But supposing this criticism to be valid—and there are still but few who will endorse it—the final estimate of Bradlaugh, as of any politician, must be in terms of comparison; and if he has erred on the theory of thrift, so have all the statesmen of his time; while on other great issues on which they were backward, he was alert and enlightened. Even the Socialists who oppose him, and throw at him the ancient epithet of "Manchester," have in many cases committed themselves to the Manchester school's doctrine of saving, deriding those who contravene it. And on the concrete issues on which they were opposed to him, it is not difficult to show that Manchesterism had the right end of the stick. On the Eight Hours' question, in particular, the Socialist attack on him is not only subversive of other Socialist doctrine, but is a reductio ad absurdum. He is accused of inconsistency, because he wrought for State interference with the relations of labour and capital in his Truck Act, but opposed State regulation of working hours. But, on the one hand, the two cases are fundamentally different, since working hours depend on the whole economic situation, while Truck is an arbitrary arrangement of the masters, only possible in peculiar local circumstances; and on the other hand, if the Truck Act logically commits us to interference with working time, then a time law will logically commit us to a wages law, which even the Socialist critic admits to be folly.
That Bradlaugh was no pedantic individualist is shown, not only by his Truck Act, but by his agitation for a Labour Bureau, which was the origin of that institution, though the official Liberal press usually gives all the credit to Mr Mundella, who merely acted on Bradlaugh's urging. And while the latter held that the action of the trade unions was in some cases mistaken, he never ceased to urge their attention to political affairs all round.
"Many of the great trades organisations and friendly societies," he wrote in 1889, "have until recently prided themselves on being non-political. Some of the trades societies and nearly all the friendly societies still so pride themselves. This has been a serious blunder, especially in a country where much legislation has been the work of a very limited class for the conservation of their own privileges."[117]
His limitary principle was one of sound common-sense, whether or not he recognised the full force of the economic indictment of competitive individualism.
"A good working doctrine for legislatures should be to mould conduct rather by the development of sound public opinion than by the operation of penal laws. Especially should the legislature be careful not to profess to do that for the worker, which it is reasonably possible for him to do for himself without the aid of the law. A duty enforced by others is seldom so well performed as a duty affirmed by the doer."
And these principles, which perhaps serve even some professed Liberals mainly as a ground for doing nothing, were with him a ground for insisting on an act of justice and expediency which such Liberals have been very loth to accede to. Bradlaugh's action in the great test case of recent English politics is a decisive proof of his foresight.
§ 5.
As the story of his life has shown, Bradlaugh had had special opportunities of studying the Irish question from the inside; and from the day when his young blood boiled at the murderous cruelty of an Irish eviction, he steadfastly supported the cause of the misruled Irish people. He never ceased to love England with that touch of pride and faith which is the whole stock-in-trade of the average patriot; but, combining it as he did with an intense sense of justice, he could never let that devotion blind him to the wrongs of other peoples at England's hands. And in the first years of his political activity, when he was pleading for rebel Poles and rebel Italians, he seems to have so far recognised the right of Irishmen to use force against the force of England, that he assisted the Fenian conspirators of 1867 to draw up their Republican proclamation, so revising it as to exclude every expression of race hatred and every appeal to religious feeling; "the complete separation of Church and State" being one of its stipulations. The full details of that connection will probably never now be known; but what is quite clear is that Bradlaugh was not only then opposed to the idea of an Irish Republic, but soon ceased to have the least faith in the possibility of a successful or even a well-planned Irish rising; while his invariable opposition to useless violence was emphatic in the case of the Clerkenwell and other outrages. All the more earnestly did he continue his propaganda for Irish reform. Holding as he did that the land question was fundamental in English politics, he could not but see that it was the very heart of the Irish trouble; and to the agitation for Irish land law reform he gave energetic support. But he was always far ahead of the slow movement of average English opinion; and while English Liberals were hoping that the concessions carried out by Gladstone would make Ireland a contented partner in the Union, Bradlaugh had already given his assent to the claim for Home Rule; always, however, flatly opposing the doctrine of separation. On this he was explicit when, speaking in New York in 1873, he found otherwise friendly Irish auditors disposed to be satisfied with nothing short of absolute severance from England. Home Rule, however, he all along considered to be not only just but inevitable. While those of us who hoped for a real Union (with Irishmen admitted to perfect equality in the Executive system) were urging that as a solution which escaped the proved dangers of Federalism, he had made up his mind that Englishmen could not and would not ever deal with Ireland as an integral part of the State; and he had declared himself a Home Ruler long before Mr Gladstone, who had frustrated the hope for a true Union by consistently keeping Irishmen out of his cabinets. That, helping as he thus did the Home Rule movement, he should yet have been treated with bigoted hostility and injustice by the bulk of the Irish Nationalists in his Parliamentary struggle, was so remarkable that explanations were demanded; and the Nationalists offered several, to the effect that Bradlaugh had turned against them. It is necessary to go into some detail to show that this is untrue.
At the outset of his Parliamentary struggle Bradlaugh was not only not regarded as an opponent by the Nationalists as a political party, but was even defended by Parnell, although against the wish of most of that leader's Catholic followers; and despite the quickly shown ill-will of these, Bradlaugh continued to support their cause in the House during the nine months of his conditional tenure of his seat, 1880-81. But as he never hesitated to counter what he held to be wrong policy among English democrats, so he condemned, albeit reluctantly, what he held to be unjustifiable courses on the part of the Parnellites. This appears in his "Parliamentary Jottings" in his journal under date 5th September 1880, where he says he "much regretted, during the long conflict of Thursday-Friday, to find himself brought into collision with the Irish members." Nineteen Irish members had spoken, with his entire sympathy, against the Constabulary Vote; and after midnight they sought to postpone the discussion, on the ground that "more Irish members wished to speak," though not a penny of the estimates had been voted. There were only twelve more Home Rulers present, and they could all have spoken had they wished. They, however, appealed to the Radicals to help them to delay business, on the score that the Constabulary Vote was a "life and death question." As obstruction could only delay and not stop the vote, Bradlaugh objected, and made a speech to that effect, which was warmly cheered by the Liberals, and as warmly condemned by Home Rulers; though, when it came to voting, only 27 of the 61 Home Rulers went into the lobby. Obstruction he always condemned. This was a pretext for Irish hostility, though there had been abundance of that already. Some weeks later he writes:—