In the year 1800 Roman Catholics in England were excluded from Parliament, from the franchise, from the magistracy, the Bar, the Civil Service, from municipal corporations, and from commissions in the Army and Navy. Pitt was willing to abolish these disabilities on the passing of the Act of Union, and the Irish people were bitterly disappointed that the disabilities remained. But George III. refused all assent to the proposals, and Pitt resigned. Several times the House of Commons passed Catholic Relief Bills, which were thrown out by the Lords, and it was not till 1829, when "the English ministry had to choose between concession and civil war," that Peel and the Duke of Wellington yielded and persuaded their party to admit Catholics to Parliament and to the Civil and Military Services.

The repeal of the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics—Acts of Elizabeth that inflicted penalties on priests who said mass in England, and on Roman Catholics who attended mass—took place in 1844, and in 1866 the Parliamentary Oath was amended and made unobjectionable to Roman Catholics.

A Roman Catholic is still excluded by law from the Crown, the Lord Chancellorship, and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, but many Roman Catholics are members of Parliament—members of all parties—and the late Lord Ripon, a Catholic, sat in a Liberal Cabinet.

In 1846 Rothschild was elected as a Liberal M.P. for the City of London, but the law did not permit him to take his seat. Then for some years Jewish M.P.'s were allowed to take part in debates and sit on committees, but were not allowed to vote. Finally, in 1858, the Lords, after rejecting the measure for ten years, passed the Jews' Disabilities Bill, which removed all restriction. The Right Hon. Herbert Samuel, M.P., is the first Jew to sit in the Cabinet, for though Disraeli was of the Jewish race, he was a Christian in belief.

Although in 1800 various Acts on the Statute Book required Nonconformists to subscribe to the religion of the Church of England before taking part in municipal affairs, these Acts had long been a dead letter. All that was done in the nineteenth century was to repeal these Acts, and to throw open the universities and public offices to Nonconformists. It is only, however, in recent years that Nonconformists have filled posts of high importance in the Cabinet.

The last attempt at restriction on the religious beliefs of members of Parliament was made in the House of Commons itself, when Charles Bradlaugh, after being duly elected M.P. for Northampton, was by the action of the House excluded from his seat. Bradlaugh was a frank disbeliever in Christianity, and the House of Commons refused to allow him either to take the oath or make an affirmation. For five years (1880-5) the struggle lasted—a Liberal Government being in power all the time—and three times during that period the electors of Northampton triumphantly returned Charles Bradlaugh as their member, only to be answered by resolutions of refusal and expulsion passed by the House of Commons against their representative. It was a repetition of the battle Wilkes had fought one hundred and twenty years earlier, and it ended in the same way. A new Parliament assembled in January, 1886 (after a general election in November), the new Speaker (Mr. Peel) permitted Bradlaugh to take the oath in the usual way, declined to allow any interference, and the battle was over. Two years later a general Affirmation Bill was carried on the motion of Bradlaugh, and became law. When Charles Bradlaugh lay dying in January, 1891, the House of Commons passed, without dissent, a resolution expunging from the journals of the House the old resolutions of exclusion.

The Enfranchisement of Women

The nineteenth century then will always be noted as the era of steady advance towards democracy, especially in England. Enfranchisement of the workman, and his representation in Parliament, have transferred the government of the country from an aristocracy to the middle class and the working class, for to-day, alike in Parliament and in the permanent Civil Service, men of the middle class predominate, assisted by those who served apprenticeship in mine or workshop. The removal of religious disabilities has ended the old rule that confined the business of the legislature and the administration of justice to members of the Established Church of England, and Roman Catholics, Jews, Nonconformists, and Freethinkers now take their share in all public work.

One disability only remains—the sex disability that denies the parliamentary franchise to women. In the middle ages women were excused from parliamentary attendance, but there was no notion that their powers and privileges as landowners were shortened because, on account of their sex, they were granted exemption from Parliament and from juries. In 1868 a test case—Chorlton v. Lings—was brought, and the judges decided that women householders were not to be registered as electors, and it was left to Parliament to pass a Women's Enfranchisement Bill. From the time of John Stuart Mill's advocacy in 1867 there have always been supporters of Women's Suffrage in the House of Commons, and in the last five years these supporters have been growing in numbers. Only the refusal of the Government to give time for the discussion of the Bill in Committee has prevented a Woman's Enfranchisement measure, which on several occasions has received a second reading, from passing the House of Commons; and the announcement by the present (1911) Government that full facilities for such discussion are to be granted next year (1912) would indicate that the removal of political sex disabilities is close at hand. Women are not asking for adult suffrage, but are willing to receive enfranchisement on the terms that qualify men as electors, and the Conciliation Bill, as it is called—because members of every political party have agreed to make it their Bill—would place on the roll of electors rather more than a million of women voters.

Meantime, while waiting for the removal of the anti-democratic barrier that excludes them from full political citizenship, women are admitted in the United Kingdom to an equal share with men in all local government. Since 1869 women who are householders have enjoyed the municipal franchise, and as Poor Law guardians and members of school boards, they have been freely elected to sit side by side with men. In 1907 women were declared eligible by Parliament for membership on county and borough councils, and for the chairmanship of county councils and the mayoralty of boroughs. Since this Act was passed we have seen women elected to the councils of great cities—Manchester and Liverpool, for instance—and chosen as mayors in several towns. No political movement in recent years has been of greater public interest or importance than the agitation for "Votes for Women." The demand for enfranchisement is based on the old constitutional ground of the Parliamentarians of the seventeenth century—that those who are directly taxed by Government must have some political control of the public expenditure—and it is supported by the present leader of the Conservative Party[[86]] on the ground that government can only be carried on in England by consent of the governed.