"I know that many people have much greater power of belief than others

have; and I am not one of those--having myself passed through many

doubts--to condemn, without sympathy at any rate, those who are not

able to adopt the views which I myself hold. (Hear, hear.) Now, sir,

only one word more. There are members of this House of different

Churches, but generally all, I trust, of one religion--of the religion

which inculcates charity, and forbearance, and justice, and even

generosity. There are those who belong to the Roman Catholic Church.

I need not remind them of what they and their ancestors have gone

through in Ireland--(hear)--for the last 200 or 300 years or more,

or of how long a time they were kept out of this House, and by the

very same class of arguments which the honourable and learned member

for Surrey used. (Cheers.) He tells us that for a very long time past

there has been a gradual relaxation. Yes, no doubt. Did he ever sit

among those who have promoted those relaxations? I have been here

for thirty-seven years, and I have heard these questions discussed

over and over again; but I never found that the time had come when

the party opposite, represented by gentlemen who now sit there, were

willing to make these relaxations. They submitted not to argument,

not to sentiments of generosity or of justice; they submitted only to

a majority which sat on this side of the House. (Cheers.) Then there

are the Nonconformists. I am told that there are some Nonconformists

even--but I think it is rather in the nature of a mistake or a

slander--who have great doubts as to how they should vote on this

occasion. It is occasions like this that try men and try principles.

(Hear, hear.) Do you suppose that in times past the Founder of

Christianity has required an oath in this House to defend the religion

which He founded? Or do you suppose now that the supreme Ruler of the

world can be interested in the fact that one man comes to this table

and takes His name--it may be often in vain--(murmurs)--and another is

permitted to make an affirmation, reverently and honestly, in which

His name is not included? But one thing is essential for us, the House

of Commons representing the English people, which is, to maintain as

far as we can the great principles of freedom--freedom of political

action and freedom of conscience."

An allusion to the remark of Mr Labouchere that the Northampton

constituency in the mass had no sympathy with Bradlaugh's theological

opinions evoked another Conservative laugh, and Bright continued:--

"Well, hon. gentlemen who know nothing about it laugh at that. I think

it very possible that, finding that Mr Bradlaugh in his political

opinions was in sympathy with them, those electors so little liked the

political opinions of hon. gentlemen opposite that they preferred Mr

Bradlaugh, with his political opinions, to some opposing candidates

who have represented them, and whose religious views might have

been entirely orthodox. (Hear, hear.) ... _To a large extent the

working people of this country do not care any more for the dogmas

of Christianity than the upper classes care for the practice of that

religion._ (Cheers, and loud cries of 'Oh,' and 'Withdraw.') I wish

from my heart that it were otherwise. (Cheers, and renewed cries of

'Withdraw.')"

Despite the Tory wrath, there was no withdrawal.

This great speech was followed, after the adjournment, by one from

Gladstone, less powerful because less fired with moral feeling, but

eloquent, cogent, and unanswerable, save for the slip of the statement

that Bolingbroke, the Theist, was "without any religious belief at

all."[135] Yet the end of the debate--after a series of speeches,

including one by Sir Henry Tyler in which he brutally dragged the

name of Mrs Besant into his attack on Bradlaugh--was that only 230

voted for Mr Labouchere's motion, and 275 against. This was on 22nd

June. What Bright had thought could not be had taken place, though

the Nonconformists were not the bulk of the Liberals who enabled

the Tories to trample underfoot the first principles of Liberalism.

Thirty-six Liberals and thirty-one Home Rulers voted in the majority,

and doubtless joined in its exultant cheers.

[Footnote 135: On the other hand, Tory journalists went much further

astray in asserting that Bolingbroke believed in future rewards and

punishments.]

A number of Liberals, further, were absent without pairs. There were

found among the allies of tyranny representatives of nearly all of

the sects which had themselves suffered persecution, Catholics,

Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Jews, as well as members of the Established

Church. When, therefore, Mr John Tenniel in _Punch_ caused his weekly

contribution to the gaiety of his nation to take the shape of a cartoon

joyfully representing Bradlaugh as "kicked out," with a crumpled paper

in his hand bearing the legend "Atheism," he was more than usually in

touch with the social sentiment of which he is the leading artistic

exponent. Our "English love of fair play" was never more neatly

illustrated, even by that "primitive pencil."[136]

[Footnote 136: It should be noted that the "kicked-out" idea is a

favourite one with the cartoonist. He used it lately in the case of the

Irish Evicted Tenants Bill.]

The action of the Home Rulers is perhaps specially notable. Some of

them later pretended that their hostility to Mr Bradlaugh was due to

a single vote he gave on the Arms Bill. It will be seen that they

opposed him in great force before he had ever had a chance to vote

at all, and this on a simple claim that he should be allowed to make

affirmation. Mr Justin M'Carthy, in keeping with his general attitude

on religious questions, sought from the first to exclude the Atheist

from Parliament. The only other plea open to the majority was that

Bradlaugh had "forced his Atheism on the House." This was the line

taken, for instance, not only by Sir Hardinge Giffard, but by Sir

Walter Barttelot, a typical Tory squire and "English gentleman," who

just before Bradlaugh's death in 1891 won for himself some credit

by a frank tribute to his honesty of character. Were it not for the

countenance given by Mr John Morley at the time to a patently unjust

account of Bradlaugh's action--an account which Gladstone as well as

Bright then explicitly contradicted--one would be disposed to point to

the general repetition of the untruth by the Tory press and party as

proving how worthless a thing the "honour and conscience" of English

gentlemen is in matters of public action. It is a matter of simple

fact that Bradlaugh all along anxiously sought to keep his Atheism

out of cognisance of the susceptibilities of the House;[137] and it

is perfectly certain that had he come forward to take the oath at

the outset, he would not only have been afterwards vilified by the

Opposition as a blasphemous hypocrite, but would have been challenged

all the same by Wolff and the rest. The matter had been openly

discussed beforehand. There is thus no conclusion open save that the

majority in the vote on the affirmation motion did a gross injustice;

and though the really religious men in the House, as Gladstone and

Bright, were mostly on the other side, and the religiosity of the

aggressors was in many cases a nauseous farce, it must be assumed

that religion counted for much[138] in the matter. Parnell in the

next stage of the question avowed that he had been on Bradlaugh's

side from the first, but had found himself opposed on the point by

"the great majority of the Irish members." There would seem to be no

doubt that the Catholic priesthood--actively represented by Cardinal

Manning--determined the action of Parnell's followers, and later his

own. It is perhaps not unprofitable to reflect that most of the

"Liberal" wrongdoers have since paid some penalties. Some dozen lost

their seats at next election on the Bradlaugh issue. The Home Rulers

have felt to the full the power of fanaticism against themselves; and

Parnell, who later yielded to the bigotry of his party, lived to know

all the bitterness of religious injustice. A minor Scotch Liberal then

on the wrong side, Mr Maclagan, has lately been unseated by clerical

effort; and doubtless others could testify that they who draw the sword

of bigotry tend to perish by it. It would doubtless be giving an undue

air of moral regularity to the business to lay any stress on the final

political fate of Northcote, who in the Bradlaugh struggle made himself

the catspaw of the worst section of his followers. He certainly had his

due reward.

[Footnote 137: The Select Committee persistently examined him to get

avowals which he had not made, and had no wish to volunteer.]

[Footnote 138: The _Echo_ of 25th May 1880 has the passage: "Say what

we like, occupants of the Tory benches are penetrated with deep and

undying religious convictions. The very reference to an unbeliever,

unless it is in fierce denunciation of him, reddens their faces....

But strange to say, the very men who apparently were so jealous of

religious or semi-religious forms last evening will this evening

vote that Parliament shall not sit to-morrow because it will be the

Derby day. Now if there be one place on this wide earth which may be

denominated a pandemonium it is the Epsom Downs on a Derby day."]

§ 6.

Being thus expressly denied the right to affirm by a vote of the whole

House, Bradlaugh promptly reverted to his position that if he could

not affirm, he was legally bound to take the oath and his seat. A

committee had declared by a casting vote that he could not affirm, and

left him to swear. The House referred the point of his swearing to a

larger committee, which decided by a majority that he could not swear,

but recommended that after all he be allowed to affirm. The House

stood by the finding of both committees in so far as it was hostile,

and overruled that of the second in so far as it was favourable. It

remained to fight the whole House on the point of the oath.

On 23rd June, after the "prayers," which remain one of the institutions

of the House, Bradlaugh walked to the table amid some cries of "Order,"

and spoke to the Clerk. The Speaker then formally intimated to him the

decision of the House, and called upon him to withdraw. Amid roars of

"Withdraw" from the furious mob of Tory members, Bradlaugh contrived

to let the Speaker understand that he claimed to be heard. He had to

withdraw while the question was discussed, and when Mr Labouchere

sought to move that he be heard, the Speaker had to rise to secure

order. On grounds not easily inferred, the House, suddenly changing

its temper, with very little dissent agreed to let Bradlaugh be heard

at the "Bar," which was at once drawn across the bottom of the House,

and at which he proceeded to speak, as represented in the admirable

portrait done after his death by Mr Walter Sickert. This, his first

speech at the Bar of the House,[139] I have heard described as perfect

by some Liberals who thought less highly of the three others it was

his lot to make from the same place. It is perhaps the most vividly

impressive, but only, I think, because it was the first. Certainly it

is the most memorable address of challenge ever made to the House,

though it has all the straightforward, terse simplicity of Bradlaugh's

general speaking, which was never rehearsed. It was measured and

controlled throughout. The mean insult of a "Hear, hear" when he asked,

"Do you tell me I am unfit to sit amongst you?" did not discompose him.

"The more reason, then," he went on, "that this House should show the

generosity which judges show to a criminal, and allow every word he has

to say to be heard." Even in rebuking the most dastardly attack made

upon him in the House he was gravely dignified.

[Footnote 139: See the verbatim report reprinted in the volume of his

Speeches.]

"I have to ask indulgence lest the memory of some hard words which

have been spoken in my absence should seem to give to what I say a

tone of defiance, which it is far from my wish should be there at all;

and I am the more eased because although there were words spoken which

I had always been taught English gentlemen never said in the absence

of an antagonist without notice to him, yet there were also generous

and brave words said for one who is at present, I am afraid, a source

of trouble and discomfort and hindrance to business. I measure the

generous words against the others, and I will only make one appeal

through you, sir, which is, that if the reports be correct that the

introduction of other names came with mine in the heat of passion

and the warmth of debate, the gentleman[140] who used those words,

if such there were, will remember that he was wanting in chivalry,

because, while I can answer for myself, and am able to answer for

myself, nothing justified the introduction of any other name beside my

own to make a prejudice against me. (Cheers, 'Question,' and cries of

'Order.')"

[Footnote 140: The reference was to the ever-offensive Sir Henry Tyler,

who had made a cowardly allusion to Mrs Besant.]

He went on to deal with the common objection to his action:--

"It is said, 'You might have taken the oath as other members did.' I

could not help, when I read that, sir, trying to put myself in the

place of each member who said it. I imagined a member of some form of

faith who found in the oath words which seemed to him to clash with

his faith, but still words which he thought he might utter, but which

he would prefer not to utter if there were any other form which the

law provided him; and I asked myself whether each of those members

would not then have taken the form which was most consonant with his

honour and conscience. If I have not misread, some hon. members seem

to think that I have neither honour nor conscience. Is there not some

proof to the contrary in the fact that I did not go through the form,

believing that there was another right open to me? ('Hear, hear' and

'Order.') Is that not some proof that I have honour and conscience?"

The most searching thrusts were delivered with entire amenity.

"It is said that you may deal with me because I am isolated. I could

not help hearing the ring of that word in the lobby as I sat outside

last night. But is that a reason--that because I stand alone, the

House are to do against me what they would not do if I had 100,000

men at my back? That is a bad argument, which provokes a reply

inconsistent with the dignity of this House, and which I should be

sorry to give."

And no less measured was the warning that the struggle would not end

with his exclusion:--

"Do you mean that I am to go back to Northampton as to a court,

to appeal against you? that I am to ask the constituency to array

themselves against this House? I hope not. If it is to be, it must be.

If this House arrays itself against an isolated man--its huge power

against one citizen--if it must be, then the battle must be too. But

it is not with the constituency of Northampton alone...."

The peroration was as austere as the rest of the speech:--

"I beg your pardon, sir, and that of the House too, if in this warmth

there seems to lack respect for its dignity; and as I shall have, if

your decision be against me, to come to that table when your decision

is given, I beg you, before the step is taken in which we may both

lose our dignity--mine is not much, but yours is that of the Commons

of England--I beg you before the gauntlet is fatally thrown down--I

beg you, not in any sort of menace, not in any sort of boast, but as

one man against six hundred, to give me that justice which on the

other side of this wall the judges would give me were I pleading

before them."

Then ensued a fresh debate. Northcote at some length expressed himself

to the effect that there was nothing to be said. Gladstone at similar

length agreed. The Speaker asked whether Bradlaugh should be called

in, and after some confused discussion Mr Labouchere was allowed

to move that yesterday's resolution be rescinded. Mr Gorst moved

the adjournment of the debate; but on an appeal from Gladstone, Mr

Labouchere withdrew his motion. The Speaker then recalled Bradlaugh

to the table, and informed him that the House had nothing to say

beyond calling upon him once more to withdraw. Bradlaugh replied: "I

beg respectfully to insist upon my right as a duly elected member for

Northampton. I ask you to have the oath administered to me, in order

that I may take my seat, and I respectfully refuse to withdraw." The

helpless Speaker "thought it right to point out to the hon. gentleman"

what he had pointed out before. Again Bradlaugh replied: "With respect,

I do refuse to obey the orders of the House, which are against the

law;" and the Speaker had to appeal to the House "to give authority

to the Chair to compel execution of its orders." Gladstone remained

silent, despite calls for him, and Northcote in his flabbiest manner

proceeded to move, "though I am not quite sure what the terms of

the motion should be, that Mr Speaker do take the necessary steps

for requiring and enforcing the withdrawal of the hon. member for

Northampton." The Speaker confusedly explained, to the perplexity of

the House, that according to "former precedents" the motion should

simply be "that the hon. member do now withdraw"--precisely what he

had already declared to be the resolution and order of the House. The

motion being challenged, there voted for it 326, and only 38 against,

the Government having chosen to give effect to the vote of the majority

of the day before. The scene now became still more exciting. On the

Speaker's again calling on Bradlaugh to withdraw, he answered: "With

submission to you, sir, the order of the House is against the law,

and I respectfully refuse to obey it." The Speaker then called on the

Sergeant-at-Arms to remove him, and that officer, coming up, touched

him on the shoulder and requested him to withdraw. He said, "I shall

submit to the Sergeant-at-Arms removing me below the bar, but I shall

immediately return to the table," and he did so, saying on his way back

towards the table, "I claim my right as a member of the House." Again

led back to the bar by the officer, he again walked up the floor of

the now tempestuous House, saying "in a voice rising high above the

din" (says a contemporary report), "I claim my right as a member of

this House. I admit the right of the House to imprison me, but I admit

no right on the part of the House to exclude me, and I refuse to be

excluded." Again led to the bar by the Sergeant-at-Arms, he awaited the

action of the House.

His action had been taken with a forethought. He was determined to

force the House to further steps, and to make its path a _cul de sac_.

The Speaker again appealed to the House for orders, and Northcote,

making an effort to get up a state of vigorous purpose in himself,

conscious the while that the moral right was all on the other side,

once more took action. He somewhat disappointed the followers who had

led him by remarking: "I am quite sure that none of us are disposed

to make any personal complaint of the conduct of the hon. member. We

know that he is in a position which calls for our consideration, and

that we must make all proper allowance for the course which he may

think it right to take." Complaining that the duty ought to have been

taken up by the leader of the House, Northcote proceeded to move that

Bradlaugh, having defied the House, be taken into the custody of the

Sergeant-at-Arms. Gladstone once more explained that he thought those

who had got the House into the trouble should get it out, and wordily

went on to indicate that he thought the Opposition were taking a

consistent course. But again a discussion arose. Mr Labouchere began

by remarking on the position of a citizen sent to prison for doing

what some high legal authorities thought he had a perfect right to do.

Mr Courtney suggested that the arrest be formally carried through to

permit of the legality of the House's course being tested on a writ of

habeas corpus. The appearance of a shorthand writer at the bar taking

notes led to a question of order; and the Speaker explained that he was

there by authority, reporting the proceedings, "not the debate, which

would clearly be out of order." A friendly motion for the adjournment

of the debate was made, discussed, and withdrawn. Another was made by

Mr Finigan, a friendly Irish member, and seconded by Mr Biggar; but

only five voted for it and 342 against. Mr Parnell then made the very

creditable speech in which he avowed his dissent from the majority of

the Home Rulers; and some of these in turn expressed their dissent from

him. At length Northcote's motion was carried by 274 votes to 7. The

result was received "without any manifestation of feeling," and members

laughed when the Speaker announced the resumption of "the private

business." Already the majority had begun to feel that its triumph was

a fiasco. In an hour the Sergeant-at-Arms, called upon by the Speaker

to report, announced to the House that "in pursuance of their order

and Mr Speaker's warrant, I have taken Mr Bradlaugh, the member for

Northampton, into custody."

He was in the "Clock Tower"--in a room, that is, on the second story of

that part of the House--whither he had gone with the slight requisite

show of formal resistance, passing first a short time in the Sergeant's

private room. There he was visited by Parnell, Mr O'Kelly, Mr O'Connor

Power, Mr Finigan, and Dr Commins, all of whom expressed their cordial

sympathy. The imprisonment was a farcical form. A constant stream

of friends visited him; and he went about the business of fighting

his battle in the country as he would do in his own rooms. On the

very evening of his arrest a Committee was formed to secure his

liberation, and an appeal drawn up in its name by Mrs Besant. This was

distributed by thousands next day; and a fresh petition for signature

was likewise framed and sent out broadcast at once. But the democracy

did not wait for petitions. The moment the news of the House's action

reached the public, a cry of indignation arose, loud enough to alarm

Beaconsfield,[141] on whose urgent advice (so it was said at the

time) Northcote on the next day moved for Bradlaugh's unconditional

release, which was hurriedly agreed to. The stultification of the

majority was now complete; and the course taken by Northcote thus far

may stand as a fair sample of modern Conservative statesmanship--the

policy of irrational resistance, on no better principle than that

of partisan habit, ending in ignominious collapse. Still the cry of

protest swelled in volume. In less than a week two hundred meetings

were held throughout the country to pass resolutions in Bradlaugh's

favour; Radical and Liberal clubs and societies of all kinds sent

their messages of protest and appeal; and Liberal members who had

voted on the Tory side were sharply called to account. Even before

matters had come to a crisis, abundant proof was given that a large and

earnest minority were dead against the policy of intolerance. In May

Mr Labouchere had given notice of a Bill to permit affirmation by any

member in place of the oath of allegiance; and by 6th July there had

been presented 462 petitions in favour of that measure, with 40,434

signatures, largely obtained through the organisation of the National

Secular Society. The effect of these and other displays of popular

feeling began to be seen in the House. Liberal members who had voted

on the Tory side out of fear of the bigots in their constituencies

began to hesitate. On 28th June leave was given to Mr Labouchere to

introduce his Affirmation Bill, which was read a first time. The

Government, however, took the view that Bradlaugh's rights ought to

be legally determined in respect of the state of the law at the time

of his election; and instead of supporting or giving facilities for

Mr Labouchere's Bill, they proposed the compromise of moving that the

excluded member be allowed to affirm pending the legal settlement of

his position. This was accepted; and, on 1st July, Mr Gladstone moved

as a standing order that members-elect be allowed, subject to any

liability by statute, to affirm at their choice.

[Footnote 141: This perhaps understates Beaconsfield's protest.

Bradlaugh heard that he condemned the whole proceedings, and called his

followers "fools" for their pains.]

This was of course the signal for a fresh storm. On Mr Gladstone's

preliminary motion that the Orders of the Day be postponed, Mr Gorst

pronounced the motion disorderly, and opposed the proposal in advance

as being to the effect that "the House should break the law, in order

to smuggle Mr Bradlaugh into the House." Gladstone, in moving his

order, was studiously moderate, giving as a reason for the Government's

not introducing a Bill the impossibility of having the question calmly

discussed in the then state of feeling, while urging the necessity of

preserving the dignity and decency of the House as a reason for doing

something. He went on to defend Bradlaugh fully and forcibly against

the charge of having "obtruded his Atheism" on the House, and wound up

with a calm contention that it was the duty of the House to further

the claim of any member to take his seat under a given law, leaving it

to be settled in the law courts whether his claim was valid. Northcote

opposed, arguing that there was no fear of a repetition of the scene of

last week, since the Speaker could give instructions that Mr Bradlaugh

be not allowed to enter the precincts. To accept the motion "would be

to some extent humiliating to the House."[142] No question of justice

or righteousness was raised by the Tory leader. One of his followers,

Lord Henry Scott, advanced the pious proposition that "the mere

affirmation of a person who did not believe in a Supreme Being could

not be regarded as a binding engagement upon him." Another ignoramus

named Smyth explained that the "test of Theism" "pervaded the whole

body of the Constitution, of which, like the soul of man, it was the

animating principle." "Let Atheists be admitted within its walls, and

there would be Atheistical legislation.... Such teaching it was that

led to the outbreak of the French Revolution." Thus were old lies made

to support new. An Irish Catholic named Corbet spoke of "Mr Bradlaugh's

Byzantine doctrines of morality," either forgetting that Byzantium

was the typical Christian State for a thousand years, or desiring to

asperse the Christian Church which had all along been the great rival

of his own. Mr A. M. Sullivan, another Catholic, made a rabid speech,

supporting the cause of religion with the plea, "Where was the class

that was oppressed now? It was nothing but an individual." He went on

to avow that he sought to keep Mr Bradlaugh out of Parliament on the

score that his Malthusianism, "taken in conjunction with his Atheistic

opinions, struck fatally at the foundation of civil society." The

Church of the confessional is naturally zealous for the sacredness of

the family; and the Church of the Inquisition for the "foundations

of civil society." Men who regard the hamstringing of cattle as at

most a pity are naturally warm on the subject of rational control

of human procreation. On the other hand, Parnell "wished, as an

Irish Protestant, with the utmost diffidence, to say a few words in

explanation of the vote he would give to-night." Already he seemed

shaken by the resistance of his followers; and he was at pains to say

"he regarded the religious tenets of Mr Bradlaugh and his doctrines

with reference to over-population as abominable"--a deliverance which

reads dramatically in connection with the close of his own career,

when an only less insensate and irrational ethic than his own gave the

sanction for similar vilification of himself. There was finally a ring

of anxious bravado in his avowal that "it was personally an odious

task for him to take the course he should on this occasion"--(this

after he had voluntarily gone to shake hands with Bradlaugh after the

arrest)--"but if he had to walk through the lobby alone, he should deem

himself a coward if he did not act up to his conviction."

[Footnote 142: Again he was surrendering his own convictions to the

partisanism of his colleagues. He had been personally willing to

support legislation for the settlement of the difficulty, but was

overruled as usual by his associates. See Mr Lang's "Life," ii. 172.]

Less self-regarding, and much more helpful, was the speech of Mr

Richard, the most impressive in the debate. Mr Richard was one of

the extremely few Christians who keep one set of gospel passages

so constantly in view as never to be led into imitating the rest.

He never echoed their words of execration. His very rebukes to his

fellow-Christians for their pious scurrility were gentle; and he must

have caused some searchings of heart when he observed that "no man who

watched what went on, on the first day of the present Parliament, when

hon. members were squeezing round the table, and scrambling for the New

Testaments amid laughter--('No, no,' and Ministerial cheers)--no man

could have watched that scene, and believed that the act had any of

the solemnity of a religious act about it." When the otherwise pious

Wolff followed, the altered balance of feeling was shown by impatient

interruption of his remarks. An exceptionally offensive Catholic, named

M'Coan, was called to order by the Speaker for the remark that "a more

offensive representative of Atheism never was seen" than Bradlaugh.

Finally, after General Burnaby had mentioned that "the Chief Rabbi,

although refusing to interfere with political questions, felt very

deeply on this subject," the vote was taken, and by 303 votes to 249

Gladstone's motion was carried.

Bradlaugh was now free to make affirmation, and did so next day. Almost

immediately on taking his seat he had occasion to vote, and immediately

thereafter he was served with a writ to recover a penalty of £500 for

illegal voting. The writ had apparently been prepared beforehand. The

suitor was one Henry Lewis Clarke, the tool of Mr Newdegate, M.P.,--the

latter, a man of the most restricted understanding, notorious as an old

opponent of the admission of Jews to Parliament and a rabid assailant

of Catholicism, but now eager to combine with Jews and Catholics

against the Atheist. A few days afterwards a similar writ was served

at the instance of one Cecil Barbour, of Nightingale Lane, Clapham;

and yet a third was given notice of; but the work was left to Mr

Newdegate's employee.[143] A new stage in the struggle had now been

reached.

[Footnote 143: A friendly action by Mr Swaagman, for all the remaining

penalties that might arise, served to forestall other speculative

suits.]

§ 7.

For nine months--that is, while Parliament sat in the period

July-March 1880-81[144]--Bradlaugh now sat in the House, doing his work

with intense and continuous application, though all the while there

hung over him the shadow of a ruinous litigation. He had taken the

risk. On 8th July the Government were asked by Mr Norwood, a hostile

Liberal, whether they would instruct the law officers of the Crown to

undertake his defence in any suit brought against him; but the answer

was, of course, in the negative; and Bradlaugh rose to explain that he

had had no communication with either Mr Norwood or the Government on

the subject. A fortnight later a Bill was zealously forced through both

the Houses to indemnify Lord Byron, who had sat and voted without being

sworn, against any action for penalties. Bradlaugh had the experience

of helping to safeguard the peer from the prosecution laid against

himself.

[Footnote 144: Mr Lang, in the page of random jottings in which he

"sketches" the Bradlaugh story, makes the misleading statement that

he only sat "for a few weeks under statutory liability" ("Life of

Northcote," ii. 137).]

His Parliamentary activity was many-sided, including as it did the

charge of the interests of endless correspondents in all parts of the

world who had grievances to redress and claims to put. But above all

he devoted himself to the interests of Ireland and of India, the one

still suffering from an imperfect realisation of her needs by English

Liberals; the other from the general neglect of Liberals and Tories

alike. The gratitude of the people of India has been freely given for

his service; that of the majority of the Irish members was naturally

not prompt. They had wronged him, and so could hardly forgive.

Such a frenzy of malevolence, further, as had been aroused among

bigots of all Churches by Bradlaugh's entrance into the House, was

slow to decline. Whether outside the House or inside, he was furiously

aspersed. A Bill to exclude Atheists was early introduced by Sir J.

Eardley Wilmot,[145] and petitions in support of this were largely

signed, though wholesale subscription by the children of Sunday Schools

was in many cases found to be necessary to fill the sheets. But

petitions for his exclusion were a small part of the storm of malice

that assailed him. It would fill a volume to recite or even cite the

hundreds of denunciations--often vile and grossly libellous, and nearly

all implying a religious motive--which were poured forth against him

week by week. Clergymen naturally formed the bulk of the assailants;

and of these the State Church furnished the largest contingent, all

grades of the hierarchy being represented; but the President of the

Wesleyan Conference, on behalf of the Conference Committee, presented

a hostile petition to Parliament; and the secretary to the same

Conference issued a circular calling upon the various Wesleyan bodies

to join in the general movement against the Atheist. Protestants vied

with Catholics in the foulness of their abuse, the ferocity of their

enmity.

[Footnote 145: The same member tried to raise the question on a vote in

supply.]

On the other hand, it must be put on record that in every church, in

varying numbers, there seem to have been lovers of freedom as well

as persecutors. Some of the most forcible and earnest letters sent

to the newspapers on Bradlaugh's behalf were written by clergymen of

the Church of England; and many Nonconformist clergymen spoke out

on his side ably and warmly. At a Church Conference, more than one

priest of the Establishment defended him bravely and well. Even from

within the pale of the Church of Rome there came voices of protest

against the intolerance of the majority. On 27th June 1880 the "Home

Government Association" of Glasgow sent to Bradlaugh a resolution of

the majority of its members to the effect "that this meeting of Irish

Roman Catholics ... most emphatically condemns the spirit of domination

and intolerance arrayed against you, and views with astonishment and

indignation the cowardly acquiescence, and in a few instances active

support, on the part of a large majority of the Irish Home Rule members

to the policy of oppression exercised against you." Bradlaugh was

peculiarly quick to appreciate such messages of sympathy and fairness

from religious opponents. The words of Bright on his behalf in the

House brought tears to his eyes; and he never forgot to be grateful for

them. In his own journal, immediately after his entrance to the House

on tentative affirmation, he printed the following appeal:--

"Now that the fierce struggle is over, and that I am really in full

enjoyment of the right and privilege which the people of Northampton

gave me on the day of the poll, I beg my friends not to mar this

triumph by any undue words of exultation or ungenerous boast. If

bitter bigotry and Tory malice have been active against me personally,

there has been also honest, earnest piety, in despite of the foulest

and most persistent misrepresentations, enlisted in the grand array

on behalf of right. If some clergymen have been cruel and unjust in

language and conduct, there have also been preachers who have been

most generous and kindly. Do not let our Freethinking friends remember

so much what we as a party have done towards the result, as what has

been done for us by religious men, notwithstanding the cry of heresy.

If the heart of the great Nonconformist party had not been brave and

just, the fight, instead of being so far over, would yet have to be

fought. The speeches of religious men like William Ewart Gladstone,

John Bright, Henry Richard, and Charles Stewart Parnell--each

representing a varying shade of Christian belief, and each a most

earnestly religious man--must more than outweigh, and cause our

friends to pass by, the rabid, raving, fanatical outpourings and

deliberate misrepresentations which have disfigured the Parliamentary

discussions on this subject. When the reader remembers that the very

vilest mis-statements and coarsest caricatures of my language and

conduct have been circulated to every member of Parliament, ... it

makes worthy of the strongest praise the high-minded conduct of those

Nonconformists in the House of Commons who have declared for justice

despite all."

But no good-feeling on his part or on that of the tolerant religious

minority could stay the torrent of libel and vituperation; and a

paragraph penned a month later shows how the majority bore themselves:--

"Many of my good friends have--during the progress of the

bye-elections which have taken place at Oxford, Scarborough, Berwick,

Wigton, and other boroughs--written indignantly as to the exceedingly

wanton and coarse personal slanders which, chiefly for electioneering

purposes, have been circulated against me by the Conservatives in

order to induce votes against supporters of the Government. It is

a little difficult to know how properly to deal with these most

indefensible and cowardly attacks. By the law as it stands no action

can be maintained for any spoken words unless an indictable offence

is charged in the slander, or unless actual special pecuniary damage

can be shown to have resulted, which latter is of course not in

question.... Thus, Sir John D. Hay--who in the Wigton election has

descended to a lower depth of coarseness and falsehood than any other

Parliamentary candidate[146]--could not be sued for damages.... The

journals may of course be sued; but even if this is a wise course, the

case is not easy. I am now proceeding against the _Yorkshire Post_

for one very gross libel, and in the proceedings, which will be very

costly, am actually required to answer voluminous interrogatories, not

only as to all the doctrines I have taught and works I have published

or written during the whole of my life, but also to works I happen

to have referred to.... In the indictment against the editor of the

_British Empire_[147] I shall probably have to bring a large number

of witnesses from various parts of England to speak as to what has

happened at lectures as far back as 1860. The fearful cost in this

case (in which, being a criminal procedure, counsel must be employed)

can only be fairly estimated by professional men.... I refrain from

commenting on the infamous, most cowardly, and utterly uncalled-for

attacks made on Mrs Besant by Sir John Hay and the _Glasgow News_, as

these will in all probability be submitted to another tribunal."

[Footnote 146: "Language fit for a Yahoo," was the description given of

Hay's scurrility by the _Scotsman_.]

[Footnote 147: For publishing the "watch" libel.]

Some of these proceedings had to be abandoned, so enormous was the

burden.

A leading part had been early taken in the outcry against the Atheist

by the leading representative in England of the Church of Rome,

Cardinal Manning. In a highly declamatory and malevolent article

contributed to the _Nineteenth Century_, that ecclesiastic took the

line of appealing to the spirit of traditional national religiosity,

grounding his case not on any tolerable form of Christian doctrine,

but on the ignorant instinct that he knew to underlie the orthodoxy of

the Protestant Churches, as of his own. He lauded the English people,

regardless of its attitude to his own Church:--

"It knows nothing," he declared, "of a race of sophists who,

professing to know nothing about God, and law, and right and wrong,

and conscience, and judgment to come, are incapable of giving to

Christian or to reasonable men the pledges which bind their moral

nature with the obligations necessary for the command of fleets and

armies, and legislatures and commonwealths."

Of the historic fact that the English people had once brutally

persecuted the Quakers, but had latterly allowed them to dispense

with oath-taking, he disposed by saying that they were allowed to

affirm because they were known to be deeply religious, and therefore

trustworthy:--

"But let no man tell me that this respectful confidence is to be

claimed by our Agnostics; much less by those, if such there be, who,

sinking by the inevitable law of the human mind below the shallowness

and timidity of Agnosticism, plunge into the great deep of human

pride, where the light of reason goes out, and the outer darkness

hides God, His perfection, and His laws....

"There still stands on our Statute book a law which says that to

undermine the principles of moral obligation is punishable by

forfeiture of all places of trust (9 and 10 Will. c. 32, Kerr's

_Blackstone_, iv. 34, 35, note), but there is no law which says that

a man who publicly denies the existence of God is a fit and proper

person to sit in Parliament, or a man who denies the first laws of

morals is eligible to make laws for the homes and domestic life of

England, Scotland, and Ireland."

The whole article was in this strain, as far removed from political

science as from the charity which is conventionally associated with

the Christian name. And though all the while it was notorious that

the ignorant and superstitious of the Cardinal's own Church are

the least to be believed, whether on oath or without oath, of all

_quasi_-civilised men, the rancorous rhetoric of the Romish priest

counted for something with the class of Protestant bigots who, hating

Rome, hate reason so much more as to be ready to work with even Rome

against it. And yet Manning, in his work on "The Present Crisis of

the Holy See," had declared that "England has the melancholy and bad

pre-eminence of being the most anti-Catholic, _and therefore the most

anti-Christian_, power of the world." Thus can fanatics manoeuvre.

Among other libels, the ancient fable of the watch, the story of

which has been told in an earlier chapter, was at this time made to

do special duty, the flight of Edgcumbe being insufficient to set

up hesitation on the subject among the mass of the orthodox. Some

assailants, however, showed much discretion when challenged. Thus one

J. F. Duncan, a Wesleyan minister of Nottingham, who in his pulpit

described "that man from Northampton" as a "blot on the British

escutcheon," and as a "wretch" who gave his Maker five minutes to

strike him dead, was told that unless he apologised at once, criminal

proceedings would be taken against him. He instantly replied: "I am

this morning honoured with your communication, and have to say in reply

that I know nothing of newspaper reports of my sermons, but if any

remarks of mine have been offensive to you, you have my retractation

and apology _at once_." A line in the _Reformer_ tells how "J. H.

Martin Hastings, a professedly religious person, having grossly

libelled Mr Bradlaugh, now, under threat of criminal proceedings, sends

us his retractation and sincere apology."

Some persons, offered an opportunity for a much-needed apology, did not

avail themselves of it, the risk of criminal proceedings being absent.

The following correspondence sets forth one such case:--

"To the Lord Norton, June 25th, 1880.

"MY LORD,--In the lobby of the House of Commons this

afternoon your lordship said in my hearing, 'Mr Bradlaugh ought to be

flogged in Trafalgar Square,' to which I at once replied to you that

it was ungentlemanly and impertinent to offer me an insult at a moment

when I could not return it.

"I now beg to ask your lordship for some explanation, at the same time

informing you that several members of the House of Commons whom I have

consulted on the subject advise me that your lordship's carefulness

in being ill-mannered and insulting three feet outside the House of

Commons precludes me from submitting the matter to the Speaker, and

I can therefore only place this letter before the public with such

answer as your lordship may be pleased to send me.--I have the honour

to be your lordship's obedient servant,

CHARLES BRADLAUGH."

"35 Eaton Place, June 26th, 1880.

"SIR,--In reference to your letter just received, the facts

are these:

"I was yesterday in a crowd at the door of the House of Commons,

waiting to get into the gallery for the Irish Compensation debate.

You came out and passed into the lobby. Some one pointed you out to

me. The observation was made, how much trouble one man's desire for

notoriety could give. I added that a desire for notoriety might be

gratified by a public flogging in Trafalgar Square. You seem to have

imperfectly overheard the last words on returning to the House, and

connected your name with them. I certainly had no idea of suggesting

a mode and place of treatment for any particular case. You came up to

me and said, 'You should not insult a man in his presence.' I replied

that I had said nothing to you.--Obediently,

"NORTON."

Bradlaugh's fingers must have itched to apply to Lord Norton's person

the chastisement which his lordship had prescribed for him. Less

well-bred people than his lordship expressed their sentiments to

Bradlaugh by letter, being denied the opportunity of insulting him in

his hearing. In the _Reformer_ of 12th September he writes:--

"I was sorry that Mr Dillon thought it necessary to call the attention

of the House to the threatening letters which had been sent to

him. When I was fighting for my seat in the House, I received at

least threescore letters threatening my life. I put them all in the

waste-paper basket, although one or two of the communications were

works of art, and decorated with skulls, cross-bones, bleeding hearts,

and daggers. There is always a fair proportion of lunatics who in

times of excitement write strange letters to public men."

His laugh over these things was entirely genial. At no period of his

struggle, and on no provocation, did he ever show a touch of that

general embitterment which so many men feel towards society on the

strength of an ill-usage either imaginary or trifling in comparison

with what he underwent. But the wrongers, as always, could not forgive.

There was no slackening in the output of Conservative defamation, the

device of saddling Bradlaugh's Atheism on the Gladstone Government

being too congenial to be abandoned. As Lord Henry Lennox had put

it in an inspired but unguarded moment, it was felt to be good Tory

policy to "put that damned Bradlaugh on them." Sir Hardinge Giffard

(now Lord Halsbury) publicly and falsely asserted in November that

before the election the Liberal whip, Mr Adam, had written to the

Northampton electors, asking them to return Bradlaugh; going on to

add that this step "had never been disavowed or disapproved by the

Liberal leaders"--an extremity of false witness memorable as coming

from a man who was soon to be made Lord Chancellor. Such a lead was of

course zealously followed. And the average upper-class Liberal, while

reluctantly voting with the Government in the matter, indemnified

himself by insolence to the man over whom the trouble had arisen.

There are always in the Liberal party men loyal to it as a faction,

while caring little for its principles in themselves, and bearing

small goodwill to those more advanced adherents who give pause to the

weaker brethren. This state of mind may account for the gratuitous

offensiveness, though hardly for the inaccuracy, of one utterance by Mr

Marjoribanks (now Lord Tweedmouth) in an address to his constituents at

Duns in November 1880:--

"It was in his opinion a great pity that the electors of Northampton

should have elected a man to be their representative whose views,

moral, religious, and social, were such as were Mr Bradlaugh's

specialty, and not only his specialty, but his means of subsisting.

(Applause.) It was a pity, too, that when Mr Bradlaugh had been

elected he had not followed the example of far greater men, such as

Mill and Hume, who were to some extent sharers in his beliefs, or

rather his disbeliefs, but who had quietly gone to the table and

taken the oath, and said no more about it. Then, again, it was a pity

that when Mr Bradlaugh claimed to affirm, he was not at once allowed

to do so at his own risk. Of one thing, however, he was perfectly

sure, and that was, that the House of Commons was perfectly right in

the distinct and peremptory refusal which Mr Bradlaugh's demand to

take the oath met when it was ultimately made."

It is not necessary here to go into Mr Marjoribanks' estimate of the

relative greatness of Bradlaugh and Joseph Hume, or of the merits of

Bradlaugh's views. It is not such judgments as his that determine a

man's standing with his generation, or with posterity. The remark

as to "means of subsisting," also, may be left to supply its own

commentary. More recently the same speaker has emphasized his objection

to some action of some journalists by remarking that it was done for a

livelihood; a judgment which strikes at the whole mass of the Christian

clergy, and which would seem to imply that a rich man is to be pardoned

for saying a false or a base thing where a hireling is to be doubly

denounced. A man who has never had occasion to do anything for a

livelihood presumably sees such things in a different light from those

who lack his pecuniary advantages; and though a professing Christian

is supposed to hold that the labourer is worthy of his hire, Lord

Tweedmouth doubtless remains satisfied with the ethics of his youth. Mr

Chamberlain has indicated similar views. Suffice it here to point to

Bradlaugh's whole career for the proof of the utter sincerity of his

propaganda. But to praise Mill and Joseph Hume for taking an oath "on

the true faith of a Christian," and to blame Bradlaugh for choosing

rather to affirm when he believed an affirmation was open to him, is

to set up an ethic which one would hardly expect any professed Liberal

to avow. As for the "distinct and peremptory refusal," no such thing

had taken place. What the House had distinctly refused was to allow the

affirmation; and in the division on that point Mr Marjoribanks _had

not voted for Mr Labouchere's motion_; whereas he had voted for Mr

Gladstone's motion referring the oath question to a select committee.

When a politician can thus deal with simple historical facts, his

opinion on weightier issues is apt to lose even the significance it

would normally have. Other Liberals added their quota. Lord Sherbrooke,

writing in the _Nineteenth Century_, spoke of the oath which Mr

Bradlaugh "at first refused and afterwards was ready to take." His

Lordship had once spoken of Disraeli as possessing a "slatternly and

inaccurate mind." No milder epithets could well be applied to himself

in the present case. But for all these endless insults and wanton

slanders Bradlaugh had seldom anything save a restrained and dignified

rebuke. When Mr Grantham, Q.C., M.P. (now Mr Justice Grantham), spoke

of him as gaining his livelihood "by the circulation of obscene

literature," he remarked in his journal that there was one homely Saxon

word that would meet the case. He might reasonably have said that there

were several, of varying length.

It was noticeable that all of these insults were uttered in Bradlaugh's

absence, or in periodicals where he was allowed no reply. From the

first he had been refused the right of reply in the _Nineteenth

Century_. Men did not now venture to attack him in the House; but

they were bold when among their constituents, especially in the rural

districts. On his own part he was scrupulous to give no just cause

for offence. One journalist recklessly represented him as having once

obtruded himself on the ceremony of prayers in the House, when in point

of fact he had been accidentally shut in, and had remained motionless

where he stood. We have seen how he besought all of his freethinking

followers to beware of seeming to presume on the vote in his favour.

During the autumn of 1880 there was much discussion of the question of

the Burials Bill, a test which served to show the amount of good-will

subsisting between bodies of citizens professing belief in the same

God and the same sacred books. Dissenters were fit to swear and sit

in the House of Commons, but from the Church point of view were not

fit to be buried "on their own recognisances," so to speak, in the

public churchyard. The Tories in their traditional fashion opposed

all concession, arguing that if dissenters were allowed to hold their

own services, Atheists and heathens would follow. One Conservative

member, named St Aubyn, pictured Atheists holding "indecent orgies

over the bodies of the dead." Considering that drunkenness at funerals

had been a reproach to Christendom for centuries; that it was common

in Presbyterian Scotland within the century; and that Irish wakes are

still customary, the suggestion may serve to measure the "honour

and conscience" of the speaker, who further signalised himself by

admitting, as a lawyer, that Bradlaugh had a legal right to sit in

the House, while he confessedly opposed his taking his seat. In view

of the general state of the Christian mind, Bradlaugh abstained from

speaking on the subject in the House, and the National Secular Society

decided to present no petitions in support of the Bill, lest they

should thereby injure its chances. They had their thanks in a speech

from Mr Osborne Morgan, who asked in Wales whether it was "reasonable

to keep four millions of Nonconformists knocking at the churchyard gate

for years because a handful of Secularists wanted to enter with them?"

Any suggestion, however indirect and unobtrusive, that Secularists were

entitled to the rights of other citizens, was sure in those days to

elicit some display of animosity from the majority of those who call

their creed a religion of love. Upright and scrupulous Nonconformists

there were in the House, such men as Richards and Illingworth, who were

faithful to the principle of equal liberty, and sought to carry it out;

but the feeling that Secularists were as much of a nuisance dead as

alive was the prevailing one.

Among the Irish members, finally, the full power of the Catholic

priesthood was exerted to the utmost. Bradlaugh did the Home Rulers

careful and continuous service in the House, besides publishing in

his journal many articles and paragraphs in support of the Parnell

movement. When the Chief-Justice of Ireland made a scandalous

exhibition of judicial prejudice in regard to the Parnell trial

before the case was heard, Bradlaugh denounced it as an "impudent

manifesto." At the same time, nothing would induce him to cater for

Irish or any other support at the expense of truth and fair play,

and he protested against Irish wrongdoing no less promptly, though

more gently, than against the wronging of Ireland. Any such display

of impartiality served the majority of the Catholic Home Rulers as a

political pretext for an antagonism motived either by religion or fear

of priestly influence; and when Bradlaugh protested against the Irish

tactics of obstruction and scurrility--tactics which he always refused

to employ--they deliberately represented him as supporting coercion,

though he not only spoke repeatedly against the Coercion Bill and

published in his journal a number of articles emphatically condemning

it,[148] but actually moved the rejection of the Bill on the second

reading, when Parnell had taken flight to avoid arrest. By this time

Parnell had given way to the pressure put upon him by his followers, by

the priests, and by the Irish press, and had joined them in aspersing

Bradlaugh as the enemy of Ireland. None the less did he continue his

Parliamentary labours in the Irish as in other causes. A reference to

Hansard shows that in the months July-March 1880-1 (in only five of

which, however, did Parliament sit) he was one of the most usefully

industrious members in the House; and so much was abundantly admitted

by his fellow-members, including even some opponents. Running over

the scanty reports of his work, we find him pleading for Maories and

Hindus, urging reform of the Criminal Code, asking the House to reject

the Lords' amendments on the Ground Game Bill, moving for a select

committee on perpetual pensions, challenging Indian finance, resisting

the prohibition of Sunday funerals, calling for returns of national

revenue and expenditure, working hard on the Employers' Liability Bill

of 1880, protesting against the plank bed for prisoners, protesting

against the flogging of soldiers,[149] besides putting questions on

behalf of aggrieved correspondents everywhere.

[Footnote 148: The _National Reformer_ of 16th January 1881 contains,

besides Bradlaugh's own protest, articles by two leading contributors

strongly condemning the measure and criticising its defenders,

including Bright.]

[Footnote 149: See above, p. 201.]

It was within this period that he came before the public in a new

light, through having been challenged to fight a duel by a wild French

_député_, M. Laisant, who declared in the Chamber, 27th December 1880,

that he had precise information proving Bradlaugh to be a Prussian spy.

Declining to go through the ceremony of the duel, Bradlaugh invited

M. Laisant to lay the matter before a jury of honour of six--three

to be English M.P.'s of whom M. Laisant should name one, and three

French Deputies of whom Bradlaugh should name one. The matter, like the

regulation French duel, came to nothing. But Bradlaugh had a very real

fight before him at home.

§8.

Meanwhile the litigation forced upon Bradlaugh by the policy of the

Government was proceeding, heaping up debt and preparing disaster.

After some distant skirmishing on points of form, the action of Clarke

came on in the Court of Queen's Bench on 7th March 1881, before Mr

Justice Mathew (a Roman Catholic) who, being newly appointed, was only

that morning "sworn in." When the case was called, the junior counsel

for the prosecution applied for an adjournment on the score that his

leader, Sir Hardinge Giffard, was absent, and he, the junior, did not

feel able to argue the case. Bradlaugh curtly explained that "Sir

Hardinge Giffard has on more than one occasion refused to consult my

convenience," and declined to agree to the adjournment. Giffard then

appeared. Stripped of minutiæ as to demurrers and cross-demurrers, the

arguments were:--

For the plaintiff: That the defendant was not in law entitled to make

affirmation of allegiance as he had done, the laws permitting such

affirmation having been "intended" to cover only persons holding

religious beliefs--_i.e._ beliefs as to a Deity and a future state.

For the defendant: That the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866 expressly

provided that every person "for the time being by law permitted to make

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

be entitled to make affirmation in Parliamentary matters; that the

Evidence Amendment Act of 1869 enabled any unbeliever to give evidence

in any court of justice on the presiding judge being satisfied that an

oath would not be binding on his conscience; that the further amending

Act of 1870 defined the term "judge" as covering any persons legally

authorised to administer oaths for the taking of evidence; and that the

Speaker was so authorised. Therefore defendant was entitled to affirm

allegiance. "I contend," said Bradlaugh, "that all enabling clauses in

statutes must be interpreted liberally, not restrictively, in favour of

the person claiming the benefit, and not harshly against him."

The one technical weakness of the case was that nowhere had the

legislature explicitly said that persons with no religious belief

should be free to make affirmation of allegiance; though to found on

this omission would be to assume that the legislature, while thinking

the oath could advantageously (for that was avowed in the preambles)

be dispensed with in the taking of evidence, thought it could not be

dispensed with in the formality preceding entrance into Parliament.

On that point, however, Mr Justice Mathew founded his judgement,

which was delivered on 11th March. The Evidence Acts, he decided,

were clearly "intended to remove restrictions upon the admissibility

of witnesses with a view of promoting the discovery of the truth,"

and "had no other object." The Acts of 1866 and 1869-70 must not

be read together, because the legislature could not be supposed to

have "intended" them to be so read. To this argument--one of the two

mutually exclusive methods of interpretation of law which judges employ

at their choice--Mr Justice Mathew added a pointed comment on one

of the defendant's arguments. Bradlaugh, he said, had "attempted to

show that the privilege of sitting in either House of Parliament was

analogous to the 'privilege' of giving evidence in a court of justice."

On which his lordship absurdly remarked that "no one who was free to

choose his words and had a preference for accuracy of expression would

speak of the discharge of the all-important and anxious duty of a

witness as a privilege." It plainly follows on this, either that the

work of a member of Parliament is _not_ an "all-important and anxious

duty," or that it is not a privilege. The first alternative is absurd;

the other quashes the judge's argument. Further, it is the historical

fact that Bradlaugh and other Freethinkers _had_ regarded the power of

giving evidence in court as a privilege, and had so described it. It

may suffice to give these grounds, for the view of many of us is that

the decision was unjust. But neither at this nor at any other time was

Bradlaugh known even in private to question a judge's fairness. His

loyalty to the established system of "justice" was absolute.

Judgment being given for Clarke, Bradlaugh applied for a stay of

execution (as to the costs), with a view to an appeal; and the judge

assented. On 14th March, when Bradlaugh was rising in the House to

present a petition, Mr Gorst interposed with the objection that his

seat was now vacant, and took occasion to assert that to his knowledge

no notice of appeal had been given in the case. A discussion ensued,

in which Mr Labouchere read a letter from Mr Bradlaugh to him, telling

that he had instructed his solicitor to give the formal notice of

appeal, and would prosecute it without delay, and offering to vacate

his seat, if thought fit, to save time. Lord Randolph Churchill

suggested that they had "no security" that the appeal would be made

till nearly the end of the statutory twelve months. The point being

dropped, Bradlaugh on 23rd March moved the Court of Appeal to expedite

the hearing. As the appeal was "from an interlocutory order, and not

from a final decision,"[150] it could be taken promptly, and on 30th

March it was heard before Lords Justices Bramwell, Baggallay, and Lush.

Bradlaugh began by arguing that Clarke was not legally entitled to sue,

the Act founded on by him having been repealed by another which did

not re-enact permission to anybody to sue. Going over the other ground

afresh, he argued that the Act of 1866 made no exclusion of any class

of persons whatever; and that the legislature ought therefore to be

held as having desired to enable every class of citizens--an argument

much more cogent, to the lay sense, than the contrary inference drawn

by Justice Mathew. The arguments were long and intricate on both sides;

and one of Bradlaugh's remarks in his closing address shows to what

length of speculativeness they sometimes went: "The learned counsel

said the word 'solemnly' could not mean 'sincerely,' because there was

already the word 'sincerely' in the declaration. By the same process

of reasoning the word 'sincerely' cannot be construed to mean 'truly'

because there is also the word 'truly' in the affirmation. I think it

is better to confine ourselves to law, and not go into philology."

Towards the close, on a question as to whether their lordships'

judgment was to be judicial or extra-judicial on both points raised,

Bradlaugh remarked, "The House of Commons has been very generous in

its treatment of me, and I am anxious to reciprocate that generosity,"

adding a hope that their lordships would not think he was pressing

his point unduly. "If you will allow me to say so," replied Lord

Justice Lush, "you have argued the case with great propriety as well

as great force." But the judgment (delivered on 31st March) was again

hostile, being to the effect that Clarke was entitled to sue, and that

Bradlaugh was not entitled to make the Parliamentary affirmation.

The reason given by Lord Bramwell, the presiding judge, was that the

Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866 would only permit affirmation to

persons _already entitled_, like the Quakers, to make affirmation

"not on particular occasions but on _all_ occasions when they would

otherwise have to take an oath." Unbelievers not being thus already

entitled (having only the right to affirm as witnesses), Bradlaugh was

not entitled to affirm by the Act of 1866, read in connection with

others which did not give a complete qualification. That is to say, as

I understand him, Lord Bramwell argued that the Act of 1866 was meant

to give the right of affirmation in a particular case to persons who

already had it in all possible cases. It sounds sufficiently absurd,

and I may have failed to follow the reasoning; but I can arrive at

no other interpretation of his words as published. Lords Justices

Baggallay and Lush concurred. The latter put it that the "every other

person" in the Act of 1866 "must mean every other person in a like

position with Quakers," that is, persons having "a perfect immunity

from taking the oath in all places and on all occasions." "Therefore

I feel no doubt whatever that the true construction of this sentence

is that Parliament never intended to allow every person whomsoever

when elected to appear before the House of Commons, and on stating

that he had a conscientious objection to the oath, being permitted to

make affirmation." Nobody, as it happened, had ever said so. But Lord

Justice Lush's confident conclusion as to the intentions of Parliament

involves this: That Parliament, knowing there were Atheist members,

_deliberately chose to have them take the oath, rather than let them

make affirmation_. To this outrageous conclusion all these judges are

shut up; for there is not a word in any of the Acts about excluding

Atheists; and if the "intentions" of the legislature are to be looked

for--thus argued Sir Hardinge Giffard in this very case--"the language

must be clear and unequivocal." So say we all. But the judges expressly

inferred exclusive intentions from the mere absence of special detail

in the inclusive language. They would not infer friendly intention

from friendly language; but they would infer hostile intention from no

language at all.

[Footnote 150: Bradlaugh put the technicalities thus to the Lord

Chancellor in the Court of Appeal on 27th March:--"There are issues of

fact untouched by the demurrer, and there is the first paragraph of the

statement of defence, on which I may possibly defeat the plaintiff even

should the allowance of the demurrer be maintained."]

Bradlaugh's seat was now vacant in law; and he at once stood for

re-election. All along the great majority of his constituents had

stood by him cordially and courageously. A series of crowded public

meetings, some addressed by himself and Mr Labouchere, some by leading

local politicians, protested against the injustice done to member and

constituency at each new stage of the process of exclusion, and now

that the constituency was called upon to express its feeling at the

polls it effectively responded. A certain number, of course, were

detached from Bradlaugh by the storm of obloquy which beat upon

him, and this the more readily because they had accepted the joint

candidature with reluctance; but the great majority stood staunch,

despite desperate efforts to turn them. As Bradlaugh told at the time,

the constituency was flooded with pamphlets containing

"not only what I have said and what I have written, taken out of its

context and distorted, but containing things I have never said and

have never written, and never dreamt of saying or writing. Books that

I have neither written nor published, but which were supposed to be

obnoxious, have had extracts taken out from their medical parts and

circulated, and the physiological part of the Knowlton pamphlet, for

which I was indicted, was taken separately and sent by post to each of

the electors. The vilest things have been said. Some of my foes have

been more foul than even I had thought possible."

The dirty work was largely done by a person named Varley, known as

"a tradesman of Notting Hill." Further, a notice was served on the

electors assuring them that Bradlaugh had vacated his seat "as if he

were dead"; and on the comedy side of the contest the Conservative

candidate, whose name figured on his bills in the alliteration "Corbett

and Christianity," fortified his position in his electoral address by

the appeal: "I am intimately connected with a family in your own county

(that of Sir Charles Isham), which is well known to you, and members

of which have at former periods had the honour of representing their

native county in Parliament."

On the other side, a considerable amount of goodwill to Bradlaugh

was shown in the Liberal press. The _Christian Globe_, declaring

"unhesitatingly that the member for Northampton should be allowed to

affirm, if he desires it," remarked that "Mr Bradlaugh has his faults,

but he is a man of cleanly, decent, orderly life--a man of brains

and ability, and of sterling courage as well." The _Daily Chronicle_

testified that he had "made a decided and creditable mark in the House

of Commons by his ability, his moderation, and his general deportment."

Even the _Times_ bore witness:--"Mr Bradlaugh has his compensations.

It is something to have displayed forensic ability so conspicuous. It

is only fair to him to allow that many, whom the choice of Northampton

naturally did not content, have been conciliated by Mr Bradlaugh's

manly and moderate attitude." The more Radical _Weekly Dispatch_

declared that "no other new member of this new House of Commons has

so much distinguished himself for political integrity and shrewdness,

or given such evidence of statesmanlike qualities." Even in the House

itself, Sir John Holker had observed that Bradlaugh had shown himself

"a skillful debater, an eloquent man," whose "voice and tongue had an

influence on the debates." More solid than these testimonies were the

thousands of subscriptions, mostly small, but ranging from twopence to

£5, sent in to meet the election expenses. This help from the workers

was the kind of sympathy that always touched Bradlaugh to the quick.

The upshot of the fight (9th April 1881) was that Bradlaugh received

3437 votes, being 390 less than at the general election, while the

Conservative candidate got 3305, being 153 more than the former Tory

vote. Some 150 electors had turned round, while some 240 nominal

Liberals had abstained--not a very bad result under the circumstances.

The narrow majority of 132, however, gave sufficient encouragement

to the Tories in the House to stick to their policy of exclusion;

and anger at defeat did the rest. One journal, whose name it will be

charitable to suppress, deplored that the reluctance to fight a seat

against "a Yahoo like Bradlaugh," with whom even that "association"

would be "pollution," had prevented the advent of a better Tory

candidate than Mr Corbett.

§ 9.

Parliament being in recess, it was only on 26th April that Bradlaugh

was able to present himself once more on the field of battle. Sir

Stafford Northcote, courteously enough, as Bradlaugh acknowledged,

wrote him beforehand, intimating that he felt himself bound to object

as before to the oath-taking. This he did as Bradlaugh was about to be

sworn. The Speaker confessed that "undoubtedly a proceeding so regular

and formal" as the oath-taking "ought under ordinary circumstances

to be continued without interruption," but in view of the former

resolution of the House he felt bound to allow the intervention.

Bradlaugh interposed a request that he should be heard before the House

came to a decision; but it needed the special interposition of the

Speaker to get him a hearing for the bare request from the shouting

Tories. Northcote spoke on the customary lines. Bradlaugh had been

legally declared unentitled to affirm; but on the other hand, it

would be "profanation" for him to take the oath--albeit everybody knew

it had been taken by dozens of Atheists. And the old dishonourable

equivoque once more did duty: "it had been clearly shown that Mr

Bradlaugh did not regard the oath as having any binding effect on his

conscience." The mover of the amendment in Bradlaugh's favour, Mr

Davey, was much interrupted, as was Bright when he proceeded to support

it. Interrupting Bright was never profitable. His first allusion

to religious disability evoked the customary imbecile correction,

"irreligious disability." The answer was prompt:--

"Hon. members say 'irreligious disability.' Well, you have objected

before to the admission of the Roman Catholics. ('Hear, hear.') You

objected to them because of their religion, which you deemed to be

false--(loud cries of 'No' and 'Yes')--and the religion you deemed to

be false you would now seem to consider much better than no religion

at all. On the same ground you refused for many years the claims

of the Jews to be admitted to this House, and you have now raised

exactly the same question--('No' and 'Hear')--but in a more offensive

form--('Oh' and cheers)--because you aim your shafts at a particular

individual, who cannot be said to represent a class."

Once more Bright defended Bradlaugh from the impudent charge that

he had "obtruded his opinions on the House." His declaration that

Bradlaugh's ground for proposing to affirm "was a ground honourable

to himself--it was in point of fact a tenderness of conscience, as I

should call it," drew "loud laughter" from the conscientious gentlemen

of the Opposition. Bright pressed his point all the harder:

"I think it a gross unfairness--it was then and is now--to bring

forward the fact that he himself preferred to affirm rather than take

the oath, and then upon that to assume that the oath would not be

binding upon his conscience.... He states in the most distinct manner

that the words of the oath are binding upon his conscience--binding

upon his honour and conscience. If that be so, you have no right to

assume that the oath is not binding upon his conscience. You might as

well tell me that the oath is not binding upon my conscience."

Later in the speech came a shrewd thrust:--

"If it be permitted to make these assumptions with regard to the hon.

member for Northampton, why is it not equally right to make them with

regard to other persons--I will mention no names--in this House or

outside this House, who either publicly or privately have expressed

the same opinions as are assumed to be held by Mr Bradlaugh? But

nobody proposes to put any questions to them. (Cries of 'Name.') It

is admitted now that if Mr Bradlaugh had come to the table and said

nothing about the affirmation--I do not hesitate to say that it is to

his credit that he did not take that course--and had offered to take

the oath, no question would have been asked, but he would have been

allowed to take the oath just as other members of the House."

Another reference to Bradlaugh's conscience brought out the cry, "What

is its value?" from a Conservative member, and Bright commented mildly

enough:--

"I must express my regret at what I must call the almost violent

temper with which some hon. gentlemen come to the consideration of

this question. I can feel the greatest charity for a member of this

House who in my opinion holds views on religious matters which appear

to me so extraordinary and so unfortunate.... There has been no member

of this House who has conducted himself with greater propriety and

decorum--(cheers)--and he has brought to our discussions at least an

average--perhaps more than an average--ability; and there is not a

single word he has uttered, not a single act he has committed, which

in the slightest degree ought to bar him from taking his place in this

assembly of gentlemen. (Cheers.) I would ask hon. members to think

for a moment whether it is in accordance with that Christianity which

they presume so much to defend that they should now at this time,

after many years, almost centuries, of discussion of questions of

this nature, determine to raise up another barrier against the civil

freedom which our constituencies believe they enjoy."

The use of the quotation:

"Bigotry may swell

The sail he sets for Heaven with blasts from Hell"

was perhaps the most resented item in the speech; and Mr Gorst, who

followed, thought it judicious to assert that on his side of the House

"there was no disposition to treat this question in the spirit of

intolerance and bigotry which the right hon. gentleman had done his

very best to stir up.... It ought to be treated purely as a question

of legality." But in a few minutes Mr Gorst arrived at the further

conclusion that "to say that this was a question for the courts of law

was absurd."

Bradlaugh then made his "Second Speech at the Bar." He first reminded

Mr Gorst, who had argued from his old answer to the Committee on

the point of the oath, that that answer was given unwillingly and

after objection to its being put. In another preliminary paragraph

he remarked: "My return is untainted. There is no charge of bribery,

no charge of corruption, nor of inducing men to come drunken to the

polling-booth." ("Hon." members who had done these things had had

no scruple about taking the oath, nor had the House ever shown much

resentment at contact with them.) Mr (now Sir) Edward Clarke had during

the debate spoken of Bradlaugh's "making an avowal of opinions to the

House" on a former occasion, and had contended that the dignity of the

House was now involved.

"I have never," said Bradlaugh, "directly or indirectly, said one

word about my opinions, and this House has no right to inquire what

opinions I may hold outside its walls. The only right is that which

the statute gives you; my opinions there is no right to inquire into.

I shelter myself under the laws of my country. This is a political

assembly, met to decide on the policy of the nation, and not on the

religious opinions of the citizens."

He was accordingly meeting the Conservatives, as represented by Mr

Gorst, on their own ground. On the question of dignity, raised by Mr

Clarke, he asked:

"Do you mean that I can injure the dignity of this House? this

House which has stood unrivalled for centuries? this House, supreme

among the assemblies of the world? this House, which represents the

traditions of liberty? I should not have so libelled you."

The most direct thrust in the speech is perhaps the following:--

"What will you inquire into? The right hon. baronet would inquire

into my opinions. Will you inquire into my conduct, or is it only

my opinions you will try here? The hon. member for Plymouth [Mr E.

Clarke] frankly puts it--opinions. If opinions, why not conduct? Why

not examine into members' conduct when they come to the table, and see

if there be no members in whose way you can put a barrier? ('Hear,

hear.') Are members, whose conduct may be obnoxious, to vote my

exclusion because to them my opinions are obnoxious?"

Here again the tone is not deprecatory:--

"The right hon. baronet has said there has been no word of

recantation. You have no right to ask me for any recantation. Since

the 9th April you have no right to ask me for anything. If you have

a legal disqualification, petition, lay it before the judges. When

you ask me to make a statement, you are guilty of impertinence to me,

of treason to the traditions of this House, and of impeachment of the

liberties of the people."

And the close--it cannot be called a peroration--makes no abatement of

emphasis:--

"I ask you now, do not plunge me into a struggle I would shun. The law

gives me no remedy if the House decides against me. Do not mock at the

constituencies. If you place yourselves above the law, you leave me

no course save lawless agitation, instead of reasonable pleading. It

is easy to begin such a strife, but none knows how it would end....

You think I am an obnoxious man, and that I have no one on my side.

If that be so, then the more reason that this House, grand in the

strength of its centuries of liberty, should have now that generosity

in dealing with one who to-morrow may be forced into a struggle for

public opinion against it."

Mr Gladstone followed with a carefully subdued speech, in which,

however, he remarked: "Mr Bradlaugh is upon his trial before the House;

but the House also, permit me to say it with great respect, is upon its

trial," and he proceeded to cite against the opposition the authority of

"Sir George Grey, who was an ornament of the House for fully forty

years, and who has not ceased to take a lively interest in its

proceedings. I hold in my hand his written opinion, expressed in

the most decisive terms, and he has the fullest conviction that the

opposition to the taking of the oath by Mr Bradlaugh ought not to be

permitted by the Chair."

He further bore laudatory witness to Bradlaugh's behaviour in the

House:--

"Every man must in common fairness admit that Mr Bradlaugh is to be

credited with the best and highest motives. He is under a _primâ

facie_ and presumptive obligation and duty, having been elected by

a constituency to present himself at the table as the only means of

fulfilling his duty to them. On the other hand, I need not animadvert

upon his conduct. It is generally admitted that his conduct while

he sat on those benches was the conduct of a man of great ability,

integrity, and honour."

Incidentally, the Premier mentioned that the authority of Sir John

Holker was with those who held that the House had no right to

interfere; and he put to the Opposition, at some length, the plain

logical outcome of their action, namely, that they were bound, in

every case in which a member's opinions were known from any source

to be irreligious, to refuse that member the oath. The argument was

unanswerable; but it was not argument that was to be met. After a

long debate the House divided, when 208 members voted for Northcote's

motion, and only 175 against.

Then came another "scene." Bradlaugh came to the table and made his

old protest: "The resolution of the House is against the law, and

I respectfully refuse to withdraw." The Speaker, as before, asked

for "instructions." Northcote asked Gladstone to propose something.

Gladstone "left it to the majority to carry out their own vote."

Northcote, after lecturing the Premier for dereliction of duty, moved

"that Mr Bradlaugh be ordered to withdraw." Gladstone warmly demanded

to know on what grounds he was lectured. Mr Labouchere interposed with

a warning, and proposed to divide, but at the request of Mr Bright

withdrew the motion. The Speaker again asked Bradlaugh to withdraw,

and Bradlaugh again refused. The Sergeant-at-Arms was then called on

to remove him, and did so in the former fashion, Bradlaugh returning

from the bar to the table as before, protesting against physical

force, and asking the House "not to put me to the indignity of a

physical struggle." Again the Speaker "threw himself upon the House for

instructions," and the House called for "Northcote" and "Gladstone";

but neither leader responded. A member asked whether Mr Bradlaugh had

not already been ordered out. The Speaker helplessly explained that

the order "only extended to the bar of the House and no further," on

which Bradlaugh moved back to the bar and stood there. Northcote rose

and feebly protested that he "was only prevented from moving that Mr

Bradlaugh should be committed by the feeling that Mr Bradlaugh was

encouraged by the Government in his resistance." Gladstone "entirely

repudiated and repelled the statement," considered the accusation

groundless and wanton, and called upon his right hon. antagonist to

"point to the facts on which he has made so grave a charge to the

House." Northcote suitably replied, and Gladstone again repudiated,

intimating that he "should not take any steps in this matter until the

time came when it appeared to him he could do it with advantage to the

House." Thereupon Mr Cowen moved the adjournment of the House, which

was eagerly agreed to. Only in that fashion was the House able for the

time to get out of the ignoble dilemma in which it had been landed by a

cowardly cabal of bigots and faction-fighters. Northcote did not dare

again to move Bradlaugh's committal, but did not dare to confess it;

and there was nothing to do but run away.

Next day, however, the trouble began afresh. Bradlaugh again presented

himself, and was once more removed to the bar, where he stood as

before. Mr Labouchere now asked whether the Government would give

facilities for the Affirmation Bill he had introduced last session; and

Gladstone in his lengthiest manner evolved the answer that it would

depend on whether the Bill was to be opposed. Mr Labouchere and others

passed on the appeal to Northcote as directly as the forms of the

House permitted; and Northcote, as lengthily as Gladstone, made answer

to the effect that "a measure of the kind" would have his "careful

consideration," but he could agree to nothing "in the nature of a

bargain." The truth was, of course, that Northcote could not answer

for his more unscrupulous followers, but dared not admit as much; so

the debate went on in the diffusest House-of-Commons manner. After

a long speech from Bright, Mr Hubbard, losing patience, and having

no judgment to lose, asked "What use were the police, or officers of

the House, if they could not protect the House from the intrusion of

people who had no business there?" No answer being vouchsafed from the

deaf heavens, Mr Walter pompously explained that in his opinion Mr

Bradlaugh ought to be allowed to affirm, but that no unbeliever ought

ever to be allowed to take the oath. "It was idle to say the House had

not official cognisance of the fact that the hon. gentleman belonged

to a sect which did not believe in the existence of God." Another

long speech from Gladstone left the situation unchanged. Mr Newdegate

intimated that if neither leader moved the arrest of Mr Bradlaugh, he

would, if necessary, do it himself. Still the debate rolled on. Mr

Chaplin admitted that Bradlaugh while in the House "had acted with

great ability and great moderation," but then he had "openly avowed,"

etc., so they could not stand by, etc. They commenced their proceedings

with prayer, and invoked the aid of the Supreme Being to guide them in

their labours. On the obvious efficacy of the appeal, Mr Chaplin did

not dwell. A dozen more speakers followed, some of them--as Alderman

Fowler and Mr Warton--declaring that they would oppose any bill; while

one Maciver intimated that he "intended on Thursday to ask the Prime

Minister whether he would introduce a short measure for the partial

disfranchisement of Northampton." At length, on no assurance from

Northcote, but simply on a favourable expression of feeling from Sir

Walter Barttelot, Mr Labouchere's motion for the adjournment of the

House, under cover of which the whole long-drawn discussion had taken

place, was by leave withdrawn; and Bradlaugh withdrew to await the

action of the Government.

On the 29th April Gladstone did announce the intention of the Ministry

to introduce an Affirmation Bill, whereupon Lord Randolph Churchill

announced his intention to oppose it; and the early stages of the

measure were systematically hampered. Bradlaugh published in his

journal an "Appeal to the People," in which he asked them to "speak

out clearly, distinctly, thoroughly, and at once on this issue;" and

he again held a great town's meeting at Northampton. After a long and

brilliant speech, ending with the words, "In this struggle some one

must recede, some one must bend, some one must break. This I do pledge

myself, that if health do keep, and life do hold, I will never give

way," there was a loud tempest of applause, at the close of which he

rose again and asked the audience, "Have you still confidence in me?"

and "Will you stand by me in this fight?" Every hand went up to both

questions with fresh storms of cheering, and Bradlaugh answered "Then

on my honour, if I live, we will win."

The House, however, did not mend its ways. On 2nd May Gladstone moved

that the other Orders of the Day be postponed for the Oaths Bill, and

Churchill opened the debate with a vulgar and violent harangue, which

ended with a hope that the Tories would "give no facilities for placing

in that House brazen Atheism and rampant disloyalty." Several followed

suit; and Northcote, seeing his followers leading him as usual, made

one of his flabby speeches in deprecation of anything like speedy

action in the matter. The measure must be discussed "upon its own

merits, and not with reference to the circumstances and position of any

given individual;" and there must be no "semblance of hurry for the

purpose of avoiding a scandalous scene." In fine, there should be no

alacrity. Gladstone extensively assented, agreeing to allow an interval

after the introduction of the Bill; but a number of Tories threw over

their leader, and one Lewis moved the adjournment of the debate. This

failing, the Home Rulers raised a dispute on procedure, whereafter the

Attorney-General, Sir Henry James, introduced the Bill. In the course

of his speech Sir Henry cited the admission of Northcote to the effect

that he did not object to Bradlaugh sitting in the House, but to his

taking the oath. The unhappy Northcote, pressed on all sides, made the

pitiful explanation that when he said so he only wanted to raise the

point of the oath; but he did not now wish to be understood as having

no objection to Bradlaugh's presence in the House.

Adjourned till Friday the 6th May, the debate was then proposed to be

postponed till the 10th, whereupon Mr A. J. Balfour--who now for the

first time interposed in the controversy within the House--objected

to the Government's course as being taken "not to give relief to any

large class of Her Majesty's subjects, but to deal with an individual."

Sir Richard Cross, who was reminded that he had admitted there was no

way out of the difficulty save by legislation, granted that he was of

that opinion, but avowed that he would all the same oppose any attempt

to give facilities for Bradlaugh's admission. On a division on the

amendment the Government had only a majority of 6 votes--128 to 122.

On their motion being put substantively, a new discussion arose, the

Tories moving the adjournment of the debate. Bright made an impressive

speech, in which he "ventured to say that if the Bill were passed

there were scores of members who would prefer to make an affirmation,"

but obstructive speaking went on, Mr T. P. O'Connor, among others,

ridiculing Bright's speech, and charging him with having "insulted the

religious feeling of the Irish people" earlier in the evening. After

hours of time had been spent, the Government, at three o'clock in

the morning, agreed to the adjournment; but on Tuesday morning, when

the question was raised after one A.M., the obstruction was

continued on precisely the same lines, and the ministry gave up their

plan of a "morning" (_i.e._ afternoon) sitting. Lord Henry Lennox's

principle of "putting that damned Bradlaugh on them" was now felt by

his party to be an inspiration worthy of the common cause. Bradlaugh's

admission stood indefinitely adjourned, so far as the Government were

concerned. But they had still to reckon with Bradlaugh himself.

Giving due notice, he presented himself at the House next day, and the

now customary scene was enacted. The Speaker made his usual appeal, and

Sir Stafford Northcote moved "that the Sergeant-at-Arms do remove Mr

Bradlaugh from the House until he shall engage not to further disturb

the proceedings of the House." On challenge, he explained that by this

he meant that Bradlaugh should "not come within the door kept by the

doorkeepers." To this motion Gladstone agreed, asking his followers to

do likewise. It "relieved the Government," as the journals noted at the

time, "of the necessity for pushing on the Parliamentary Oaths Bill."

Bradlaugh for his part decided not to renew his attempt until the

Irish Land Bill had got through the House. So much consideration he

thought the Government were entitled to, and no amount of injustice

from Irishmen could induce him to put in jeopardy a measure of justice

to Ireland. On this decision he promised the Sergeant-at-Arms not to

attempt any forcible entry of the House without giving him full notice.

§ 10.

Meanwhile the battle of opinion went on outside the House. It was

noticed at the time, as a significant fact, that in the newspaper war

on the subject nearly every attack on Bradlaugh was anonymous, or

signed with initials, while nearly every defence of him was signed.

His friends fought for him with his own spirit. A "League for the

Defence of Constitutional Rights" was founded in his support; and an

"anti-Atheistic Committee" was formed on the other side, with an office

in the Strand, and with the name of Sir Bartle Frere figuring in its

propaganda. On this Bradlaugh struck out as he seldom did. "At least

very shame," he said, "should have made Sir Bartle Frere hesitate

before he paraded his blood-and-shame-stained name in a crusade against

me." The "anti" Committee held a ticket meeting in Exeter Hall, at

which a Secularist who had a platform ticket learned from a member of

the Committee, a magistrate, that the Committee had engaged for the

evening six prize-fighters, with instructions to "stop the mouths of Mr

Bradlaugh's friends with their fists." The meeting was presided over

by Earl Percy, and among the speakers was the Varley before mentioned.

"Bradlaugh's friends" filled the street outside and carried counter

resolutions. Indoors the promoters had the services of the police in

tearing up the tickets of any comers who were pointed out to them

as Freethinkers, and in ejecting the presenters; while disorder was

created by the further ejection from the platform of a number of

Freethinkers who had gone thither with proper tickets.[151] No less

than two hundred policemen had been supplied by the Home Office. After

this naturally there was some disturbance. According to Canon Taylor,

one of the speakers, "for an hour and a half it was scarcely possible

for the different speakers to get a hearing, except a few sentences

at a time; and when 'God save the Queen' was sung the Atheists in

every possible way showed their disloyalty." The resolution of the

promoters was declared carried; but the Rev. Canon "was alarmed to

see such a large minority, extending from beneath the platform to the

other end of that large hall, composed of men and, he was grieved to

say, women." (The boys present, it may be inferred, belonged to the

Young Men's Christian Association.) And this alarmingly large minority,

when the "contrary" vote was taken, "rose with the greatest possible

manifestations of dissent, and with the waving of handkerchiefs." Quite

a number of similar meetings in the provinces failed more or less

badly. On the other hand, Bradlaugh in person held crowded meetings,

free to all, in many towns, getting an ovation everywhere, in addition

to which scores of resolutions and petitions in his favour were

sent to the House by Liberal and Radical clubs. A mass meeting held

at St James's Hall under the auspices of the Constitutional Rights

League, finally, was packed to the door. Among the speakers were three

clergymen, one belonging to the Church of England, Admiral Maxse, and

Mr Labouchere; and no dissentient vote was given on the resolutions

in Bradlaugh's favour. One of the Nonconformist ministers who spoke,

the Rev. Mr Sharman, told how Plymouth Liberals had sent to Northcote

the telegram: "We protest against your effort to deprive Northampton

of one-half of its representation as being revolution in the name of

Conservatism and robbery in the name of religion." The Rev. Stewart

Headlam said of Bradlaugh:--

[Footnote 151: In the House of Commons on 7th February 1882 Earl Percy

asserted that Bradlaugh's friends had fabricated tickets for the

meeting. The statement was absolutely false.]

"I know the great work he has done in the east of London for the moral

condition of the people. I know how he has got hold of hundreds of

people whom we clergy have been utterly unable to reach; and ... I am

certain that the work he has done in the east of London has been of

the greatest moral use for the elevation of the people."

Bradlaugh, on his own part, paid one of his many tributes to Gladstone.

Of this meeting no report appeared in the leading Liberal paper, the

_Daily News_, then understood to be mainly owned by Mr Samuel Morley,

before mentioned. This was unhappily not the only instance of a

Liberal journal perverted by private motives to the side of bigotry

in Bradlaugh's case. Mr Joseph Cowen, M.P., owner of the _Newcastle

Daily Chronicle_, who had long been on friendly terms with him, and who

had volunteered the expression of approval of Bradlaugh's action when

he was imprisoned in the Clock Tower, now took the line of charging

him with inconsistency in proposing to take the oath, though it was

for trying to take the oath in the previous session that he had been

imprisoned. And Mr John Morley, then editing the _Pall Mall Gazette_,

not only gave prominence in that journal to utterances hostile to

Bradlaugh, such as that of Mr Holyoake, but suppressed letters in his

favour, even when sent by a literary man of good standing like Mr

Moncure Conway. Mr Morley, while of course condemning the Tory tactics,

now blamed Bradlaugh for proposing to take the oath at all, though he

had before spoken of him as "parading his views," and though, when he

previously accused him of first "declining" the oath and then asking to

take it, he had _not_ condemned oath-taking by an unbeliever. Bradlaugh

pointed out that voluntary abstention from taking the oath would have

made his seat void in law, to which the _Gazette_ editorially answered

by expressing its confidence that if Bradlangh had simply refused to

take the oath, the House would not have dreamt of unseating him on

that score. On the strength of that conviction the _Gazette_ editor

wrote:[152]--

[Footnote 152: April 27, 1881.]

"We have not concealed our opinion that Mr Bradlaugh would have

consulted his own dignity by refusing to take the oath, and fighting

out an issue which could only have one end." And again:[153] "The

national belief in the existence of a Deity will not be lessened by

the fact that Mr Bradlaugh and men like him are no longer called upon

to use a form which in their lips is an indecent piece of mockery."

[Footnote 153: May 6, 1881.]

When later elected himself, Mr Morley made no attempt to act on the

rule he had thus laid down or caused to be laid down for another man.

It is a curious and a melancholy illustration of the instability of

human character that while Mr Morley was partly playing into the hands

of the spirit of injustice, Mr Goldwin Smith, who now wears its livery,

was emphatic on the other side. He thus wrote in his Toronto journal,

the _Bystander_, in April 1881:--

"To the shame of British civilisation and religion, the attack upon Mr

Bradlaugh and upon the civil rights of his constituents goes on, and

has been technically successful in a court of law. _The ringleaders

are scamps_, putting forward religion as a pretext for political

persecution. It is Sandwich over again denouncing Wilkes for impiety.

Set a coronet on Mr Bradlaugh's head, give him a large fortune, make

him a Tory in politics, and though he were the most offensive of

Atheists, and the most profligate of debauchees to boot, he would have

these crusaders at his feet.... If Parliament allows a fine to be

levied on Mr Bradlaugh for taking the seat to which he had been duly

elected it will undergo a far greater disgrace than any that can be

inflicted upon it by obstruction."

Doubtless Mr Goldwin Smith, writing in Canada, did not feel the burden

which weighed on Liberal respectability at home, the more so as he had

never professed himself a rationalist.

§ 11.

The lawsuit raised by Clarke on behalf of Mr Newdegate still went on

its difficult way, Bradlaugh fighting it inch by inch and point by

point. On 2nd May 1881 he argued before the Lords Justices of Appeal a

point on which he had previously been stopped, and on which no judgment

had been given. This was as to the validity of the "replication," in

which Bradlaugh argued that, as he had actually made affirmation, he

could not properly be sued (as he had been) for sitting and voting

without taking the oath. The judges ruled that as he was not in their

opinion entitled to affirm, the fact of his affirming was not a valid

answer. Defeated here, Bradlaugh decided next to endeavour to overthrow

the action on what he described as a pure technicality, the argument

that, as the writ was dated 2nd July 1880, and the vote sued on had

been given on that day, the action had been brought too early, "for

that the writ must be held to have been tested at the earliest possible

moment of the 2nd of July, and therefore prior to the sitting and

voting for which the penalty is claimed." This point was raised on

16th and 17th May before Lord Chief Justice Coleridge and Mr Bowen,

on Clarke's counsel moving for judgment, and Bradlaugh advanced a

long and learned argument on the point. Judgment was delayed, and the

legal point was tried on 20th and 21st June, before Justice Denman

and Watkin Williams, on the plaintiff's amended statement, Bradlaugh

demurring. His demurrer was overruled, Justice Denman admitting

that the point raised was "true as a general rule of law," but not

applicable to this case; and his lordship gave this singular reason:

"For a legal fiction is for the purpose of doing justice, not for

defeating it." It was not suggested that justice was being done in the

case in hand; but if Bradlaugh's argument were to hold good, it might

be defeated in somebody else's case. "No rule of law," said Justice

Watkin Williams concurring, "compels us so to violate common sense

and plain understanding," another decision worth remembering in the

present connection. Bradlaugh drily wrote in his journal: "I think the

decision of Justices Denman and Watkin Williams is in accordance with

common sense, but I do not think it is consonant with common law." He

added: "I shall, of course, appeal against the decision. The next step

will probably be the trial at _Nisi Prius_"--that was, the trial of

the matter of fact as to the exact hour of issuing the writ, which had

still to be proved by oral evidence before a jury.

That trial took place before Mr Justice Grove and a special jury, in

the Queen's Bench Division, on 19th, 20th, and 22nd July; and the

cross-examination of witnesses by Bradlaugh elicited, for one thing,

that Newdegate was the financial backer of Clarke's action, and, for

the rest, that the evidence of Newdegate and his principal witnesses

on the question of the time of issue of the writ was rather worse than

worthless. Newdegate had a very bad time of it in the witness-box, and

the verbatim report of his cross-examination[154] may be recommended

to legal students as illustrating the value of the testimony of an

English gentleman and magistrate who believes devoutly in God, and

holds that no unbeliever can be believed. A worse appearance has seldom

been made in the witness-box by a man of standing; and in the case in

question it was only surpassed in importance by the exhibition made

by Newdegate's principal legal witness--a gentleman who was proved

to have expressed his surprise that another legal gentleman should

consent to give evidence for "a man like Bradlaugh." The whole report

is a singularly dramatic comment on the proposition that oaths secure

truthful evidence. Probably no competent and unbiassed person who now

reads it will have any difficulty in concluding that the writ had

actually been taken out at least an hour before Bradlaugh had given the

vote on which it proceeded, and that at least three witnesses swore to

falsehoods. Bradlaugh categorically asserted in Court that Newdegate

had lied; and Newdegate's evidence was hardly the worst.

[Footnote 154: Given in a special number of the _National Reformer_.]

The facts of the case may now be historically stated with tolerable

confidence. Newdegate had been afraid that a friendly action would

be brought against Bradlaugh, in which case Bradlaugh would not have

to meet the £500 penalty. Newdegate desired that Bradlaugh should be

mulcted; and he had actually been indecent enough to block the Bill

of Indemnity introduced on Bradlaugh's behalf by Mr Labouchere. Nay

more, in opposing the motion that Bradlaugh be permitted to sit on

affirmation, he had argued that it was beneath the dignity of the House

to lay a trap for a man and leave him to be caught in it by any one who

cared to prosecute. Yet after saying this, he gave a bond of indemnity

to Clarke, the common informer, for suing Bradlaugh; and he had

apparently selected Clarke--a nondescript person, sometimes called a

surveyor, sometimes an accountant, but professionally neither--because,

having little or no means, he could not be made to pay costs in case of

Bradlaugh winning the action.[155] Such a litigant would not stick at

trifles. In concert with his legal advisers, Newdegate, to forestall

the friendly action, had the writ ready for serving before Bradlaugh

had voted. This, at least, seems to be pretty clearly revealed by the

extraordinary prevarications of Newdegate and his witnesses.

[Footnote 155: Formally, Newdegate was bound to pay Bradlaugh's costs

if Bradlaugh won, but had the fact of the maintenance never come out,

it would have been an easy matter for Clarke to become bankrupt,

and leave Bradlaugh no redress, while he himself could be privately

reimbursed by Newdegate.]

The case ended oddly. The jury, after being locked up for nearly an

hour, intimated that they were not likely to agree; and the judge

asked whether a majority verdict would be accepted. Bradlaugh offered

to do so, but Newdegate's counsel declined. After nearly an hour

more, however, the jury agreed on their verdict; and it was for the

plaintiff, Clarke. It was understood that they had agreed to give their

verdict by majority. Bradlaugh tersely remarked in his journal: "The

ultimate verdict a little disappointed me: I had thought that I had

won." Certainly the judge's summing-up had seemed to be in his favour.

As usual, he appealed. Like Ben Bolt in the novel, he was "bad to

beat." He appealed for a new trial, on the ground that the verdict was

"against the weight of the evidence." But that was not all. Newdegate,

having confessed giving a bond of indemnity to Clarke, had laid

himself open to a return action, under a form of law, for the offence

of "maintenance;" so on 27th July Bradlaugh accompanied Mr (now Sir)

George Lewis, the famous solicitor, to Bow Street Police Court, where

Mr Lewis moved for a summons against Newdegate, and another against his

solicitor as accessory. The magistrate, Mr Flowers, was somewhat taken

aback. "Is it not rather----" he began. "Yes," said Mr Lewis promptly;

"and so is the action against Mr Bradlaugh. Mr Newdegate asks for

strict law against Mr Bradlaugh, who now asks in return that strict law

may also be enforced against Mr Newdegate." The summonses were granted.

Next day, 28th July, and on 1st August, Bradlaugh argued before

Justices Grove and Lindley his motion for a new trial on the question

of time in the Clarke case. Finally (8th August), after a request from

the Court for affidavits had been followed by an extremely improper

step on the part of Newdegate's solicitor, who actually sent some

affidavits privately to Mr Justice Grove's house, the Judges gave a

rule _nisi_ for a new trial on the ground urged. This rule could not be

argued till November, and if it were then made absolute the new trial

could not take place till after Christmas, so that Newdegate was once

more intercepted. The criminal summonses, on the other hand, did not

come on till 20th September, for reasons which will appear in the next

section, and when heard were dismissed by the magistrate, Mr Vaughan.

"He was of opinion that complainant had not shown that the maintenance

of which he complained came within the meaning of the statute. Though

the statutes of Richard II. and Henry VIII. did undoubtedly refer to

crimes and imprisonment for maintenance, still it was most singular

that no indictment could be found for violation of these statutes.

It seemed to him that the proceeding was an obsolete one, and that

the criminal law ought not to have been invoked for a purpose of this

description, when it was open to Mr Bradlaugh ... to apply to the

common law courts.... Old statutes had been searched out in order

that proceedings--which he could not help thinking had been taken to

gratify a very unfriendly feeling on Mr Bradlaugh's part--might be

instituted in the hope that Mr Newdegate would be committed for trial."

The licence of general criticism taken by our magistrates has seldom

been more strikingly exemplified; and no one but a prejudiced

magistrate, probably, would have had the assurance to condemn a

litigant for "unfriendly feeling" towards a declared enemy who had

wantonly and zealously sought to ruin him.[156] The deliberate setting

aside of the statutes as obsolete, too, while a civil action was

admitted to lie, was an act of lenity to Mr Newdegate, contrasting

favourably with the attitude of other judges towards Bradlaugh. But the

fact that a civil action remained open was sufficient for Bradlaugh's

purposes; and already Newdegate had begun to repent somewhat of his

zeal. His costs were accumulating, and still the hoped-for prey was

out of his reach. A circular was accordingly issued on his behalf by

Captain Bedford Pim, who felt "strongly that Mr Newdegate, M.P., should

not be allowed to suffer for his spirited and patriotic action against

Atheism, and that some steps should be taken to bear him harmless in

the struggle upon which he has so nobly entered."

[Footnote 156: Mr Vaughan had twice previously given decisions against

Bradlaugh, and both had been upset on appeal.]

§ 12

In the interval between the issuing and the hearing of the summonses

for maintenance, something more serious had occurred. When the

Government had in May decided to postpone their Oaths Bill, Bradlaugh,

while acquiescing perforce in the delay, had renewed his platform

agitation with redoubled energy, preparatory to forcing a fresh

contest on the House if need were. The situation grew worse instead

of better. Between 20th June and 4th July he had had a formal

correspondence with Mr Gladstone on the subject. "You are aware,"

wrote Mr Gladstone, declining the request for an interview, "to how

considerable an extent Liberal and public interests have been brought

into prejudice by untrue suppositions as to communication between you

and the Government." Bradlaugh answered by a detailed statement of

his action, which had been guided by a desire to avoid embarrassing

the Ministry; and Gladstone in reply acknowledged this; but later

(28th June) intimated that they proposed to try to close the Session

early in August, and they could not hope to carry any strongly

controversial measure after the Land Bill. This intimation was made

definite in a letter of 2nd July, and Bradlaugh was once more left to

his own devices. He chose his course at once. First he addressed to

the Speaker, under date 4th July, a formal letter, setting forth his

contention as to the illegality of the House's action on 10th May. He

was advised, among other things, that the excluding order of that date

did not authorise the Sergeant-at-Arms to use force, and that the use

of force to prevent his re-entry would be illegal.

"I beg therefore, sir," he went on, "most respectfully to give notice

that I claim to disregard the order of the House, ... and to treat

the same as not requiring obedience from me, on the ground that such

order is absolutely illegal.... In the name of the law, sir, and of

my constituents, I also most respectfully give notice that I shall,

in the manner and at the time provided by the standing orders of the

House, again present myself at the table of the House, to complete the

fulfilment of the duty imposed on me by law."

On this declaration he set about acting. He had had no encouragement

whatever to hope for justice save under pressure. Northcote, who had

no moral motive for his action, was open to no moral appeal. To him

Bradlaugh addressed a public letter (1st July 1881), which to-day needs

neither adding to nor taking from. After a recital of the facts, it

ran:--

"At first, though I disagreed with you, I thought you honest, for you

had the repute of an honourable man, and you said that it was not

from any desire to prevent my taking my seat, but from a desire to

prevent the profanation of the oath, that you were prompted to act

as you did. You had been present in the House when John Stuart Mill

took the oath, and you raised no objection. You have been present

in the House when other members, whose heresy is matter of common

repute, took the oath, and you have rested silent. Yet I counted you

a fair English gentleman, and I believed your word in any case. But

now, from your speeches outside the House, I find that you claim

to hinder me from sitting in Parliament, whether by complying with

the law as it now stands, or by means of any change which may be

proposed to meet your objection. At Manchester you justified your

action on the ground that there was a general feeling in the country

against me personally[157]--a dangerous argument, even if it were

well vouched. But how is this feeling to be tested? Nearly all the

meetings called against me have been lamentable failures, despite the

most ridiculous precautions. Almost every meeting called in my favour,

and this whether or not I have been personally present, has been an

enthusiastic success.

[Footnote 157: The essential unveracity of Northcote's political

character is shown by the fact that after thus using the "numbers"

argument against Bradlaugh, he himself solemnly denounced the

principle. Speaking at Edinburgh in 1884 (see Mr Lang's "Life," ii.

218) he said: "I am afraid that the Government will take far too much

to the numerical principle, and if you take to the principle of mere

numbers, depend upon it you will be introducing the most dangerous

change into the Constitution." Exactly what Bradlaugh had said to him.]

"And yet the very vilest means have been resorted to to damage me

in the public mind. In your presence at Manchester, and without one

word of rebuke from you, one distinguished and noble member of your

party repeated against me some of the utter falsehoods of the Varley

pamphlet, although I had given you in writing my distinct assurance of

the untruthfulness of much of that pamphlet.... To make a show against

me, petitions have been sent round the country to hundreds of Sunday

Schools, and little children by the score have been compelled to affix

their signatures. Two petitions presented by yourself from Glasgow and

York contain hundreds of signatures of lads and girls under twelve

years of age. Orange Lodges, Roman Catholic organisations, and the

machinery of the English Church Associations have been utilised to

procure signatures."

Northcote replied:--

"I cannot admit that there is any foundation for the charge of

illegality which you make against the House of Commons. But I must

decline to enter into controversy with you upon the general subject of

your case. I can only say that I have acted from a sense of public

duty, and from no personal motives; and that I see no reason for

doubting the propriety of the course which I have pursued."