When the Taxes on Knowledge were repealed, Mr. Collet and I attempted to procure the repeal of the Passenger Tax on Railways. For forty years after the imposition of the tax of Lord Halford, 1832, the workman was taxed who went in search of an employer. When a poor sailor, arriving in London after a long voyage, desired to visit his poor mother in Glasgow, the Government added to his fare a tax of three shillings, to encourage him in filial affection. In the interests of locomotion and trade, two or three associations had attempted to get this pernicious tax repealed, without success. It was remarked in Parliament in 1877 that no committee representing the working class asked for the repeal of this discreditable impost, which most concerned them. This was the reason of the formation of the Travelling Tax Abolition Committee, of which Mr. Collet became secretary and I the chairman. We were assisted by an influential committee of civic and industrial leaders. After six years' agitation we were mainly instrumental (that was in Mr. Gladstone's days) in obtaining the repeal of the penny a mile tax on all third-class fares, effected by Mr. Childers in 1883, which ever since has put into the pocket of working-class travellers £400,000 a year, besides the improved carriages and improved service the repeal has enabled railway companies to give. We continued the committee many years longer in the hope of freeing the railways wholly from taxation, which still hampers the directors and is obstructive of commerce. I was chairman for twenty-four years, during which time twenty-two of the committee died. Our memorials, interviews with ministers, correspondence with officials, petitions to Parliament, public meetings and various publications, involved a large and incessant amount of work without payment of any kind. Subsequently a committee of publicists, journalists and members of Parliament, for whom Mr. Applegarth was the secretary, caused £80 to be given to me, in recognition of my services. Though it represented less than £4 a year as the salary of the chairman, it was valuable in my eyes from the persons who gave it, as they were not the persons much benefited by the work done, and who really taxed themselves on behalf of others. A subscription of a halfpenny each from the working-class travellers who had profited by the repeal would have amounted to a handsome acknowledgment. But from them it was impossible to collect it. Testimonials, I believe, are often given by persons who generously subscribe for others upon whom the obligation of making it more properly rests.
It would seem insensibility or ingratitude not to record, that on my eightieth birthday—now eight years ago—I was entertained at a numerously attended dinner party in the National Liberal Club, at which to my gratification, Mr. Walter Morrison presided. The speakers, and distinction of many in the assembly, were a surprise, transcending all I had foreseen. The words of Mr. Morrison's speech, to use Tennyson's words, were like
"Jewels
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all time
Sparkle forever"
in my memory.
On my eighty-sixth birthday a reception was given me by the Ethical Society of South Place Chapel, Finsbury—the oldest Free Thought temple in London, where the duty of free inquiry was first proclaimed by W. J. Fox. The place was filled with faces familiar and unfamiliar, from near and far, of artists, poets, publicists, journalists, philosophers, as at the National Liberal Club, but in greater numbers. Lady Florence Dixie purchased a large and costly oil painting,* and sent it for me to present to the Library of the Rationalist Press Association. Among the letters sent was one, the last sent to a public meeting, by Herbert Spencer. The reader will pardon the pride I have in quoting it.
* By my nephew, Roland Holyoake.
Writing from 5, Percival Terrace, Brighton, March 28, 1903, Mr. Spencer said: "I have not been out of doors since last August, and as Mr. Holyoake knows, it is impossible for me to join in the Reception to be given to him on the occasion of his eighty-sixth birthday. I can do nothing more than express my warm feeling of concurrence. Not dwelling upon his intellectual capacity, which is high, I would emphasise my appreciation of his courage, sincerity, truthfulness, philanthropy, and unwearied perseverance. Such a combination of these qualities, it will, I think, be difficult to find."