The True Story of my Parliamentary Struggle Part 13

CHARLES BRADLAUGH.

30, St. James' Place, S.W.

_March 4th, 1884._

SIR,--There are some points in the letter you have addressed to me which I am unwilling to pa.s.s over in silence lest I should be taken to admit your a.s.sertions.

In the first place, it is necessary that I should point out to you that the action of the House of Commons with respect to yourself has not been arbitrary or capricious, but has been founded on principles deliberately adopted by a large majority of its members of various political opinions, to which principles they have steadily adhered, and which they have always been prepared to justify.

In the second place it should be clearly understood that in all the steps which we have taken with respect to yourself, including some which we took with the greatest reluctance, we were acting on the defensive, in consequence of your repeated attempts to override or to evade the repeated decisions of the House of Commons.

The brief history of your case is this. You were duly elected member for Northampton at the General Election of 1880. On presenting yourself to take your seat you tendered an affirmation instead of an oath, and supported your claim to affirm by reference to the fact that you had been permitted to do so in a court of law under the Evidence Amendment Acts of 1869 and 1870. That claim at once, and necessarily, brought under the notice of the House that you must either yourself have objected in a court of law to take an oath, or must have been objected to as incompetent to do so, and that the presiding judge must have been satisfied that the taking of an oath would have no binding effect upon your conscience.

That being so, a Committee was appointed by the House to consider whether the Evidence Amendment Acts were applicable to the case of a member of the House of Commons desiring to take his seat and to comply with the necessary conditions.

It was held by the Committee that they were not so applicable, and this finding of the Committee was subsequently confirmed by the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

Upon being refused permission to affirm, you immediately came to the table of the House and offered to take the oath. This proceeding was objected to, and the majority of the House (still, as theretofore, composed of members of different shades of politics) refused to allow you to go through the form of taking an oath, which, by the hypothesis on which your original claim to affirm was founded, as well as by the evidence afforded by a letter of your own, they held you to be incompetent really to take, and which they considered it would be a profanation to allow you to pretend to take.

That was the ground taken by the House on the 23rd June, 1880, and it is the ground which it has maintained ever since.

You have, since the adoption of that resolution, made various attempts to force the House to admit you to a seat, while still maintaining its objection; and those attempts have, on more than one occasion, led to scenes of a very indecent and disorderly character. In its anxiety to prevent the recurrence of such scenes, the House has felt itself obliged to adopt measures of rigid exclusion, which it would gladly have avoided.

I do not think it necessary to enter into the details of these scenes.

I am, however, obliged to take notice of your allegation that my action on the 11th February involved a breach of an arrangement previously made through Mr. Winn.

The arrangement which I authorised Mr. Winn to make in my name, and which he did make in a letter to Mr. Labouchere, was as follows:

"If Mr. Bradlaugh will write you a letter to the effect that he will not go up to the table to take the oath, nor make any other move with regard to his seat until Monday, February 11th, and will do so on that day, say immediately after questions, I am quite sure that Sir Stafford will neither move anything himself respecting Mr. Bradlaugh's seat, nor employ anyone else to do so, _previous to that day_."

The meaning of this is perfectly obvious, and it was in strict conformity with it that I myself abstained, and urged my friends to abstain, from taking any step whatever in relation to Mr. Bradlaugh until the day named. When, upon that day, you came forward in defiance of the Speaker's repeated calls to order, and began to go through the form of taking the oath, I had no option but to support the Chair, and to support also the repeatedly p.r.o.nounced resolutions of the House in former sessions.

I do not take notice of other pa.s.sages in your letter reflecting on the course of the majority, and more particularly of myself.

But I will add, in conclusion, what your letter does not show, that your exclusion from the precincts of the House is terminable at any moment when you may be willing to undertake not to disturb the proceedings of the House. The inconveniences of which you complain are inconveniences which you might, if you chose, put an end to to-morrow.

I have the honor to remain,

Your obedient servant,

STAFFORD H. NORTHCOTE.

C. BRADLAUGH, Esq., M.P.

23, Circus Road, St. John's Wood, London, N.W.,

_March 7th, 1884_.

To the Right Hon. SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, Bart, M.P.

SIR,--In reply to your favor of the 4th instant, in which you say that the House held me to be incompetent to take the oath, will you permit me to answer: 1. That the question of competence or incompetence to take the oath is one of law, fit only for the decision of a judicial tribunal, to which tribunal I have always desired and endeavored to refer such question. 2. That if the "principle deliberately adopted" by a large majority of the members of the House of Commons had been that they desired to prevent "a profanation of the oath," then they ought, during the sessions of 1882--1883, to have gladly facilitated the pa.s.sage of the Affirmation Bill, which would have prevented the necessity for the fulfilling by me of that which you describe as profanation, but which I contend is the duty imposed on me by law.

In your very temperate historic narrative, you omit the fact that when the House pa.s.sed its resolution of the 23rd June, 1880, it had before it my declaration, made three weeks earlier, in answer to question 102 of the second Select Committee:

"Any form that I went through, any oath that I took, I should regard as binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree. I would go through no form, I would take no oath, unless I meant it to be so binding."

And as you refer to my letter of the 20th May, printed in the report of that committee, it is also fair to recall my answer thereon on the same day to question 197:

"I ask the Committee in examining it to take it complete, not to separate one or two words in it and to take those without the countervailing words, and to remember that in this letter I declare that the oath, if I take it, would bind me, and I now repeat that in the most distinct and formal manner; that the Oath of Allegiance, viz.: 'I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law,' will, when I take it, be most fully, completely, and unreservedly binding upon my honor and conscience; and I crave leave to refer to the unanimous judgment of the full Court of the Exchequer Chamber, in the case of Miller _v._ Salomons, 17th Jurist, page 463, and to the case of the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Company _v._ Heaton, 4th Jurist, new series, page 708, for the distinguishment between the words of a.s.severation and the essential words of an oath. But I also desire to add, and I do this most solemnly and unreservedly, that the taking and subscribing, or repeating of those words of a.s.severation, will in no degree weaken the binding effect of the oath on my conscience."

In your reference to my attempts to take the seat to which I am by law ent.i.tled, you have omitted to state that on the 27th April, 1881, you personally advised me to wait for legislation, and that when I did so wait, your friends of the majority and yourself prevented such legislation.

In recalling the arrangement made by Mr. Winn on your behalf, you have omitted his most explicit and latest letter:

"Nostell Priory, Wakefield,

"January 28th, 1884.

"DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,--On the distinct understanding and agreement that Mr. Bradlaugh does not come to the table to take the oath, or adopt any other course with reference to his seat in the House of Commons, until immediately after questions on Monday, the 11th of February next, and that he will on that day and time come to the table, as he has intimated his intention of doing, I am prepared to say that Sir Stafford Northcote will not previous to Monday the 11th make any motion hostile to Mr.

Bradlaugh, nor support any motion coming from any of our independent friends on the subject.

"I am, yours very truly,

"ROW. WINN.

"H. Labouchere, Esq., M.P."

My charge against you is that, despite this agreement, you had gone down to the House with a resolution prepared beforehand, and by its wording showing that it was intended to be moved before I should be able to get near the table to which you had made me specifically agree then to come.

You conclude by saying that I can put an end to any personal inconvenience by undertaking not to disturb the proceedings of the House.

I gave such an undertaking last year in express words; it is printed in the journals of the House, and you did not accept it. Immediately before you moved your resolution of 21st February, you heard Mr. Speaker read my undertaking to do nothing until a legal decision was obtained. This you refused, and I have no reason to suppose that any second offer from me would be accepted. If what you really desire is that, if the law decides in my favor, I shall none the less join in your insult to my const.i.tuents by refusing to try to serve in the Parliament to which they have lawfully returned me, I can only say that I will never give such an undertaking.

I have the honor to be, Sir,

Your most obedient Servant,

C. BRADLAUGH.

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