The St. James's Gazette asked me: "Is it justifiable for a good citizen to break a law because he believes it to be wrong?" I answered "No! unless the public good seems to require it, and that he who breaks the law is prepared to take the consequences." I never evaded the consequences, nor complained of them when they came.
If every one who breaks a law first satisfies himself that public interest justifies it, and he is ready to meet the penalty, only bad laws would be broken. It is also the duty of a citizen to find out whether there is any practical way open for procuring the repeal of a bad law before breaking it. Respect for law, under representative government, in which the law-breaker has a share, is a cardinal duty of a citizen.
On my violation of the law in the matter of the War Chronicles Mr. Gladstone (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) said to a deputation, that he knew "my object was not to break the law, but to try the law."
The impulsive and the ambitious of repute may overlook this consideration, but as I sought neither distinction nor martyrdom, I acted as I did because no other course was open, and no other person would take this.
II.
In the year following the prosecution in the Court of Exchequer, Her Majesty gave me further trouble in discharge of the odious duty imposed upon her as collector of debts for the Church. As few know to-day how hateful this impost was, it will be informing to see how the clerical case was officially stated to me. It began as follows:—
"Mr. George Jacob Holyoake,—Take Notice that in and by certain Rates or Assessments made by virtue of and for the purposes mentioned in the Act of Parliament passed in the 4th Year of the Reign of her late Majesty Queen Ann, Cap. 27, intituled, 'An Act for settling the Impropriate Tythes of the Parish of Saint Bridgett, alias Bride's, London,' You are assessed in respect of the Houses, Shops, Warehouses, Cellars, Stables, Tofts, Grounds, or other Tenements or Hereditaments, within the said Parish occupied by you, in four several Sums amounting to One pound four shillings and eightpence for four several Quarters of a Year commencing at the Feast of The Birth of our Lord Christ, 1854, and ending at the same Feast in the Year 1855, and that such assessments are made on a Rental of £74. Dated this 22nd day of May, 1856.
"John William Thomas,
"Collector of the said Rates."
These ecclesiastical cormorants took a hungry survey of every place containing property on which they could lay hands. After the Rathcormac massacre, where two sons of the widow Ryan were shot by the soldiers, employed by the Church in collecting its rates—how appropriate and consoling it must be to a bereaved mother to read that the rates commenced to be due at "The Feast of the Birth of our Lord Christ!" Yet there are people who go about promoting prosecutions for blasphemy, and with a holy partiality leave untouched outrages like these. The summons sent to me speaks of the "late Queen Ann," who had been dead 140 years. Her name being spelt "Ann" shows that she had been dead long enough to lose the final "e" of her name. The rent of the Fleet Street house was £74, £400 having been paid for the lease. Each time there came on the scene the local agent of the Church, who delivered an interesting intimation as follows:—