feel the exceeding difficulty of dealing fairly with myself without
dealing unfairly with the House. If I were to follow the hon. member who
has just sat down into his errors of law, of history, and of memory, into
his reckless misconceptions as to what are the views I hold and write
about, I should only be giving pain to numbers of members here, and
departing from that mandate with which my constituents have trusted me.
It is--I say it with all respect--not true that I done anything more with
reference to the succession than maintain the right of Parliament,
meaning by Parliament both Houses, to control it; and any member who
pretends that I done anything else, either does it, not having read what
I have written, or heard what I have said, or having forgotten entirely
what I have written or said, and being extremely careless in representing
my views to the House. I regret that the hon. member should have imported
into the discussion some fact supposed to have occurred in a police-court
since I stood here before. I can only give the House my positive
assurance that the hon. member is perfectly inaccurate in his
representation of what took place. It is exceedingly painful to bandy
words in this way. The hon. member was good enough to say he did not
hear--he could not well have heard, for the magistrate did not refuse my
affirmation at all. I happened to have been before Sir J. Ingham before,
and he knew me, and knew the particular form of affirmation, and when the
clerk read it to me no discussion took place on the subject. I hope the
House will forgive me for contradicting such a small thing, but small
things are sometimes much used. They have been used to work my ruin since
I stood here before, and I regret that the shame of reticence did not at
least keep it from this House, that the hon. member thought it his duty,
by a common informer, to attempt to drive me into the Bankruptcy Court,
and outside this House has boasted that the question would be solved in
that way. It may be a brave boast, it may be consonant with piety from the
hon. member's point of view, but I believe that every other gentleman's
sense of piety would revolt against the notion of driving a single man
into bankruptcy, and then canvassing for subscriptions--(hear, hear)--for
the "bold and vigorous, and patriotic and noble conduct," as the
advertisement said, which consisted in hurrying in a cab to find the
common informer to issue a writ against me. I dismiss that, however. I ask
the House to pardon me for having wasted its time on this poor thing. I do
not hope, I dare not think, that any word I may say here will win one
vote; and I would have let this go silently against me, were it not that I
owe a duty to the constituency that has twice entrusted me with its
suffrages, a duty to every constituency right through the land in time to
come--(hear, hear)--whose representative may be challenged as
Northampton's has been. (Hear, hear, and No.) Some gentlemen say "No," but
where is the challenge to stop? (Hear.) It is not simply theology, it is
politics too (hear, hear). It is not simply theology that is brought
before the House, but the wild imaginings of some member who, with the
nightmare of panic upon him, and a wild imagining of the French Revolution
clothed in terrors of which I know nothing, comes here to tell you of
mighty Russia successful, and of the unfortunate United States with its
Presidents assassinated because of religious and political opinions. Panic
of that kind is not evidence as to my opinions. If this House intends to
try me for my opinions, let it do it reasonably, and at least have the
evidence before it. I would show you how unfair it is to trust to memory
of words. The hon. member was good enough to tell the House that I had
declared to a Committee of the House that certain words were meaningless.
I hold in my hand the report of the Committee and the minutes of evidence,
and no such words exist in any declaration of mine. (Hear, hear. Mr.
Newdegate shook his head.) The hon. member does not believe me. I cannot
make more than facts. I cannot make the comprehension which should
distinguish when prejudice has determined that nothing shall be right that
is put. The only way in which it can be pretended that anything of the
kind in reference to the oath can be brought in is by taking my letter of
the 20th of May, written outside the House, which does not contain a
specific declaration the hon. member has put into it, which letter I
protested ought not to be brought before the Committee at all, which I
never volunteered to the Committee--(Opposition laughter)--which I
objected to the Committee having before them. (Oh, and laughter from the
Opposition.) The gentlemen who laugh, laugh because the laugh is the only
answer that could be given. No reason can be given in reply, no facts can
be quoted; and I ask hon. members who laugh to remember that I am pleading
as though a quasi-criminal at this bar, and that I have a right to an
audience from them, and I appeal to the House at least to give me a silent
hearing. Judges do that. If you are unfit to be judges, then do not judge
(hear, hear). It shows, at least, the difficulty of dealing with a
question like this, when those who are to judge have come to a judgment
already, not upon any facts, but upon what they think ought to be the
facts. I ask the House to deal legally and fairly with me. Legally you are
bound to deal; fairly, as an assembly of English gentlemen, you ought to
deal with me, even if you have differences with me, even if you think my
opinions so obnoxious, even if you think that the politics with which you
identify me in your minds are dangerous to you (oh, oh). If I am not
dangerous, why not let me speak there? (pointing to the seat he occupied
last Session.) If there is no danger, why strain the law? If there is no
danger, why disobey the law? It is put by the hon. gentleman who spoke
last that there are certain words of the oath which the courts of law have
declared essential, The courts of law have declared the exact opposite. So
far as a decision has been given, the very report of the Committee shows
that the highest court of judicature in this realm has decided the words
are not essential to the oath at all. I ask the House to deal with me with
some semblance and show of legality and fairness, and first I say that
they ought not to go behind my election of the 9th of April, 1881, and
that the House ought to reject the resolution moved by the right hon.
gentleman, because it deals with matters which antedate my election, and
because the House has nothing to do with me before the 9th of April, 1881.
That is the return of which the Clerk at the table has the certificate.
That is my only authority for being here. If I did aught before that
rendered me unworthy to sit here, why did the House let me sit here from
the 2nd of July to the 29th of March? If what I did entitles the House not
to receive me, why has not the House had the courage of its opinions and
vacated the seat? Either the seat is mine in law, and in law I claim it
from you, or I am unworthy to hold it, and then why not vacate the seat
and let the constituency express its opinion again? But my return is
unimpeached, it is unimpeachable, and there has been no petition against
me. The hon. member who went into back alleys for common informers could
not find a petitioner to present a petition against it. If I speak with
temper--(Opposition laughter)--the House, I trust, will pardon me. I
have read within the last few days words spoken, not by members of no
consequence, but by members occupying high position in this House, which
make me wonder if this is the House of Commons to which I aspired so
much. I have read that one right hon. member, the member for
Whitehaven--(laughter from the Ministerial side)--was prompted to say to
his constituents that I was kicked down stairs last Session, and that he
hoped I should be again. If it were true that I was kicked downstairs I
would ask members of the House of Commons on whom the shame, on whom the
disgrace, on whom the stigma? I dare not apply this, but history will
when I have mouldered, and you too, and our passions are quite gone. But
it is not quite true that I was kicked downstairs, and it is a dangerous
thing to say that I was, for it means that hon. members who should rely
on law rely on force. It is a dangerous provocation to conflict to throw
to the people. If I had been as wicked in my thought as some members are
reported to have been in their speech, this quarrel, not of my
provoking, would assume a future to make us all ashamed. I beg this
House to believe, and I trust, Sir, that you at least will believe me,
that I have tried as much as man might to keep the dignity of this
House. I submitted last Session, and the Session before, to have had
things said against me without one word of reply, because having had
your good counsel, I felt it might provoke discussion upon matters which
this House would willingly not have speech upon, and that I had far
better rest under some slight stigma than occupy the House with my
personality. I appeal to the recollection of every member of the House
whether from the moment of my entering into it I did not utterly
disregard everything that took place prior to my coming into it, and
direct myself to the business for which my constituents sent me here.
The most extraordinary statements are made as to my views, statements as
inaccurate as those which have fallen, no doubt unconsciously, from the
hon. member who has last addressed the House. One noble lord in a great
London gathering convoked against me, a gathering which was not as
successful as some that have taken place in my favor, denounced me as a
Socialist. I do not happen to be one. I happen to think that Socialists
are the most unwise and illogical people you can happen to meet. But the
noble lord knew that I ought to be something (laughter). I am a red rag
to a wild Conservative bull, and it must rush at me and call me
Socialist. I ask this House to be more fair and just. If I am to be
tried, at least let me be tried for the opinions I hold and the views I
express. Why, there are members who have soiled their tongues with words
about social relations and marriage for which I have no proper reply in
this House, as unfortunately the forms of the House do not permit me to
use the only fitting answer, and perhaps it is as well. But I ask the
House, Do not let this be the kind of weapon with which a return is met.
Deal with me as the law directs, and in no other way. It is said "You
have brought this upon yourself" (hear, hear). One baronet who has
spoken of me with a kindness more than I deserve, in the very borough
which I represent said I had brought it upon myself, because when I
originally came to the House I flaunted and most ostentatiously put my
opinion upon the House (hear, hear). Well, not one word of that is true.
Not a shadow of it is true. I hold in my hand the sworn evidence of Sir
Erskine May. I do not ask gentlemen to take my word, for it is clear
they will not, but that of their own officer. And when the right hon.
baronet said I claimed under the statute, and drew an inference from it,
he knows that my claim contained no such words until the clerk at the
table of the House challenged me as to the law under which I claimed. I
do not quarrel with him, but I submit that the Clerk of the House had no
right to put that question to me. I submit that the House had nothing
whatever to do with it--that it certainly is no ostentatious flaunting
by me. I submit, that at any rate, that it is prior to the 9th of April,
1881, and the House had no right to revive it against me. I ask the
House to try and deal with me with some show of fairness. They will
find when I was before the Committee, instead of obtruding my opinions,
I said I had never directly or indirectly obtruded upon the House any of
my utterances or publications upon any subject whatever, and when
pressed by one of the members sitting on that (the Opposition) side of
the House as to certain opinions I was supposed to hold, by asking me
particular words I was supposed to have used in a judicial proceeding, I
said that if the Committee wished I would answer, but that I objected to
answer, because I had carefully refrained from saying any word which
would bring my opinions before the House. I ask, therefore, the House
whether it is not monstrously unfair to say that I have obtruded any
opinions here when I have expressly, carefully, and thoroughly kept them
from the House? But it is said by the right hon. baronet that it would
be a profanation to allow me to take the oath, and that the House would
be no party to such a profanation (Opposition cheers). Does the House
mean that it is a party to each oath taken? (hear.) There was a time
when most clearly it was not so a party. There was a time when the oath
was not even taken in the presence of members at all. But does the House
mean it is a party now? Was it a party the Session before last? Was it a
party when Mr. Hall walked up to that table, cheered by members on the
other side who knew his seat was won by deliberate bribery? (loud
Opposition cries of Order.) Bribery sought to be concealed by the most
corrupt perjury. Did the House join in it? (renewed cries of Order.) If
the House did not join in it, why did you cheer so that the words of the
oath were drowned? But was the House a party when John Stuart Mill sat
in this House? (hear, no.) A member who is, I think, now within the
walls of the House--the hon. member for Greenwich--in addressing his
constituents, said that Mr. Bradlaugh's opinions were hardly more
objectionable than those of some other members of the House. If the hon.
member knew that, then he was a party to the profanation of the oath:
but perhaps they were on his own side, and he did not feel the
profanation so acutely (hear, hear, and laughter). But it is said, "Our
real objection is that you have declared that the oath is not binding
upon you" (hear, hear, from Mr. Alderman Fowler). That is exactly the
opposite of what I did declare. The hon. member whose voice I hear now,
I unfortunately heard on the 3rd of August; and heard so that I shall
never forget it. (Mr. Bradlaugh here looked towards Alderman Fowler and
paused.) The hon. member admits that is the point--that I have declared
the oath is not binding upon my conscience; but, unfortunately, all the
print goes the other way. I am asked by the Committee who sat as to
whether the oath is binding, and on page 15 I reply: "Any form that I
went through, any oath that I took, I shall regard as binding upon my
conscience in the fullest degree, and I would go through no form and
take no oath unless I meant it to be so binding." Again, I am asked as
to the word "swear." I say: "I consider when I take an oath it is
binding upon my honor and upon my conscience"; and with reference to the
words of asseveration to which the hon. member for North Warwickshire
referred, he would at least have been more generous towards myself, if
generosity be possible with him, if he had said: "I desire to add--and I
do this most solemnly and unreservedly--that the taking, and
subscribing, and repeating these words of asseveration will in no degree
weaken the binding effect of the oath upon my conscience." I say here,
Sir, before you, with all the solemnity man can command, that I know the
words of the oath the statute requires me to take, that I am ready to
take that oath according to law, and that I will not take an oath
without intending it to be binding upon me, and that if I do take the
oath it will be binding upon my honor and conscience. (Conservative
cries of "Oh! oh!") Members of the House who are ignorant of what is
honor and conscience----(Loud cries of "Order," "Oh, oh," and
"Withdraw," from the Opposition.) If members will allow me to finish my
sentence----(Cries of "Withdraw.") Members of this House who are
ignorant of what is----(Renewed cries from the Opposition of
"Withdraw.") These (Mr. Bradlaugh pointing to the Opposition benches)
are my judges. Members of this House who are ignorant of what is the
honor and conscience of the man who stands before them--("Oh," and
laughter from the Opposition)--have a right to shout "Withdraw;" but
they must beware lest a greater voice outside--("Oh, oh," and laughter
from the Opposition)--at the ballot-box, where it has a right to express
it, may not only say "withdraw," but make withdraw all those who
infringe the constitutional rights of the nation, as they seek to
infringe them now. If I knew any kind of word which might convince
members whom I desire to convince that I would take no pledge that I did
not mean to be binding, I would use that form of words. But I have found
myself so harshly judged, so unfairly dealt with, that one feels a
difficulty in understanding whether any form of words, however often
repeated, would convey any kind of conviction to some minds. I presume
that this House will repeat its vote of April 26th. What then? Will it
have the courage of its opinions, and vacate my seat? (Hear, hear.) If
it does not, this House leaves me in an unfair position before the law.
I am bound to come to this table, and will come to this table, as long
as the mandate of my constituents sends me here, unless the House
vacates the seat. If my seat be vacated, it is my duty to bow to the
House, and appeal to my constituents again; and then the verdict rests
with them. But to take away part of the right, and deal with it in this
fashion, leaving me with the full legal responsibility and no kind of
legal authority, I submit is not generous. Well, will this House repeat
its vote of 9th May? Will it substitute force for law? At present the
law is on my side (No, no, and hear, hear). If not, let me sit and sue
me (hear, hear). If not, try by petition. If not, bring an action. But
shouting "No" won't decide the law, even with the united wisdom of the
members of this House who shout it. I know that no man is a good
advocate for a great principle unless he himself be worthy of the
principle he advocates, and I have felt acutely the judgment properly
passed upon me by many members of this House, who, knowing their
superiority to me, say how unworthy I am that this question should be
fought in my person. I admit I am unworthy, but it is not my fault that
I have this fight to make. I remind you of the words of one of the
greatest statesmen who sat in this House more than a hundred years ago,
that whenever an infringement of the constitutional right was attempted,
it was always attempted in the person of some obnoxious man (hear,
hear). I ask the House for a moment to carry its mind to the 3rd of
August last. I do that because either I do not understand what took
place then, or my memory has failed me, as the memory of other hon.
members sometimes does, or things happened without my consciousness. I
thought I had stood aside until Parliament had dealt with the pressing
business of the nation. I thought that had been recognised by this
House. I thought I only came saying at the very door of the House that I
was ready to obey its lawful orders, and I thought I was then seized by
force while saying it. My memory may not serve me well on that, but I
think it does. There were plenty of witnesses to the scene. I saw one
hon. member climb on to a pedestal to see how fourteen men could
struggle with one. It was hardly generous, hardly brave, hardly worthy
of the great House of Commons, that those sending out to the whole world
lessons of freedom, liberty, and law, should so infringe and so stamp
them under foot. I had no remedy in any court, or I would have taken it.
With all respect to you, Sir, and the officers of this House, if there
had been any possibility of trying at law against the mighty privilege
of this House, I would have appealed to that possibility. Let me now,
before I finish, ask the ear of the House for one moment. It is said it
is the oath and not the man; but others, more frank, say it is the man
and not the oath. Is it the oath and not the man? I am ready to stand
aside, say for four or five weeks, without coming to that table, if the
House within that time, or within such time as its great needs might
demand, would discuss whether an Affirmation Bill should pass or not. I
want to obey the law, and I tell you how I might meet the House still
further, if the House will pardon me for seeming to advise it. Hon.
members have said that would be a Bradlaugh Relief Bill (hear, hear).
Bradlaugh is more proud than you are (hear, hear). Let the Bill pass
without applying to elections that have taken place previously, and I
will undertake not to claim my seat, and when the Bill has passed I will
apply for the Chiltern Hundreds (cheers.) I have no fear. If I am not
fit for my constituents, they shall dismiss me, but you never shall. The
grave alone shall make me yield (hear, hear, and "Oh").
_A CARDINAL'S BROKEN OATH._
A Letter
TO HIS EMINENCE HENRY EDWARD, CARDINAL-ARCHBISHOP
OF WESTMINSTER.
BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
[EIGHTH THOUSAND.]
[Illustration]
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY
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1882.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
63, FLEET STREET, E.C.
TO HIS EMINENCE
HENRY EDWARD,
CARDINAL-ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER.
Three times your Eminence has--through the pages of the _Nineteenth
Century_--personally and publicly interfered and used the weight of your
ecclesiastical position against me in the Parliamentary struggle in which
I am engaged, although you are neither voter in the borough for which I
am returned to sit, nor even co-citizen in the state to which I belong.
Your personal position is that of a law-breaker, one who has deserted his
sworn allegiance and thus forfeited his citizenship, one who is tolerated
by English forbearance, but is liable to indictment for misdemeanor as
"member of a society of the Church of Rome." More than once, when the
question of my admission to the House of Commons has been under
discussion in that House, have I seen you busy in the lobby closely
attended by the devout and sober Philip Callan, or some other equally
appropriate Parliamentary henchman. Misrepresenting what had taken place
in the House of Commons when I took my seat on affirmation in July, 1880,
your Eminence wrote in the _Nineteenth Century_ for August, 1880, that
which you were pleased to entitule "An Englishman's Protest" against my
being allowed to sit in the Commons' House, to which the vote of a free
constituency had duly returned me. In that protest you blundered alike in
your law and in your history. You gave the Tudor Parliamentary oath
Saxon and Norman antiquity. You spoke of John Horne Tooke as having had
the door of the House shut against him by a by-vote, no such by-vote
having been carried, and the statute which disabled clergymen in the
future not affecting John Horne Tooke's seat in that Parliament. You
declared that in the French Revolution the French voted out the Supreme
Being; there is no record of any such vote. In March, 1882, when the
House had expelled me for my disobedience of its orders in complying with
the law, and taking my seat, you again used the _Nineteenth Century_.
This time for a second protest, intended to prevent my re-election. You,
in both your articles, reminded the bigots that I might be indicted for
blasphemy. Your advice has since been followed. Persecution is a
"two-edged sword," and I return the warning you offer to Lord Sherbrooke.
When I was in Paris some time since, and was challenged to express an
opinion as to the enforcement of the law against the religious orders in
France, I, not to the pleasure of many of my friends, spoke out very
freely that in matters of religion I would use the law against none; but
your persecuting spirit may provoke intemperate men even farther than you
dream. In this country, by the 10th George IV., cap. 7, secs. 28 and 29,
31, 32 and 34, you are criminally indictable, Cardinal-Archbishop of
Westminster. You only reside here without police challenge by the
merciful forbearance of the community. And yet you parade in political
contest your illegal position as "a member of a religious order of the
Church of Rome," and have the audacity to invoke outlawry and legal
penalty against me. Last month, in solemn state, you, in defiance of the
law, in a personal and official visit to the borough of Northampton
itself, sought to weaken the confidence of my constituents; and you were
not ashamed, in order to injure me, to pretend friendship with men who
have for years constantly and repeatedly used the strongest and foulest
abuse of your present Church. An amiable but ignorant Conservative mayor,
chief magistrate of the borough, but innocent of statutes, was misled
into parading his official robe and office while you openly broke the law
in his presence. In the current number of the _Nineteenth Century_ you
fire your last shot, and are coarse in Latin as well as in the vulgar
tongue. Perhaps the frequenting Philip Callan has spoiled your manners.
It else seems impossible that one who was once a cultured scholar and a
refined gentleman could confuse with legitimate argument the abuse of his
opponents as "cattle." But who are you, Henry Edward Manning, that you
should throw stones at me, and should so parade your desire to protect
the House of Commons from contamination? At least, first take out of it
the drunkard and the dissolute of your own Church. You know them well
enough. Is it the oath alone which stirs you? Your tenderness on swearing
comes very late in life. When you took orders as a deacon of the English
Church, in presence of your bishop, you swore "so help me, God," that you
did from your "heart abhor, detest and abjure," and, with your hand on
the "holy gospels," you declared "that no foreign prince, person,
prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction,
power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or
spiritual, within this realm." You may now well write of men "whom no
oath can bind." The oath you took you have broken; and yet it was because
you had, in the very church itself, taken this oath, that you for many
years held more than one profitable preferment in the Established Church
of England. You indulge in inuendoes against my character in order to do
me mischief, and viciously insinuate as though my life had in it
justification for good men's abhorrence. In this you are very cowardly as
well as very false. Then, to move the timid, you suggest "the fear of
eternal punishment," as associated with a broken oath. Have you any such
fear? or have you been personally conveniently absolved from the
"eternal" consequences of your perjury? Have you since sworn another oath
before another bishop of another church, or made some solemn vow to Rome,
in lieu of, and in contradiction to, the one you so took in presence of
your bishop, when, "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," that
bishop of the church by law established in this country accepted your
oath, and gave you authority as a deacon in the Church you have since
forsaken. I do not blame you so much that you are forsworn: there are, as
you truly say, "some men whom no oath can bind;" and it has often been
the habit of the cardinals of your Church to take an oath and break it
when profit came with breach; but your remembrance of your own perjury
might at least keep you reticent in very shame. Instead of this, you
thrust yourself impudently into a purely political contest, and shout as
if the oath were to you the most sacred institution possible. You say
"there are happily some men who believe in God and fear him." Do you do
either? You, who declared, "So help me, God" that no foreign "prelate ...
ought to have any jurisdiction or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual
within this realm." And you--who in spite of your declaration on oath
have courted and won, intrigued for and obtained, the archbishop's
authority and the cardinal's hat from the Pope of Rome--you rebuke Lord
Sherbrooke for using the words "sin and shame" in connexion with
oath-taking; do you hold now that there was no sin and no shame in your
broken oath? None either in the rash taking or the wilful breaking? Have
you no personal shame that you have broken your oath? Or do the pride and
pomp of your ecclesiastical position outbribe your conscience? You talk
of the people understanding the words "so help me, God." How do you
understand them of your broken oath? Do they mean to you: "May God desert
and forsake me as I deserted and forsook the Queen's supremacy, to which
I so solemnly swore allegiance"? You speak of men being kept to their
allegiance by the oath "which binds them to their sovereign." You say
such men may be tempted by ambition or covetousness unless they are bound
by "the higher and more sacred responsibility" involved in the
"recognition of the lawgiver in the oath." Was the Rector of Lavington
and Graffham covetous of an archbishopric that he broke his oath? Was the
Archdeacon of Chichester ambitious of the Cardinal's hat that he became
so readily forsworn? Lord Archbishop of Westminster, had you, when you
were apostate, remained a poor and simple priest in poverty and
self-denial, although your oath would have still been broken, yet you
might have taunted others more profited by their perjuries. But you, who
have derived profit, pride, and pomp from your false swearing--you, who
sign yourself "Henry Edward, Cardinal-Archbishop" by favor of the very
authority you abjured in the name of God--it is in the highest degree
indecent and indecorous for you to parade yourself as a defender of the
sanctity of the oath. As a prince-prelate of the Church of Rome you have
no right to meddle with the question of the English Parliamentary oath.
Your Church has been the foe of liberty through the world, and I am
honored by your personal assailment. But you presume too much on the
indifference of the age when, in this free England, you so recklessly
exhibit as weapons in an election contest the outward signs of the
authority the Vatican claims, but shall never again exercise, in Britain.
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
NORTHAMPTON
AND THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN
CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P.,
AND THE RIGHT HON.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, M.P.
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AND THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
20, Circus Road, St. John's Wood, London, N.W.,
_March 1st, 1884_.
To the Right Hon. SIR STAFFORD H. NORTHCOTE, M.P., G.C.B.
SIR,--If, on either of the occasions when recently moving against me in
the House of Commons, you had accorded or claimed for me opportunity of
speech in self-defence, I might have been spared the need for this
letter.
Apparently your view is that a member unfortunate enough to have the
majority of the House against him need not have even the semblance of
fairness shown him--that you, being strong, need not be troubled with
scruples, and that the mere fact that the member is, like yourself, the
chosen member of a constituency does not entitle him to the smallest
courtesy or consideration.
You have taught me, Sir, many lessons during the past four years. Some of
these I trust to remember and profit by in the future. You have taught me
that a temporary majority of the House may, year after year, exclude any
member of Parliament from his seat, although he has strictly obeyed every
Standing Order--and this without vacating that seat--that it may so
exclude the member although he has been a decent and orderly member of
the House, attending regularly for months to all its duties, and one
against whom no charge or pretence of Parliamentary misconduct was made
whilst he so served in it.
You have taught me, Sir, that the leader of a great party may sit silent,
and acquiesce in it by his support, while the law-abiding electors of a
great constituency are called "mob," "dregs," and "scum"--that such a
leader may permit his followers to openly accuse two of the highest
judges of our country of having judicially decided unfairly from corrupt
party motives--that he may even, without dishonor, keep silence whilst it
is suggested that the whole judicial bench is so corrupt that it will be
ready to decide unjustly at the bidding of a government--and that the
first law officer of the Crown is ready to be fraudulently collusive with
myself. Did you believe these things, Sir, when they were stated and
loudly cheered by those who sit around you on your side of the House? If
yes, I am glad that your experience of humanity has been less fortunate
than my own. I have regarded our judges as at least striving to be just
and independent. You seem to think it nothing that the highest judges
should, in your presence, be charged with judging unjustly from
favoritism for the government of the day.
You have encouraged and practised deliberate violation of the law, and,
to cover this law-breaking, you have connived at, and been party to, the
basest insinuations against those whose duty it is to judicially
pronounce on matters of legal dispute. You have, without rebuke,
permitted your followers to declare that if the High Court of Judicature
declared the law to be in my favor, that then they and you still intended
to defy and disobey the law.
The first resolution you moved against me, on the 11th February, was
worse than futile, for it forbade me to do that which I had already done,
and which you well knew that I had so done, in order to compel the
submission to the judgment of a competent tribunal of the legality of my
act.
The ridiculous form of your resolution arose because you--having
bargained with me in writing through Mr. Winn that I should come to the
table immediately after questions, and not before--intended to interpose
ere I could reach the table. This would have been a dishonest trick had
you succeeded; it became contemptibly ridiculous when you failed; but it
is a lesson to me that I must be careful, indeed, when English gentlemen
of name and family make treaties with me.
Your second resolution, on February 11th, was a spiteful, paltry, and
cowardly insult to myself and to my constituents, for it was pressed by
you despite that my colleague offered for me the express undertaking that
you pretended you wished to secure, and was still pressed by you though
Mr. Burt offered for me that I would at once personally give such
undertaking. These two resolutions, utterly illegal and dangerous to
Parliamentary repute, you have renewed on Thursday, the 21st, although
you had heard read by Mr. Speaker an undertaking from me to the House
that I would not attempt to take my seat until the judicial interpreters
of the law had given formal judgment. And they are very cowardly and
inexcusable resolutions, spiteful in excess of any ever passed in
previous years. They exclude me, not only from the House, but from the
reading-room, library, tea-room, dining-rooms, and exterior lobbies,
though there is not the faintest suggestion that I have used my right to
go to those places to enable me to disturb the House. If I had not taken
the precaution to anticipate your malice, I should actually have been
hindered by force from going to the proper officer to obtain the
certificate of my return. Yours is a mean and spiteful act, Sir, unworthy
an English gentleman. And I admit that you have inconvenienced me, for
you have deprived me of access to the library of the House, and you may
thus put me to some expense and annoyance in the procurement of law books
and Parliamentary records in the litigation in which I am involved in
defending the rights of my constituents.