the greatest enthusiasm. The attitude of the Tory press may be gathered from a reference in the Evening Standard to
"that section of the people which holds Mr Bradlaugh's coat-tails in veneration. They would get to Westminster, see the fun, shout out encouragement, and possibly pick up something to pay the expenses of the expedition."
An earlier demonstration, held in the Shoreditch Town Hall on 8th May, presided over by Mr Broadhurst and addressed by Bradlaugh and Labouchere, received no notice in the leading morning papers, though the crowd which sought admittance would have sufficed to fill the hall thrice over. It was necessary for such journals to ignore such matters as much as possible, since the main plea on the Tory side had now come to be that the public feeling was "universally" against Bradlaugh. To suppress the facts, and then to deny that the facts existed, was a natural tactic.
Naturally the Tories on their own part were not idle, either in the House or out of it. In the House they were safe from answer by Bradlaugh; and accordingly Sir Henry Tyler, who had already distinguished himself by a dastardly attack on the ladies of "the Bradlaugh family" and Mrs Besant as being unfit teachers of Science,[163] was foolish enough to call upon the Home Secretary, during May, to prosecute the National Reformer for blasphemy, on the score, not of any editorial utterances, but of certain articles by an outside contributor, controverting, as too favourable, an estimate of the Gospel Jesus by a member of the staff. Sir Henry was no less zealous for Jesus than he had been for "God;" and he was backed by Mr Healy, who asked whether the paper could not be seized. The Home Secretary deprecated the attempt in the name of the interests of orthodoxy, as he had previously done an attempt to secure a prosecution of the Freethinker. But Tyler and those of his kidney, baffled here, only looked about for another means of gaining their point.
Among the most prominent of the attacks made on Bradlaugh about this time were the (second and third) articles contributed by Cardinal Manning to the Nineteenth Century, one under the title "An Englishman's Protest." The second was in time for the election in March, and much was hoped from it. Later, after illegally visiting Northampton in prelatic state, to turn the Irish voters against the Atheist, he contributed yet a third article to the Nineteenth Century of September 1882; and still the editor denied Bradlaugh all right of reply. It is probable that at no time in the long strife were Freethinkers more roused to wrath, more moved to smite arrogant insolence upon its blatant mouth, than by this manifesto from a prince of the Church of Rome, the murderous organism which had eaten out the mind of Spain and barely missed destroying Italy. Certain it is that from these malevolent outbreaks of the unsleeping Romish spirit of persecution may be dated a new birth of enmity towards Rome on the part of English rationalists, who had before been disposed to class the bloody-mindedness of Catholicism with the kindred rancours of Protestantism. It was left to Manning to put his Church in the worst light of all; to show once for all that the fundamental mission of priestly Rome is not parcere subjectis et debellare superbos, but to fight the ignoble battle of the million against one. And it is to his action that his co-religionists owe most of the measure of acceptation found among Freethinkers by the fierce verse in which Mr Swinburne has named the Church of Rome "Grey spouse of Satan, church of name abhorred," and taunted the "withered harlot" with the shame of her defeat on the Field of Flowers.
But Bradlaugh met the priest's attack with a prose that suffered no weakening from hysteria. In his journal it met a detailed and judicial criticism: he himself, roused as he had never been roused before, published his tract, "A Cardinal's Broken Oath," one of the hardest blows ever struck in written controversy.
"Three times," it begins, "your Eminence has—through the pages of the Nineteenth Century—personally and publicly interfered and used the weight of your ecclesiastical position against me in the Parliamentary struggle in which I am engaged, although you are neither voter in the borough for which I am returned to sit, nor even co-citizen in the State to which I belong. Your personal position is that of a law-breaker, one who has deserted his sworn allegiance and thus forfeited his citizenship, one who is tolerated by English forbearance, but is liable to indictment for misdemeanour as 'member of a society of the Church of Rome.' More than once when the question of my admission to the House of Commons has been under discussion in that House, have I seen you busy in the lobby, closely attended by the devout and sober Philip Callan, or some other equally appropriate Parliamentary henchman."
After telling the Cardinal how he had "blundered alike in his law and his history," making absurd mis-statements concerning the French Revolution and the case of Horne Tooke, the pamphlet takes up the point of persecution, in regard to Manning's advice that Bradlaugh should be indicted for blasphemy:—
"When I was in Paris some time since, and was challenged to express an opinion as to the enforcement of the law against the religious orders of France, I, not to the pleasure of many of my friends, spoke out very freely that in matters of religion I would use the law against none; but your persecuting spirit may provoke intemperate men even farther than you dream. In this country, by the 10th George IV., cap. 7, secs. 28 and 29, 31, 32, and 34, you are criminally indictable, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. You only reside here without police challenge by the merciful forbearance of the community. And yet you parade in political contest your illegal position as 'a member of a religious order of the Church of Rome,' and have the audacity to invoke outlawry and legal penalty against me."
And then came a hail of blows at the Cardinal Archbishop's own personality, so rashly put in the way of retaliation:—
"In the current number of the Nineteenth Century you fire your last shot, and are coarse in Latin as well as in the vulgar tongue. Perhaps the frequenting Philip Callan has spoiled your manners. It also seems impossible that one who was once a cultured scholar and a refined gentleman could confuse with legitimate argument the abuse of his opponents as 'cattle.' But who are you, Henry Edward Manning, that you should throw stones at me, and should so parade your desire to protect the House of Commons from contamination? At least, first take out of it the drunkard and the dissolute of your own Church. You know them well enough. Is it the oath alone which stirs you? Your tenderness on swearing comes very late in life. When you took orders as a deacon of the English Church, in presence of your bishop, you swore 'so help me God,' that you did from your 'heart abhor, detest, and abjure,' and with your hand on the 'Holy Gospels' you declared 'that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm.' You may now well write of men 'whom no oath can bind.' The oath you took you have broken; and yet it was because you had, in the very church itself, taken this oath, that you for many years held more than one profitable preferment in the Established Church of England. You indulge in innuendoes against my character in order to do me mischief, and viciously insinuate as though my life had in it justification for good men's abhorrence. In this you are very cowardly as well as very false. Then, to move the timid, you suggest 'the fear of eternal punishment' as associated with a broken oath. Have you any such fear? or have you been personally conveniently absolved from the 'eternal' consequences of your perjury? Have you since sworn another oath before another bishop of another church, or made some solemn vow to Rome, in lieu of, and in contradiction to, the one you so took in presence of your bishop, when, 'in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,' that bishop of the Church by law established in this country accepted your oath, and gave you authority as a deacon in the Church you have since forsaken. I do not blame you so much that you are forsworn; there are, as you truly say, 'some men whom no oath can bind;' and it has often been the habit of the cardinals of your Church to take an oath and break it when profit came with the breach; but your remembrance of your own perjury might at least keep you reticent in very shame. Instead of this, you thrust yourself impudently into a purely political contest, and shout as if the oath were to you the most sacred institution possible. You say 'there are happily some men who believe in God and fear Him.' Do you do either? You, who declared, 'so help me God,' that no foreign 'prelate ... ought to have any jurisdiction or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual within this realm'? And you who, in spite of your declaration on oath, have courted and won, intrigued for and obtained, the archbishop's authority and the cardinal's hat from the Pope of Rome—you rebuke Lord Sherbrooke for using the words 'sin and shame' in connection with oath-taking: do you hold now that there was no sin and no shame in your broken oath? None in the rash taking or the wilful breaking? Have you no personal shame that you have broken your oath? Or do the pride and pomp of your ecclesiastical position outbribe your conscience? You talk of the people understanding the words 'so help me God.' How do you understand them of your broken oath? Do they mean to you: 'May God desert and forsake me as I deserted and forsook the Queen's supremacy, to which I so solemnly swore allegiance'? You speak of men being kept to their allegiance by the oath 'which binds them to their sovereign.' You say such men may be tempted by ambition or covetousness unless they are bound by 'the higher and more sacred responsibility' involved in the 'recognition of the law-giver in the oath.' Was the Rector of Lavington and Graffham covetous of an archbishopric that he broke his oath? Was the Archdeacon of Chichester ambitious of the Cardinal's hat that he became so readily forsworn?"
The eight small but pregnant pages of this concentrated diatribe were carefully translated into Italian by or for a certain Monsignor, once resident in England, who was understood to owe no goodwill to Manning; the translation was no less carefully circulated among the higher Roman clergy; and if anything had been needed to thwart Manning's ambition of becoming Pope, this little tractate, it was believed, would have served not a little to that end. At all events, Manning never again ventured to attack Bradlaugh publicly. He had had enough. And not only had he failed to destroy Bradlaugh, he had evoked furious Protestant protests against his action at Northampton, and this even from journals like the Rock, which hated Bradlaugh as much as he did. His alliance was rejected with insult. And even in his own Church the far more highly esteemed Newman, answering a correspondent on the subject of the Affirmation Bill of 1883, expressly declared that he thought "nothing would be lost to religion by its passing and nothing gained by its being rejected."[164]
It would be superfluous to load this already over-burdened narrative with any detailed account of the stream of insults, imbecilities, brutalities, and falsehoods which was cast forth continuously at this period against Bradlaugh in the press and on the platform. From the fatuity of Viscount Folkestone—who argued that an Atheist, being guilty of treason to God, who gave the Queen her power, should be treated like one guilty of treason to the Queen—to the brutish licence of the Tory journals who likened Bradlaugh's sympathisers to thieves and assassins, there was, as Mr Moncure Conway wrote at the time, "no circumstance of heartlessness, injustice, hypocrisy, and falsehood[165] wanting to this last carnival of theological[166] hatred and ferocity." It was not, of course, theological hate alone. Bradlaugh had just been leading a popular movement for land law reform; and he had set in motion a second movement for the abolition of perpetual pensions, which went on wheels, and the petitions in support of which were signed by the hundred thousand.[167] There are few resentments more bitter than that of a menaced interest. But malice once aroused in men of a low type stops at nothing; and as we have seen, everybody associated with Bradlaugh was included in the hatred bestowed on him. One Tory journal, the Manchester Courier, went the length of saying that Bradlaugh's success in Northampton was due to an exceptionally bad state of education there; the pretext being that one Northamptonshire village was in such a state. The Government inspector testified that as regarded the town he had often paid tribute to the heartiness of the people of Northampton, and especially of the working-classes, in carrying out the Education Act, and that it would be hard to find anywhere a more active School Board, a higher average of regular attendance, or a higher general standard of proficiency.
Of course such a testimony did little to check the scurrility of Tory tongues. At a meeting of the Bible Society at Exeter Hall, in May 1882, with Mr Samuel Morley in the chair, a Herefordshire vicar, the Rev. H. W. Webb Peploe, alleged that to his knowledge "the first condition imposed upon one whom he knew when he had joined an association under the leadership of a notorious infidel was that he should burn his Bible;" and that he had further "been told that two nights ago, at a meeting of a notorious infidel, the things said were so grossly immodest that a member of the press had said that they did not dare to report what had been spoken, however, in the presence of young women." On being challenged, the rev. gentleman declined to attempt any substantiation of his statements, only pleading that he had not meant to specify Bradlaugh. Of these cretinous calumnies, there were hundreds afloat for years on end. It is a comfort to be able to say that some score or more of single clergymen in different places, of different sects, spoke out bravely and generously from time to time in repudiation of the whole policy of persecution and slander. But a few voices, of course, could not avail to hinder that for thoughtful men the effect of the persecution was to identify religion with injustice. Freethinkers reasoned that the Christians who stood for justice and tolerance did but do what Freethinkers themselves did, without accepting the Christian creed; while the army of bigots did their evil deeds in virtue of a religious motive. And the effect of it all was to multiply Freethought as it had never been multiplied before. A barrister, who had no personal sympathy with Bradlaugh, wrote that "One consequence has been that the cause of Freethought has made surprising progress.... I do not think that at any time Freethought literature has been so widely read, and the Freethought propaganda so actively and intelligently carried on." Active members of the Secular Society were enrolled by hundreds; and the sale of Bradlaugh's journal rose to its highest figure. Men who had before been unquestioningly orthodox became newly critical. One wrote to an editor:—
"That 'Mr Bradlaugh had brought his troubles on himself' I fully admit. So did Jesus Christ. In the latter case the ultimate result was a judicial execution as a blasphemer. But I am not aware that he is any the worse thought of by his followers on that account."
Even among Conservatives there were searchings of heart. One wrote a pamphlet in his favour. Another sent an open letter of merciless criticism to Sir Stafford Northcote, saying, "I am a Conservative, and my father before me. But there is something I put before party. That is self-respect." The letter concluded:—
"If you wish an outlet for your zeal against 'profanation,' why do you ignore in the Church the presence of numerous Broad Churchmen, including the father-in-law of your own son, Canon Farrar, who swear loyalty to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and follow the late Dean Stanley in rejecting many of them? Why should you have reserved your fervent indignation against apparent insincerity in sacred things to be expended upon a man whose admission to the House as silently as possible, so as not to promote his notoriety, justice and expediency would alike have suggested: the whole stupidity, duplicity, and inhumanity of Conservative tactics in this matter are patent to all straightforward minds. You are responsible for giving Mr Bradlaugh a name and a place in the history of this country which will survive long after those of the present Conservative leaders are consigned to oblivion."
The harvest was not immediate; but the seed was abundantly sown, and inevitably bore its due fruit. That this was not unrecognised in high places was sufficiently proved by the introduction of an Affirmation Bill in the House of Lords by the Duke of Argyll, then already sundered from official Liberalism. The Duke, on moving the second reading of his Bill, took occasion to scold Bradlaugh after his manner for "violence and scurrility," denying by implication that the violence and scurrility were on the other side. But this prudent tactic did not avail. The Earl of Carnarvon told the usual untruth about the "binding effect" of the oath on Bradlaugh, by way of showing that he deserved no relief; and the Archbishop of Canterbury opposed the Bill in the name not only of the English Church, but of the Romish, the Wesleyan, and the Scotch Presbyterian. It was accordingly rejected (July) by 138 votes to 62.
§ 18.
On 11th July 1882 a new Tory battery was opened. The Freethinker, a penny weekly journal of a more popular character than the National Reformer, edited by Mr G. W. Foote and then owned by Mr W. J. Ramsey, was sold at the shop of the Freethought Publishing Company, 28 Stonecutter Street, of which Mr Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant, the partners of the Company, were the lessees. For a short time after its first issue it had been published by them, but soon they decided not to take that responsibility; and thenceforward it had been sold independently by Mr Ramsey, their manager, who, in the terms of his engagement with them, was free to do other trading on his own account. Sir Henry Tyler, supposing Bradlaugh to be the publisher all along, had bethought himself of prosecuting the Freethinker for blasphemy, and so striking a possibly decisive political blow at Bradlaugh—a course which he was enabled to take by a readily granted "fiat" from the Director of Public Prosecutions. It had been made clear by his references to the National Reformer in the House of Commons that he had hoped to convict Bradlaugh of blasphemy on something he had either written or published; but that hope he had had to abandon. There remained the hope of connecting Bradlaugh with the Freethinker; and Tyler's solicitors coolly wrote Bradlaugh on 8th July, asking whether he would personally sell the paper, so as to prevent the prosecution either of a subordinate of his, or of the editor and printer. He replied by sending the printed catalogue of all the things he published, and offering personally to sell any of these. As it did not include the Freethinker, the prosecution was begun against Messrs Foote and Ramsey and their printer, Mr Whittle, on 11th July, before the Lord Mayor (Sir John Whittaker Ellis), at the Mansion House; and after evidence had been led, the prosecutor's counsel applied to have Bradlaugh's name added as a defendant. The case was then adjourned, the Lord Mayor stating that he would hear the application against Bradlaugh in private—a proceeding for which the reasons will afterwards appear. It having appeared that the selling of the Free-thinker in the Freethought Publishing Company's shop tended to implicate the partners of that company, Mr Ramsey at once decided to suspend its sale for some weeks till he could arrange for its publication in a distinct office, thus partly safeguarding Bradlaugh from the attempt to identify him with it. The danger was serious; for if Bradlaugh were convicted of blasphemy under the statute, he would become legally incapable of further defending himself in Clarke's or any other suit for Parliamentary penalties. This was fully recognised on the Tory side, and the Whitehall Review, in an indecent article, pressed the point. Tyler's move was, in fact, a new attempt to cause the ruin aimed at by Newdegate, and hitherto warded off; and Newdegate's junior counsel (and private friend) duly attended the prosecution at the Mansion House. At the same time, Bradlaugh was defending a Freethinker prosecuted for blasphemy at the Maidstone Assizes, and after attending the adjourned hearing before the Lord Mayor on Monday, 17th July, he had to travel to Maidstone on the following day.
Before the Lord Mayor Bradlaugh led the prosecutor's counsel a grievous dance. He appealed to have the cases taken separately, and counsel was confused enough to say that this was "a most unusual and unheard-of application," which drew from Bradlaugh the comment, "There are several decided cases upon it, although it may be unheard of and unusual in your experience, Mr Moloney." Then ensued hours of fencing as to whether the case was or should be under common law or statute, and what the Lord Mayor ought to do. His lordship was at times somewhat rashly dogmatic on points of law and procedure, and had to be corrected. He finally decided to refuse to ask the prosecutor to choose whether he would proceed under common law or statute; and Bradlaugh then demanded that the case should begin de novo, putting every possible technical obstacle in the way of his cowardly enemies. Their evil way, he determined, should be made hard for them; and it was. As the proceedings went on, and the prosecution, who had previously succeeded in obtaining from the Lord Mayor a warrant to inspect Bradlaugh's banking account, took the dishonourable course of producing on subpœna the manager of the bank used by Bradlaugh, and his very passbook, his indignation mounted. What was intended was evidently a fishing investigation into his financial affairs, for the production of cheques at that stage was wholly irrelevant to the points proposed to be made out in evidence, and needing to be so proved. Fighting the case with all his force and acuteness, point by point, and with no mincing of matters, Bradlaugh commented on Tyler's tactics in language of which the libel law prevented the republication. Tyler's counsel protested that he "did not quite see what these observations were intended for." "They are intended," replied Bradlaugh, "to do the same mischief to your client that he is trying to do to me;" and counsel said no more on that head, though he tried unsuccessfully to retaliate on others.
The case was adjourned to the 21st; and though the passbook was left in the Lord Mayor's hands for inspection, the prosecuting counsel so mismanaged matters that he closed his case without having applied to see it. Bradlaugh's account, however, had been personally ransacked on Tyler's behalf, in gross abuse of the order of the Court. The Lord Mayor finally committed Bradlaugh for trial on the singularly scanty evidence offered as to his connection with the prosecuted paper, the incriminated numbers of which were all dated after the time when Bradlaugh ceased to be concerned in publishing it; and in committing Messrs Foote and Ramsey (the charge against the printer had been withdrawn), his lordship refused to allow Mr Foote to make a statement in his defence, though the law clearly gave the defendant that right. His lordship repeatedly gave the extraordinary ruling that "the charge" against Mr Foote was "that he was the editor of the Freethinker"—as if that could possibly be a "charge"—and on this pretext declined to hear anything on the actual charge, which was one of "blasphemous libel." He similarly tried to prevent Bradlaugh from reading a formal statement, but after disallowing it he gave way on consultation with the Clerk of Court. The statement was a terse and telling account of Tyler's tactics from the time of Bradlaugh's election.
In the press the prosecution was sharply condemned, even the Times censuring it; and one journal took occasion to point out that Tyler represented "one of the smallest and most corrupt constituencies in England."[168] Bradlaugh, being "committed" for blasphemy, at once put himself in the hands of his constituents, who unanimously voted their unabated confidence in him. He immediately (27th July) applied to a judge (Justice Stephen) in chambers for leave to issue a summons calling on Tyler to show cause why a writ of certiorari should not issue to remove the proceedings to the Queen's Bench division; and on the 29th the certiorari itself was directed to issue by the judge. Tyler's counsel at this stage insisted on Bradlaugh's giving two sureties for £300 in addition to his own recognisances of £300 ordered by the Lord Mayor. They also asked for an order to expedite the trial, but the judge curtly refused. Another typical detail was the charging of the grand jury on the point of "returning a true bill" on the indictment. The Recorder for the City, Sir Thomas Chambers, was one of Bradlaugh's bitterest enemies in Parliament, and he gave his direction to the grand jury to return a true bill, not only without putting it to them to decide whether they were satisfied with the evidence against Bradlaugh, but with expressions of gross prejudice, appealing to their feelings as "Christian men."
Not content with his prosecution of Bradlaugh, Tyler in the House of Commons (10th August) at length brought forward an express motion which he had had on the paper for twelve months, to the effect that the Hall of Science was not a proper place, and the teachers not proper persons, to teach science in connection with the Science and Art Department. The argument was that persons who had expressed themselves in print to the effect that science undermined religion should be held to have taught the same thing in their science classes. Mr Mundella in reply pointed out that no fewer than thirty-five clergymen of all denominations were science teachers under the department; and that the reports on the teaching given in the Hall of Science classes, even by a religious visitor who made surprise visits, were highly satisfactory. He concluded by sharply censuring Tyler, as Mr Labouchere had already done, for his malice; and, the Tory members having all left the House, the matter was ignominiously dropped. Even the editor of the St James's Gazette snubbed Tyler, while himself proceeding to repeat Tyler's contention in a gratuitously insulting statement as to the teaching of the Misses Bradlaugh. In the outside public one immediate effect of Tyler's malicious action was to set on foot a movement and an association for the repeal of the blasphemy laws, the lead being ably taken by the Rev. Mr Sharman (Unitarian) of Plymouth, who had already done admirable service in the constitutional struggle.
The blasphemy prosecution not being "expedited," went on slowly enough. Intermediate technical proceedings arose, partly out of irregularities on the part of the prosecution; and in one of Bradlaugh's visits to the Courts with his sureties, the driver of a four-wheeler who conveyed the party declined to accept any fare, declaring that it should be his contribution towards fighting Tyler. At length, on 6th November, Bradlaugh made an ex parte motion before Justices Field and Stephen, to have the indictment against him quashed, mainly on the score that he ought to have been definitely sued under the statute 9 and 10 William III., and that the provisions of that statute had not been observed in the indictment. The pleadings were extremely interesting as a matter of pure law, the judges debating the points courteously but closely all along, and both commenting finally on the "candour" and "propriety" with which he had argued his case. Their decision was for the most part hostile; and this was one of his very few cases in which there can be little difficulty in taking the judge's view against him. The main point decided was that the statute had not abrogated the common law in the case in hand. They gave him a rule nisi on only two counts in the indictment, on the ground of irregular procedure on the part of the prosecution; but Justice Stephen's judgment supplied a very useful conspectus of the history of the blasphemy laws, and incidentally declared that the statutory penalties could not be inflicted under a verdict on the indictment laid.
Very different must be the comments passed on the treatment of the friendly action, Gurney v. Bradlaugh, which came on afresh before Mr Justice Mathew and a common jury on 10th November. Everything had been done that could be done to meet the criticisms formerly passed by Justices Manisty and Watkin Williams; and indeed the whole pleadings had from the first been drawn from the journals of the House of Commons, which were put in evidence. But Justice Mathew summarily decided not to hear the case, and discharged the jury, on the old ground that the action was collusive. Now Bradlaugh, in swearing himself in, had in law done exactly what Alderman Salomons did in 1851; and the action of Miller v. Salomons was notoriously collusive, yet it was fully heard and carefully decided. We can only do now what Bradlaugh did then—leave the judge's action to the judgment of the instructed public. The Law Times of that time (November 1882) took the unusual step of declaring:—
"It is plain that it should be possible to try a friendly action to establish a constitutional right; and we regard the action of the judge as very questionable on constitutional grounds, and as being an arbitrary interference with a suitor's right to the verdict of a jury."
What a law journal thus describes, plain men may well call by a plainer name.
One of Bradlaugh's five contemporary lawsuits was thus quashed, but the remaining four kept his hands sufficiently full. The civil suit against Newdegate for maintenance came on before Justice Field on 2nd December, on a preliminary "demurrer," when, on the advice of the judge, both aides agreed to let the demurrer stand over till after the trial. A day or two afterwards Newdegate, speaking at the London Sheriffs' banquet, at which six judges were guests, had the indecency to comment before them on the maintenance case, and to denounce Bradlaugh. On the 5th the action against Mr Erskine, the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, came on before Justice Field. It was a long pleading on both sides; the case was adjourned till the 18th; and after the Attorney-General had spoken two hours and a half, and Bradlaugh had replied for an hour and a quarter, the judge reserved his decision. He finally gave it (15th January) against Bradlaugh, on the general ground that the House of Commons was the judge as to how it might exercise its privileges, of which the power to expel a member was one. On the point of legality he ruled that "it is not to be presumed that any Court, whether it be the High Court of Judicature or this Court, will do that which in itself is flagrantly wrong." The decision was one which might very reasonably have been appealed against. As the Legal Advertiser Supplement remarked at the time, Justice Field's ruling would cover a case in which the House of Commons might, say, confiscate the goods and chattels of a member expelled or suspended for obstruction. Bradlaugh, however, decided not to appeal. He had only commenced the action reluctantly because of the likelihood that the Gurney suit would be denied a hearing; and the judge had in this case at least listened to his arguments. He contented himself with a letter to the Times, pointing out the constitutional effect of the decision.
Thus far he had endured defeat after defeat in the law courts as in Parliament; and it may be that discouragement and debt counted for something in his surrender of the suit against the Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms. But he was now within a short distance of three signal successes which more than counterbalanced all his previous legal defeats. On 9th and 17th March his action against Newdegate for maintenance was argued for him before Lord Coleridge[169] by Mr Crump and Mr W. A. Hunter, he himself giving evidence on his own behalf. The broad ground of action was that Newdegate had maliciously "maintained" Clarke, having himself no interest in the ground of action, which was the penalty sued for, and being desirous only to make Bradlaugh bankrupt. There was no question of principle, as Bradlaugh was already unseated, and was held disentitled to sit either on oath or on affirmation. Bradlaugh incidentally gave testimony that already he had had to spend on the action two legacies, and in addition £1100 he had borrowed; while Clarke testified that the total costs on his side were estimated at about £2000.
Lord Coleridge reserved his decision; and before he gave it, the appeal by Bradlaugh against Clarke's action had been heard and decided in the House of Lords. It was argued on 5th and 6th March, before the Lord Chancellor (Selborne), and Lords Blackburn, Watson, and Fitzgerald—Bradlaugh, as usual, pleading his own cause. His main argument was, as before, that only the Crown could recover penalties against him when the statute did not specify that some or any one else could; and the discussion turned on this point, on which Lord Justice Bramwell, the senior judge in the Court of Appeal, had expressed some doubt. Bradlaugh, however, cited on the disputed point as to the Crown's prerogative two fresh cases—the King v. Hymen[170] and the King v. Clarke; and a good deal of argument turned on the point as to whether a common informer could ever have costs allowed him. As for the case of the respondent, Bradlaugh pointed out that Sir Hardinge Giffard's argument was now directed against the very reasons on which the intermediate court had based its judgment in his favour, thus asking their lordships to support the judgment of the Court of Appeal for new and contrary reasons.
On 9th April their lordships delivered judgment. The Lord Chancellor in an elaborate and lucid judgment showed that the penalty really was suable for by action of the Crown in any of the superior courts, and that, as no permission had been given by the statute to the common informer to sue, he was not entitled to do so. Lord Blackburn dissented, but not strongly, arguing very judicially that there were good and mutually neutralising arguments on both sides, and pronouncing himself only "on the whole" in favour of the view that the common informer could sue under the statute. Lords Watson and Fitzgerald, however, agreed with the Lord Chancellor. The eccentric Lord Denman, who was not a law lord, chose to take part in the proceedings (the first time a lay peer had done so, it is said, since the decision of the writ of error in Daniel O'Connoll's case), and declared himself in agreement with Lord Blackburn. Even if he were counted, however, the majority was for the appellant, who accordingly won the appeal with costs.
This judgment, of course, would have affected the suit for maintenance, had that been brought later. Giving judgment on 23rd April, Lord Coleridge remarked that as the House of Lords had decided that Clarke had no right to sue, it "seemed to follow" that Newdegate had no right to do so either. But he went on to decide in the appellant's favour on the merits of the case, giving a long and interesting judgment. Unless maintenance were to be struck out of the law-books, said the Lord Chief Justice, Newdegate's procedure must be called maintenance; and if maintenance were to be struck out of the books, he added, "it must be done by some higher authority, and I have not the power to do it, nor, if I had the power, have I the wish to abolish an action which may in some cases be the only remedy for a very cruel wrong." Delivering himself later on the moral or political merits of the case, he said:—
"It may be my ill fortune to have to support such an action in a case in which the defendant is a man whose character is entitled to every respect, and the plaintiff is a man with whose views, openly avowed, I have no sort of sympathy. But I will not call it my 'ill fortune,' for many of the most precious judgments given by the Courts in Westminster Hall were given in favour of men who, if English justice could ever be warped by personal feeling, would certainly have failed. It is indeed an ill fortune of the case that in the minds of many the cause of religion should seem to be connected with the success or failure of a particular person, whose defeat or success is really to the cause of religion a matter of supreme indifference, but as to whom (speaking only of what has been proved before me), a course has been taken and proceedings have been pressed which, in the case of any other, would be strongly and universally condemned, and by which certainly the cause of religion has not been advanced. But my duty is simply to decide the cause according to the best opinion I can form of the law—a duty which the rules of Christian teaching make quite clear."
As to costs, Lord Coleridge remarked that the decision of the House of Lords, though giving costs on the appeal, left Bradlaugh mulcted in a considerable sum of costs which were not recoverable from Clarke. For the recoverable costs he assumed Newdegate would now hold himself responsible; but further,
"for the residue of the costs and the expenses which Mr Bradlaugh has been put to as between attorney and client, and the various expenses he has had to bear—for all these Mr Newdegate is responsible in damages. I think that Mr Bradlaugh is entitled to an indemnity for every loss which Mr Newdegate's maintenance has caused him, and if this cannot be agreed on between the parties it must go to the official referee to ascertain the amount, and when he has reported to me I will give judgment for the amount he finds to be due, applying the principles I have thus laid down."
Newdegate's counsel gave notice of an appeal, but after six months' delay abandoned it. Thus by two concurrent successes Bradlaugh inflicted a crushing and final defeat on one of the men who had sought to ruin his political career out of hate for his opinions. He could not have, in addition to the solace of triumph, the "stern joy which warriors feel in foemen worthy of their steel;" but he had the satisfaction, such as it was, of knowing that his victory was a source of intense chagrin to thousands of bigots who had reckoned on, betted on, and generally predicted his defeat and bankruptcy.
And his victory on the points of civil law was effectually secured by his acquittal in the action for blasphemy. A new excitement had been added to that issue by the commencement, on 2nd February, of a new prosecution of Mr Foote (now owner as well as editor) and Mr Ramsey (now publisher only), with Ramsey's shopman, Henry Arthur Kemp, for the publication of a special "Christmas number" of the Freethinker, in which there occurred certain woodcuts, ridiculing the Hebrew Deity and the Jesus of the Gospels. In this case there could be no pretence of implicating Bradlaugh, as the incriminated number had not even been sold on the Freethought Publishing Company's premises. Whether Tyler saw the necessity of putting a better colour of religious zeal on his ill-conditioned action against Bradlaugh, or whether the recent strife had stirred up smouldering bigotry independently of personal animus against Bradlaugh, this prosecution was undertaken by "the City of London." The new trial, which took place at the Central Criminal Court on 1st March 1883, before Mr Justice North and a jury, is likely to be long remembered in respect of the extraordinary display of mediæval prejudice by the judge. He repeatedly and angrily interrupted Mr Foote in his defence, declining to allow him to quote current printed matter which would show at once how much "permitted blasphemy" went on among Salvationists, and how perfectly in keeping was his freethinking blasphemy with the popular religion which it attacked. The jury, after two hours' discussion, could not agree, and the judge discharged them, arranging for a fresh trial on the 6th with a fresh jury, and refusing in the harshest and most peremptory manner to let the prisoners out on bail, though in law they were perfectly entitled to it. Applications made next day to other judges fell through on the score, not of being wrong in law, but of "want of jurisdiction" on the part of the judges applied to. The second trial was even more disgraceful to the judge than the first. At the outset, Mr Foote objected to one of the jurors as having expressed animus, and the judge, in suggesting the juryman's withdrawal, declared that "he should be sorry to have a gentleman upon the jury who had expressed himself as prejudiced." His own summing-up to the jury, however, was again scandalously prejudiced; and when the jury promptly returned a verdict of guilty, he addressed Mr Foote as follows:—
"You have been found guilty by the jury of publishing these blasphemous libels. This trial has been to me a very painful one, as I regard it as extremely sad to find that a person to whom God has given such evident intelligence and ability should have chosen to prostitute his talents to the work of the devil in the way it has been done (sic) under your auspices."
The sentence was a year's imprisonment. The announcement called forth a display of indignation among the audience such as has perhaps never been seen in modern times; and the judge had to sit for some minutes in a storm of hisses and outcries, the epithets "Jeffries" and "Scroggs" expressing the prevailing sentiment. Mr Foote's words: "My lord, I thank you: it is worthy of your creed," were followed by a renewal of the tumult, and it was with difficulty that the Court was cleared. Then the judge sentenced Ramsey and Kemp to nine and three months' imprisonment respectively. The same judge, it is recorded, had let off with three months' imprisonment a ruffian who had killed a coffee-stall keeper with a kick on the face when he was refused a second cup of coffee till the first had been paid for.
The impression made among thoughtful people by the judge's action was one of general displeasure. Canon Shuttleworth pronounced the sentence "a calamity." Mr Foote's methods had been widely and strongly disapproved of among cultured Freethinkers, including Bradlaugh; and Mr John Morley, in the Pall Mall Gazette, had gone to the indefensible length of justifying the prosecution, on the very inadequate ground that the Freethinker had been "thrust on" the public, it having been exhibited in the publisher's window in a side street. But the infamous sentence at once turned feeling the other way, though protests like Canon Shuttleworth's were needed to teach Mr Morley and other Liberal journalists that renunciation of Liberal principles is not really necessary, even in cases of persecution, to propitiate the public. Bradlaugh, on his part, took the—for him—unprecedented course of addressing a public letter to the judge, reprobating his conduct. "My lord," he wrote,
"I pen this public letter with considerable regret and much pain. I have always in my public utterances tried to teach respect for the judicial bench. I have never, I hope, allowed hostile decisions against myself personally to tempt me to undue language when exercising my journalistic right to criticise judgments delivered. My own experience of the judges of our land has, with slight exception, been that they always listened with great patience, and when disagreeing, have expressed their disagreement in a dignified manner. When I read the report of the first trial of Messrs Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp, I was inexpressibly shocked. The character of some of the evidence you admitted alarmed me, and your refusal to reserve the objection taken to the admissibility of such evidence for the consideration of the Court of Crown Cases Reserved seemed to me so extraordinary that I even now hardly dare trust myself to characterise it.... But the point that most afflicts me is the fashion in which you over and over again interrupted the defendant Foote in his defence.... There are plenty of precedents showing that prisoners have been permitted in defence the indulgence so peremptorily denied by your lordship to Mr Foote.... That you should have held the defendants in custody after the jury had disagreed, and when you had determined to again try them four days later, was mischievously and wantonly cruel. They had duly surrendered to their bail, which had been small in amount. There was no suggestion or supposition that they would try to avoid justice, nor did the prosecution ask for their detention. I am afraid, my lord, that you sent them to Newgate because they had been over-bold in their defence.... If you had meant the three defendants to have no chance of escape, if you had been prosecutor instead of impartial judge, you could hardly have done more to embarrass their defence than by sending them to this sudden and unexpected close confinement."
The letter concluded:
"When you sat as judge in these blasphemy trials your lordship was practically omnipotent. There is yet no court of criminal appeal.... The very knowledge of your uncontrollable authority in the conduct of the trial ... should have prompted your lordship to hold the judicial balance with a steady hand, its inclining, if at all, being to the side of mercy. But your lordship, in the spirit of the old inquisitor, threw into the scale your own prejudices against the heresy for which the defendants were reputed, your own dislike of the manner in which they had made their heresies known.... I ask your lordship what would be the outcry through the civilised world if, either in Switzerland or in Hindostan, those Salvation Army propagandists who thrust their blasphemies furiously in all men's faces were so hardly dealt with as you have dealt with George William Foote, William James Ramsey, and Henry Kemp?"
Presumably the scandal caused by Justice North tended to procure a fairer hearing for the original action, still unheard, in which Bradlaugh was indicted. It came on before the Lord Chief Justice and a jury on 10th April—Bradlaugh, as usual, defending himself, while Messrs Foote and Ramsey were represented by counsel. Bradlaugh was permitted by Lord Coleridge, in spite of the opposition of the prosecuting counsel (Giffard), to have the charge against him tried separately from that of his co-defendants, whose testimony might be important to him; and he was thus enabled to put his defence solely on the question of his responsibility, saying nothing as to the papers prosecuted being blasphemous or otherwise. His case was a clear and detailed proof, made good at every point, that he had ceased to be in any way concerned even in the selling of the Freethinker before the issue of any of the incriminated numbers, he and Mrs Besant having decided to drop the publication on account of a change early made in the character of the paper;[171] and that this abandonment of the publication—which was the only sort of connection he had ever had with the paper at all—was made independently of any outside pressure or threat. For the rest, the malevolent tactics of Sir Henry Tyler were once more made the subject of a stinging invective; and the procedure of the prosecution in regard to the bank account came in for very severe handling. This was one of the most striking details in the trial. It came out, to the amazement of the legal part of the audience, that not only had Bradlaugh's banking account been ransacked and his cheques gone over to see if any had been dishonoured, but the junior counsel for Tyler, Mr Moloney, had actually attended the inquisition in person. Bradlaugh naturally did not spare him, declaring that he had "done work generally left to some private detective or inquiry agent, and never done by any one having the dignity of the bar to guard." And all the while, the search had been made in a bank branch in St John's Wood, N.W., in the county of Middlesex, on a warrant from the Lord Mayor, whose jurisdiction was limited to the City. On this head the Lord Chief Justice indicated a very strong feeling that the Lord Mayor's warrant for such a purpose ought not to be valid anywhere. "Vile in its inception and dishonourable in its conduct," was Bradlaugh's account of the prosecution generally, and he even had a suspicion, based on an awkward statement by one of the legal witnesses, that the examination of the bank account had been made some days before the summons against him was issued.
Sir Hardinge Giffard, now prosecuting for the Crown, fought the case as he might have done it for Tyler, declaring in his opening speech that he would call witnesses to prove certain things, and afterwards carefully omitting to call them, seeing that that course would help Bradlaugh to clear himself. In replying, he did not attempt to rebut the criticisms passed on his client and on his conduct of the case, professing to take the attitude of dignified disregard. His main line of argument was that one or two isolated woodcuts had been published in the Freethinker during the few months in which the Freethought Company published it, that Bradlaugh was an original promoter, and that the change made in the registration was only a stratagem, Bradlaugh remaining the real publisher. As regarded the blasphemy charged, Sir Hardinge did not take the customary line of distinguishing between vulgar and refined blasphemy, describing the contents of the Freethinker as deadly "poison to men's soul"—an expression which could not be supposed to apply to the mere element of vulgarity. He spoke with horror of a cartoon which exhibited Ignorance, Money, and Fear as "the true Trinity," and would doubtless have spoken similarly of the account of the Trinity as "three Lord Shaftesburys," given by Lord Coleridge's esteemed personal friend, Mr Matthew Arnold. The blasphemous matter on which the learned counsel expressed himself most strongly in detail, however, was a vulgar travesty of the extremely silly and artistically worthless religious picture known as "The Calling of Samuel." "You have that picture," he told the jury, "represented as a startled child, roused from his slumber by two cats on the tiles. And this is the sort of thing which is to be scattered broadcast over the land—!"
Lord Coleridge, on his part, summed up with great literary skill and dignity, carefully guarding against theological prejudice on the part of the jury by the avowal that he himself, despite his years and comparative detachment from the world, found it difficult to clear his mind of it. Incidentally he remarked that it was to Bradlaugh's credit that he did not disavow a general sympathy with the opinions of his co-defendants, while clearing himself of all complicity in the publications indicted. But on the point of the blasphemy charge he also incidentally expressed an opinion, which is worth citing as showing how little even an exceptionally considerate judge with strong religious feelings can get rid of the vulgar notion that irreverence to his—the popular—religious opinions is immeasurably more reprehensible than irreverence towards other less popular opinions, or vilification of unpopular men's characters. His objection to blasphemy prosecutions was mainly that they injured the cause of religion:—
"I say not how far the institution of a prosecution of this kind wounds the most sacred feelings and does injury to the holiest convictions. Some persons may think that this is not so; some may think that by such prosecutions the most sacred truths are pierced through the sides of those who are their enemies. With all that we have nothing to do. We may dislike, we may—I do not hesitate to say, we may loathe—the expressions made use of in these libels. We may think the persons who can speak in this way of things which they themselves may disapprove of and disbelieve, which they themselves may possibly think superstitious and mischievous, but which they must know have been the life and the soul of the virtue, the morality, the self-denial, the civilisation of hundreds, and thousands, and millions of people in all ages, are persons who forget—I will not say what is due to God, for they do not believe in Him, but to man, for they are men—what is due to themselves, and to the community of which they form a part, and for whom they ought to have some consideration. All that may be perfectly true, but it has nothing to do with the question."
Here the judge assumes that there is no dispute whatever as to the claim that the Christian religion is the essence of morality and modern civilisation, and proceeds to express disgust for a line of polemic which was zealously followed by the early Christians for centuries, which is invariably followed in the Old Testament when there is any question of alien religions, which is endorsed by Paul, which is commonly followed by Christian missionaries and by Protestant assailants of Catholicism, and which was even then being followed by the Christian multitude in the very case of Bradlaugh. The Christian position is that it is right to ridicule and asperse Freethinkers, materialists, and polytheists; and the Protestant position is that it is right to deride the Catholic worship of saints, images, and relics; but Christians in the mass hold it abominable for unbelievers and "heathen" in turn to deride their opinions, these being "holy" and "dear." And all the while, in the case under notice, the people who thus felt the most intense animal resentment towards a handful of men for speaking irreverently of a supposed Infinite, which by no possibility could human folly or contumely disturb or hurt, were as often as not zealous accomplices in casting the vilest personal insults against a representative Atheist who confessedly could not be shown to have attacked their opinions in such a way as to lay him open to a successful prosecution for blasphemy. The Christian plea is that unbelievers should not be free to cause Christians pain. Yet the whole of Bradlaugh's life was and is in evidence to show that the first instinct of the average Christian is to cause not merely endless mental pain but material ruin to every man who ventures, however decorously, to pronounce the Christian creed untrue. Perhaps the profoundest impeachment of the religious instinct in general is this very fact that the express conviction of the absolute supremacy of a personal power over all things human never by any chance enables the believer to regard with serenity and compassion the human denials which that power in the terms of the case is alleged to permit.
Some approach to the recognition of all this must have taken place in connection with the trial of Bradlaugh on the score of the Freethinker, although of course it was on the point of non-complicity that the jury gave their verdict of acquittal. They deliberated for an hour and ten minutes, calling for several of the documents in the case. The foreman's pronouncement of "Not Guilty" was received with loud cheers, which the judge indignantly rebuked, with the customary remark that "this is not a place of entertainment;" but a Conservative journal, endowed with the regulation horror of Atheism, commented that the cheer expressed a sentiment not at all confined to Atheists. In general, the press rejoiced with the acquitted man, who had now won in rapid succession three decisive successes in his long battle. It was noted, too, that he had won them against one leading counsel, Sir Hardinge Giffard. Asked later how it was that he had so often and so signally defeated this counsel, Bradlaugh remarked that he believed it was because Giffard despised him as an antagonist, and neglected precautions against him, while he, Bradlaugh, was careful at all times to do his utmost, and never to undervalue the enemy's strength. The moral is an old one.
In addition to the discredit put upon the prosecution in Court, it happened that Sir Henry Tyler about this time figured rather dubiously before the public in his capacity of company-promoter. His treatment of the financial affairs of the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation, in which he was deeply concerned, gave such dissatisfaction to most of the shareholders that they took the unusual course of presenting a memorial insisting on his resignation, after he had been hissed and hooted at a shareholders meeting.[172] It may have been a sense of the unfitness of such a personage to represent the cause of religion that led to the foundation of a "Society for the Suppression of Blasphemous Literature," the secretary of which wrote to the newspapers[173] as follows:—
"We propose to get up cases, as our funds will allow, against Professor Huxley, Dr Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, Swinburne, the author of 'Supernatural Religion,' the publishers of Mill's works, the publishers of Strauss's works, Leslie Stephen, John Morley, the editor of the Jewish World, Dr Martineau, and others, who by their writings have sown widespread unbelief, and in some cases rank Atheism, in cultivated families."
That goodly project, however, came to nothing, though in the view of Justice Stephen most if not all of the writers and publishers named were certainly open to conviction for blasphemy under the existing law. It would appear that the spiritual interests of "cultivated families" arouse less solicitude than do those of the poor, in matters religious as well as Malthusian. Above all, none of the writers threatened, save Mr John Morley, was likely to give the Tory party any chance of turning his heresy to political advantage, and Mr Morley was already safe in his seat, having taken the oath without demur and without opposition, after editorially criticising Mr Bradlaugh for his willingness to take it. Mr Morley had perhaps put himself right with the religious party by applauding the prosecution of Foote and Ramsey—he who had expressly justified the polemic of Voltaire.[174] A clergyman of the Church of England, the Rev. Stewart Headlam, whose championship of the principle of religious equality has all along been above all praise, wrote to Mr Morley in his editorial capacity, protesting "as a Christian priest" against a policy which made it "almost impossible for Christians to meet Atheists on equal terms." "It seems," Mr Headlam began, "as though you were one of those who say, 'There is no God, but it's a family secret.'" The letter was suppressed. It is bare justice to cite it here[175] as being perhaps the most telling protest made against the blasphemy prosecutions, albeit written by a sincerely orthodox clergyman.
The original case against Bradlaugh's co-defendants, Messrs Foote and Ramsey, who had been already sentenced to imprisonment on the second prosecution by Mr Justice North, came on before Lord Coleridge and a special jury on 24th April. The judge treated the prisoners with signal consideration and courtesy; and when the prosecuting counsel, Mr Moloney, persisted in putting a question to which Lord Coleridge had objected, his lordship indignantly asked, "Why cannot this case be conducted like any other case? It seems all of a piece with the learned counsel inspecting a man's bank-book." The accused defended themselves, Mr Foote making a particularly able speech, on which the judge, in his summing-up, repeatedly complimented him. That summing-up (delivered on the 25th) was in its way a masterly performance, marking the judge as the most admirably persuasive of pleaders. Deeply averse to all punishment of opinion, he showed the jury that the blasphemy law, as interpreted by past judges, was not nearly so outrageous as had been supposed; and the definition of "the late Mr Starkie," of which a scanty quotation had been given by the prosecution, he showed to be much less illiberal than it had been understood to be, though nothing could make it out to be a precise or practical formulation of law. As in the previous trial, he demolished the absurd plea that "Christianity is part of the law of the land," by the reductio ad absurdum that the marriage law and the monarchy are part of the law of the land, but are yet open to being argued against—at least in all modern opinion. As, however, no interpretation could do away with the hard facts of the blasphemy laws, and the accused had unfortunately put their heresy at times with extreme pictorial crudeness, his lordship could not definitely charge the jury that no blasphemy had been committed in law. He admitted that the objection against their practice on the score of violence would apply to some passages read by Mr Foote from prominent modern writers, which were new to him; but while the law stood as it was, that was no defence for Mr Foote, as the writers in question would be equally open to indictment. The jury, thus unavoidably left in doubt, disagreed. The prosecution, acting judiciously for the first time, took the course of entering a nolle prosequi, and the case dropped, but not without the Lord Chief Justice having to point out that the petition grossly misrepresented him as having pronounced the prosecution "unadvisable," which he had carefully abstained from doing. Unluckily, the dropping of this case did not affect the sentence passed by Justice North, and the then Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, declined to mitigate the punishment, on the score of the offensiveness of one of the incriminated woodcuts, which he called "an obscene libel," though the charge was one of blasphemy. Some Liberal journals indignantly protested; but the Liberal leaders felt they must show no consideration to blasphemy, though even the Spectator censured them for their timidity.
§19.
While the decisive trials were yet in the future, Bradlaugh had never slackened his energetic action on the political side of the fight. The last move in the House had been taken on 18th July 1882, when Mr Labouchere moved that Bradlaugh be appointed a member of the Committee to consider the Agricultural Tenants' Compensation Bills. The right of a member in Bradlaugh's position to serve on committees had been established by the precedents of Alderman Salomons and Baron Rothschild. The point was a curious one, and could not be got over argumentatively, but of course the House could outvote the motion, which it did by 120 to 35. Not till the next year was the campaign indoors reopened.
On 15th February 1883, the day of the reassembling of Parliament, a great demonstration was held in Trafalgar Square in support of Bradlaugh's and Northampton's claim, about a thousand delegates attending from some four hundred Radical associations of provincial towns. At first some of the railway companies were understood to be willing to run cheap excursion trains, but that concession was of course violently opposed, and at a meeting of representatives of the companies held in the Railway Clearing House on 29th January a resolution was carried by a majority of votes, binding all the companies to give no special facilities whatever. An attempt to get the use of the Floral Hall, Covent Garden, for the meeting was defeated by the veto of the Duke of Bedford's agent, though the Directors were willing to grant it; and no other sufficiently large hall was available for the date. The meeting, which would have been several times larger had the railway companies given the desired special trains, was nevertheless a great success, the square being densely packed, despite bad weather; and despite some attempts at rioting by hired roughs, there was almost perfect order throughout. The Pall Mall Gazette had deprecated the meeting as held in an illegal place, though for a perfectly legal purpose. This was a misconstruction of the Act 57th Geo. III. cap. 19, sec. 23, which prohibited meetings within a mile of Parliament House for the purpose of petitioning the Crown or Parliament "for alteration of matters in Church or State." As there was no petition under consideration, the meeting was perfectly legal. Other papers went further, the Daily Telegraph applauding the railway companies for refusing to "start trains in order to bring up country roughs;" and generally it must be recorded that some of the leading Liberal journals discouraged the whole procedure. The Daily News and Daily Chronicle even suppressed resolutions sent them in support of Bradlaugh's claim from provincial clubs before the demonstration—such resolutions being part of the manifold machinery of preparation for a great public demonstration; and the Tory papers as a rule suppressed all reports tending to show the support given to Bradlaugh in the country. Other forms of boycotting were freely employed. In the cathedral town of Peterborough a debating society set up by the local Young Men's Christian Association was deprived of the use of the Association's rooms because it carried a motion in favour of Bradlaugh's right to sit and vote. This episode typified hundreds. The most skilful device employed, perhaps, was the issue of a forged circular, purporting to come from Bradlaugh, calling on "all Atheists, as well as Socialists," to "assemble in their thousands round the House of Commons," and show that "the Atheists of this country have a right to be represented" in Parliament.[176] Newspapers which had no space for genuine news about Bradlaugh gave prominence to this.
As the meeting of Parliament drew near, expectation naturally rose high on both sides. The sentiment of many Tories may be presumed to have been expressed by Lord Newark, son of Earl Manvers, when at the annual dinner of the Nottinghamshire Agricultural Society he was ruffianly enough to say:
"He supposed that Mr Bradlaugh meant to make himself objectionable as usual. He heard from an honourable member who sat near him[177] that he thought of going with a big stick, and he (Lord Newark) hoped that if he came within reach of Mr Bradlaugh he would make use of it."
The stick, however, was not on exhibition at the House of Commons. Bradlaugh's course was to send to the Speaker a letter stating the then position of matters, in view of the action of the law courts; and stating that he proposed to present himself as before. This letter was read to the House before any other business was taken. On Mr Labouchere asking the Government what course they meant to take, Lord Hartington at once answered that on the following night they would move for leave to bring in an Affirmation Bill. Sir Richard Cross, on the Conservative side, at once announced that he would oppose the Bill, and his statement was loudly cheered. At this stage Inspector Denning asked Bradlaugh to leave the House and reassure the multitude outside, who were beginning to fancy they might be "ill-using him inside."
On 20th February the motion for leave was made, when Sir Henry Drummond Wolff was understood to express himself with ironical approbation, while Mr Chaplin opposed, and Northcote explained that he should vote against the second reading. The motion was carried by 184 votes to 53, most of the Irish party voting in the minority. Not till 23d April did the Bill reach its second reading; and in the meantime a desperate effort was made by the entire Tory party to arouse feeling against the Bill. In the previous session the petitions in Bradlaugh's favour had been signed by 275,000 persons, and those against him by only 65,000, many of these being children. The leeway was now made up. The machinery of the Anglican and Catholic Churches was worked to the utmost to beat up petitions; schools were swept wholesale for signatures, not only in England but abroad;[178] and large employers of labour were got to procure the signatures of employees en masse, reluctant workers being not obscurely threatened with the consequences of refusal. By these means half a million signatures were got up by the 23rd of April, the great majority being those of school-children and coerced employees. Tantum religio——. The Tory press likewise put its best foot foremost. In the St James's Gazette of 22nd February, Mr Greenwood made an abominable attack on Bradlaugh, the foulest of many foul blows, describing him as "a preacher of certain theories of the sexual relation which, in the opinion of the great majority of Englishmen, are not only immoral but filthy," going on to speak of him as having long been known as the publisher of an obscene tract, and representing him as an advocate of "Free Love, and sundry other doctrines and practices which benefit greatly by the impossibility of referring to them distinctly among decent people." The pamphlet formerly put together by Varley, largely consisting of matter Bradlaugh never wrote, falsified even at that, and partly of passages from him, wrested from their context and falsified in application, was circulated more widely than ever. Many members of Parliament repeated the palpable falsehood that Bradlaugh had been "declared by the House of Commons and the courts of law incapable of sitting in Parliament;" and Mr H. S. Northcote, son of Sir Stafford, in addition to making this statement to his constituents at Exeter, told them that "when Mr Bradlaugh led a mob of unwashed ruffians down to Parliament Yard" the Government introduced their Bill.
On the second reading, Sir Richard Cross opened the opposition, and began by making the statement that "it was a former Government whip, Mr Adam, who first invited Mr Bradlaugh to go to Northampton"—the grossest form ever given to that particular untruth. He was seconded by Mr M'Cullagh Torrens, a nominal Liberal, who in his work on "Empire in Asia" had affected a high esteem for the principle of religious toleration—in other countries. The Bill, he said, tended "to begin the abjuring of all responsibilities to heaven." Mr W. E. Baxter, following, declared that "not only had Atheists been members of Parliament, but they had sat on the Treasury Bench"—and a member called out "And sit!" Giffard, seeking his revenge at once on Bradlaugh and Lord Coleridge, "repeated without the smallest fear of contradiction that Christianity was a part of the common law of the kingdom." Mr Illingworth happening to speak of "recreant members of the Jewish community," Baron de Worms rose to order, and the Speaker ruled the term "out of order." None of the epithets directed at the Atheist had struck him in that light.
The debate was thrice adjourned. On 26th April Sir H. D. Wolff took it upon him to accuse Lord Chancellor Selborne of using his position to help his political party; and Lord R. Churchill, in a later speech, said the same thing of Lord Coleridge. On the Liberal side, Gladstone made the greatest speech delivered by him during the whole controversy. At first he was elaborate and deprecatory, but gradually he rose to warmth and cogency. "Do you suppose," he asked—
"Do you suppose that we are ignorant that in every contested election which has happened since the case of Mr Bradlaugh came up you have gained votes and we have lost them? (Opposition cheers and counter cheers.) You are perfectly aware of it. We are not less aware of it. But if you are perfectly aware of it, is not some credit to be given to us—we giving you the same under circumstances rather more difficult—for presumptive integrity and purity of motive?"
It was a naïve and a vain appeal, but the speech was none the less fine. The most powerful part of its argument was the demonstration that those who consented to drop the Christian element from the oath and held by the Theistic were treating Christianity, as such, as a thing that could be dispensed with.
"I am not willing, sir, that Christianity—if the appeal is to be made to us as a Christian legislature—shall stand in any rank lower than that which is indispensable." He would not accept bare Theism as the main thing. "The adoption of such a proposition as that—and it is at the very root of your contention—seems to me in the highest degree disparaging to the Christian faith."
And then, contending that a bare belief in a remote and abstract Deity could exist with a complete disbelief in that Deity's having any relation with men, he rolled out "the noble and majestic lines, for such they are, of the Latin poet:"—
"Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse'st
Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur
Semota ab nostris rebus sejunctaque longe;
Nam privata dolore omni, private periclis,
Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nil indiga nostri
Nec bene promeritis capitur neque tangitur ira."[179]
There was no one to follow him up with a citation of the lines which follow on these where they used to stand misplaced in the first book of Lucretius' poem:—
"Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jaceret
In terris oppressa gravi sub religione;"
but some listeners there must have been who bethought them how perfectly this long controversy had answered to the Roman's picture of "life crushed to the earth under the weight of religion;" and they may fitly have murmured "primum Graius homo" of the man whose long battle was even then visibly tending to relieve them one day of the old hypocrisy of adjuring the unknown God.
Touching his mother earth of classic verse, Gladstone drew new strength of eloquence.
"The Deity exists, as those I must say magnificent words set forth, in the remote, inaccessible recesses of which we know nothing, but with us it has no dealing, with us it has no relation. I have purposely gone back to ancient times, but I do not hesitate to say that the specific evil or specific form of irreligion with which in the educated society of this country you have to contend, and with respect to which you ought to be on your guard, is not blank Atheism. That is a rare opinion that is seldom met with; but what is frequently met with are those forms of opinion which say that whatever is beyond the visible scene, whatever there be beyond this short span of life, you know, and can know, nothing of it. It is a visionary and bootless undertaking to try to fathom it. That, sir, is the specific mischief of the age; but that mischief of the age you do not attempt to touch.... Whom do you seek to admit? You seek to admit Voltaire. You would admit Voltaire, and that is a specimen of your liberality. Voltaire was no taciturn unbeliever. He was the author of that phrase which goes to the heart of every Christian, and of many a professor of religion who is not a Christian—'Ecrasez l'Infâme.' Voltaire would not have had the slightest difficulty in taking your oath; and yet that is the state of the law for which you are working up the country to madness." (Loud ministerial cheers.)
Speeches followed varying between imbecility and commonplace; and on the debate being again adjourned, it was re-opened (1st May) by Churchill in a speech of characteristic scurrility.
"The personal supporters of the representative of Atheism," said the noble Lord, "were the residuum, and the rabble, and the scum of the population. The bulk of them were men to whom all restraint, religious, moral, or legal, was odious and intolerable."
An effective reply to other parts of the speech was made by Mr Labouchere, who incidentally made the startling revelation that to his knowledge there were several members who had never taken the oath at all, having signed the roll, but missed swearing in the scramble for the Testaments. At length, on a third adjournment, the question came to the vote. Northcote made an ignominious speech, in which he defended himself on the point of having formerly urged that special legislation was the right course for the Government to take. He admitted that he had said so, but contended that saying so did not commit him to voting for that course when taken. The positive part of the argument was worthy of the negative. But bad as the pleading on the Tory side was, it had with it a majority of votes. On the division there voted only 289 for the second reading, and 292 against. Irish and renegade Liberal votes had just turned the scale; and it was noted that in the majority there voted several members too drunk to walk straight without support.[180] The result was received with a positive frenzy of delight by the Tories and their Home Rule allies, all alike shouting that they had "beaten Bradlaugh." "The Irish have beaten Bradlaugh," was the cry of Mr Sexton. The Liberals who voted with the majority were the three Hon. Fitzwilliams of Yorkshire, Sir Edward Watkin,[181] Dr Lyons, Messrs Guest, Nicholson, and Torrens, and Mr Jerningham, a Roman Catholic, who had owed his recent election for Berwick mainly to his having promised to support Bradlaugh's claim to sit, and who all along broke his word in the House.[182]
Bradlaugh without hesitation took his usual course, with a difference. He sent a letter to the Speaker, asking to be called to the table in the usual way to take the oath, and, in the case of that course being declined, to be heard at the bar. On 4th May he duly re-presented himself at the bar, and the letter was read by the Speaker. Northcote moved as usual that Bradlaugh be not allowed to swear; and Mr Labouchere moved that he be heard at the bar, which being allowed, he made his Fourth Speech at the Bar. It was comparatively brief, tersely repeating the old pleas, and the old protest—
"I submit that any hindrance which is not prescribed by law is an act which in itself is flagrantly wrong, whoever may commit it, and that the mere fact that a majority of voices in one Chamber may prevent a citizen from appealing to the law in no sense lessens the iniquity of the illegal act, and that history will so judge it, whatever to-day you may think it your right and your duty to do."
After disposing of the old falsehood that the late Liberal whip had recommended him to the Northampton electors, he remarked:—
"I have always regarded the Liberal party as standing in the way of my election, rather than as in any way helping my return. This, however, I submit, was matter unworthy of this House. No such consideration has ever entered at any time into the discussion of any other candidature. I submit that a great House, which claims the powers of one of the highest courts of these realms, should try to be judicial."
Again he exposed the persistent lie that he had "paraded his views," pointing out that even when, at official request, he named the statutes under which he claimed to affirm, he did not in law profess Atheism, since a Theist was legally incompetent to swear if he did not believe in future rewards and punishments, and such Theists were only entitled to affirm under the Acts under which he claimed. Again he protested that he had never uttered his opinions in the House.
"Under great temptation I have refrained from saying a word which could wound the feelings of the most religious, although I have heard within these walls, within but a few hours, language used by one who had declared his religion which I should have felt ashamed to use in any decent assembly."
This referred to an exhibition by Callan, the Catholic henchman of Cardinal Manning, who had repeatedly appeared in the House drunk, and who, in the division of the 3rd, had used such "filthy and blasphemous" language towards another Irish member who proposed to vote for Bradlaugh, that he had to make a formal apology to prevent the matter being raised. On 30th April, in the adjourned debate, another Irish member, M'Coan, had read some of the false quotations compiled by Varley, and, on being challenged, impudently asserted that Bradlaugh had never repudiated them. A third Irish member, Mr O'Brien, had observed that he "did not believe that any greater number of persons favoured Mr Bradlaugh than would be content to go naked through the streets." Yet another religious member, an English Tory, Mr Ritchie, had declared that the Affirmation Bill would be "the triumph of Atheism and Socialism," and further quoted to the House, as words used by Bradlaugh, words which he had never used, and which were described in the very document quoted as taken from a report for which he was not responsible. The "filthy book," too, had been mentioned; and on this Bradlaugh read the words of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, hereinbefore printed, with the exculpatory words of the jury. "But all these things," he added, "although they were as true as they are false, give you no right to stand between me and my seat." His peroration was perfect:—
"I heard a strange phrase from a noble lord, that both sides had gone too far to recede. The House honours me too much in putting me on one side and itself on the other. The House, being strong, should be generous. The strong can recede, the generous can give way; but the constituents have a right to more than generosity—they have a right to justice. (Cheers.) The law gives me my seat. In the name of the law I ask for it. I regret that my personality overshadows the principles involved in this great struggle; but I would ask those who have touched my life, not knowing it, who have found for me vices which I do not remember in the memory of my life, I would ask them whether all can afford to cast the first stone—(cheers)—or whether, condemning me for my unworthiness, they will as just judges vacate their own seats, having deprived my constituents of their right here to mine." (Loud cheers.)
It remained to discuss the closing step, as usual. Mr Labouchere moved the previous question in a speech which pointedly raised the issue of the actual presence of other Atheists in the House.
"Since Mr Bradlaugh has been re-elected—since you refused to allow him to take the oath—it is well known by every member of this House that a gentleman has been elected who is of great position in the literary world; and every man who knows anything of English literature knows perfectly well that that gentleman has avowed himself to be an unbeliever in a superintending Providence as clearly as Professor Huxley himself. ('Hear, hear.') I ask, is it not monstrous hypocrisy to allow that hon. member to take the oath, and prevent Mr Bradlaugh from taking it, because you assert that three years ago he had stated within the precincts of this House that he was an Atheist?"
The member referred to was Mr John Morley, who, destined to be Mr Gladstone's most trusted lieutenant, had listened to the Premier's account of "the mischief of the age," but had taken no part in the debate. His Atheism, or non-Theism, was as notorious as Bradlaugh's. It had been zealously used against him by the Tories in his recent election at Newcastle. The fact that he had "spelt 'God' with a small 'g'" through a whole book was known to the whole newspaper-reading public; and the Tories would certainly have been glad enough to exclude him if they could. But they knew all along that there were Atheists on their own side; and Mr Morley's case could not be raised without raising these. So the "profanation of the oath" was permitted without a murmur by the party which had declared itself incapable of tolerating such a thing; and the flagitious persecution of the avowed Atheist was recommenced all the same.
To Mr Labouchere's charge of "monstrous hypocrisy" no answer was attempted. Gladstone and Northcote with one consent ignored it. On a division, though Gladstone supported Mr Labouchere's motion (which if carried would have enabled Bradlaugh to take the oath), only 165 voted for it, and 271 against.
§ 20.
Three years had now passed since Bradlaugh first sought to take the seat to which he was alike morally and legally entitled—three years of manifold exhausting and sorely burdensome strife, of iniquitous and vile calumny, of lawless and shameful persecution, in part brutally fanatical, in part dishonest and hypocritical in the lowest degree. It had been made to embrace all who were closely connected with him. First Mrs Besant was insultingly refused leave to use the garden of the Royal Botanic Society for her studies, on the score that the daughters of the Curator used it. Later (1883) the Misses Bradlaugh were denied membership of the "Somerville" (Women's) Club on the score that their names were sufficient objection. Yet later (2nd May 1883) Mrs Besant and Miss Bradlaugh were refused admittance to the practical Botany Class at University College, London. On applying by letter, they were requested to present themselves, and then they were told in person by the secretary and the "lady superintendent" that they could not be admitted, because there was "some prejudice" against them. It seemed as if nothing short of the personal insult would suffice the officials concerned; but the Council[183] endorsed their action at its meeting of 7th May, though the very purpose for which the College had been founded was to dispense with religious qualifications. A memorial requesting the Council to summon an extraordinary general meeting to consider this action was signed by, among others, Professors Huxley, Bain, and Frankland, and Dr E. B. Tylor; but on the meeting being held, the medical graduates came in large numbers to support the action of the Council, greatly outvoting the others. Only nine voted against. The University College was thus committed to a course of ethical rivalry with the House of Commons, outdoing that body, however, in declining to assign any reason for its action. At the meeting Mr Justice Denman took an active part in justifying the action of the Council, and it went from him to the country that the excluded ladies had "refused to comply with the rules of the College." This was pure fiction. Mrs Besant described it at the time as a "cruel and malignant falsehood, for we complied with every condition laid down to us." Informed of his mis-statement, Mr Justice Denman made no correction. Later in the year an attempt was made to deprive of his chair a Professor of Mathematics in the South Wales University, Mr Lloyd Tanner, who was a member of the National Secular Society, and had helped the movement in support of Bradlaugh's claim. It was, however, defeated by a majority of votes.
These endless acts of persecution, parodied as they were in a thousand acts of less publicity, only roused the persecuted party to more energetic action. The Freethought propaganda was carried further than ever, and naturally did not grow more gentle. On the political side, Bradlaugh set himself afresh to rouse the constituencies, bating no jot of heart or hope. To his own constituents he offered his resignation if they wished it, and once more they emphatically refused. He accordingly issued one more "Appeal to the People," organised a series of addresses and demonstrations in the large towns, and in particular took fresh steps for overthrowing the Liberals who had helped to throw out the Affirmation Bill. Previous menaces had reduced the number of these renegades in the last trial of strength; and Torrens in particular now received hundreds of letters warning him that he need not again stand for Finsbury. In the course of a few months, Bradlaugh had addressed audiences numbering in all over 300,000, and nearly all were unanimously in his favour, while at none did the malcontents number above two per cent. In some towns, as at Halifax and Leeds, he had enormous open-air demonstrations, the numbers coming to some fifty thousand. A densely packed meeting took place in St James's Hall in July; and another Trafalgar Square demonstration was held in August, attended by some thirty thousand men, of whom hundreds came as delegates from the provinces; and concurrently with these "constitutional" gatherings there was carried on the work of the Association for the Repeal of the Blasphemy Laws, largely conducted by advanced Unitarian clergymen, who worked with a disinterested zeal worthy of the very highest praise, considering how little of personal sympathy they could have had with the imprisoned Freethinkers.
In the way of more direct action, Bradlaugh on 5th July notified Gladstone that he proposed again to present himself to take the oath, and on the 9th Northcote interrogated the Premier on the subject. Left to do as he would, Northcote once more moved that Bradlaugh be excluded from the House until he should engage not to disturb its proceedings; and on a division 232 voted for the motion and only 65 against, Gladstone deprecating any division at all. On the next day, on receipt of the order of exclusion, Bradlaugh notified Captain Gossett, the Sergeant-at-Arms, that if Captain Gossett would say he interpreted the order to involve the use of physical force to resist Bradlaugh's entry, he would take legal proceedings to obtain a restraining injunction from the High Court of Justice against such resistance. In this way the legal question might be raised and settled without a fresh scuffle. In the House the Speaker declined to let this letter be made ground of discussion as a matter of "privilege," though he allowed the letter to Gladstone to be so treated. The Sergeant-at-Arms, however, made the requisite answer, and the action was duly begun (19th July). The Treasury defended, and on Bradlaugh's appeal the case was tried by a "full Court." It came on before Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, Mr Justice Stephen, and Mr Justice Mathew, on 7th December, the defence arguing by Demurrer to the Statement of Claim. Bradlaugh's pleading was one long argument with the judges, who followed him with great care; and on 9th February 1884 they gave their judgment, not unexpectedly, against him. The view taken was, broadly, that "if injustice has been done, it is an injustice for which the courts of law afford no remedy," which had been the contention of the Attorney-General. Mr Justice Stephen, while concurring with Lord Coleridge to the above effect, delivered a separate and very careful judgment. They could not, he said in effect, assume that the House intentionally defied the law. It must have supposed it was within the law. Then the Court could not pronounce its action illegal without hearing its reasons. But the House could not without loss of dignity give the Court its reasons, or allow the Court to overrule them. Therefore the plaintiff, right or wrong, had no legal redress. If wronged, he must go to the constituencies. In fine, the breaking of any law by the House in its own procedure would not be illegal, or, if it were, the illegality could not be redressed by the law courts. The House of Commons might be restrained in the case of an illegal order against a stranger, but not in the case of an illegal order against one of its own members. If it erred or did injustice, it was in the position of an erring or unjust judge, from whose decision there was no appeal. The rights of the constituency of Northampton and their member were strictly legal rights; but it lay with the House to override them if it would.
Expecting this decision, Bradlaugh had already laid the new situation before his constituents, in order to have their assent to his action on the re-opening of Parliament, and once more they declared their entire confidence in him. He had also arranged with the Tories, through his colleague, to take no action in the House before 11th February, if they would take none. His course now was to go to the House on 11th February, go up to the table with Mr Labouchere and Mr Burt as his introducers, and once more administer the oath to himself.
The Speaker gave the customary order to withdraw, and Northcote, after stating that Bradlaugh had not taken the oath according to the statute, absurdly moved that he "be not allowed to go through the form of repeating the words of the oath prescribed by the statutes." Then ensued the customary miscellaneous debate. Gladstone at much length suggested that there should be no division. Mr Labouchere offered to agree if Northcote would limit his motion to the time within which it would be possible to obtain a legal decision on the legality of Bradlaugh's latest act of self-swearing; but Northcote would not agree, and Mr Labouchere proceeded forcibly to argue the point, not only declaring the act to be in his opinion legal, but adding:—
"I confess that, for my part, I do regard these words of the oath [which Bradlaugh had called an unmeaning form] as an utterly unmeaning form—(Opposition cries of 'Oh, oh')—utterly and absolutely an unmeaning form. To me they are just the same superstitious incantation—('Hear, hear,' laughter, 'Oh, oh,' and 'Order')—as the trash of any Mumbo-Jumbo among African savages. (Renewed laughter, cries of 'Oh, oh,' and 'Order.') Why do hon. gentlemen say 'Oh, oh'? Are they aware that there are many in this House who regard these words as a blasphemous form? ('Hear, hear.') I say I regard them as an unmeaning form."
From this point at least, if not before, the proceedings against Bradlaugh in the House may without fear of contradiction be described as an indecent farce. His colleague had in the most aggressive fashion, and within the House, declared the oath to be in his opinion a superstitious, barbarous, and senseless incantation. Mr John Morley, as Positivist, had taken the oath without contradiction. And before either of these episodes Mr Ashton Dilke, whose vacated seat for Newcastle Mr Morley obtained, had declared in the House, in course of debate, that he was without belief in the reigning religion. Bradlaugh, who heard the avowal, remarked on the stilled surprise with which it was received. But no one ever sought to challenge the right of Mr Dilke, Mr Morley, or Mr Labouchere to sit in virtue of having taken an unbelieving oath. The Tory talk in the House of "profanation" is thus stamped once for all as a tissue of the worst hypocrisy; and the Tory leader and all his men stand convicted of a course of dissimulation as cowardly as it was shameless. They would attack the "unpopular" man; they would not obstruct Mr Morley, since that would bring up the question of Tory Atheism; they would not proceed against Mr Labouchere, since he was likely to publish in his journal the names of some of the Tory Atheists.
Gross as it had become, the farce went on. Forster, who now spoke on the subject for the first time, gave a touch of dignity to the debate by protesting against Mr Labouchere's remarks on the oath (though without proposing to have him proceeded against), and saying, as Gladstone and others had said before, that the opposition to Bradlaugh was one of the greatest blows against the cause of religion that had been struck for many years. Northcote, making no comment whatever on Mr Labouchere's hardy avowal, briefly explained the force of his motion; and after this irregularity the debate grew more and more confused. It was known that Bradlaugh meant as before to vote in the division; and the Speaker was repeatedly appealed to to prevent it. He declared he had not the power; and Mr Healy—in one of a series of grossly insolent speeches, in which he spoke of "the Government, Bradlaugh & Co."—moved immediately after the division, before the numbers were announced, that the vote be expunged. After much squabbling, the House divided on this point, when there voted 258 Ayes and 161 Noes. Bradlaugh's vote with the Noes was thus "disallowed;" but after the voting on the original motion had been stated—280 Ayes and 167 Noes—Mr Labouchere announced that Bradlaugh had voted with the Noes on the motion to expunge his previous vote. The farce was thus pretty complete.
Northcote then made his usual motion to exclude Bradlaugh "from the precincts of the House until he shall engage not further to disturb the proceedings of the House." Again the debate broke out. Mr Labouchere offered to undertake that if the motion was withdrawn Bradlaugh should not disturb the proceedings until he had obtained a legal decision on this last oath-taking; and Gladstone and Bright pointed out the hardship and indignity of excluding Bradlaugh from the very library and lobbies of the House; but Northcote, swayed as usual by the worst of his followers, pressed his motion, disregarding Mr Burt's final repetition of the undertaking that Bradlaugh should not disturb the proceedings till his law case was settled. On a division, 228 voted for the final indignity, and only 120 against. The farce had become as ignoble as meanness could make it; and Northcote was admitted by most people to have fully realised the character in which he was more than once presented by the caricaturists—of pantaloon to Churchill's clown in the Tory pantomime. Churchill took the lead on the following evening when, Bradlaugh having "applied for the Chiltern Hundreds," Mr Labouchere moved that a new writ be issued for Northampton.[184] The hereditarily noble lord saw that if Bradlaugh were re-elected they would be no further forward; and his object was to exclude him permanently. He had lately given notice of a motion that Bradlaugh be declared incapable in perpetuity of sitting, but had dropped it as hopeless. He now "moved the adjournment of the debate." A straggling and noisy debate ensued, in which Mr Healy was pronounced disorderly by the Speaker for his interruptions of Northcote, whose ally he had been. On a division, only 145 voted for the adjournment, and 203 against. Then more discussion as to whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer had the right to grant the Chiltern Hundreds, the motion for the new writ being finally agreed to.
Unseated for the third time since his perfectly valid return in 1880, Bradlaugh appealed to his constituents to elect him for the fourth time, and was received by them with if possible greater enthusiasm than ever. A new Tory candidate, Mr H. C. Richards, had been for some time in the field, and the seat was fought in the old fashion; but whether owing to the feebleness of the candidate, whom Bradlaugh generally treated with humorous contempt, or a sense of shame among some of the local Tories, the opposition vote now fell away. The forces of bigotry had squeezed the last possible vote out of the borough, and after a short and strenuous struggle the poll (19th February 1884) ran: Bradlaugh, 4032; Richards, 3664. Bradlaugh had clearly "touched bottom," and begun to rise again. At the general election he had polled 3827, and been 695 above the highest Tory; in 1881 he had only polled 3437, a majority of only 132; in 1882, polling 3796, he was only 108 above his opponent with 3688; now he had reached a higher figure than ever, polling 368 more than the Tory, who was 24 below the last Tory vote. The Tory game was now hopeless so far as Northampton was concerned.
The badgered Northcote, goaded by his lawless following, now proposed to take the step of preventing Bradlaugh from entering the House on his new return. Learning this, Bradlaugh on the 20th wrote a letter of protest to the Speaker and the Premier, and the anticipatory course was prevented. But when on the 21st the Speaker read to the House a second letter in which Bradlaugh formally undertook (as his introducers had undertaken for him before) not to present himself at the table until judgment should be given in the test action to be laid against him by the Government. All the same, Northcote moved, amid cries of "Shame," his old resolution of exclusion "from the precincts." The Tory army had to be solaced somehow for Bradlaugh's decisive victory at the poll. Gladstone opposed, and yet again there was a miscellaneous debate, in the course of which Churchill made the worthy suggestion that the Government meant that Mr Bradlaugh was to be allowed once more to appeal to the mob, in order that not only the House of Commons might be prejudiced, but that even the courts of law might be biased by the demonstration in his favour. On a division, 226 voted for Northcote's motion and only 173 against. Bradlaugh was now denied the use of the House's library for the lawsuit pending against him on the House's behalf. He addressed to Northcote, and printed in his journal, an open letter touched with indignant contempt.
The critical part of the letter, and perhaps the special sting of some of the phrases—as, "You wear knightly orders. You should be above a knave's spitefulness"—moved Northcote to send a long defensive reply, repeating the "profanation" formula, and concluding: "The inconveniences of which you complain are inconveniences which you might, if you chose, put an end to to-morrow"—which meant that Bradlaugh might have the use of the House if only he would undertake never again under any circumstances to try to take his seat. To this "knightly" suggestion[185] Bradlaugh replied with perhaps too scrupulous courtesy of form, but with sufficient emphasis, and turned himself once more to the struggle outside.
§ 21.
From this point forward it is difficult to record the course of the Parliamentary struggle with the serious patience hitherto spent on the narrative. On the side of the House it had become a revolting hypocrisy, since Bradlaugh was being ostracised for what other men were allowed to do freely; and the form of legality put on in the resort to the law courts was only a new simulation. The law courts had declared that they could have no possible jurisdiction over the House in such matters however it might break the law, and still the House was formally proceeding to obtain from the law courts penalties against Bradlaugh for trying to fulfil the law when the House hindered him. The House knew quite well that if it had even declared him entitled to affirm under the existing law, no court would have decided otherwise. The hostile decision was here a foregone conclusion; for a fortiori the courts, after their last emphatic decision, would not prevent the House from interpreting the law as to swearing in its own way. Only the strenuous energy of Bradlaugh, joined with his chivalrous belief in the ideal rectitude and jurisdiction of the judges, could have set any man in his position on a fresh legal adventure.
Begun in March 1884, the lawsuit at the instance of the Government came on before Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, Mr Justice Grove, Mr Baron Huddleston, "sitting at bar," and a special jury, on 13th, 15th, 17th, and 18th June. Against Bradlaugh were arrayed five counsel,—the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, Sir Hardinge Giffard, Mr Danckwertz, and Mr R. S. Wright, and the case was argued at enormous length on a multitude of minutiæ as to Bradlaugh's original evidence before the first Select Committee, the practice of the House, the position of the Speaker on 11th February, the law as to what constituted the oath, the force of an oath taken by an atheist, and so on. After two delays, caused by the illness of Lord Coleridge, his summing-up, which was proportionately long and elaborate, was given on 30th June. It advised the jury that the weight of evidence was to show that Bradlaugh was all along an unbeliever in a Supreme Being—a point which Bradlaugh argued should not have been raised—that in law a person on whose conscience an oath would have "no binding effect" was a person who could not legally take a oath; and that Bradlaugh had not taken the oath in accordance with the practice of Parliament. The other judges concurred; but Lord Coleridge having spoken of inquisitorial questions on belief in general (not those in the Bradlaugh case in particular) as "hateful" and "disgusting," Mr Baron Huddleston desired to express dissent on that head, while Mr Justice Grove said he would call them, "to use a mild term, extremely objectionable." The Lord Chief Justice, remarking that he felt strongly on the matter, gracefully agreed that his words should be "discounted" on that score.
Formally, there went to the jury eight questions, to this effect: (1) Was the Speaker sitting when Bradlaugh took the oath on 11th February? (2) Was he sitting to prepare notes for use in addressing Bradlaugh? (3) Had he resumed his seat to let Bradlaugh swear? (4) Was Bradlaugh then without belief in a Supreme Being? (5) Was he a person on whose conscience an oath, as an oath, had no binding force? (6) Had the House full cognisance of these matters through Bradlaugh's avowal? (7) Did he take the oath according to Parliamentary practice? (8) Generally, did he take and subscribe the oath?
The jury's answers were, in brief:—(1) Sitting; (2) Sitting to prepare notes as stated; (3) No; (4) He had no such belief; (5) Yes; (6) Yes; (7) Not according to the "full" practice; (8) Not as an oath.
Bradlaugh at once asked for a stay of judgment in order to enable him "to move for a new trial to move to enter judgment for the defendant non-obstante veredicto, and to move for arrest of judgment." Outsiders had supposed that the jury trial ended the matter, but it was not so. Bradlaugh wrote in his journal undauntedly: "If my constituents still give me their confidence, nothing can defeat me;" and when friends wrote that they could see no hope of good from the "wearisome and disappointing litigation," he characteristically answered:—
"There are only two weapons to defend the right with: Law and Force. As yet I try the law; and so long as I believe, as I do believe, the law to be on my side, it is to the law and to public opinion I ought to appeal. My opponents rely on force and trick. If the law was actually against me they would take away my seat by law. This they do not even try to do. They hope to weary my constituents, and to tire and ruin me in this contest. Hampden, resisting ship-money, fought more than three years in the law courts; but his wearisome litigation was not quite in vain. Wilkes, backed by Earl Temple with purse and power, struggled with the Commons through several weary years, and at last Middlesex gave him victory."
The appeal was, on the face of it, a better case than Bradlaugh had had in defending the action of the Crown. It came on, on 6th December, before the same judges, sitting "in banc," who had tried the action "at bar," Bradlaugh turning out to be right in his theory of the proper procedure, whereas the judges had all been avowedly in doubt. But the greater apparent force of the case as now put did not avail. Bradlaugh cogently argued that no Act of Parliament gave the least countenance to the notion that Atheists were to be disabled from swearing. The Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866, cap. xix., enjoins on members of Parliament, with the exception only of those qualified to affirm, the taking of an oath of allegiance of uniform phrasing, thus admitting of no disability, and making an end of any disability which may be supposed to have previously existed. Yet again, an Act of 1867 expressly provided that any subject of Her Majesty, without reference to his religious belief, should take the oath of allegiance on taking office. But Lord Coleridge had in the previous trial fully made up his mind that "oath" must mean "adjuration made by one believing in the Deity adjured," and he early indicated that this conviction overthrew all arguments from the mere wording of statutes. On the Act of 1867 he remarked (with a discourtesy which for him was unusual, and which disappears in the report) that "a little common sense and a little knowledge of history" would have made the appellant aware that that Act was passed on behalf of a Roman Catholic judge. Bradlaugh knew the facts well enough, and capped the Lord Chief Justice's history with some more, all going to show that the wish of the legislature had then been to sweep away all religious disabilities whatever. It was all to no purpose. Lord Coleridge was rather a man of strong sentiments than a strong lawyer. He hated all persecution on behalf of religion; and on behalf of Messrs Foote and Ramsey he stated the law of blasphemy in the mildest possible way—a way to which Mr Justice Stephen, albeit a rationalist, declared he could not subscribe. But Lord Coleridge was also an emotional Christian; and though his admired friend Arnold would readily have taken the oath without any belief in the Deity adjured, his Lordship was strongly averse to having it taken by an "aggressive" Atheist; and though he must have known perfectly well that in Parliament there had for generations been known holders of atheistic views, and that nobody proposed their exclusion, he yet chose to assume that all laws as to oath-taking were meant to exclude oath-taking by Atheists. One or two notable passages took place between him and the appellant. Lord Coleridge, in his nervous irritation at being persistently argued against, once so far forgot himself as to say Bradlaugh was wasting time. The charge was too bad: Bradlaugh was one of the closest and concisest of pleaders, as many judges had admitted; and at a later stage in this trial the Lord Chief Justice took back his words. At another point he somewhat impatiently deprecated a particular line of argument, and Bradlaugh quietly answered, "My Lord, I must fight with what weapons I can." Once or twice more his lordship was rather idly petulant,[186] but this was transient; and he was very genial when, on his remarking, "It may be, of course, that you are right and we are all wrong," the appellant answered, "With the utmost respect, my lord, that is practically what I am going to contend."
Justice Grove, an amiable and fair though unsubtle judge, argued very courteously (while incidentally avowing that his sympathies were on the side of minimising oaths) that the legislature could not be held to have enacted an oath in the tolerant expectation that it would be taken by some men for whom the adjuration had no meaning. That was no doubt a perfectly reasonable point for a judge to put; but, on the other hand, nothing is more common than the plea of judges—it was made by Justice Grove himself—that they have only to do with the law as it stands; and if in this case they were to look into the probable state of mind of the legislature, it was plainly their business to take into account all the well-known facts of the case, including the notorious fact that members known to their fellow-members to be Atheists or "Lucretian" Theists had repeatedly sat in the House.
Their lordships, of course, repeated their former decision—Lord Coleridge giving the very inaccurate reason that no "new point" or "new argument" had been raised—and the rule for a new trial was refused. Immediately Bradlaugh appealed; and the case was heard (on the motion for a new trial, and, secondarily for seven days' time to move for arrest of judgment after the first motion should have been adjudged upon) in the Court of Appeal on 15th December by Lords Justices Brett (Master of the Rolls), Cotton, and Lindley. These judges heard the appeal with great patience, and on the 18th gave judgment to the effect that they could not grant a rule for a new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the evidence. But on "many other questions in the case which it is not improbable might all be raised upon the appeal by way of arrest of judgment," they thought it right to grant "a rule nisi to show cause upon all the other points taken by the defendant, upon condition that the appeal in arrest of judgment is brought on at the same time." The argument on this rule was taken on 26th January 1885, when the Attorney-General and Sir Hardinge Giffard argued (a point which had been left open before) that no appeal lay, the case being technically a criminal one. This plea, after voluminous argument, was overruled—the point being settled by Bradlaugh's references to portions of the Crown Suits Act which the other side had not dealt with. Then came the argument on the main issue. To a lay listener Lord Justice Brett seemed to give a more strictly judicial attention to the problem than did any of the judges who had dealt with it hitherto, and never was the subject more fully illuminated. In a previous trial Justice Grove had noticed the anomaly that whereas an oath or affirmation was set up as a means of securing true answers, the judge had to satisfy himself beforehand on a witness's bare word as to the nominally all-important point whether an oath would be "binding on his conscience." Bradlaugh now brought out another no less precious anomaly, namely, that the Speaker, at the opening of Parliament, must of necessity administer the oath to himself; and that the first forty members must positively break the law, seeing that they swear while there is not a "full House" sitting. Another curious issue was raised by the Court. An unbeliever could certainly be punished for perjury; how, then, could his oath be "no oath," when perjury expressly meant false testimony given on oath? Sir Hardinge Giffard's answer was that no man may "take profit from his own wrong." It might have been more dramatically put that the Christian law says to the Atheist, "Heads, we win; tails, you lose."
Despite the fairness of the hearing given, it soon became apparent that the Master of the Rolls held that "religious test" could only mean test as between different forms of religion, and that to exclude an Atheist from civic rights is not to impose a religious test. Now, the English tests of last century were as between sects, not as between religions; that is, they were denominational; that is, political. Still, they were always known as religious tests. It would surely follow that "religious test" meant any test connected with religious matters. In that case Lord Justice Brett's distinction was completely arbitrary and fallacious. But on grounds such as these, among others, the judgment was given (28th January) against the appellant. It was certainly an able judgment—as able as it was lengthy. It raised, among other things, the exquisitely complicated anomaly that Bradlaugh could satisfy a judge on his bare statement that he was an Atheist, and yet, after affirming on that ground, could be solemnly examined as to whether he was an Atheist. And the judge very explicitly laid it down that if a non-believer in a falsehood-punishing Deity were to take the oath unopposed, with all the customary formalities, he could on proof be sued for the penalty of £500 for every vote he had given. This meant, if anything, that the Atheists or Agnostics then sitting in Parliament were all so liable.
Lord Justice Cotton, with much simplicity, laid it down that the law of England "undoubtedly" was that if a person in the "unhappy position" of not believing in a lie-avenging Deity took the oath, it was not a real oath. And Lord Justice Lindley, with a certain cynical candour, dealt with Bradlaugh's main argument, that it was absurd to hold that a man is by law incapable of doing that which the law requires him to do. "I agree in the absurdity," said his lordship, "but not in the argument adduced from it." He held that the only solution would be that the defendant "could not be properly elected."
"It is a mistake to suppose," said Lord Justice Lindley further, "and I think it is as well the mistake should be known, that persons who do not believe in a Supreme Being are in the state in which it is now supposed they are. There are old Acts of Parliament still unrepealed by which such people can be cruelly persecuted. Whether that is a state of law which ought to remain or not is not for me to express an opinion upon; but having regard to the fact that these Acts of Parliament still remain unrepealed, I do not see my way to hold judicially that this oath was not kept alive by Parliament for the very purpose, amongst others, of keeping such people out of Parliament."
This last deliverance is memorable on several grounds—memorable as showing the need, from the point of view of one more judge, for a repeal of the brutal laws of the past against heresy; and further memorable as showing once more how ready are judges to rest alternately on mutually exclusive principles of interpretation. On the point as to whether the case was one in which an appeal lay, Lord Justice Lindley grounded his opinion on the fact that there was not to be found in the Judicature Act "the slightest indication of any intention on the part of the legislature" to prevent appeals in cases which were "previously made civil proceedings for the purposes of appeals." On the same principle, he ought to have looked whether there were the "slightest indication of any intention on the part of the legislature" in modern acts to exclude all Atheists from oath-taking. There is no such indication. Not a word is said of excluding unbelievers. On the contrary, it was only with difficulty that the legislature could be got to meet the fact that there were many Atheists who at times had to give testimony in courts of law. Had the legislature really desired to exclude all Atheists from oath-taking it would surely have said so, knowing as it must have done how common unbelieving oath-taking had been. And all the judges, as individuals, must have known perfectly well that privately known Atheists had sat in every Parliament for generations. Such are the conditions of legal judgment on questions of legal principle.
Bradlaugh at once gave notice of appeal to the House of Lords; and, all things considered, he had as good chances of success as ever he had. But this litigation had now reached its climax, and the appeal did not come off. The struggle had gone far towards completing its fifth year, and relief was almost within sight. It was not to come from legislation. Mr Hopwood had undertaken to introduce an affirmation Bill grappling with the whole position, which was not merely an affair of the admission of Atheists, but of providing also for certain religionists who, not being Quakers, Moravians, or Separatists, were not entitled to affirm, though strongly objecting to the oath. And there were yet further matters to be dealt with, as the position of freethinking jurors. But the saving credit of passing such a measure was not in store for the "Liberal" Parliament. At the Liberal Conference on Reform in 1884, presided over by Mr John Morley, a resolution had been unanimously carried in favour of Northampton's right; and at the Conference of the National Liberal Federation in 1885, Mr Hopwood's Bill was unanimously approved of; but though this action was backed up by countless resolutions of Liberal and Radical Clubs, and hundreds of petitions,[187]
the Anglican and Roman Churches set to work as zealously as ever to oppose, the Liberal Government would make no attempt to grant facilities in the House, the Bill was blocked, and nothing was done while that Government remained in office. But when, on their being defeated at their own wish on the Budget, a Conservative Ministry took office, Bradlaugh at once presented himself (6th July) to be sworn. He might have presented himself before the re-elected Tory ministers, in which case they could not have taken part in the proceedings against him, but he treated them with the chivalry they never showed to him, and allowed the ministers first to be sworn in. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, took up the matter on the lines of Northcote, who was now made a peer, and moved that Bradlaugh be as before excluded from the precincts. Mr Parnell and Mr Healy went further, appealing to the Speaker to have Bradlaugh (who was standing below the bar) wholly excluded from the House at once, before the motion was debated. To this stretch of malice the Speaker could not accede, and the debate proceeded in the usual way. Mr Hopwood moved an amendment declaring legislation to be necessary "on wider grounds than the interests of a constituency." Gladstone, though deprecating any general legislation on the subject, supported the amendment. Only 219 voted for it, however, and 263 against, the majority again including many Home Rulers and a number of Liberals, while many more Liberals had absented themselves. Against most of these, vigorous measures were taken in the constituencies, which now had before them the imminent prospect of a fresh general election. In this election it had been arranged that Bradlaugh should stand for the new borough of East Finsbury, London, as well as for Northampton, on the understanding that if elected for both he should sit for Northampton. This was a generous attempt on the part of the Finsbury Radicals to strengthen his case; but other Radical candidates being less generous, he finally withdrew from the Finsbury candidature to avoid a split in the Radical camp. In Northampton the fight had little excitement in it, the conclusion being foregone. Mr Richards at one of his meetings claimed credit for avoiding personalities, and mentioned that he had in his pockets letters from several persons offering to flood Northampton with slanderous tracts. He did not add that that device had been played out, and had become just a little unsafe besides. Towards the election day virulent placards were resorted to, from force of habit. Bradlaugh did not post a single bill. The poll (25th November) stood:—Labouchere, 4845; Bradlaugh, 4315; Richards, 3890; Bradlaugh thus standing higher than ever before. The difference between him and his colleague was represented by 366 plumpers for Mr Labouchere, and 300 votes split with the Tory, less 126 plumpers for Bradlaugh, and 10 split for him and the Tory. The news was received everywhere with special enthusiasm. But still more significant was the havoc wrought among those pseudo-Liberal members who had turned the scale against Bradlaugh in the House. Mr Samuel Morley had been forced to retire from Bristol, Mr M'Cullagh Torrens from Finsbury, the Hon. H. W. Fitzwilliam from Dewsbury, Mr Jerningham from Berwick, and then later from Blackpool, the selection being cancelled before the election; Mr George Courtauld, Unitarian, from Maldon, Sir Alexander Gordon from Aberdeenshire, Sir Thomas Chambers from Marylebone, and Baron de Ferrières from Cheltenham. These were all opposed by former supporters on the express ground of their votes in the Northampton question. Others who went to the poll, again, were defeated on the same score. Mr Norwood at Hull was defeated by the running of a special Radical candidate in protest against his anti-Bradlaugh action in the House. Mr A. P. Vivian, a frequent absentee on the question, was defeated in North-west Cornwall, and Sir W. Charley at Ipswich. Mr B. Whitworth, formerly of Drogheda, chosen and then dismissed at Hackney, was defeated at Lewisham. Prominent Tory and other enemies suffered in a hardly less degree. Newdegate, after beginning his candidature, withdrew rather than meet certain defeat; Sir Henry Drummond Wolff was defeated, so was Earl Percy, so was Sir J. E. Wilmot, so was Mr Warton, so was "O'Donnell." Dr Lyons collapsed at nomination in Dublin. M'Coan was thrown out at Lancaster, Mr Nicholson at Petersfield, and Mr Denzil Onslow at Poplar. Of new Tory candidates who had been specially offensive in their hostility, Mr Hammond was beaten at Newcastle, Mr Bruce Wentworth at Barnsley, Mr Holloway at Stroud, and Mr Edwardes-Moss at Southport. There was no mistaking the "Bradlaugh element" in these cases; and though some Radicals who had stood by him were also defeated, as Mr Hopwood and Mr Hugh Mason, that was solely owing to the hostility of the Irish vote, then being manœuvred by Parnell to weaken the Liberals. Much of the work of destroying the renegade Liberals had been done by Bradlaugh in person in his lecturing tours. "I think I have settled a round dozen of them," he remarked some time before the election. One former Liberal member, who had been his persistent enemy in the House, finding defeat staring him in the face through Bradlaugh's action, came to him in his hotel when he was lecturing in the constituency concerned, and humbled himself to ask for mercy. Bradlaugh gravely refused. "You are very hard," whined the petitioner, who had thought fit to work iniquity with the majority for five long years, with as little thought of justice as of generosity.
The tables thus turned, it is probable that in the first Parliament which assembled in 1886, an Affirmation Bill could have been carried in the teeth of the Tory minority, seeing that even some Tory members had had to pledge themselves to support such a Bill; and Mr Serjeant Simon had arranged to re-introduce Mr Hopwood's. But the settlement was precipitated in an unexpected way. Bradlaugh wrote Sir Michael Beach asking how the Government would treat the Bill if introduced, and received a non-committal answer. Soon afterwards it was announced that communications had passed on the subject between Sir Michael and the new Speaker-elect, Mr Peel; and Bradlaugh wrote to ask Sir Michael what they were, but was refused the information, whereupon he strongly protested. The mystery was only cleared up when the new Parliament assembled on 13th January 1886.[188] The new Speaker had determined to reverse the policy of his predecessor in the Bradlaugh case, and the Tory Cabinet in vain sought to dissuade him. On the opening day, before any members were sworn, he informed the House that he had had two communications—one from Sir Michael Hicks Beach, and one from two other members, Mr Raikes and Sir John Kennaway, appealing to him not to let Bradlaugh take the oath. To these requests he flatly declined to accede. In the former Parliament, he pointed out, the Speaker had taken no independent authority on himself, but had always acted on the instructions of the House. "We are assembled," he went on,
"in a new Parliament. I know nothing of the resolutions of the past. (Cheers.) They have lapsed; they are void; they are of no effect in reference to this case. (Renewed cheers.) It is the right, the legal, statutable obligation of members, when returned to this House, to come to the table and take the oath prescribed by statute. ('Hear, hear.') I have no authority, I have no right, original or delegated, to stand between an hon. member and his taking of the oath. ('Hear, hear.') I have been further asked whether, when the House is completed, and after a quorum has been constituted, it would be competent for a motion to be made intervening between the hon. member for Northampton and his taking of the oath. I have come clearly and without hesitation to the conclusion that it would neither be my duty to prohibit the hon. gentleman from coming, nor to permit a motion to be made standing between him and his taking of the oath. (Opposition cheers.) The hon. member takes that oath under whatever risks may attach to him in a court of law. ('Hear, hear.') But it is not for me—I respectfully say it is not for the House—to enter into any inquisition—(cheers)—as to what may be the opinions of a member when he comes to the table to take the oath. I am bound, and the House is bound, by the forms of this House, and by the legal obligations and rights of members. If a member comes to this table and offers to take the oath, I know of no right whatever to intervene between him and the form, of legal and statutable obligation. (Cheers.)"
The Chancellor of the Exchequer in vain sought to make a declaration: he was called to order. Bradlaugh was duly sworn, with a Tory Ministry in nominal command of the House. The protesters against "profanation" had to stand by and see what they had defined as profanation "solemnly"—as the law courts defined solemnity—authorised by the supreme authority of the House. They had refused to permit affirmation; their oath was now, on their own declaration, outraged and trampled upon. At the same time, the whole past procedure of the House, the whole course of the last Speaker, was overruled and impeached as unwarrantable. The House had drunk its cup to the dregs.
§ 22.
The Tory press naturally solaced itself by repeating the well-tried falsehood that Bradlaugh had originally refused to take the oath, and declaring that he had now eaten his words. On 26th January, dissatisfied with that unsubstantial comfort, Mr Raikes asked the Government if they would prevent Bradlaugh from sitting and voting until he had proved his capacity to take the oath, or until the judgment of the Court of Appeal was reversed by a higher tribunal. Sir M. Hicks Beach formally replied that he was not prepared to take action, and no action of the kind was ever taken. Soon the Tories, being in the minority in the House, were turned out and the Liberals installed in their places. Appealed to to enter a stet processus in the action in which Bradlaugh had appealed, they timorously declined, dreading Tory comment. But when the Tories later in the year were returned to power by the election following on Mr Gladstone's defeat on his first Home Rule Bill, and Lord Randolph Churchill became leader of the House of Commons, that versatile personage, desirous of placating if possible so formidable and so avowed an enemy as Bradlaugh, gave the relief which the Liberals had refused. Bradlaugh was thus finally secured in his seat by the capitulation of one of the most unscrupulous and offensive of his old enemies. Churchill's allusion in the House to Bradlaugh's supporters as the "scum and dregs of the nation" had elicited from Bradlaugh, in connection with his agitation against perpetual pensions, a short tractate on the manner of the founding of the Churchill family, which struck his lordship in a fashion he had not been used to at the hands of Gladstone, or even of Mr Chamberlain; and he desired to make peace. He did not obtain it.
But not only did the Tory party, as represented by its new leader in the Commons, thus give up all it had contended for: it was finally to make personal submission to the man it had wronged. The Affirmation Bill introduced by Mr Serjeant Simon never reached a debate; and it was left to Bradlaugh to carry one on his own initiative in 1888, by the votes of the men, Tory and Parnellite, who had defeated former Bills. Last of all, it was in the same Tory House of Commons, while Bradlaugh lay dying, that there was carried the resolution he had repeatedly put down, expunging from the journals of the House the old votes for his exclusion, even as the resolutions against Wilkes had been expunged. If the act was one of repentance, it the more certainly implied an infamous wrong done.
There were certainly many reasons why the Tory party should repent. They had "struck for themselves an evil blow," though the sudden rising of the Home Rule issue served to obscure the consequences of their course in the Northampton struggle. It was impossible that as a party they could have gained in credit by it either among the masses or among thoughtful and earnest men. Nothing was more notorious than that nine-tenths of the leading Bradlaugh-baiters were the least worthy men in the House. Wolff, described by Bradlaugh as a noted retailer of choses grivoises; Churchill, the noisy and reckless charlatan of the new Toryism, "the Demosthenes of bad taste and vulgar vehemence;"[189] Tyler, the company-promoter, hooted by the shareholders he had impoverished; "O'Donnell," the turncoat; Callan, the drunken; Newdegate, besotted with more fumes than those of fanaticism; Fowler and Warton, the gross and blatant; Healy, the ever-rowdy—these could not gain good repute from alliance with types like Mr Samuel Morley, and could not be made respectable by the leadership of Northcote, whom they hustled and humiliated. It is not possible to say with entire certainty what had been the general view of Beaconsfield on the case while he lived; but it is difficult to believe that he could have taken any satisfaction in seeing the most prominent function of the new Toryism made out to be the rowdy resistance to the sitting of a freethinking member, and the insolent refusal of a constituency's rights.
There can be no doubt, I think, that one effect of the whole episode was to create a new and widespread intensity of antagonism to the prevailing religion and to the Conservative cause. Men who had before regarded Christianity with indifference or disfavour or contempt, as a delusion, began to detest it as a living fountain of injustice; and men who had seen in recent Conservatism a policy of diverting the people's attention from home needs by foreign adventure, now saw in it a great machinery for working iniquity within the State. The party which had been seen making gun-wadding of the decalogue in its wars of aggression had now made a crass Semitic Theism the pretext for a dastardly effort to crush one man, partly by way of embarrassing the opposite side; and the party which denounced "disloyalty" took sides with the disloyalists to the same end. Of course, the heat of the immediate struggle did not last on one side any more than on the other; above all, it did not last with Bradlaugh himself; but it is certain that thousands of Freethinkers date their conversion from the time of Bradlaugh's fight with the bigots; and I fancy there are still many who preserve the impression they then gained of what Voltaire meant by "the infamous," and the purpose they then formed to make war on it throughout their lives. As regards Toryism, too, though "each day brings its petty dust, our soon-choked souls to fill," the adherents of that cause may rely on it that for many a citizen, for many a day to come, their declarations of concern for justice and right, in any case whatever, are made derisory by memories of their five-year-long course of gleeful injustice to the Atheist. Time brings its revenges. If Liberals in mass have deserved ten years of frustration, in an effort to do right, by their former treatment of Ireland, Tories in turn have wrought for the cup of defeat they have tasted, and are yet to drain to the dregs. And the Irishmen who, claiming freedom for themselves, shamelessly withheld from another even the rights they already enjoyed—they, too, have paid and are paying for their misdeeds, despite their avowed repentance.
As for the Conservative party, despite its practical recantation, it would be too much to say that there is any real concern among the mass of its members for the five years' carnival of injustice over Bradlaugh. I have gone through Mr Lang's "Life of Northcote" without finding one word of regret for the whole shameful business, though he quotes a passage in which Northcote expressed in his diary a mild deprecation of the ruffianism of some of his followers in the matter. But, indeed, the capacity to do the thing as it was done excludes the capacity to be ashamed of it. Toryism is transmuted, but does not repent. At best, new Tories may at times deprecate the action of their predecessors.
§ 23.
Whatever be the sympathies with which the matter is looked at, there is no gainsaying the historical fact that Bradlaugh's struggle is a decisive episode in constitutional history. It will always rank in English annals with the partially parallel case of Wilkes, dating a hundred and twenty years earlier; and it will be a very bold or a very blind majority which ever again attempts to exclude from the House of Commons a duly-elected member against whom no legal objection lies. Of Wilkes, Mr Gladstone has declared that whether we choose it or not, his name must be enrolled among those of the great champions of English freedom. If that be so, Bradlaugh's name must stand still higher, in that it represents not only the principle of the rights of constituencies, but the principle of freedom of conscience in the last and most serious issue. And in every moral respect, Bradlaugh's case stands above that of Wilkes. The point in which they best compare is their courage; but even the undoubted courage with which Wilkes faced an unpopular king and unpopular ministers was a less rare thing than the fortitude which faced the hate and the slander of half of the more articulate part of the nation. For the rest, though he had the merit of geniality, Wilkes was a poor creature enough in many ways—a rascal towards his wife, a leader of ribald orgies, a prurient poetaster, a briber of constituencies, while professing to be uncorrupting and incorruptible. He was a blasphemer in the strict and really bad sense of a man deriding a Deity in whom he did not profess to disbelieve; he wrote and privately printed indecent verse for the indecency's sake. And if he is to be remembered for courage in that he resisted an unpopular Ministry with a great and aristocratic party to support and salary him, much more so is Bradlaugh, who was scouted and insulted by many even of the Liberals that felt constrained at times to vote on his behalf, and who had little save poor men's help in his long and costly fight. It is significant of the worth of common opinion that Wilkes was much more readily forgiven for real and ill-meant and undisputed obscenity than was Bradlaugh for the earnest and scrupulous defence of true doctrines infamously miscalled obscene. On the point of politics, Wilkes is hardly more justly notable than on the point of character. He had no higher mission than to attack an autocratic and unpopular minister; his very animus was partly the evil and vulgar spirit of racial animosity; he had no high purpose of political reform. After unwilling drudgery in a public office of dignity, he found his chosen reward in a semi-sinecure. Bradlaugh stood for great causes in the world of thought as well as in the world of action: he was a thinker and a high-minded reformer where Wilkes was at best a high-spirited adventurer.
And as Wilkes was the worse man, so he had the worse case. When elected in 1768, he was legally an outlaw—albeit under an unjust sentence; and his supporters signalised his success by a riot, breaking windows wholesale, mobbing and insulting leading opponents. Afterwards he was elected while a prisoner. Certainly Parliament, in his case, took a more courageously illegal course than it did in Bradlaugh's, not only refusing to admit him, but declaring him disqualified, voiding his seat, and declaring Luttrell member when elected by the minority. The jugglers of 1880-85 kept a member out of his seat without daring to declare the seat therefore vacant, though the law courts hinted not obscurely that an Atheist was hors la loi in respect of the chief civic rights. Certainly in the case of Wilkes the King was known to be the main mover in the breaking of the law, and so was more openly putting the liberties of the whole people in jeopardy. But the fact that in Bradlaugh's case the tyrants were bigots and partisans, representing masses of electors, and the wronged man a heretic, only made the danger the more profound. The final triumph of the law-breakers would in his case have been a worse blow to freedom than it could have been in that of Wilkes, just because so many hundreds of thousands of bigots would have rejoiced in it. It would have been more dangerous to democracy, because undermining democracy from within, whereas the ostracism of Wilkes was an ostentatious blow from without. The "many-headed tyranny of an unscrupulous senate" is a more sinister thing when it rests on the fanaticism of thousands than when it is the mere subservience of time-servers to the sovereign; for if the principle were to be practically established that a man may be politically ostracised for theological heresy, the axe would be laid to the root of a greater thing than political privilege. What the Inquisition did for Spain, brainless bigotry might have begun to do for England. It had become clear that the law courts would not give any decision which struck at the freedom of the House of Commons to act as it pleased, our constitution being thus seen to lack the safeguard set up in the Supreme Court of the United States; though the House went through the form of arguing its case before the judges. The value of their decisions was seen when, after Bradlaugh took the oath before Mr Speaker Peel, he was allowed to sit in peace though he had been declared legally incapable of taking an oath. Evidently the principle of legality had little remaining validity. It may be, nevertheless, that the time is not yet come for the majority of Englishmen to realise fully how much was saved to their heritage by Bradlaugh's long stand against nefarious faith. The language of sincere conviction still blends with the language of cant in calling his opinions "peculiar" or worse; and half of those who stood beside him on the political issue were anxious in avowing their repudiation of his doctrines and his personality. But even in the few years between his struggle and his death there was a change; and to say that he has not yet had his full share of honour is only to say that his fame will be at its clearest in the larger air of a more enlightened day.