Another public meeting held that December furnishes a striking example of the way Mr Bradlaugh was looked upon as a pariah. My father, as is well known, attached much importance to the question of Land Law Reform, and was deeply interested in any measures that would tend to ameliorate the hard lot of those who live by the land. Hence, when a meeting was announced to be held in Exeter Hall, in connection with the Agricultural Labourers' Movement, he determined to be present. The chair was taken by S. Morley, Esq., M.P., who, himself a generous donor to the Agricultural Labourers' Fund, laid special stress on the necessity of giving substantial pecuniary help. The first resolution, moved by Cardinal Manning, ran thus: "That this meeting deeply sympathises with the Agricultural Labourers of England in their depressed circumstances, believing their present condition to be a disgrace to the best interests of the country, and is of opinion that measures should be adopted without delay for their social improvement and intellectual elevation." Mr Bradlaugh felt that this was at once very vague and very inadequate; it left the character, of the "measures" to be adopted far too much to the imagination. Nor was the resolution made more clear by the speeches which followed from others, who, like Mr Arch and Mr Ball, eloquently as they spoke, failed to touch the vital causes of the miseries they deplored. Even the pecuniary help they were seeking, my father considered, would in itself but perpetuate troubles, unless the grievances themselves were redressed. Under these circumstances, Mr Bradlaugh "felt bound to rise to move an addendum to the resolution." His rising was the signal for great excitement; a hawk in a dovecote could hardly have produced a greater flutter. "Some," said my father, "yelled lustily; Joseph Arch begged me as a favour 'not to irritate the kindly gentlemen disposed to aid the poor labourer,' and Mr Ball ... said they did 'not want any political opinions which might prevent subscriptions to the movement.'" Archbishop Manning withdrew from the meeting as soon as the wicked Atheist came forward. I am in no position to say whether in this case post hoc meant propter hoc, though certainly in some quarters,[174] at least, the Archbishop's sudden disappearance was attributed to Mr Bradlaugh's appearance. Mr Samuel Morley asked Mr Bradlaugh not to move the addendum; my father, however, persisted. Mr Morley then asked him, "as a favour to himself, as it was then 10.32, not to speak in support." To this Mr Bradlaugh consented, while maintaining his right to speak, and merely moved that the following words be added to the resolution: "And there can be no permanent improvement in the condition of the agricultural labourer until such vital change shall be effected in the land laws now in force in this country as shall break down the land monopolies at present existing, and restore to the people their rightful part in the land." Had he been allowed to speak, he would have instanced as necessary "measures" abolition of primogeniture; easy land transfer; a graduated land tax, and compulsory cultivation of uncultivated lands capable of cultivation. This last reform he put elsewhere in the following words:—"Power to deprive holders of cultivable lands of their property, on proof of non-cultivation, at a compensation not exceeding seven years' purchase, calculated on the average nett rental of the preceding seven years. Such lands to be taken by the State, and let in small holdings to actual cultivators, on terms of tenancy, proportioned to the improvement made in value; that is, the greater the improvement, the longer the tenancy. Lands appropriated to deer forests and game preserves to be treated as non-cultivated."
Although Mr Bradlaugh's addendum was moved and seconded amidst the greatest confusion, and little as his intervention was approved of by the promoters of the meeting, four-fifths at least of those assembled voted in its favour.[175]
But if my father felt wounded by the way in which he was regarded, and his help was rejected by the conveners and speakers of this Exeter Hall meeting, he had his compensation in the following July, when he was invited, for the first time, to attend the Annual Demonstration of the Northumberland miners. He had always felt especial sympathy for the workers in the northern coal mines, and never forgot that one of the earliest and one of the kindest greetings he ever received in the provinces was from a coal-hewer at Bebside. At this demonstration he met Alexander Macdonald, whom he then regarded as one of the strongest men he had yet come in contact with, connected with any working men's organization in Great Britain. "To give," he said, "a faint notion of Mr Macdonald's power, it is enough to point out that he speaks with the authority of Miners' Organizations representing more than 200,000 men, and has brain enough and will enough to use this vast power unflinchingly." Mr Thomas Burt, then Secretary to the Northumberland Miners' Association, and "proposed" miners' candidate for Morpeth, Mr Wm. Crawford from Durham, and Mr Joseph Cowen, as well as my father's old antagonist in debate, Dr J. H. Rutherford, all attended to address the great gathering, which assembled on the moor; and although this was the tenth of these annual gatherings, it was the first at which any political resolutions had been proposed.
In the following year, when the Northumberland Collieries balloted for the speakers for their picnic, my father and Mr Burt came out side by side at the head of the poll. The date fixed was the fifteenth of June, and on that afternoon at least 20,000 miners assembled on Blyth Links. In the evening, in the Central Hall, an address was presented to Mr Bradlaugh on behalf of the Northumberland miners. In it was told their appreciation of the services he had rendered "the poor, the neglected, and the oppressed." It spoke of the prejudice against him on account of his opinions, but they were happy to affirm that "no such paltry feeling as this blinds the mining population of Northumberland to your deserts as a politician and a reformer. It may please you to hear, as it delights us to testify, that persons of all shades of opinion have combined in the present manifestation of approval and esteem." And indeed it appeared that Catholics, Wesleyans, Independents, Baptists, and Presbyterians had all joined in presenting this address. As my father stood there that night, listening to the eulogistic speeches made about himself, and remembered how, but a few short years before, he was unable to obtain a lodging in that very town of Blyth, he fairly broke down. This address remained to the last one of his most treasured possessions, and always occupied the place of honour on his study wall. And the Northumberland miners were not less faithful than he. Year after year he was invited to their annual gathering,[176] and when he died, these poor men—who earn their wage under conditions often of the most frightful hardship—not only sent individual subscriptions towards the payment of the liabilities he had left behind him, but even voted £50 from their funds to the same object. And not only did they do that, but when his library was sold there were many who contrived to send the money to buy one or two books, so that they might possess some memento of the man whose eloquent tongue would speak to them no more.
In 1874 Mr Bradlaugh had his first invitation to the Durham miners' (fourth) annual gala. Here, notwithstanding inclement weather and the difficulties put in the way of the meeting by the North-Eastern Railway Company, the gathering on the race-course was enormous; and although this was the first time he had come to their picnic, my father saw his own full-length likeness on the two banners belonging to the South Tanfield and West Auckland Collieries.[177] The evening, too, was made pleasant by the courageous avowal, in the presence of at least a dozen people, made by a gentleman of position and influence in Durham—a former mayor. He told my father that he was delighted to have the opportunity of seeing him, but he thought it only honest to add that before his (Mr Bradlaugh's) arrival he had refused to go upon the same platform with him. He had learned a lesson, he said, since he had been in my father's company.
As with the Northumberland men, so with the Durham: having once been invited to their picnic, Mr Bradlaugh was asked again and again, and in 1891 Durham miners also sent of their hard earnings towards the payment of a dead man's debts or to buy a book from his library.