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]

[Footnote 117: "Parliament and the Poor."]

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:--

"My personal position as to Ireland is by no means an easy one. I find

English Radicals in general, and myself in particular the subject of

constant abuse in Irish journals. I read words attributed to Irish

members of the House of Commons full of the most intense hostility to

everything English, and find speakers in their presence declaring

that the land movement is only the cover for the disruption of the two

countries."

And after quoting some of the frenzied sayings of Irish Americans, he

appeals to "Mr Parnell and his co-traversers," and other responsible

Nationalists, "not to check our desire to co-operate with them by

their open declarations of hostility to our race;" and "in the name

of humanity ... to check the tendency of the people whom they lead to

waste their energies in worse than useless force." At the same time,

he protested against the prosecution of Mr Parnell and his colleagues

by the Liberal Government, supported the fund for their defence, and

incurred new hostility in England in consequence. Correspondents wrote

him on both sides, and he answered:[118]--

[Footnote 118: _National Reformer_, Nov. 20, 1888.]

"We must ask both sides to be a little patient. The agrarian crimes

cannot be justified, nor does our contributing to the Parnell Defence

justify these. We subscribe in order that he and others may have fair

play: it is never easy to be defendant in a State trial.... Some

remind us that three-fourths of the Irish M.P.'s voted against us,

and nearly every Irish paper attacks us. That is so, but it does not

alter our duty. Our duty is to work honestly for redress of Irish

grievances, although even every Irishman should be personally unjust

to us."

One form of the injustice is seen in an editorial sentence from the

Dublin _Freeman_ about the same time, _àpropos_ of the argument of the

Tory _St James's Gazette_[119] to the effect that over-population was

the cause of Irish distress. "Does the _St James's_ propose," asked

the _Freeman_, "the introduction of Bradlaughism into Ireland, when it

says that the 'rapid growth of population, which is checked in some

countries,' must be fatal to the prosperity of cotter families across

the Channel?" The Tory argument was really a sample of the method of

utilising the principle of population solely as a reason for not doing

justice, while vilifying those who not only see the trouble but point

out the remedy. Not a word of support did Bradlaugh ever get from a

Tory organ in his attempt to avert the evil of over-population. But as

regards Ireland, he not only recognised that over-population there was

positively fostered by the unjust land system, but he again and again

in the House denied that even wholesale emigration, if practicable,

would cure the evil while that system endured. In July 1880 he writes:--

[Footnote 119: Then edited by Mr Frederick Greenwood.]

"I had to listen to the Hon. B. Fitzpatrick, sent by 118 votes for

the borough of Portarlington, who, in the course of a wild display of

imbecility, had the audacity to declare that wholesale emigration of

the natives of Ireland was the 'only remedy' for Irish distress; and

this was said by an Irishman."

On the 15th of the same month, in the debate on the second reading

of the Irish Tenants' Compensation Bill, he protested against the

irrelevance of the Tory opposition to the Bill.

"There had been renewed the argument that Ireland was over-populated,

and that the tenants who were distressed ought to find in some other

country the relief they could not find in Ireland. Now, there was

no colony in England, and there was no part of the United States of

America, to which any poor man without means could go, hoping to

benefit himself at the present time. Therefore, those who recommended

emigration had either never taken the trouble to investigate the

matter, or were simply talking against time to delay the measure going

into committee."

Again, though in January 1881 he found himself "driven into the lobby,

for the first time this Session, against the Irish members, only to

vote that the business of the House was not to be absolutely stopped

by an utterly irregular discussion," he took a most active part in

opposing the Government's coercive measures. In the debate on the

address he "made one of eight English Radicals who alone had been

found to record their votes in favour of Mr Parnell's amendment,"

though feeling that the Irish methods of hindering business had kept

many English members out of the Nationalist lobby; and when Mr Forster

made his appeal for special powers, Bradlaugh made a strong speech

in support of one of the Irish amendments.[120] Yet again he felt

bound to vote for the suspension of Mr Biggar, doing it "with very

heavy heart," and grieving "that Irish members should so play into

the hands of their enemies, and so totally damage the cause of their

country." Of the later suspensions of Mr Dillon and the O'Gorman Mahon,

he wrote with much regret; but for others who had, outside, "boasted

that they wished to degrade Parliament," he confessed he had "little

pity." None the less, he moved the rejection of the Coercion Bill on

the second reading, in the never-explained absence of Mr Parnell, who

had suddenly gone to Paris. The Irish Anti-Coercion Committee, who

had just denounced him in one of their leaflets for his votes against

obstruction, felt constrained about this stage to send him a vote of

thanks. All the while, his journal had published numerous articles

sharply attacking the Government's coercion policy.

[Footnote 120: Those were "the days of all-night sittings," forced by

the policy of the Nationalists; and Bradlaugh missed voting on the

motion for leave to bring in the Coercion Bill, by reason of having

gone home to rest after having sat for twenty-six hours out of thirty,

the vote being suddenly taken in his absence on the decision of the

Speaker.]

A vote on the Arms Bill was the last act by which Bradlaugh ministered

to the wish of the Nationalists to have a case against him. He had

repeatedly protested against the advice given by Mr Dillon and others

to Irish peasants to buy rifles; and he held that the case of Ireland

was bad enough without adding to wrong and misery the freedom to seek

amends in murder. His vote on this point, like his votes against

obstruction, were held by the Parnellites to outweigh all his protests

against coercion and all his appeals for land law reform; his exclusion

from Parliament after the decision in the Law Courts in the spring

of 1881 was hailed by most of them with delight; and during his long

battle outside, they were among his worst enemies, the Irish press

and people fully abetting them. Still he never relaxed his advocacy

of the cause of the Irish peasantry, pleading for a merciful and

conciliatory treatment of them when they were hooting his name; and

when he at length obtained his seat in 1886 he gave his unhesitating

support to the Home Rule policy of Mr Gladstone. It was in that year

that a leading Irish Nationalist went up to him in the House with

the greeting, "Mr Bradlaugh, you have been the best Christian of us

all." Considering that only the influence of the Catholic priesthood

could account for the course taken by the Parnellite party, the

acknowledgment--in spirit if not in form--was suggestive of some moral

progress on the Christian side.

It may be questioned whether many Liberals could have thus borne the

test undergone by Bradlaugh on the Irish question. It is certain that

Bright, with all his chivalry and rectitude, was somewhat influenced in

his latter attitude on that question by the evil return which Irishmen

had made to him for all his efforts on their behalf. Bradlaugh

suffered far worse treatment at their hands, but was in no way turned

by it from his conviction of what was just. He was content to recognise

that the people were swayed by the priests, and that in any case it

is vain to look for the moral fruits of equality from a people to

whom equality has been for ages denied. He had been treated by Irish

Nationalists as he had been by English Conservatives; and though he

felt the ingratitude of the former, he would not admit that they had

shown any grosser unscrupulousness than the latter, who had denied

justice to an Englishman on motives of party strategy, reinforced by

religious malice. If there was any difference, it was that the Irishmen

had been more moved by religious malice and less by party strategy; and

it is usual to rate the latter motive the lower of the two.

Bradlaugh himself would never have claimed that he had shown any

special magnanimity in the case; but those who know how much personal

interest or pique counts for in political action will recognise the

singularity of his course. It belonged to his character, equally with

his avowal and advocacy of unpopular opinions. Later, when the question

of Woman Suffrage was being pressed on his constituency, he was told by

Mr Labouchere, as he had been told by others before, that if the women

of Northampton had a vote he would not be returned. His public answer

was:--

"If I knew this to be true, it would not hinder me from casting my

vote in favour of woman suffrage, even if my vote alone should be

required to pass the Bill. I deeply value the representation of

Northampton, but the grant of the right of woman to the suffrage

cannot be determined by the fact that, if legalised, her exercise of

that right according to her conscience would be personally hostile to

myself."

It may be doubted whether Mr Labouchere gauged the situation aright.

When Bradlaugh stood for Northampton in 1868 and was beaten, the wives

and women-folk of his supporters subscribed their scanty pence, and

bought him a gold pencil-case. If after hearing the utterance above

cited the Northampton women of to-day were capable of voting in the

mass against a man so declaring himself, they would indeed give Mr

Labouchere a better case against their enfranchisement than he has yet

been able to make out. But would they?

§ 6.

In virtue of the qualities which made him a warm friend of Ireland,

Bradlaugh was all his life, and in his latter years still more warmly,

the friend of India. All his instincts of justice and sympathy

were moved by the spectacle of that vast congeries of immemorially

immature races, ruled by a bureaucracy of Englishmen, none of whom

would for a moment be trusted to exercise similar power over their

fellow-countrymen, but all of whom collectively are assumed by their

countrymen to need next to no supervision when ruling a "lower" race.

Again and again Bradlaugh protested, as other Englishmen had protested

before him, against the inveterate apathy with which the House of

Commons regards Indian questions, as shown by the scanty handful of

members who attend to hear them discussed once a year. The death of

Professor Fawcett, "the member for India," left Indian interests ill

cared for indeed, and immediately on gaining his seat Bradlaugh stepped

into the vacant place, although it was by itself work enough for one

man, and he had three men's work on hand besides.

His speech on India in 1883 to his constituents shows the broad and

systematic way in which he approached the problem. He studied it with

the minute care he bestowed on every subject he handled; and in a few

years he acquired by his work an amount of popularity among natives

such as had never before been earned by an Englishman outside India,

and by few Anglo-Indians. As this work was mostly done after his

Parliamentary struggle was over, the record of it belongs to the story

of his closing years; but it was only the consistent sequel to his

previous political life. He took up the cause of India as he had done

those of Italy, Poland, Ireland, of Boers, Zulus, and Egyptians, with

no thought or prospect of personal gain, out of sheer zeal for justice

and hatred of oppression. And inasmuch as Anglo-Indians of the school

of Mr Rudyard Kipling have consistently derided and denounced his

Indian policy, it may be fitting to note at this point the advantage

that policy has over such opposition in respect of its relation

to universal political principles. The doctrine of Mr Kipling's

school--who may be defined as barbaric sentimentalists--is that Asia in

general, and India in particular, are absolute exceptions to all the

principles of European politics. The East, they say, is unprogressive,

unchangeable, unimprovable. The most direct confutation of that

doctrine is supplied by the simple fact of the persistence of the

Congress movement, which at its outset the sentimentalists scouted as a

chimera. Whatever may be its outcome, they are for ever discredited, in

that they declared the thing itself, when broached, to be impossible.

And those whose sociology goes deeper and wider than a rule-of-thumb

acquaintance with part of the actual life of a race or a region are

aware that India can no more than any other land resist the laws of

social transmutation, given the transmuting forces and conditions.

It is extremely unfortunate that many Englishmen are ready to accept

as final the sweeping sociological dicta of Mr Kipling, on the score

merely of his first-hand knowledge of Indian life and his literary

genius. Foolish generalisations on social possibilities have been made

in every country in every age by men with first-hand knowledge of their

theme; and it must be regretfully said that foolish men of genius are

among the most eminent darkeners of counsel on such matters. When Mr

Kipling gives a particular account of a particular phase of Indian

life, Englishmen who in the terms of the case have no knowledge of

that life accept the account as a "revelation," when obviously their

estimate of it in that light has no critical value whatever. Strong

in the suffrages of such judges, Mr Kipling has been pleased to speak

of Bradlaugh as being prepared by defective education to take that

mistaken view of Indian life which Mr Kipling inexpensively imputes

to all inquiring Englishmen at home. The sufficient answer to that

criticism is that there are many kinds of defective education, and

that nobody can well be further wrong about India than Mr Kipling,

inasmuch as he has himself contradicted every one of his own numerous

generalisations by others. He first came forward with pictures of the

Indian Civil and Military Services, in which they appeared nearly as

corrupt as those of Russia are said to be: husbands getting promotion

on the score of their wives' adultery, and so forth. Later he saw fit

to represent the Indian Civil Service as embodying every virtue a

Civil Service can have. As a rule, he pictures the English in India

as the "Dominant Race," with impressive capitals, and the natives as

being universally cowards. When, however, a native officer can "play

like a lambent flame" on the polo-field, and can transgress every

law of hospitality by thrasonically declaring defiance to Russia in

the person of a Russian officer at a British mess-table, that native

becomes even as an Englishman in Mr Kipling's eyes. The simple canon of

Mr Kipling is the feeling that any race which thwarts his own must be

base. Thus every indiscreet Russian officer must needs be a blackguard,

and every disaffected Irishman a ruffian and a sneak; the evil

principle being so deep rooted that the Asiatic children of an Irishman

spontaneously take to cutting off cows' tails; though at the same time

the Irish soldier is a hero of heroes, if only he is duly devoted to

"the Queen, God bless her." It will be a bad business for English rule

in India when minds which sociologise in this fashion come to be the

guides of the British people in their political relations with their

dependency.

Bradlaugh, it may suffice to say, was under no delusions as to the

present political capacity of the Indian races. He perfectly recognised

their bias to rhetoric and their immaturity of character, as well as

the enormous difficulties in the way of their political amalgamation.

Hence his programme for them was an extremely gradual introduction

of the principle of self-rule. Nothing could be more judicious and

restrained than his brief address to the Congress on his brief visit

to India after his dangerous illness of 1889, within about a year of

his death. And the chances are that before a generation is over his

view of the case will be the accepted commonplace of Liberal politics;

while the notion of a perpetual domination of Englishmen in a country

where they cannot rear healthy children will be regarded as a crowning

flight of unscientific political sentiment. In any case, it implies no

great rashness to predict that an England which ignores the affairs of

its subjects as much as possible in Parliament will not long be able to

maintain a despotic rule over a people accessible to Western ideas. The

Home Rule principle, which was for Bradlaugh a principle of universal

virtue, however different the degree of its application to a given case

at a given moment, must in time be wrought out in India as elsewhere,

if only it goes forward in the West, and the West keeps up its growing

intercourse with the East. And it was one of his many political merits

to have been one of the first to see this not only abstractly but in

the concrete.

* * * * *

Enough has now been said to convey a broad idea of the manner and

matter of Bradlaugh's philosophy of life, cosmical and political, as

it was developed and acted on by him at the time of his most memorable

appearance on the arena of British public life. At that time much

work, though not many years of life, remained to him, so that some who

then opposed him claimed afterwards that they could not have known his

capacities for good, as exhibited in his extraordinary Parliamentary

labours. But the foregoing account of his teaching and action will

probably suffice to show that his political career was all of a piece,

and that at the time of his ostracism he had given proof of all the

powers and opinions which were later admitted to do him honour.

Neither, as we shall see, did he in later life surrender any one of the

teachings of his earlier years. He laid more stress on some and less on

others; but he unsaid nothing, and for the most part he did but carry

on his youthful programme. Before 1880 he had been the ardent and yet

sagacious friend of oppressed nationalities, the advocate of Radical

land law reform, the defender of liberty of conscience, the exponent

of the claims of the poor against the rich, the preacher of unpopular

but all-important doctrines on personal conduct. In the brief period

of his first tenure of his seat he wrought vigorously against the

abuse of Perpetual Pensions, which he was later the means of removing,

though not in a fashion fully satisfying to himself. In the same

period he exhibited a constant concern for the remedying of all manner

of grievances. As early as 1863, too, he had taken what Mill rightly

calls the extremely undemagoguelike line of publishing a pamphlet in

favour of Proportional Representation, on the lines of Hare's scheme--a

"counsel of perfection" still too high for most democrats.

As for his general tone of feeling on the questions which turn in an

equal degree on feeling and judgment, it is well illustrated by the

last non-personal speech he made in the House in the period of his

conditional tenure of his seat. It was delivered on 28th March, and was

on the subject of flogging in the army:--

"Mr Bradlaugh said he wished to say a few words on this matter from

a different point of view than other members who had spoken. He had

been a private in the army during the time that flogging was permitted

for offences now described as trivial, and he heard the same argument

used, that it would cause a relaxation of discipline if flogging were

abolished. If hon. members opposite knew the feeling of the soldiers at

that time it would have much modified some of the speeches delivered

to-day (hear, hear); and the hon. member for Sunderland (Sir H.

Havelock-Allan) would be surprised to hear the number of letters

he had received from private soldiers, asking him to speak on this

subject to-day. There was a feeling of utter detestation against the

punishment, not simply on the part of the men who were likely to suffer

from it, but on the part of every one else. Private soldiers in England

occupied a position which no other private soldier in the whole of

Europe occupied, and he did not know any other country in the whole

world where it was a disgrace to wear the uniform of your country. He

remembered upon one occasion he went into an hotel in a great city

and ordered a cup of coffee, and was told that he could not be served

because he wore the uniform of his country. All punishments which

made soldiers seem less reputable than their fellow-citizens ought to

be abolished. He asked the Government to allow nothing whatever to

influence them in favour of this most degrading punishment. The men

who once felt the lash were not loyal to any command, and they felt a

bitterness and an abhorrence of every one connected with the ordering

of the punishment. If they flogged a man engaged on active service, he

was either a good man or a bad man, a man of some spirit or none at

all. If he were a man of any spirit, there were weapons in his hands,

and he might use them for purposes of revenge. The hon. and gallant

member for Wigton Burghs talked of men who preferred the lash. The army

would be far better without such men. (Mr Childers: Hear, hear.) He had

seen the lash applied, the man tied up, and stripped in the sight of

his comrades; he had seen the body blacken and the skin break; he had

heard the dull thud of the lash as it fell on the blood-soddened flesh,

and he was glad of having the opportunity of making his voice heard

against it to-day, and trusted that nothing would induce the Government

to retain under any conditions such a brutal punishment. (Cheers.)"

And it was with these matters in their knowledge that a majority of the

House of Commons subjected him for five years to an extremity of wanton

injustice of which it is still difficult to think without burning

anger. The story of that injustice must now be separately told.

CHAPTER III.

THE PARLIAMENTARY STRUGGLE.

_Chronological Summary._

1880 April 2. Bradlaugh elected (with Mr Labouchere) for Northampton.

May 3. Asked to be allowed to make affirmation of allegiance. A

Select Committee agreed to be appointed to consider his

claim.

12. Committee of 17 appointed.

20. Committee reported, by casting vote of Chairman, against

the claim to affirm.

Bradlaugh announces his intention to take the oath.

21. Presented himself at the table of the House to do so.

Motion made that he be not permitted. Amendment moved by

Mr Gladstone, that the claim to take the oath be

referred to a Select Committee, carried by 289 votes

to 214.

28. Committee of 23 appointed.

June 2. Bradlaugh examined by Committee.

16. Committee reported that Bradlaugh could not properly take

the oath, and recommended that he be allowed to affirm

at his legal peril.

21. Motion made by Mr Labouchere that he be allowed to affirm.

22. Motion defeated by 275 votes to 230.

23. Bradlaugh again presented himself, claiming to be sworn.

Made his _First Speech at the Bar_. Refusing to withdraw,

was finally taken into custody on motion of Sir Stafford

Northcote.

24. Bradlaugh unconditionally released from custody.

July 1. Mr Gladstone moved as a Standing Order that members-elect

be allowed at their choice to affirm, at their legal

peril. Motion carried by 303 votes to 249.

2. Bradlaugh made affirmation of allegiance and took his seat.

On giving his first vote, was served with a writ suing

for penalty.

14. Tory Bill introduced to incapacitate all Atheists for

membership (fell through).

1881 Mar. 11. Judgment given against Bradlaugh in suit for penalty, he

being thus pronounced unqualified to make affirmation of

allegiance. Bradlaugh gave notice of appeal.

31. Judgment given against him on appeal. Seat thus vacated.

1881 April 9. Bradlaugh re-elected for Northampton, by 3437 votes to

3305.

26. Presented himself to be sworn. Made his _Second Speech at

the Bar_. Motion made that he be not allowed to take the

oath, carried by 208 votes to 175, many Liberals and

Home Rulers abstaining. Bradlaugh again presented himself

to be sworn, and refused to withdraw. House

adjourned.

27. Bradlaugh presented himself as before, and refused to

withdraw. After debate, withdrew on informal

understanding that Government should attempt to introduce

an Affirmation Bill.

29. Government announced this intention.

May 2. Attorney-General in Commons moved for leave to introduce

Bill. Debate adjourned.

Lords Justices of Appeal decided against Bradlaugh on the

separate issue of his affirmation being a sufficient

answer to the claim that he was liable in a penalty for

voting without being sworn.

6. Debate in Commons again adjourned owing to Tory

obstruction.

10. Government, owing to continued obstruction, postponed the

Bill. Resolution carried, on motion of Tory leader, that

Bradlaugh be prevented entering House.

16-17. Clarke's counsel moved before Lord Coleridge and Mr

Bowen for judgment. Bradlaugh moved to be heard

afresh on the point of the validity of the writ, the

issue of which he contended had been too soon for

legality.

25. Bill of indemnity to Bradlaugh, introduced by Mr

Labouchere, blocked by Mr Newdegate, who had been

the private maintainer of the action for penalties.

June 20-21. Plaintiff having amended statement as to date of

voting, and Bradlaugh demurring that writ was void as

being dated on the day of the voting sued upon, Justices

Denman and Watkin Williams decided against him on the

legal point. Bradlaugh appealed.

July 19, 20, 22. The question of fact as to the actual hour of issue

of the writ came before Justice Grove and a special jury.

The jury, after declaring themselves unlikely to agree,

gave a majority verdict in favour of Clarke.

27. Police summonses obtained on Bradlaugh's behalf against

Mr Newdegate and his solicitor for the criminal offence

of maintenance.

28, and Aug. 1. Bradlaugh moved before Justices Grove and

Lindley for a new trial on the point of time of issue of

Clarke's writ, and argued the point. Decision delayed.

1881 Aug. 3. Bradlaugh, on trying to enter the House, was seized by

officials; and he resisting, was forcibly ejected after a

struggle by four messengers and ten policemen. Immediately

afterwards he was formally resisted in a formal

attempt by Inspector Denning.

5. Application by Bradlaugh for a summons against Inspector

Denning refused by Mr D'Eyncourt, police magistrate.

8. Rule _nisi_ for a new trial granted by Justices Grove and

Lindley.

Sept. 20. The summonses against Newdegate and his solicitor dismissed

by Mr Vaughan, magistrate.

Nov. 12 and 14. Bradlaugh's appeal from the decision of Justices

Denman and Watkin Williams (as to validity of writ dated

on day of ground of action) heard by Lord Coleridge and

Lord Justices Baggallay and Brett. Decision again against

Bradlaugh.

Dec. 2 and 3. Pleadings heard on the rule _nisi_ for a new trial on

the question of fact as to the hour of issue of the writ.

Rule made absolute in Bradlaugh's favour.

1882 Feb. 7. On the reassembling of Parliament, Bradlaugh again presented

himself, the excluding order having expired with the

Session in which it was passed. Northcote moved that he

be not allowed to swear. Government moved the previous

question. Bradlaugh _heard at Bar for the Third Time_.

Northcote's motion carried by 286 votes to 228. Bradlaugh

again presented himself, but being ordered to withdraw

below the bar, did so.

10. Mr Labouchere moved for a new writ for Northampton.

This refused by 307 votes to 18. Bradlaugh then advanced

to the table, administered the oath to himself, withdrew

below the bar on the Speaker's order, but returned and

took his seat. Churchill moved that the seat be declared

vacant. Debate adjourned.

21. Northcote moved an amendment to exclude Bradlaugh from

the precincts of the House. On its being noticed that

Bradlaugh had again seated himself within the House (he

proposing to speak), the Speaker ordered him to withdraw,

and Northcote moved his complete expulsion. This

carried by 297 votes to 80, and a new writ was agreed to.

21. Judgment given against Bradlaugh in Clarke's appeal against

rule for a new trial.

Mar. 2. Bradlaugh once more elected for Northampton by 3796 votes

to 3688.

6. Northcote again moved that Bradlaugh be not allowed to

take the oath should he again present himself. Mr

Marjoribanks moved amendment that it was desirable to

amend the law, making affirmation optional. Northcote's

motion carried by 259 votes to 244.

1882 Mar. 29. "Judgment" given against Bradlaugh for £500 penalty.

Costs reserved.

April. Action brought by Bradlaugh against Mr Erskine, Deputy

Sergeant-at-Arms, for assault of 3rd August 1881.

May 9. Bradlaugh moved before Lord Justices Brett and Cotton for

leave to appeal in Clarke case on point of costs. Appeal

dismissed: matter left to the House of Lords with the

main appeal.

15. Justices Manisty and Watkin Williams declined to hear

friendly action by Gurney against Bradlaugh for not

taking his seat. Pleadings to be readjusted.

July. Affirmation Bill, introduced by Duke of Argyll in House of

Lords, defeated.

11. Prosecution begun against Bradlaugh, Foote, and Ramsey

by Sir Henry Tyler, before Lord Mayor, for "publication

of blasphemous libels" in the _Freethinker_.

21. Bradlaugh "committed for trial." Bail accepted.

Nov. 10. Justice Mathew declined to hear Gurney's action on

readjusted pleadings, and discharged jury.

Dec. 18. Bradlaugh's action against Mr Erskine dismissed by Justice

Field.

1883 Feb. 2. Second _Freethinker_ prosecution begun, Bradlaugh not being

included.

20. Government moved for leave to introduce an Affirmation Bill:

motion carried by 184 votes to 53.

Mar. 5 and 6. Bradlaugh's appeal in the Clarke suit heard by the

House of Lords, he pleading in person.

6. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp sentenced to terms of imprisonment

in _Freethinker_ prosecution.

9 and 17. Bradlaugh's action against Newdegate for

"maintenance" heard by Lord Coleridge, Bradlaugh appearing

by counsel.

April 9. House of Lords gave judgment for Bradlaugh in his appeal,

with costs.

10. Bradlaugh separately tried on the first _Freethinker_

indictment before Lord Coleridge and a jury. Verdict of

acquittal.

23. Lord Coleridge gave judgment for Bradlaugh against

Newdegate, with costs.

April 24 and 25. Foote and Ramsey (now prisoners on conviction in

second prosecution) tried before Lord Coleridge and a

jury on the original indictment. After the judge's

summing up, the jury disagreeing, the Crown decided

to abandon this prosecution (prisoners already very

heavily sentenced).

23-May 3. Debate on second reading of Affirmation Bill.

Bill rejected by a majority of 3--292 against and 289 for.

May 4. Bradlaugh again presented himself to be sworn. Northcote

moved that he be not allowed to take the oath. Being

allowed to speak, Bradlaugh made his _Fourth Speech at

the Bar_. Mr Labouchere moved the "previous question,"

and was defeated by 271 votes to 165.

1883 July 9. Bradlaugh having notified his intention again to present

himself (by way of raising a testing action at law)

Northcote moved his exclusion. Carried by 232 votes to

65.

19. Bradlaugh began test action against the Sergeant-at-Arms

for resisting his entrance to the House.

Dec. 7. Bradlaugh _v._ Gossett heard before Lord Coleridge and

Justices Stephen and Mathew.

1884 Feb. 9. Judgment given against Bradlaugh.

11. Bradlaugh once more presented himself at the table of

the House, and administered the oath to himself. Motion

by Northcote that he had not really sworn, and that he

be not allowed to swear, carried by 258 votes to 161.

Motion by Northcote of complete exclusion, carried by

228 to 120.

12. New writ allowed for Northampton after Tory resistance.

19. Bradlaugh re-elected for Northampton by 4032 votes, to

3664 for Richards.

21. Though Bradlaugh undertook not to present himself till

the decision were given in the action to be brought

against him by the Government for his last oath-taking,

Northcote moved afresh his complete exclusion from the

precincts of the House. Carried by 226 to 173.

June 13-18. Government's action against Bradlaugh for illegally

taking the oath, heard before Lord Coleridge, Mr Baron

Huddleston, and Mr Justice Grove, "sitting at bar," and a

jury, five counsel acting for the Crown, Bradlaugh

pleading his own cause.

30. Lord Coleridge summed up. Jury gave answers for the

Crown. Bradlaugh asked for a stay to move for a new

trial.

Dec. 6. Motion for new trial heard by the same judges sitting "_in

banc_". Rule refused. Bradlaugh appealed.

15. Appeal heard by Lords Justices Brett, Cotton, and Lindley.

18. Judges of appeal gave rule _nisi_ on points of law only,

the appeal in arrest of judgment to be argued at the

same time.

1885 Jan. 26. Arguments heard on whole case.

26. Judgment given against Bradlaugh as incapable of taking

an oath in law. Notice of appeal given.

July 6. On the new (Conservative) ministry taking office, Bradlaugh

again presented himself to be sworn. Motion of exclusion

by Sir M. Hicks-Beach. Amendment moved by Mr

Hopwood (who had introduced an Affirmation Bill)

declaring that legislation was necessary, lost by 219

votes to 263.

1885 Nov. 25. Bradlaugh again carried for Northampton at the general

election, the figures being--Labouchere 4845; Bradlaugh

4315; Richards 3890.

1886 Jan. 13. The new Speaker (Mr Peel) permitted Bradlaugh to take the

oath, refusing to allow any interference.

Affirmation Bill introduced by Mr Sergeant Simon, but never

brought to a second reading.

1888 Aug. 9. Bradlaugh carried a general Affirmation Bill, which passed

the House of Lords and became law.

1891 Jan. 27. While Bradlaugh lay dying, the House of Commons passed

a resolution, moved by Mr W. A. Hunter, expunging

from the Journals of the House the resolutions excluding

him in former years.

§ 1.

In the general election of 1880 Bradlaugh was at length elected member

for Northampton. He had fought the constituency for twelve years,

and had been defeated at three elections, at one of which he was

not present. As has been made plain from the story of his life thus

far, it was his way to carry out to the end any undertaking on which

he entered, unless he found it to be wholly impracticable; and he

was very slow to feel that an aim was impracticable because it took

long-continued effort to realise it. He seems first to have thought

of standing for Northampton about 1866. At that time Northampton was

already reckoned a likely Radical constituency, not so much on account

of its Parliamentary record as on the strength of the Radical element

in its population. The trouble was that for long the bulk of the

workers were not electors. His eloquence could win him a splendid show

of hands in the market-place, but the polls told a different tale. The

Whiggish middle classes were in the main intensely hostile to him, on

political as well as on religious grounds; and the influence of pastors

and masters alike was zealously used against him. After the passing of

the Household Suffrage Act of 1868, however, the constituency became

every year more democratic. The Freehold Land Society, some of whose

founders and leading members were among his most devoted and capable

followers, created year after year scores of freeholds, the property of

workers, in a fashion that has finally made Northampton almost unique

among our manufacturing towns. The electorate, which in 1874 had stood

at 6829, had in 1880 risen to 8189; and of these it was estimated that

2,500 had never before voted. Of the new voters, the majority were

pretty sure to be Radicals, and as Bradlaugh's hold on the constituency

had grown stronger with every struggle, it began to be apparent to many

of the "moderate Liberals" that a union between their party and his

must be accepted if the two seats were not to remain in Tory hands.

In the early spring, however, the confusion of candidatures seemed

hopeless. Mr (now Sir) Thomas Wright of Leicester stood as a Liberal

candidate at the request of a large body of the electors, and though

not combining with Bradlaugh, deprecated the running of a second and

hostile Liberal candidate. Other Liberals, however, brought forward

in succession three candidates, of whom the once well-known Mr Ayrton

was the most important. He, however, failed to gain ground, partly

by reason of the qualities which had made him a disastrous colleague

to Mr Gladstone's ministry, partly by reason of coming to grief in a

controversy with Bradlaugh as to the facts of the agitation for a free

press, and free right of meeting in Hyde Park, in regard to which Mr

Ayrton claimed official credit. His candidature finally fell through

when he met with an accident. A Mr Hughes was brought forward, only to

be removed from the contest by an attack of illness. Mr Jabez Spencer

Balfour, of recent notoriety, made a very favourable impression, but

could not persuade "moderates" enough that the Liberals ought to unite

with the Radicals. A little later Mr Labouchere was introduced, and

giving his voice at once for union, found so much support that Mr

Wright, with great generosity and public spirit, shortly withdrew,

giving his support to the joint candidature of Bradlaugh and

Labouchere, who stood pretty much alike in their Radicalism, though the

latter was described in the local Liberal press as the "nominee of the

moderate Liberals." As he explained in his own journal, a man who was a

moderate Liberal in Northampton would rank as a Radical anywhere else.

The joint candidature once agreed upon, victory was secure.

The Tory candidates were the former sitting members, Mr Phipps, the

leading local brewer, and Mr Merewether, a lawyer. Their platform

opposition was not formidable, and the greatest play on their

side was made by the clergy and the press, who sought to make the

contest turn as far as possible on Bradlaugh's atheism and on his

Neo-Malthusianism. Nearly all the Established Church clergy, and some

of the Nonconformists preached fervently against the "infidel." On

the Sunday before the election the vicar of St Giles' intimated that

"to those noble men who loved Christ more than party, Jesus would

say, 'Well done!'" and on the day before the poll many thousands of

theological circulars were showered upon the constituency. On the other

hand, the deep resentment of Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy felt by

a great part of the nation led to unheard-of concessions on the part

of the Nonconformists. The late Mr Samuel Morley, a representative

Dissenter, wealthy and pious, being appealed to for an expression

of opinion on the Northampton situation, sent to Mr Labouchere a

telegram--soon repented of--"strongly urging necessity of united effort

in all sections of the Liberal party, and the sinking of minor and

personal questions, with many of which I deeply sympathise, in order to

prevent the return, in so pronounced a constituency as Northampton, of

even one Conservative." At the same time Mr Spurgeon was without the

slightest foundation described in the Tory press as having said, with

regard to the fight at Northampton, that "if the devil himself were a

Liberal candidate, he would vote for him;" and it was supposed that the

anecdote affected some votes.

But before any of these episodes had occurred, Bradlaugh was tolerably

well assured of victory. His organisation, then controlled by his

staunch supporter Councillor Thomas Adams, who lived to be Mayor of

Northampton, was perfect; and he knew his strength as nearly as a

candidate ever can who has not already been elected. The combination

of his forces with those of Mr Labouchere of course strengthened him;

yet such was still the strength of religious animosity that though the

joint candidature stood on the footing of a strict division of votes,

every elector having two, for the two seats, the Liberal press still

encouraged "plumping," and many then, as later, voted for Mr Labouchere

who would not vote for Bradlaugh, thus provoking a smaller number of

the latter's supporters to "plump" for their man in turn. The result

was that the election figures stood:--Labouchere (L.) 4518; Bradlaugh

(R.) 3827; Phipps (C.) 3152; Merewether (C.) 2826.

No sooner were the results known throughout the country than the

Northampton election became a theme of special comment, and of course

of special outcry from the defeated party. One journal, the _Sheffield

Telegraph_, which about the same time described the Scriptural

phrase about the dog and his vomit as a "popular, though somewhat

coarse saying," designated Bradlaugh as "the bellowing blasphemer of

Northampton." Mr Samuel Morley was hotly assailed, and promptly wrote

to the _Record_ a pitiful letter of recantation, which ended:--

"No feeling of pride prevents my saying that I deeply regret the step

I took, which was really the work of a moment; and I feel assured that

no one who knows me will doubt that I view with intense repugnance

the opinions which are held by Mr Bradlaugh on religious and social

questions."

To which Mr Bradlaugh in his own journal replied that he had had no

part whatever in the appeal to Mr Samuel Morley, and that he would have

been elected all the same if Mr Morley had done nothing, adding the

following:--

"We have no knowledge of the opinions of Mr Morley except that he

is reputedly very rich, and therefore exceedingly good; but we must

express in turn our intense repugnance to the conduct of Mr Morley,

who having accidentally been betrayed into an act of kindness to a

fellow-creature, regrets the act when pressure is brought to bear upon

him by a pack of cowardly and anonymous bigots, and couples the public

expression of his regret with a voluntary insult to one for whom Mr

Morley publicly expressed great respect on the only occasion on which

the two have yet come publicly in contact."

Mr Spurgeon, who had been quite falsely accused of avowing readiness to

welcome the devil as a Liberal candidate, had the manliness to declare,

while indignantly repudiating that latitudinarian doctrine, that Mr

Bradlaugh's claims to be returned to Parliament were not to be measured

by his piety or orthodoxy.

§ 2.

But the question was soon carried into a greater arena. The elections

were over in April; on 3rd May Parliament assembled, and Bradlaugh's

first problem was to choose his course in the matter of the oath of

allegiance, the taking of which by members of Parliament is still

made a condition of their taking their seats. It has long been felt

by the thoughtful few, even including Theists, that oath-taking, a

barbaric and primevally superstitious act under all circumstances,

is gratuitously absurd in the case of admission to Parliament, where

it serves to bring about the maximum of religious indecorum without

in any way affecting the action of anybody. Originally set up in the

reign of Elizabeth, the Parliamentary oath was maintained in the

interest of disputed dynasties, though it was notoriously taken by

hundreds of men who were perfectly ready to overthrow, if they could,

the dynasty to which they swore allegiance. Now that there is no

longer any question of rival dynasties, and that no instructed person

disputes the power of Parliament to abolish the Monarchy, the oath of

allegiance is maintained by the stolid unreason which supports the

monarchic tradition all round. State after State has abandoned the

practice as absurd; but Britain clings to it with hardly even a demur,

save from men of the chair. France since 1870 has had neither oath nor

affirmation, though, if oaths could be supposed to count for anything,

the Republic might fitly have exacted them. Since 1868 affirmation has

been substituted for the Parliamentary oath in Austria; and congressmen

and senators in the United States have their choice between swearing

and affirming. Neither oath nor affirmation is exacted in the German

Reichstag, though the members of the Prussian Diet, like those of the

States General of Holland, still swear. In Italy, the performance is

attenuated to the utterance of the one word "Giuro," "I swear." In

Spain, where it has never deterred rebellion, the oath, as might be

expected, remains mediævally elaborate.

Before Bradlaugh's time the oath in England had been adapted to

the requirements of Catholics, Quakers, and Jews successively, the

resistance increasing considerably in the last case. O'Connell's

refusal to take the Protestant oath of supremacy in 1829, when there

were three separate oaths--one of allegiance, one of supremacy, and one

of adjuration--led to the passing of an Act permitting Catholic members

to take the Catholic oath, already provided under the Catholic Relief

Act for use in Ireland. Protestant public opinion avowedly regarded

all Irish Catholics with distrust as being disaffected, but the Tory

leaders being committed to Catholic Emancipation, the resistance was

overpowered. The next extension took place under Whig auspices.

In 1833 the Quakers, who in the case of Archdale in 1699 had been held

incapable of sitting in Parliament by reason of their refusal to swear,

were allowed to affirm, first by resolution of the House, later by Act.

This was done at the instance of a Quaker member, Sir Joseph Pease, who

besides being rich enjoyed personally the respect latterly accorded to

his sect by those which formerly persecuted it.

Then came the case of the Jews, first raised in the person of

Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, in 1850. There was now a triple

Protestant oath, and an alternative Catholic oath, the theoretically

dangerous church being allowed to swear in its own way; but for the

small community of Jews there was no formula, and the Jewish banker

had to choose between exclusion and swearing "on the true faith of a

Christian." He omitted these words from his oath, and was accordingly

declared disentitled to sit, the House at the same time formally

resolving to take Jewish disabilities into its consideration at the

earliest opportunity in the next Session. In 1851, another Jew, David

Salomons, returned for Greenwich, refused to take the oath in the

Christian form, formally resisted the Speaker's ruling against him, was

formally removed, and was excluded from his seat. Not till 1858 was the

relief given. In that year a single (Christian) oath was substituted

for the triple asseveration of the past, and on the re-elected Baron

Lionel again refusing it, he was allowed, by resolution of the House,

to swear without the Christian formula. In 1859 he, with Baron Mayer

Amschel de Rothschild and Salomons, was again sworn theistically.

Finally, in 1866, by the Parliamentary Oaths Act, the oath was made

simply theistic for all, the familiar expletive "So help me God"

being held sufficient to associate the First Cause ethically with the

proceeding in hand.

This movement was doubtless due to a certain semi-rational perception

of the futility of oaths in general, as being a vain formality to

honest men, and a vain barrier to others. Sir William Hamilton,

a thinker so fervent in his instinctive Theism that he undid his

philosophy to accommodate it, had in his day created a strong

impression by his essays (1834-5), on the right of Dissenters to be

admitted into the English universities, in which he emphatically

reiterated the declaration of Bishop Berkeley--made when the oath

test was in fullest use--that there is "no nation under the sun where

solemn perjury is so common as in England." "If the perjury of England

stand pre-eminent in the world," said Hamilton, "the perjury of the

English Universities, and of Oxford in particular, stands pre-eminent

in England." Doctrine like this had made for an abolition of oaths

which could easily be classified as "unnecessary," and for the

simplification of those retained; but though the very step of reducing

the act of imprecation to a curt conventional form meant, if anything,

the belittling of the act of imprecation as such, the Parliamentary

formula had for half a generation remained unchallenged. John Mill

had in 1865 sworn "on the true faith of a Christian," and a good many

Agnostics and Positivists have since unmurmuringly invoked the unknown

God. It was left for Bradlaugh to attempt a departure from the course

of dissembling conformity. When he stood for Northampton in 1868 (as he

stated in answer to Mr Bright on the second select committee of 1880),

he had gravely considered the question of oath-taking, there being then

no possibility of affirmation. Believing now that he had the right to

affirm under the Act which permitted affirmation to witnesses, he felt

bound to exercise it.

As every step in his action has been and still is a subject of

obstinate misconception and wilful falsehood, the story must be here

told with some minuteness. The usual statement is that he "refused"

to take the oath of allegiance. He did no such thing. A professed

Atheist, he had been the means of bringing about the legal reform

which enabled unbelievers to give evidence on affirmation, albeit the

form of enactment was, to say the least, invidious. A great difficulty

is felt by many Christians in regard to the abolition of the oath,

in that they fear to open the way for false testimony by witnesses

who would fear to swear to a lie, but do not scruple to lie on mere

affirmation. It is for Christians to take the onus of asserting that

there are such people among their co-religionists; and they have

always asserted it in the House of Commons when there is any question

of dispensing with oaths. And it was on this plea that the first Act

framed to allow unbelievers to give evidence on affirmation was made

to provide that the judge should in each case satisfy himself that a

witness claiming to affirm was not a person on whom an oath would have

a binding effect. That is to say, he was to make sure that the witness

was not a knavish religionist trying to dodge the oath, in order to

lie with an easy mind. It was the duplicity of certain believers, and

not the duplicity of unbelievers, that was to be guarded against,

though, of course, the only security against the lying of believers

in answer to the judge was that a known conformist would be afraid

publicly to pretend that he had scruples against the oath. But the

main effect of the clause, framed to guard against pious knavery,

was to stigmatise unbelievers as persons on whom an oath would have

"no binding effect." An ill-conditioned judge was thus free to insult

Freethinking witnesses, and even a just judge was free to embarrass

them by an invidious question, since the bare wording of the Act

enabled and even encouraged the judge to ask them--not, as he ought to

have done, whether the oath was to them unmeaning in respect of the

words of adjuration, but--whether the oath as a whole would be "binding

on their conscience."[121] While recognising the invidiousness of such

a question, Bradlaugh always claimed to affirm in courts of law, though

to him, as to most professed rationalists, the repetition of an idle

expletive was only a vexation, and in no way an act of deception, when

made the inevitable preliminary to the fulfilment of any civic duty.

He had openly avowed his opinions, and if the oath was still exacted,

the responsibility lay with those who insisted on it. On his return

to Parliament he felt that not only would it be inconsistent for him

to take the oath if he could avoid it, but it would be gratuitously

indecorous, from the point of view of the believing Christian majority.

Sitting in the house before the "swearing-in," he remarked to Mr

Labouchere that he felt it would be unseemly for him to go through

that form when he believed he was legally entitled to affirm. And in

this belief, it must always be remembered, he had the support of the

former Liberal law officers of the Crown, who had privately given it as

their opinion[122] that he was empowered to affirm his allegiance under

the law relating to the affirmation of unbelievers. With that opinion

behind him, he was in the fullest degree entitled--nay, he was morally

bound as a conscientious rationalist--to take the course he did. Other

rationalists, real or reputed, were returned to the same Parliament.

Professor Bryce, as candidate for the Tower Hamlets, had been assailed

as an Atheist, and was yet returned at the head of the poll. Mr Firth

had been similarly attacked, but was nevertheless carried in Chelsea.

Neither of these gentlemen, however, made any public avowal, direct or

indirect, of heresy. Mr John Morley, who was justifiably regarded as a

Positivist or Agnostic on the strength of his writings, when elected

later made no demur to the oath; and Mr Ashton Dilke, who afterwards

avowed his heterodoxy in the House of Commons,[123] also took it

without comment. It was left to Bradlaugh to fight the battle of common

sense--I might say of common honesty, were it not that long usage has

in these matters wholly vitiated the moral standards of the community,

and honourable men are free to do, and do habitually, things which,

abstractly considered, are acts of dissimulation.

[Footnote 121: In the action of Richards _v._ Hough and Co., however,

in May 1882, Mr Justice Grove expressly remarked that some judges did

not think it necessary to enquire at all as to the belief of a witness

claiming to affirm. In the prosecution of Bradlaugh, Foote, and Ramsay

in 1883 for blasphemy, on the other hand, Lord Coleridge, a very

considerate judge, expressly asked Mr Foote, before letting him affirm,

whether the oath "would be binding on his conscience," though Mr Foote,

declaring himself an atheist, rightly objected to such a query. His

lordship after discussion agreed to modify the question, making it

apply only to the words of invocation; and he put the question with

still more modification to Mrs Besant, who, warned by what had been

done to her partner, declared in so many words that any promise she

made would be binding on her, whatever the form.]

[Footnote 122: Sir Henry James later avowed that they adhered to that

opinion all along.]

[Footnote 123: In the discussion on the Burials Bill, 1881.]

§ 3.

Bradlaugh's first formal step after obtaining the opinion of the last

Liberal law officers and privately consulting the officials of the

House, was to hand to the Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir Thomas

Erskine May, on May 3rd, a written paper in the following terms:--

"_To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons._

"I, the undersigned Charles Bradlaugh, beg respectfully to claim to be

allowed to affirm as a person for the time being by law permitted to

make a solemn affirmation or declaration, instead of taking an oath."

He had already explained, in answer to the questions of the Clerk,

that he made his claim in virtue of the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866,

the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Amendment Act,

1870, which "explains and amends" the Act of 1869. The Clerk formally

communicated these matters to the Speaker (Sir Henry Brand), who then

invited Bradlaugh to make a statement to the House with regard to his

claim. Bradlaugh replied:

"Mr Speaker,--I have only now to submit that the Parliamentary Oaths

Act, 1866, gives the right to affirm to every person for the time

being permitted by law to make affirmation. I am such a person; and

under the Evidence Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Amendment

Act 1870, I have repeatedly for nine years past affirmed in the

highest Courts of Jurisdiction in this realm. I am ready to make the

declaration or affirmation of allegiance."

The Speaker thereupon requested him to withdraw, and formally restated

the claim to the House, remarking that he had "grave doubts" on the

matter, and desired to refer it to the House's judgment. On behalf of

the Treasury bench, Lord Frederick Cavendish, remarking that the advice

of the new law officers of the Crown was not yet available, moved that

the point be referred to a Select Committee. Sir Stafford Northcote,

the Tory leader in the Commons, was at this stage not actively hostile.

A man of well-meaning and temperate though meagre quality, made up of

small doses of virtues and capacities, well fitted to be a country

gentleman, but of too thin stuff and too narrow calibre to be either

a very good or a very bad statesman, he was a Conservative by force

of tradition and mental limitation, and a partisan leader in respect

of his pliability to his associates. As his biographer puts it, he

was "not recalcitrant to compromise" in matters of party strategy and

leadership. Being personally willing to substitute affirmation for

oath,[124] he seconded the Liberal motion without any show of animus,

and only some of his minor followers, as Earl Percy and Mr Daniel

Onslow, sought to effect the adjournment of the debate. This attempt,

however, was not pressed to a division, and the Select Committee was

agreed to.

[Footnote 124: He wrote in his diary at the time: "It seems strange

to require an oath from a Christian, and _to dispense with it from an

Atheist_. Would it not be better to do away with the member's oath

altogether, and make the affirmation general?" (Mr Lang's "Life of

Northcote," ii. 154.)]

Only a few of the speeches in the House thus far had indicated a

desire among the Tory party to make Bradlaugh the victim of their feud

with the Liberals. But outside the House, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff,

member for Portsmouth, speaking at Christchurch, had already publicly

declared his intention to oppose Bradlaugh's entry: the broaching of

the oath question in legal and other journals before the assembling of

Parliament having given to such politicians their cue. Over and above

the purely factious motive of such men, and of the mass of the Tories,

there was the motive of genuine religious malice; and the two instincts

in combination wrought memorable results.

On 10th May Lord Richard Grosvenor, the Liberal Whip, announced to

the House the names of the proposed members of the Select Committee

whose appointment he should move next day:--Mr Whitbread, Sir J.

Holker, Mr John Bright, Lord Henry Lennox, Mr W. N. Massey, Mr Staveley

Hill, Sir Henry Jackson, the Attorney-General (Sir Henry James), the

Solicitor-General (Mr Farrer Herschell), Sir G. Goldney, Mr Grantham,

Mr Pemberton, Mr Watkin Williams, Mr Spencer H. Walpole, Mr Hopwood,

Mr Beresford Hope, Major Nolan, Mr Chaplin, and Mr Serjeant Simon.

Although the motion was not to come on till next day, Sir Henry

Drummond Wolff sought, in despite of the Speaker's opposition, to

raise at once a debate on the legitimacy of the Committee; and on the

following day he was able to do so. He moved "the previous question,"

and pronounced the course taken "inconvenient, unprecedented, and

irregular," although it had been agreed to by his nominal leader;

thus beginning the tactic of independent action which served to mark

him off with three colleagues,[125] as constituting a "fourth party"

in the House, the other three being the main bodies of Liberals and

Tories, and the Irish Home Rulers. The debate, once begun, was carried

on with great violence and recklessness, Mr Stanley Leighton alleging

that Bradlaugh had been pressed on the Northampton constituency by

the Liberal "whip," prompted by Mr Gladstone; and Sir R. Knightley

affirming that the election had been determined by the interference

of Mr Samuel Morley. A member known as F. H. O'Donnel, but originally

named Macdonald, an Irish Catholic, asserted that Bradlaugh had

"explained religion as a disease of the brain, and conscience as a

nervous contraction of the diaphragm." After more random discussion the

House divided, when there voted for the appointment of the Committee

171, against it, 74, giving a majority of 97 to the Government. Most of

the Conservative leaders walked out of the House before the division,

thus already showing a disposition to surrender to the irresponsibles

on their side.[126]

[Footnote 125: These were Mr Gorst, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Mr A.

J. Balfour. The latter took little oral part in the Bradlaugh struggle,

but always voted with his party.]

[Footnote 126: Northcote's diary, so far as published, naturally

offers no confession or explanation as to the change in his attitude.

Under date May 24, he simply records that "we agreed to stand firm for

Wolff's motion" (Mr Lang's "Life," ii. 159).]

Already, too, there began to be apparent what can now no longer be

disputed--the mismanagement of the Speaker. Only bad judgment or

partiality could account for his permission of such gross irrelevance

as filled the speeches of Mr Leighton and Mr F. H. O'Donnel, _alias_

Macdonald. On the language of the latter now forgotten personage Mr

Bradlaugh thus commented in the _National Reformer_:--

"I remember, fourteen or fifteen years ago, when the countrymen of

that member's constituents came to me for help and counsel. The

honourable member professes to now represent those Irishmen who then

sought and had my aid; and on Tuesday he in effect told the House that

it ought to exclude from it one who did not believe in God, and had no

standard of morality. But I see from the division list that the 'third

party,' of which he pretended to be the spokesman at the election of

the Speaker, went into the lobby opposed to that into which their

leader went, so that the really Irish members did not forget old ties."

Unfortunately the latter tribute was not long to be deserved.

On 20th May the Select Committee presented its report. There had been

eight members in favour of the view that Bradlaugh was legally entitled

to affirm, and eight against; and the casting vote of the chairman, Mr

Spencer H. Walpole, was given for the Noes. It was said, and it was

believed by Mr Bradlaugh, that Sir John Holker had avowed a belief

that his claim was valid, but Sir John Holker on the Committee voted

with his party. Save for the fact that the Noes included Mr Hopwood,

the vote would stand as a purely party one, the rest of the Noes being

Conservatives, while the rest of the Liberals took the affirmative

side. And so general was the attitude of reckless prejudice that we

still find the Chairman's son giving a flatly misleading account of the

situation. Mr Spencer Walpole, in his work on "The Electorate and the

Legislature"[127] published in 1881, and re-issued in 1892, has made

(p. 75) this statement (italics ours):--

[Footnote 127: Macmillan & Co., "The English Citizen" series.]

"In 1880 ... the legislature was suddenly confronted with a new

dilemma. The borough of Northampton sent a representative to

Parliament who _refused to take an oath_--not because he had any

conscientious objection to be sworn, but because an appeal to a

God--in whom he had no belief--seemed to him an idle formula which was

not binding on his conscience."

Since Mr Walpole has chosen to print and reprint this maliciously

untrue statement, and takes no notice whatever of published protests

against it, I am obliged to say in so many words that he, a professed

historian, is here grossly perverting history. Much might indeed be

set down to his carelessness. Issuing in 1892 the second edition of

what should be an authoritative treatise, Mr Walpole inserts (p. 77)

a passage as to Parliamentary affirmation which is completely quashed

by the passing of Mr Bradlaugh's Affirmation Act of 1888. Of this Act,

in 1892, Mr Walpole does not seem to have any knowledge; but however

he may contrive to overlook such a fact as this, he cannot have been

unaware in 1880 that Mr Bradlaugh did _not_ refuse to take the oath,

and that he repudiated the expression that the oath would not be

binding on his conscience,[128] repeatedly declaring that any promise

he made would as such be binding on his conscience, whether or not an

idle formula should be appended to it. Bradlaugh's position on this

point was always explicit; for him a promise, however embellished,

was a promise which as an honourable man he was bound to keep. By

the majority of the British House of Commons it is still implicitly

ruled that a certain promise would not necessarily be binding on the

consciences of Christian members unless accompanied by the popular

imprecation "So help me God."

[Footnote 128: A technical assent to this ambiguous question was, as we

have seen, the condition attached to affirmation in the law courts. But

common decency usually gave the formula there a purely technical and

non-natural force.]

The decision of the first Select Committee, on the casting vote of

the chairman, at once carried the question to a new phase. Bradlaugh

immediately published a statement[129] of his position as to the oath,

the taking of which he now held to be forced upon him by the refusal of

the right to affirm.

[Footnote 129: Printed in _National Reformer_ of 30th May 1889, p. 338,

and in several London newspapers.]

It ran:--

"When elected as one of the Burgesses to represent Northampton in

the House of Commons, I believed that I had the legal right to make

affirmation of allegiance in lieu of taking the oath, as provided by

sec. 4 of the Parliamentary Oaths Act, 1866. While I considered that

I had this legal right, it was then clearly my moral duty to make the

affirmation. The oath, although to me including words of idle and

meaningless character, was and is regarded by a large number of my

fellow-countrymen as an appeal to Deity to take cognizance of their

swearing. It would have been an act of hypocrisy to voluntarily take

this form if any other had been open to me, or to take it without

protest, as though it meant in my mouth any such appeal. I therefore

quietly and privately notified the Clerk of the House of my desire to

affirm. His view of the law and practice differing from my own, and

no similar case having theretofore arisen, it became necessary that I

should tender myself to affirm in a more formal manner, and this I did

at a season deemed convenient by those in charge of the business of

the House. In tendering my affirmation I was careful, when called on

by the Speaker to state my objection, to do nothing more than put, in

the fewest possible words, my contention that the Parliamentary Oaths

Act, 1866, gave the right to affirm in Parliament to every person for

the time being by law permitted to make an affirmation in lieu of

taking an oath, and that I was such a person, and therefore claimed to

affirm. The Speaker, neither refusing nor accepting my affirmation,

referred the matter to the House, which appointed a Select Committee

to report whether persons entitled to affirm under the Evidence

Amendment Acts, 1869 and 1870, were under sec. 4 of the Parliamentary

Oaths Act, 1866, also entitled to affirm as Members of Parliament.

This Committee, by the casting vote of its Chairman, has decided

that I am not entitled to affirm. Two courses are open to me--one,

of appeal to the House against the decision of the Committee; the

other, of present compliance with the ceremony, while doing my best

to prevent the further maintenance of a form which many other members

of the House think as objectionable as I do, but which habit and the

fear of exciting prejudice has induced them to submit to. To appeal to

the House against the decision of the Committee would be ungracious,

and would certainly involve great delay of public business. I was

present at the deliberations of the Committee, and while, naturally, I

cannot be expected to bow submissively to the statements and arguments

of my opponents, I am bound to say that they were calmly and fairly

urged. I think them unreasonable, but the fact that they included a

legal argument from an earnest Liberal deprives them even of a purely

party character. If I appealed to the House against the Committee,

I, of course, might rely on the fact that the Attorney-General, the

Solicitor-General, Sir Henry Jackson, Q.C., Mr Watkin Williams,

Q.C., and Mr Sergeant Simon, are reported in the _Times_ to have

interpreted the law as I do; and I might add that the Right Honourable

John Bright and Mr Whitbread are in the same journal arrayed in favour

of allowing me to affirm. But even then the decision of the House may

endorse that of the Committee, and should it be in my favour, it could

only--judging from what has already taken place--be after a bitter

party debate, in which the Government specially, and the Liberals

generally, would be sought to be burdened with my anti-theological

views, and with promoting my return to Parliament. As a matter of

fact, the Liberals of England have never in any way promoted my return

to Parliament. The much-attacked action of Mr Adam had relation only

to the second seat, and in no way related to the one for which I was

fighting. In 1868 the only action of Mr Gladstone and of Mr Bright

was to write letters in favour of my competitors, and since 1868 I do

not believe that either of these gentlemen has directly or indirectly

interfered in any way in connection with my parliamentary candidature.

The majority of the electors of Northampton had determined to return

me before the recent union in that borough, and while pleased to aid

their fellow-Liberals in winning the two seats, my constituents would

have at any rate returned me had no union taken place. My duty to my

constituents is to fulfil the mandate they have given me, and if to do

this I have to submit to a form less solemn to me than the affirmation

I would have reverently made, so much the worse for those who force me

to repeat words which I have scores of times declared are to me sounds

conveying no clear and definite meaning. I am sorry for the earnest

believers who see words sacred to them used as a meaningless addendum

to a promise, but I cannot permit their less sincere co-religionists

to use an idle form, in order to prevent me from doing my duty to

those who have chosen me to speak for them in Parliament. I shall,

taking the oath, regard myself as bound not by the letter of its

words, but by the spirit which the affirmation would have conveyed had

I been permitted to use it. So soon as I am able I shall take such

steps as may be consistent with parliamentary business to put an end

to the present doubtful and unfortunate state of the law and practice

on oaths and affirmations. Only four cases have arisen of refusal to

take the oath, except, of course, those cases purely political in

their character. Two of those cases are those of the Quakers John

Archdale and Joseph Pease. The religion of these men forbade them to

swear at all, and they nobly refused. The sect to which they belonged

was outlawed, insulted, and imprisoned. They were firm, and one of

that sect sat on the very Committee, a member of Her Majesty's Privy

Council and a member of the actual Cabinet. I thank him gratefully

that, valuing right so highly, he cast his vote so nobly for one for

whom I am afraid he has but scant sympathy. No such religious scruple

prevents me from taking the oath as prevented John Archdale and Joseph

Pease. In the cases of the Baron Rothschild and Alderman Salomons the

words 'upon the true faith of Christian' were the obstacle. To-day

the oath contains no such words. The Committee report that I may not

affirm, and, protesting against a decision which seems to me alike

against the letter of the law and the spirit of modern legislation, I

comply with the forms of the House."

As might have been expected, this decision to take the oath evoked

fresh outcry, and this time some Freethinkers joined. The most

injurious attack of this kind came from Mr George Jacob Holyoake, who

had long been on strained terms with Bradlaugh, and avowedly regarded

him with disfavour as a too militant Atheist. Before the assembling

of Parliament Mr Holyoake, in answer to a correspondent who asked him

whether Mr Bradlaugh would take the oath, had written to the effect

that Mr Bradlaugh had taken the oath scores of times before, and would

doubtless do so now. This remark had reference to a long-standing

dispute as to the propriety of oath-taking by a Freethinker under any

circumstances. Before the reform of the law which permitted unbelievers

to affirm, Mr Bradlaugh had without hesitation taken the oath in

courts of law, holding the forced formality a much smaller matter than

the evil of a miscarriage of justice. Mr Holyoake condemned all such

oath-taking; but it was pointed out that while he was in business

partnership with his brother Austin, the latter, a highly esteemed

Freethinker, had taken the oath wherever it was necessary for the

purposes of the business. This, of course, would not altogether set

aside Mr G. J. Holyoake's argument, if put forward only as a statement

of his own position; but he was not content with that. After avowing

his expectation that Bradlaugh would take the oath, he expressed

surprise and reprobation when Bradlaugh proposed to do so. Needless to

say, such a deliverance was eagerly welcomed by Bradlaugh's enemies,

and zealously used against him; as it was when repeated by Mr Holyoake

in the following year, with expressions about Freethinkers being made

to hang their heads for shame by the action of their nominal leader.

Were there not reason to presume that Mr Holyoake would not now repeat

or defend his former language, it might be fitting to endorse here some

of the very emphatic comments made on it at the time by Mrs Besant and

others. It may suffice to say, however, that Mr Holyoake had never

before taken such an attitude against Freethinkers who took the oath;

that he had once himself expressed readiness to take it in court if it

were regarded as a civil act, and not as a confession of faith (exactly

Bradlaugh's case); and that he later seemed to other Freethinkers

to quash once for all his own case by justifying quite gratuitous

acts of conformity and co-operation with churches whose teaching he

held to be false. The common sense of nine hundred and ninety-nine

out of every thousand Freethinkers, including attached friends of Mr

Holyoake, decided that such an act of enforced ceremonial as official

oath-taking by an avowed Atheist surrenders no jot of principle or

self-respect, particularly when the Atheist is openly striving for the

abolition of all such compulsions. Of all Freethinkers who have taken

oaths in England, Bradlaugh was the very least open to the charge of

temporising; and the expressions used by Mr Holyoake at different times

in this connection as to "apostolic" conduct have been, to say the

least, unfortunate as coming from a professed Freethinker, not usually

acquiescent in orthodox phraseology.

§ 4.

The document above quoted, announcing Bradlaugh's intentions, was dated

20th May, the date of the Committee's report. On the following day

Bradlaugh went to the House to take the oath and his seat. Immediately

on his presenting himself, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff rose and objected

to the oath being administered, whereupon Mr Dillwyn protested

against the interruption. The Speaker now made the fatal mistake of

allowing the interruption to be carried out. It is established by the

highest possible authority--that of the present Speaker--that the

holder of the Chair as such had and has no right to permit any such

intervention between an elected member and the statutory oath. Sir

Henry Brand, intimidated by the action of men like Wolff, weakly stated

that he "was bound to say he knew of no instance" in which such an

intervention had taken place; but "at the same time" he would allow

Wolff so to intervene. That personage then made a speech, resting on

the two arguments that Atheists who had made affirmation in the law

courts thereby admitted that an oath "would not be binding on their

conscience," and that Bradlaugh had further, in his "Impeachment of the

House of Brunswick," affirmed that Parliament "has the undoubted right

to withhold the Crown from Albert Edward Prince of Wales." The hon.

baronet "could not see how a gentleman professing the views set forth

in that work could take the oath of allegiance." It was in the course

of this speech that the hon. baronet was understood by all his auditors

to say, of the sects permitted by law to affirm, that they "had a

common standard of morality, a conscience, and a general belief in some

divinity or other."[130]

[Footnote 130: Some years afterwards he stated in the House that what

he had really said was "one Deity or the other," meaning either the

Unitarian or the Trinitarian God. The explanation did not seem to be

credited.]

The Tory case against Bradlaugh's admission to Parliament was thus

at the outset a combination of a moral subterfuge and a notorious

political fallacy. All concerned knew perfectly well that the oath was

habitually taken by men to whom the adjuration was an idle form, and

that their consciences could only be "bound" by the simple promise.

It had further been ruled by the highest judicial authority, in the

cases of Miller _v._ Salomons, and the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway

Company _v._ Heaton, that the essence of the oath consisted in the

promise, and not in the words of imprecation. Yet further, Wolff had

before him, and in his speech quoted from, the statement above cited,

in which Bradlaugh expressly declared that he held himself bound, in

taking the oath, "not by the letter of its words, but by the spirit

which the affirmation would have conveyed had I been permitted to use

it." These words he suppressed. On the other hand, as regards the

point of allegiance, he was negating the whole established doctrine of

the British constitution. It is a commonplace of that doctrine that

Parliament can repeal, as Parliament passed, the Act of Settlement. The

contrary is now maintained by nobody, and was not really maintained

even by Burke, in his furious feint of disputing the constitutional

principle in his "Reflections." As the law stands, any member of

Parliament is entitled to move constitutionally for the abolition of

the Monarchy. The oath, framed though it be for the dynasty, and not

for the State, promises allegiance to the sovereign as by the law

established. If the law in future quashes sovereignty, there will be no

sovereign to whom to bear legal allegiance.[131]

[Footnote 131: It is worth noting that Mr Keir Hardie, a professed

Christian Socialist, when recently (28th June) protesting against

the foolish ceremony of congratulating the Queen on the birth of a

great-grandchild in the direct line, went the length of declaring, "I

owe no allegiance to any hereditary ruler"--this after he had sworn

allegiance to the Queen. Bradlaugh never stultified himself in this

fashion.]

But such protests as those of Wolff were perfectly fitted to serve the

turn of the Tory party in a campaign of faction. The cue of shocked

piety and the cue of "loyalty" came alike easily to the representatives

of the feudal and the capitalistic interests; and the "bag-baron" and

the "crag-baron" vied with each other in the display of sham godliness

and sincere zeal for the Throne. Never was there such a reek of cant in

St. Stephen's before. All the English gift for hypocrisy, unrivalled

in Europe, was brought to bear on the task. Alderman Fowler, a fitting

exponent of the cult of Mammon in His sacred city, followed up Wolff

with a petition emanating from bankers and merchants, all praying with

one consent that an unbeliever in their gods should not be allowed to

sit at Westminster. The honour of God was avowedly the one concern of

the Alderman and of the men, so many of them gross with fortuitous

gain, who made him their mouthpiece. And those strategists who knew the

imperfect efficacy of bogus religion as a means of keeping an Atheist

member out of his seat, took care to supply the additional weapons

needed.

Mr Gladstone met Sir Henry Wolff's motion with a counter motion for

the appointment of a fresh select committee to consider Bradlaugh's

competence to take the oath--a sufficiently unwise course, in view of

the action of the previous committee. At once, however, the official

Tories gave their full support to Wolff's motion, declaring that

the matter should not even go to a committee. Mr Gibson, formerly

Attorney-General for Ireland, argued that Bradlaugh had deserved all

that befell him for raising the question. "The hon. member might

have taken his seat without opposition, but he had chosen to obtrude

himself on the House and the country. He must therefore accept the

grave responsibility of thus thrusting his opinions on the House."

Observe the situation. Bradlaugh had acted not only as a scrupulous

man in his place was bound to do, but as a man careful of other

men's susceptibilities would do. Had he simply taken the oath, he

would certainly have been yelled at as a hypocrite, and further as

a blasphemer. The point had been publicly discussed in the press

beforehand, and his enemies were prepared. Trying to avoid at once

inconsistency and scandal, he quietly and circumspectly sought to make

affirmation. The right to affirm was denied him in committee by the

champions of the oath, joined by one conscientious Liberal. When he

then came to take the compelled oath, these men and their fellows

assailed him as one who "obtruded his opinions"; and Mr Gibson, their

spokesman, proceeded to allege in so many words that the member for

Northampton had "walked up the floor of the House with that oath and

Book before him and declined to take the oath." It was a falsehood; and

Mr Gibson himself had just before, in the same speech, admitted that

Bradlaugh had "claimed for himself, in careful and guarded language,

the right to make an affirmation."

There are many points in the story of this struggle at which it is

hardly possible to abstain from imputing wilful falsehood to some of

the actors. But on this point it seems right to conclude that one or

other form of prejudice or passion made men all round incapable of

realising when and how they grossly perverted a simple fact. It was not

merely the factious Tories who repeated the mis-statement, though they

naturally used it most industriously. Mr Chaplin, M.P., was reported

in two newspapers as having asserted that at a public meeting on 1st

June "Mr Bradlaugh announced his intention of refusing the oath,

and asked that he might affirm instead." Mr Chaplin, at the time of

speaking, was a member of the second select committee appointed to

sit on the oath question, and Bradlaugh indignantly protested to the

Chairman, who was again Mr Spencer Walpole. Mr Chaplin, after some

fencing, declared that the report was inaccurate. Baron Henry de Worms,

another of the champions of Omnipotence, publicly averred[132] that

"he was in the House when Mr Bradlaugh came to the Speaker and said he

could not and would not take an oath which in no way bound him, as he

did not acknowledge any God." Challenged as to this statement, Baron

Henry de Worms avowed that the words from "which" onwards were his

own comment, but could not see anything unwarrantable in the previous

statement as to the facts. Such were the notions of truth and honour

among English--and other--oath-taking gentlemen and noblemen with which

Bradlaugh had to contend. And he was only in part supported by the

remarks of Mr John Morley in the _Fortnightly Review_ for July 1880:--

[Footnote 132: Report in _Standard_ of 11th June 1880.]

"There is no precedent for Mr Bradlaugh's case, for the simple reason

that there is no precedent for the frank courage with which he has

considered it desirable to publish his views as to the nature of an

oath. That the oath is just as meaningless, so far as its divine

appeal is concerned, to many past and present members of the House of

Commons as Mr Bradlaugh protested it would be to him, no one doubts.

Whether and how far he was justified in asking to be sworn, _after

he had declined to be sworn_, is a different question. Whatever the

answer to that may be, it cannot at least be said that the course

adopted by Mr Bradlaugh involved the surrender of any principle."

The last clause is so candid that it is a pity Mr Morley should have

"considered it desirable" to fortify his own position by penning that

above italicised. He had previously spoken of Bradlaugh's "pertinacity"

in "parading" his views--a statement which obtrudes its inspiration.

When a leading Liberal publicist wrote so, the godly multitude

naturally asserted in chorus that Bradlaugh had first ostentatiously

refused to take the oath, and then insisted on taking it. Dean Boyd,

of Exeter, capped the record by asserting that when Bradlaugh first

"advanced to the table of the House," he "openly, boldly, and defiantly

affirmed that he believed there was no such being as a Deity."

In the frame of mind represented by a variety of such utterances as

these, the House of Commons deliberated on Mr Gladstone's motion that

the question of Bradlaugh's competence to swear should be referred

to a second special committee. On the second day of the debate, Sir

Stafford Northcote, the nominal leader of the Conservative party in

the House, accepted the position into which he had been ignominiously

forced by irresponsible and even semi-defiant adherents, and opposed

the appointment of the Committee. He is reported as saying:--

"Without raising any question as to whether there is anything

irreverent in the course which the hon. member proposes to take, it

seems to me that we, in allowing him to take it, should be incurring a

responsibility from which our better judgment ought to make us shrink"

--a fair sample of the hon. baronet's forcible-feeble oratory. Some

Tory speakers, as Earl Percy, admitted that "the hon. member, to do him

justice, had sought to avoid taking an oath to which he attached no

sacred character"; but these ingenuous combatants were concerned only

to prevent the House from "incurring the guilt of an act of hypocrisy,"

and had no anxiety about avoiding an act of iniquity. When John Bright

met the subterfuges of the Opposition with the retaliatory criticism

of which he was a master, the temperature naturally rose. If, he

asked, they set up the principle of a creed test, where were they going

to end? Would they next question members known to be unbelievers,

though not publicly professed ones? As certain Conservative members

were actually known by their comrades to be Gallios in these matters,

Bright's challenge created the appropriate resentment, as did his

emphatic avowal, "One thing I believe most profoundly, that there is

nothing amongst mankind that has done more to destroy truthfulness than

the forcing of men to take an oath." But the memorable part of his

speech was this:--

"I have no right to speak of the member for Northampton. I think

it never happened to me more than once to address to him a single

sentence, or to hear any expression from him. I never saw him to

my knowledge but once, before he appeared in this House; but he is

returned here by a large constituency, to whom his religious opinions

were as well known as they are now to us.... Now, I have no doubt

whatever, though I have no authority to say so, that the oath as it

stands is binding on the conscience of the member for Northampton, in

the sense that an affirmation would be binding on his conscience--that

the words of the oath, so far as they are a promise, are words which

would be binding upon him, but that their binding character is not

increased by the reference to the Supreme Being, of whose existence,

unhappily as we all think--such is the constitution of his mind, and

such has been the constitution of many eminent minds of whom we have

all heard--he is not able to form that distinct opinion and belief

which we, who I think are more happy, have been able to do. Therefore

if he were to come to the table and to take the oath as it is, and as

he proposes to take it, I have no doubt that it would be binding on

his conscience as my simple affirmation is binding on mine; because in

my affirmation there is no reference to the Deity. I make a promise.

My word is as good, and is taken to be as good, as your oath. (Loud

Ministerial cheers.) And that is declared by an irrevocable Act of

Parliament. And if Mr Bradlaugh takes this oath, as he proposes to

take it, I have no doubt that, though the last words of the oath

have no binding effect upon him, yet his sense of honour and his

conscience--(Opposition laughter, and cries of 'Hear, hear' from some

Ministerialists)--his sense of honour and his conscience would make

that declaration as binding on him as my affirmation is on me, and as

your oath is on you."

Among those who joined in the brutal laughter of the gentlemen of

the Conservative party at these passages were men who had committed

bribery, unscrupulous stock-jobbers and company promoters, men about

town, topers, libellers, and liars. But some who thought it fitting to

laugh with these would be normally classed as chivalrous and well-bred

gentlemen.

The debate remained picturesque to the close. Lord Randolph Churchill,

who has within the present year proved afresh his capacity to create

a Parliamentary sensation, protested that "if the words 'so help me

God' were held to be a mere superstitious invocation, the idea or the

faith which had for centuries animated the House of Commons that its

proceedings were under the guidance of Providence would lose its force,

and would very soon have to be abandoned altogether." The better to

exemplify the energy of the divine supervision, the noble lord, after

quoting a somewhat strong passage from Bradlaugh's "Impeachment of

the House of Brunswick," threw the pamphlet violently on the floor of

the House, in parody of Burke's performance with the daggers. Baron

de Worms hazarded the proposition that "this was an irreligious, not

a religious question." The late Mr Thorold Rogers, an economist whose

incapacity for logical thought led to his not unsuccessful cultivation

of the department of historical detail, made a foolish and offensive

speech on the Liberal side, setting out with a statement of his sense

of intellectual superiority to Bradlaugh. "In his opinion, a person who

recognised no law beyond that of his own mind, and such scanty rules as

he thought fit to lay for his own guidance, very much weakened his own

character and lessened the value of his own life and acts." Further,

Mr Rogers had over and over again found "in the course of the study of

history" that Atheists were Conservatives; and he cited in proof the

names of Hobbes, a Theist; Hume, who till the latter part of his life

was an emphatic Deist; and Gibbon, who was one till his death. "He knew

something of the political views of educated sceptics; and when this

unhappy gentleman became a little better educated it would undoubtedly

be found that he was migrating towards the opposite benches." After

other remarks to similar effect, Mr Rogers provoked even the protest

of the much-tolerating Speaker by charging the Tories with being

indisposed to "act as generously as they did in their sports, and to

give a little law even to vermin." For this felicitous figure Mr Rogers

made a stumbling apology. On this being privately repeated, Bradlaugh,

with his usual magnanimity, later forgave the speech as a whole.

Where a professed Radical could be thus insolent, on the score of his

sense of superiority to opinions which he was incapable of discussing,

the language of the customary Tory may readily be imagined. The

revelations of ardent piety made by some eminent capitalists and

company-promoters were unexpectedly gratifying to the religious

feelings of the nation; and the unrelieved malignity of the personal

allusions of these and other Christians to a man precluded from turning

unto them there and then the other cheek, proved the injustice of the

charge that this is an age of lukewarm religious convictions.

After two days of largely irrelevant debate, Wolff's motion was

rejected by 289 votes to 214--a result not ungratifying to the Tories,

as showing that already certain Liberals had taken their side. A select

committee of twenty-three was duly appointed, the Tories being defeated

in an attempt to strengthen their representation on it. The members

were:--The Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, Messrs Bright,

Chaplin, Childers, Sir Richard Cross, Mr Gibson, Sir Gabriel Goldney,

Mr Grantham, Mr Staveley Hill, Sir John Holker, Mr Beresford Hope, Mr

Hopwood, Sir Henry Jackson, Lord Henry Lennox, Mr Massey, Major Nolan,

Messrs Pemberton, Simon, Trevelyan, Walpole, Whitbread, and Watkin

Williams. The Committee began by examining Sir Thomas Erskine May as

to precedents; and Mr Bradlaugh was allowed to put questions to him

likewise, bringing forward precedents Sir Thomas had not noted, among

them the important case of Sir Francis Bacon, who, as Attorney-General,

was challenged for breaking the law in making oath that he was duly

qualified to sit, when, as a practising barrister, he was legally

disqualified under an Act of Edward III. (It was in this case that the

House ruled: "Their oath their own consciences to look unto, not we to

examine it.") After Sir Thomas May, Bradlaugh was himself examined, and

conducted his case with the lawyer-like exactitude and the more than

lawyer-like concision and cogency which even his enemies admitted to

belong to all his legal pleadings.[133] He pointed out that if it were

competent to the House to interfere between a member and the oath, the

first forty members sworn in a Parliament might prevent the sitting

of any of the rest; and that if he were held legally incompetent to

make affirmation of allegiance, he stood legally bound, as an elected

member, to take the oath, no matter what his opinions were. He formally

stated--

[Footnote 133: See the report of the Committee's proceedings, reprinted

in his "True Story of my Parliamentary Struggle."]

"That there is nothing in what I did when asking to affirm which in

any way disqualifies me from taking the oath.

"That all I did was--believing, as I then did, that I had the right to

affirm--to claim to affirm, and that I was then absolutely silent as

to the oath.

"That I did not refuse to take it; nor have then or since expressed

any mental reservation or stated that the appointed oath of allegiance

would not be binding upon me.

"That, on the contrary, I say and have said that the essential part

of the oath is in the fullest and most complete degree binding

upon my honour and conscience, and that the repeating the words of

asseveration does not in the slightest degree weaken the binding

effect of the oath of allegiance upon me."

These explicit statements he repeated again and again in answer to

questions, saying once:--

"Any form that I went through, any oath that I took, I should regard

as binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree. I would go

through no form, I would take no oath, unless I meant it to be so

binding."

This emphatic explanation was given in reply to a question on what is,

to my mind, the only obscure point in his examination. Asked: "Do you

draw any distinction between the binding effect upon your conscience

of the assertory oath, as it is called, and the promissory oath?" he

answered--

"Most certainly I do. The testimony oath is not binding upon my

conscience, because there is another form which the law has provided

which I may take, which is more consonant with my feelings. The

promissory oath is and will be binding upon my conscience if I take

it, because the law, as interpreted by your Committee, says that it is

the form which I am to take, and the statute requires me to take it."

There is here, I think, a momentary confusion among the terms

"assertory," "promissory," and "testimony"; and the phrase "not binding

on my conscience" is also used in a sense probably not intended by the

questioner, and not that intended by Bradlaugh in his next answer,

above quoted. The "because" is inconsequent. What he meant to convey

was simply that he expressly rejected the testimony oath because in

giving evidence he was free to affirm; whereas he was compelled to

take the oath of allegiance, there being no legal alternative in the

opinion of a Committee of the House. He had been forced to submit in

the law courts to the invidious formula that the oath was not binding

on his conscience, because it had been expressly ruled in law[134]

that if a witness simply said "I am an Atheist," the judge was bound

to infer that an oath did not "bind" him. But Bradlaugh's answers to

the Select Committee, taken together, made it superfluously clear

that in the natural sense of the words he held any formula of promise

he took to be binding on him, whether with or without an imprecatory

tag. And inasmuch as members of the Committee nevertheless thought fit

afterwards to allege that he had all along declared the contrary with

regard to the oath, we are driven to one of two conclusions. Either

(_a_) these gentlemen hold that a formal public promise is not fully

binding on _their_ consciences unless they add "so help me God," or

something of the sort, and that an Atheist cannot be more conscientious

than they; or (_b_) they deliberately chose to bear false witness for

party purposes. And it finally matters little which conclusion we draw;

for the acceptance of the first leaves open the chance of the second

being true also.

[Footnote 134: In a case not legally reported, however--that of _ex

parte_ Lennard _vs_ Woolrych, in the Court of Queen's Bench, in April

1875.]

The Committee, after a variety of votes, finally reported to the

effect that Bradlaugh, by simply stating [though in answer to official

question] that he had repeatedly affirmed under certain Acts in

courts of law, had brought it to the notice of the House that he was

a person as to whom judges had satisfied themselves that an oath was

"not binding on his conscience"; that, under the circumstances, an

oath taken by him would not be an oath "within the true meaning of the

statutes"; and that the House therefore could and ought to prevent him

from going through the form. They further suggested that he should be

allowed to affirm with a view to his right to do so being tested by

legal action, pointing to the nearly equal balance of votes in the

former committee as a reason for desiring a decisive legal solution.

For this report of course only those members are responsible who voted

for its main clauses. Under this reservation it falls to be said

that the use made of the mean technicality of an oath being held not

"binding on the conscience" of an Atheist was in itself profoundly

unconscientious. That formality was, to begin with, expressly intended

to prevent the evasion of the oath by religious knaves, and not at

all to imply that an Atheist who took the oath could not be believed.

What was more, Bradlaugh had only specified the Evidence Amendment

Acts in reply to the express challenge of the Clerk of the House of

Commons. To turn an accidental ambiguity to the account of an iniquity,

to decide that a man was untrustworthy under the pretext of a legal

subterfuge, was merely to show that the oath is less than no security

for right action, and that under its cover men can far outgo the

lengths of injustice that they are likely to venture on in the name of

simple law. In the words of Bright, who opposed the conclusion come

to as "absolutely untenable," "the course taken was one involving a

mean advantage over Mr Bradlaugh." What the proceeding proved against

Bradlaugh was simply this: that he had done wrong in ever accepting,

even as a technical phrase, the juridical formula that an oath as a

whole is not "binding on the conscience" of one to whom an imprecation

is an idle barbarism. He ought in the law courts to have repudiated

even the technical shadow of an implication that a rationalist's

word is worth less than a religionist's oath. Nothing but persistent

resistance will ever make tyrannous religion give way to justice;

and he, who was habitually accused of gratuitously defying religion,

had simply not defied it enough. And the lesson taught to other

rationalists by his struggle is this, that oath-taking must in future

be stigmatised and warred against as implying not a higher but a lower

moral standard than that of rational ethics. Men who must swear to be

believed are not to be believed.

§ 5.

On 21st June, a few days after the presentation of the Committee's

report to the House, Mr Labouchere moved a resolution to the effect

that Bradlaugh be allowed to make affirmation instead of taking the

oath--the course the Committee had recommended. He had previously given

notice of a general Affirmation Bill, but had postponed the discussion

of it, pending the report. He now moved his resolution, after

presenting a petition in support of Bradlaugh from some thousands of

the people of Northampton, on the heels of a large Tory petition, also

from Northampton, praying that Bradlaugh "might not be permitted to

take the holy name of God in vain." Mr Labouchere in an extremely able

and persuasive speech dwelt on the prime fact that the Parliamentary

Oaths Act of 1866 gave to all persons legally qualified to affirm in

courts of law the right to affirm in Parliament, and that by later Acts

Bradlaugh was entitled to affirm in courts of law. [The opposition

view presumably was that the Act of 1866 could only refer to persons

_then_ entitled to affirm; but no argument to that effect appears on

the reports consulted by the present writer.] He further warned the

enemy that if they carried their hostility to the point of unseating

Bradlaugh, he would simply be re-elected--a statement which evoked

confident "No's" from members whose faith in Deity was more deep than

philosophical; and remarked what was perfectly true--that there were

"exceedingly few persons in Northampton of Mr Bradlaugh's views" on

religious matters. Sir Hardinge Giffard (now Lord Halsbury) rang the

changes on the argument about obtrusion of views; and pietists like

Alderman Fowler and Mr Warton expressed afresh their corpulent horror

of Atheism. One Irish member, Mr Arthur O'Connor, took occasion to

protest--in a debate on a proposal to permit an affirmation--against

letting Bradlaugh take the oath; and the Speaker seems to have made

no objection. On the other side, Mr Hopwood, whose vote in the first

committee had possibly permitted all the trouble, made a powerful

speech against the "obtrusion" argument, which, as he justly said,

amounted to telling Bradlaugh, "If you had come to the table with a

lie on your lips, we would have allowed you to be sworn." But again

the great speech in the debate was Bright's. The remark, "There are

many members of this House who take the oath and greatly dislike it,"

was his first home-thrust; and soon, after a temperate and weighty

argument, he nobly repeated his declaration of belief in the honour

of the Atheist, whose opinions were probably as repugnant to Bright

as to any other man in the House. "I pretend," he said--and his voice

rose with his theme,--"I pretend to have no conscience and honour

superior to the conscience of Mr Bradlaugh. (Ironical cheers from the

Opposition.) It is no business of mine to set myself up--perhaps it

is no business of yours to set yourselves up--(cheers)--as having

conscience and honour superior to that which actuates Mr Bradlaugh."

He went on to protest that the course taken by the majority of the

committee was "one involving a mean advantage over Mr Bradlaugh."

The speech, however, mainly ran to perfectly judicial argument; and

it was the obvious determination of the Tories to give no ear to

argument that evoked the flashes of feeling which lit it up. Bright

having said that the oath was now made a theistic test, where before

it had been a Protestant and a Christian test, a "No," came from

Mr Spencer Walpole, the Chairman of the Committee. "Why," retorted

Bright, "the right hon. gentleman must have forgotten everything in

the committee; he cannot have been conscious of his own opinions. Why,

surely the object of this motion is to establish the test of theism."

There were again "No's" from the party which denies; and Bright,

after establishing his point, thrust afresh. "The theistic test," he

repeated, "is proposed by the member for Portsmouth--the front bench

opposite appears to have abdicated entirely--there is now only an

abject, a remarkable submission to gentlemen who sit in the lower

part of the House." A plain statement of the obvious fact that Wolff

was establishing a precedent for intervention elicited more blatant

"No's," and Bright began to warm up to his peroration. He reminded the

House that a Positivist or Comtist who had been concerned in the issue

of an anti-theistic pamphlet might quite as plausibly be challenged

as Mr Bradlaugh; going on to speak of certain Positivists as "some

men for whom I have the utmost respect in regard to everything but

their opinions on the question of religion, which I deplore, and in

connection with which I can only commiserate them. But," he went on,

correcting the touch of superciliousness,--