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 Charles Bradlaugh 
 
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 m
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 \^ 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.G. 
 
 1890.
 
 LONDON 
 
 PRINTED BY A. BONNER, 
 
 34 BOUVERIE STREET, FLEET STREET, EX.
 
 ■DA 
 BUs 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 -**^ 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 SPEECHES AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS : 
 
 June 23RD, 1S80 .. .. .. .. .. i 
 
 April 28th, 1881 .. .. .. .. .. 8 
 
 February 7TH, 1882 .. .• .. .. 13 
 
 May 4TH, 1883 .. .. .. .. .. 23 
 
 SPEECH AT NORTHAMPTON ON INDIA, November iqth, 
 
 1883 •• •• •• •• •• •• 3^ 
 
 ON CAPITAL AND LABOR, January 7TH, 1886 .. 47 
 
 SPEECH IN HOUSE OF COMMONS ON MARKET RIGHTS 
 
 AND TOLLS, April 22Nd, 1887 .. .. .. 65 
 
 ON SECOND READING OF AFFIRMATION BILL, 
 
 March 14TH, 1888 .. .. .. .. 74 
 
 ON THE COMPULSORY CULTIVATION OF WASTE 
 
 LANDS, May iith, 1888 .. .. .. .. 82 
 
 BEFORE ROYAL COMMISSION ON MARKET RIGHTS AND 
 
 TOLLS, July, 1888 .. .. .. .. 90 
 
 SPEECH IN HOUSE OF COMMONS ON RELIGIOUS PRO- 
 SECUTIONS ABOLITION BILL, April i2TH, 1889 119 
 
 ON PERPETUAL PENSIONS, May i6th, 1889 .. 126 
 
 ON THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND, 
 
 August 27TH, 1889 .. .- •• •• i35 
 
 SPEECH AT BOMBAY TO INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS, 
 
 December 29TH, 1889 .. •• •• •• 152 
 
 SPEECH IN HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE KASH- 
 MIR QUESTION, July 3RD. 1890 .. .. 158 
 
 3G484i2 
 rmRiRv
 
 IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CLOSING ADDRESSES AT CONGRESSES OF THE 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY : 
 
 NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, June ist, 1879 .. 
 
 LONDON, May i6th, 1880.. 
 
 BURY, June 5TH, 1881 
 
 INTERNATIONAL FREETHOUGHT CONFER 
 ENCE, LONDON, September 25TH, 1881 
 
 EDINBURGH, May 28th, 1882 
 
 MANCHESTER, May 13TH, 1883 
 
 PLYMOUTH, June ist, 1884 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, May 24TH, 1885 
 
 GLASGOW, June 13TH, 1886 
 
 SOUTH SHIELDS, May 20TH, 1888 
 
 172 
 
 174 
 178 
 
 184 
 190 
 194 
 199 
 203 
 206 
 209
 
 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 FOUR SPEECHES DELIVERED AT THE BAR OF 
 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS DURING THE 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY STRUGGLE. 
 
 First Speech: June 23rd, 1880. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — I have to ask the indulgence of every mem- 
 ber of this House while, in a position unexampled in the history 
 of this House, I try to give one or two reasons why the resolution 
 which you have read to me should not be enforced. 
 
 If it were not unbecoming I should appeal to the traditions 
 of the House against the House itself, and I should point out 
 that in none of its records, so far as my poor reading goes, is 
 there any case in which this House has judged one of its 
 members in his absence, and taken away from that member 
 the constitutional right he has. (' Hear, hear.') There have 
 been members against whom absolute legal disqualification has 
 been urged. No such legal disqualification is ventured to be 
 urged by any member of this House against myself. But even 
 those members have been heard in their places ; those members 
 have been listened to before the decision was taken against 
 them ; and I ask that this House shall not be less just to 
 myself than it has always been to every one of its members. 
 (' Hear, hear.') 
 
 Do you tell me I am unfit to sit amongst you ? (* Hear, 
 hear,' and 'Order, order'.) The more reason, then, that this
 
 2 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 House should show the generosity which judges show to a 
 criminal, and allow every word he has to say to be heard. But 
 I stand here, Sir, as no criminal. I stand here as the chosen 
 of a constituency of this country, with my duty to that con- 
 stituency to do. I stand here, Sir — if it will not be considered 
 impertinent to put it so — with the most profound respect for 
 this House, of which I yet hope and mean to form a part, and 
 on whose traditions I should not wish to cast one shadow of 
 reproach. I stand here returned duly ; no petition against my 
 return ; no impeachment of that return. 1 stand here returned 
 duly, ready to fulfil every form that this House requires, ready 
 to fulfil every form that the law permits this House to require, 
 ready to do every duty that the law makes incumbent upon 
 me. 
 
 I will not in this presence argue whether this House has 
 or has not the right to set its decision against the law, because I 
 should imagine that even the rashest of those who spoke against 
 me would hardly be prepared to put in the mouth of one whom 
 they consider too advanced in politics an argument so dangerous 
 as that might become. I speak within the limits of the law, 
 asking for no favor from this House for myself or for my 
 constituents, but asking the merest justice which has always 
 been accorded to a member of the House. (* Hear, hear,' and 
 ' Order '.) 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 ot passion and the warmth of debate, the gentleman 
 who used those words, if such there were, will remember that 
 he was wanting in chivalry, because, while I can answer for
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 3 
 
 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 * Order'.) 
 
 I fear lest the strength of this House, judicially exercised 
 as I understand it to be — with infrequency of judicial exercise — 
 that the strength of this House makes it forget our relative 
 positions. At present I am pleading at its bar for justice. 
 By right it is there [pointing to the seats] I should 
 plead. It is that right I claim in the name of those who 
 sent me here. No legal disqualification before my election, 
 or it might have been made the ground of petition ; no legal 
 disqualification since my election — not even pretended. 
 
 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 honor and his conscience. If I have not 
 misread, some hon. members seem to think that I have neither 
 honor 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 honor and 
 conscience ? 
 
 Of the gentlemen who are now about to measure themselves 
 
 against the rights of the constituencies of England, I ask what 
 
 justification have they for that measurement ? They have said 
 
 that I thrust my opinions on the House. I hold here, Sir, the 
 
 evidence of Sir Thomas Erskine May, and I can find no word of 
 
 .any opinion of mine thrust upon the House at all. I have read 
 
 — it may be that the reports misrepresent — that the cry of 
 
 ** Atheist " has been raised from that side. [Pointing to the 
 
 Opposition side.] No word of all mine before the committee 
 
 put in any terms those theological or anti-theological opinions in 
 
 B 2
 
 4 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 evidence before the House. I am no more ashamed of my own 
 opinions, which I did not choose — opinions into which I have 
 grown — than any member of this House is ashamed of his ; and 
 much as I value the right to sit here, and much as I beheve that 
 the justice of this House will accord it to me before the struggle 
 is finished, I would rather relinquish it for ever than it should be 
 thought that by any shadow of hypocrisy I had tried to gain 
 a feigned entrance here by pretending to be what I am not. 
 (Cheers, and cries of ' Order '.) 
 
 On the Report of the Committee as it stands, on the evidence 
 before the House, what is the objection to my either affirming 
 or taking the oath ? It is said I have no legal right to affirm. 
 I will suppose that to be so. It is the first time that the House 
 has made itself a court of law from which there may be no 
 appeal, and deprived a citizen of his constitutional right of 
 appeal to a court of law to make out what the statute means 
 in dealing with him. There is no case in which this House has 
 overridden everything, and put one of its members where he had 
 no chance of battling for his right at all. Take the oath. It is 
 possible that some of the lawyers, who have disagreed among 
 themselves even upon that (the Opposition) side of the House, 
 may be right, and that I may be wrong in the construction I 
 have put upon the oath ; but no such objection can come. 
 There is no precedent — there is, I submit respectfully, no right 
 — in this House to stand between me and the oath which the 
 law provides for me to take : which the statute, under penalty 
 even upon members of this House themselves if they put me 
 out from my just return, gives me the right to take. 
 
 What kind of a conflict is provoked here if this resolution be 
 enforced ? Not a grave conflict in a court of law, where the 
 judges exclude passion : where they only deal with facts and 
 evidence. I do not mean that these gentlemen do not deal with 
 facts ; but, if I am any judge of my own life's story, there have 
 been many things put against myself which I can hardly reckon 
 in the category of facts. I don't mean that they are not right, 
 for hon. members may know more of myself than I do myself; 
 but, judging myself as I know myself, some of the members who 
 have attacked me so glibly during the last few days must have
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. ^ 
 
 been extraordinarily misinformed, or must have exceedingly 
 misapprehended the matters they alleged. It has been said that 
 I have paraded and flaunted some obnoxious opinions. I appeal 
 to your justice, Sir, and to that of the members of this House, to 
 say whether my manner has not been as respectful as that of 
 man could be — whether in each case I have not withdrawn 
 when you told me. If I now come here with even the appear- 
 ance of self-assertion, it is because I would not be a recreant 
 and coward to the constituency that sent me to represent them ; 
 and I mean to be as members have been in the best history oi 
 this assembly. 
 
 I ask the House, in dealing -with my rights, to remember 
 how they are acting. It is perfectly true that by a majority 
 they may decide against me now. What are you to do then ? 
 Are you going to declare the seat vacant ? First, I tell 
 you that you have not the right. The moment I am there 
 [pointing inside the House] I admit the right of the House, 
 of its own good will and pleasure, to expel me. As yet 
 I am not under your jurisdiction. As yet I am under the 
 protection of the law. A return sent me to this House, and I 
 ask you. Sir, as the guardian of the liberties of this House, to 
 :give effect to that return. The law says you should, and that 
 this House should. And naturally so ; because, if it were not 
 so, any time a majority of members might exclude anyone they 
 pleased. 
 
 What has been alleged against me ? Politics ? Are views 
 on politics urged as a reason why a member should not sit here ? 
 Pamphlets have been read : I won't say with accuracy, because 
 I will not libel any of the hon. members who read them ; but, 
 surely, if they are grounds for disqualification they are grounds 
 for indictment to be proved against me in a proper fashion. 
 There is no case in all the records of this House in which you 
 have ransacked what a man has written and said in his past life 
 and then challenged him with it here. My theology ? It would 
 be impertinent in me, after the utterances of men so widely 
 -disagreeing from me that have been made on the side of religious 
 liberty during the past two nights — it would be impertinent in 
 me to add one word save this. It is said that you may deal
 
 O SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 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 ? (Cries of ' Oh ! '.) That is a bad argument, which pro- 
 vokes a reply inconsistent with the dignity of this House, and 
 which I should be sorry to give. 
 
 I have not yet used — I hope no passion may tempt me to bo- 
 using — any words that would seem to savor of even a desire to 
 enter into conflict with this House. I have always taught, 
 preached, and believed in the supremacy of Parliament, and it is 
 not because for a moment the judgment of one Chamber of 
 Parliament should be hostile to me that I am going to deny the 
 ideas I have always held ; but I submit that one Chamber of 
 ParUament — even its grandest Chamber, as I have always held 
 this to be — has no right to override the law. The law gives me 
 the right to sign that roll, to take and subscribe the oath, and to 
 take my seat there [pointing to the benches]. I admit that the 
 moment I am in the House, wdthout any reason but your own 
 good will, you can send me away. That is your right. You 
 have full control over your members. But you cannot send me 
 away until I have been heard in my place, not a suppliant as I 
 am now, but with the rightful audience that each member has 
 always had. 
 
 There is one phase of my appeal which I am loth indeed to 
 make. I presume you will declare the seat vacant. What do 
 you send me back to Northampton to say ? I said before, 
 and I trust I may say again, that this assembly is one in 
 which any man might well be proud to sit — prouder I that I 
 have not some of your traditions and am not of your families, 
 but am of the people, the people that sent me here to speak 
 for them. 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 ot Northampton alone — hon. members need not
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 7 
 
 mistake — that you will come into conflict if this appeal is to go 
 forward, if the House of Commons is to override the statute 
 law to get rid of even the vilest of members. Had you alleged 
 against me even more than against one man whose name was 
 mentioned in this House last night, I should still have held that 
 the House cannot supersede the rights of the people. But not 
 as much is alleged against me as was alleged against that man, 
 in whose case the House itself said that its conduct had been 
 subversive of the rights of the people. I beg you, for your own 
 sakes, don't put yourselves in that position. I have no desire to 
 wrestle with you for justice. I admit that I have used hard 
 words in my short Hfe, giving men the right in return to say hard 
 things of me ; but is it not better that I should have the right 
 to say them to your faces ? If they are within the law, let the 
 law deal with me fairly and properly ; but, if they are without 
 the law, not unfairly, as I submit you are doing now. 
 
 You have the power to send me back ; but in appealing to 
 Northampton I must appeal to a tribunal higher than yours 
 — not to courts of law, for I hope the days of conflict between 
 the assembly which makes the law and the tribunals which 
 administer it are passed. It must be a bad day for England and 
 for Great Britain, if we are to be brought again to the time 
 when the judges and those who make the law for the judges are 
 in rash strife as to what they mean. But there is a court to 
 which I shall appeal : the court of public opinion, which wilJ 
 have to express itself. You say it is against me. Possibly ; but 
 if it be so, is it against me rightly or wrongly ? I am ready to 
 admit, if you please, for the sake of argument, that every 
 opinion I hold is wrong and deserves punishment. Let the 
 law punish it. If you say the law cannot, then you admit 
 that you have no right ; and I appeal to public opinion against 
 the iniquity of a decision which overrides the law and denies me 
 justice. 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
 
 8 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. * 
 
 you, before the gauntlet is fatally thrown : 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 hall the judges would give me were I pleading 
 there before them. (Loud cheers and cries of * Order ', amid 
 which Mr. Bradlaugh again bowed and retired.) 
 
 Second Speech : April 28tli, 1881. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — I have again to ask the indulgence of the 
 House while I submit to it a few words in favor of my claim 
 to do that which the law requires me to do. 
 
 Perhaps the House will pardon me if I supply an omission, 
 I feel unintentionally made, on the part of the hon. member for 
 Chatham [Sir J. E. Gorst] in some words which have just fallen 
 from him. I understood him to say that he would use a formal 
 statement made by me to the Committee against what the 
 Chancellor of the Duchy had said I had said. I am sure the 
 hon. and learned member for Chatham, who has evidently read 
 the proceedings of the Committee v/ith care, would, if he had 
 thought it fair, have stated to the House that the statement 
 only came from me after an objection made by me — a positive 
 objection on the ground that it related to matters outside this 
 House, and that the House in the course of its history had 
 never inquired into such matters ; but I can hardly understand 
 what the member for Chatham meant when he said that he 
 contrasted what I did say with what the Chancellor of the 
 Duchy said I said ; for it is not a matter of memory, it is on the 
 proceedings of this House, that being examined formally before 
 the Committee, I stated : " That the essential part of the oath 
 is in the fullest and most complete degree binding upon my 
 honor and conscience, and that the repeating of the words of 
 asseveration does not in the slightest degree weaken the binding 
 of the allegiance on me ". 
 
 I say now I would not go through any form — much as I value
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 9 
 
 the right to sit in this House, much as I desire and believe that 
 this House will accord me that right — that I did not mean to be 
 binding upon me without mental reservation, without equivoca- 
 tion. I would go through no form unless it were fully and com- 
 pletely and thoroughly binding upon me as to what it expressed 
 or promised. 
 
 Mine has been no easy position for the last twelve months. 
 I have been elected by the free votes of a free constituency. 
 My return is untainted. There is no charge of bribery (cheers), 
 no charge of corruption, nor of inducing men to come drunken 
 to the polling booth. I come here with a pure untainted return 
 — not won by accident. For thirteen long years have I fought 
 for this right — through five contested elections, including this. 
 It is now proposed to prevent me from fulfilling the duty my 
 constituents have placed upon me. You have force ; on my side 
 is the law. The hon. and learned member for Plymouth spoke 
 the truth when he said he did not ask the House to treat the 
 matter as a question of law ; but the constituencies ask me to 
 treat it as a question of law. I, for them, ask you to treat it as 
 a question of law. 
 
 I could understand the feeling that seems to have been mani- 
 fested were I some great and powerful personage. I could 
 understand it had I a huge influence behind me. I am only one 
 of the people, and you propose to teach them that on a mere 
 technical question you will put a barrier in the way of my doing 
 my duty which you have never put in the way of anyone else. 
 
 The question is, has my return on the gth of April, 1881, 
 anything whatever to impeach it ? There is no legal disqualifica- 
 tion involved. If there were, it could be raised by petition. The 
 hon. member for Plymouth says the dignity of this House is in 
 question. 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. How is the dignity of this House to be 
 hurt ? If what happened before the gth of April is less than a 
 legal disqualification, it is a matter for the judgment of the con- 
 stituency and not for you. The constituency has judged me ;
 
 lO SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 it has elected me. I stand here with no legal disqualification, 
 upon me. The right of the constituency to return me is an un- 
 impeachable right. I know some gentlemen make light of con- 
 stituencies ; yet without the constituencies you are nothing. It 
 is from them you derive your whole and sole authority. The 
 hon. and learned member for Plymouth treats lightly the 
 legal question. It is dangerous to make light of the law — 
 dangerous, because if you are only going to rely on your strength 
 of force to override the law, you give a bad lesson to men whose 
 morality you impeach as to what should be their duty if 
 emergence ever came. ('Hear, hear.') Always outside the House 
 I have advocated strenuous obedience to the law, and it is under 
 that law that I claim my right. 
 
 It is said by the right hon. baronet who interposes between 
 me and my duty that this House has passed some resolution. 
 First, I submit that that resolution does not affect the return of 
 the gth April. The conditions are entirely different : there is 
 nothing since the date of that return. I submit, next, that, if it 
 did affect it, the resolution was illegal from the beginning. In 
 the words of George Grenville, spoken in this House in 1769, I 
 say, if your resolution goes in the teeth of the law — if against the 
 statute — your resolution is null and void. No word have I 
 uttered outside these walls which has been lacking in respect to 
 the House. I believe the House will do me justice, and I ask it 
 to look at what it is I claim. 
 
 I claim to do that which the law says I must. Frankly, I 
 would rather have affirmed. When I came to the table of the 
 House I deemed that I had a legal right to do it. The courts 
 have decided against me, and I am bound by their decision. 
 I have the legal right to do what I propose to do. No resolu- 
 tion of yours can take away that legal right. You may act 
 illegally and hinder me ; and unfortunately I have no appeal 
 against you. " Unfortunately " perhaps I should not say. 
 Perhaps it is better that the Chamber which makes the law 
 should never be in conflict with the courts which administer 
 the laws that the Chamber makes. I think the word " unfortu- 
 nately" was not the word I ought to have used in this 
 argument. But the force that you invoke against the law
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. IT 
 
 to-day may to-morrow be used against you, and the use will be 
 justified by your example. It is a fact that I have no remedy 
 if you rely on your force. I can only be driven into a contest, 
 wearying even to a strong man well supported, ruinous and 
 killing to one man standing by himself — a contest in which, if 
 I succeed, it will be injurious to you as well as to me. Injurious 
 to me because I can only win by lessening your repute, which 
 I desire to maintain. The only court I have the power of 
 appealing to is the court of public opinion, which I have no 
 doubt in the end will do me justice. 
 
 The hon. member for Plymouth said I had the manliness on 
 a former occasion to make an avowal of opinions to this House. 
 I did nothing of the kind. I have never, 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 rehgious opinions of the 
 citizens. (Cheers.) While I had the honor of occupying a 
 seat in the House, when questions were raised which touched 
 upon religious matters, I abstained from uttering one word. I 
 did not desire to say one word which might hurt the feelings of 
 even the most tender. (' Hear.') 
 
 But it is said, why not have taken the oath quietly ? I did 
 not take it then because I thought I had the right to do some- 
 thing else, and I have paid the penalty. I have been plunged 
 in litigation fostered by men who had not the courage to put 
 themselves forward. (Loud cheers below the gangway.) I, a 
 penniless man, should have been ruined, if it had not been that 
 the men in workshop, pit, and factory had enabled me to fight 
 this battle. (Interruption.) I am sorry that hon. members 
 cannot have patience with one pleading as I plead here. It is 
 no light stake, even if you put it on the lowest personal grounds, 
 to risk the ambition of a life on such an issue. It is a right 
 ambition to desire to take part in the councils of the nation, if 
 you bring no store of wisdom with you, and can only learn from 
 the great intellects that we have. (' Hear, hear.') What will
 
 12 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 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 
 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 ? As to any obnoxious views supposed 
 to be held by me, there is no duty imposed upon me to say a 
 word. 
 
 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 gth 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. My difficulty 
 is that those who have made the most bitter attacks upon me 
 only made them when I was not here to deal with them. One 
 hon. and gallant member recently told his constituents that this 
 would be made a party question, but that the Conservative 
 members had not the courage to speak out against me. I 
 should have thought, from reading " Hansard ", not that they 
 wanted courage, but that they had cultivated a reticence that 
 was more just. 
 
 I wish to say A. word or two on the attempt which has been 
 made to put on the Government of the day complicity in my 
 views. The Liberal party has never aided me in any way to 
 this House. (' Oh ! ' from the Opposition.) Never. I have 
 fought by myself. I have fought by my own hand. I have 
 been hindered in every way that it was possible to hinder me ; 
 and it is only by the help of the people, by the pence of toilers 
 in mine and factory, that I am here to-day, after these five 
 struggles right through thirteen years. I have won my way 
 with them, for I have won their hearts, and now I come to you. 
 Will you send me back from here ? Then how ? You have 
 the right, but it is the right of force, and not of law. When
 
 / 
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. I3 
 
 I am once seated on these benches, then I am under your 
 jurisdiction. At present I am under the protection of the writ 
 from those who sent me here. I do not want to quote what has 
 happened before ; but if there be one lesson which the House 
 has recorded more solemnly than another, it is that there should 
 be no interference with the judgment of a constituency in 
 sending a man to this House against whom there is no statutory 
 disqualification. Let me appeal to the generosity of the House 
 as well as to its strength. It has traditions- of liberty on both 
 sides. I do not complain that members on that (the Con- 
 servative) side try to keep me out. They act according to their 
 lights, and think my poor services may be injurious to them. 
 (Cries of 'No'.) Then why not let me in? (Cheers.) It 
 must be either a political or a religious question. 
 
 I must apologise to the House for trespassing upon its 
 patience. I apologise because I know how generous in its 
 listening it has been from the time of my first speech in it till 
 now. But I ask you now, do not plunge with 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. 
 I have no court, no tribunal to appeal to ; you have the strength 
 of your votes at the moment. 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. (Cheers.) 
 
 TMrd Speech : February 7th, 1882. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — In addressing the House for the third time from 
 this position, I feel the exceeding difficulty of dealing fairly with 
 myself without dealing unfairly with the House. If I were to
 
 14 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 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 [Mr. Newdegate] 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 exceed- 
 ingly 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 dut}'-, 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 bank- 
 ruptcy, 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
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. I5 
 
 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, tliat 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 ' ; and Mr. Newde- 
 gate shook his head.) The hon. member does not believe me. 
 I cannot make more than facts. I cannot make the compre- 
 hension 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
 
 l6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 them. (' Oh ! ' and laughter from the Opposition.) The gentle- 
 men 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 remem- 
 ber 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 da 
 that. If you are unfit to be judges, then do not judge. (' Hear, 
 hear.') It shows, at least, the difficulty of dealing with a ques- 
 tion 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 gentle- 
 men, 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 oi 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 gth 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
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. ly 
 
 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 made 
 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 the members 
 of the House of Commons on whom the shame, on whom the dis- 
 grace, 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 down- 
 stairs, 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 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
 
 l8 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 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 con- 
 stituents 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 con- 
 voked 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 
 c'-'allenged me as to the law under which I claimed. I do not 
 c rel with him, but I submit that the clerk of the House had
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 
 
 19 
 
 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, it 
 is prior to the gth of April, 1881, and the House has 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 that 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 1 objected to answer, because I had carefully refrained 
 from saying any word which would bring my opinions before the 
 House. 1 therefore ask 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 
 
 c 2
 
 20 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 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 : " 1 con- 
 sider 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 bind- 
 ing 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
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 21 
 
 will allow me to finish my sentence (Cries of 'With- 
 draw'.) 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 understand- 
 ing 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
 
 22 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 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 with- 
 out 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 possibihty 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 may demand, 
 will discuss whether an Affirmation Bill shall pass or not. 
 I want to obey the law, and I tell you how I might meet the
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 23 
 
 House still further, if the House wiU 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 '.) 
 
 Fourth Speech : May 4th, 1883. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — With the indulgence of the House, I desire 
 to submit a very few words in support of my right to take the 
 oath and my seat pursuant to my return. I was elected on the 
 4th of March of last year, and since that election I have not 
 presented myself for the purpose of taking my seat. The 
 House, after my election, expressed its pleasure that I should 
 not be permitted to obey the law that Session ; and this Session 
 the House has been engaged in considering a measure which, 
 if it had passed, would have been a measure which would have 
 rendered it possible, supposing my constituents to have re- 
 elected me, for me to have taken my seat on affirmation. Last 
 night the House felt it right to reject that measure, and now 
 it is my duty to do what the law requires of me, and I ask 
 the indulgence of the members who are hostile to me in 
 the few words which it is my unpleasant duty to address to 
 them. 
 
 I ask that indulgence because my position for some time 
 has been one of considerable pain. By the privilege of an 
 unsworn member, I have been within hearing of everything 
 that has taken place in this House ; but by the practice of the 
 House I have been precluded from offering the smallest dissent 
 to any phrase, however severe ; to any insinuation, however
 
 24 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 harsh ; to any charge, however much I think it false. My 
 constituents have a right to the voice and speech of two repre- 
 sentatives in this House. (Cheers.) That is their unquestion- 
 able ri<?Ht. They have chosen me three times in this Parliament 
 to be one of their burgesses ; and if I were as vile as some of 
 the members have chosen to describe me, if that vileness im- 
 poses no legal disqualification, no one within these walls has a 
 right to challenge the return of my constituents. (Ministerial 
 cheers.) The law requires me to take my seat ; it imposes a 
 penalty upon me if I do not take my seat; it gives me privileges 
 which I ought to enjoy while I hold unchallenged this certificate 
 of return ; and here I ask whether there ought to be any 
 hindrance between the returned of a constituency, the duty 
 which the law imposes upon him to perform, and the services 
 which his constituents have a right to demand ; and I submit 
 that any hindrance which is not justified by law is an act which 
 in itself is flagrantly wrong, whoever may commit it ; and that 
 the mere fact that a majority of voices in one Chamber may 
 prevent a citizen from appealing to the law in no sense lessens 
 the iniquity of the illegal act ; and that history will so judge it, 
 whatever to-day you may think it your right and your duty to 
 do. (' Hear, hear.') 
 
 I listened, Sir, with pain to one dangerous doctrine that was 
 put forward against my admission : viz., that Parliament recog- 
 nises no rights but its own ; and that it never treated those 
 claims — that is, those of the electors of Northampton — for 
 electoral or representative concessions as rights ; and that it 
 had always regarded them as high and valuable privileges which 
 it was in its power to withhold or bestow; and that it had never 
 been guided by any other principle than expediency or policy. 
 I submit that that doctrine is treason to the Constitution of 
 England. (Cheers from the Ministerialists.) I submit that the 
 suffrage is a right ; and in the famous case of Ashby v. White it 
 was decided by the highest courts of judicature in the realm 
 that the suffrage is not a privilege, but a right. And I submit 
 that, while it is true that Parliament has a right to take away, 
 negate, or destroy the right of any citizen in this country, yet 
 that one Chamber is not Parliament, and that neither House,
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 
 
 ?5 
 
 by its mere resolution, may override, negate, or suspend a law ; 
 and although you may have the right of force, that is a bad 
 right to put against the right of the law. (Cheers. Some 
 dissent being expressed by Irish members, Mr. Bradlaugh 
 turned to them and said :) I can only thank the courtesj- of the 
 members who interrupt me on my right — (several voices: 'Left') 
 — for their consideration for me in the difficult position in which 
 I am placed ; and I will ask the indulgence of the House while 
 I put one or two words of explanation as to matters which have 
 been prominently urged as reason why I should not sit. 
 
 It is said, first, that I am a candidate of the Government, 
 put forward by the Government. Surely, if that were true, it 
 would be no great objection in the way of my return ; but there 
 is not a particle of truth in it. I stood in 1868 for Northampton 
 to fight the seat of Lord Henley. The present Prime Minister 
 on that occasion thought it his duty to oppose my election, and 
 wrote a letter, against which I then thought I had fair ground 
 of complaint, advising the people of Northampton to return the 
 two sitting members. Lord Henley and Mr. Charles Gilpin. I 
 have never had, directly or indirectly, the smallest aid or 
 assistance from either the present Prime Minister or from any 
 member of the Government, or, to my knowledge, from any 
 member of the Liberal party, in any of the elections I have 
 fought in that borough — (' hear, hear ') — and when the hon. 
 member who has thought it his duty to come into unfortunate 
 collision with me elsewhere (Mr. Newdegate, who expressed 
 dissent) chooses to contradict that, he contradicts it without the 
 smallest knowledge of the facts. With reference to the allegation 
 made by the right hon. baronet the member for South-West 
 Lancashire (Sir R. Cross), that the late Mr. Adam had in some 
 fashion recommended me to the electors of Northampton, there 
 is not the faintest shadow of foundation for that. I never held 
 the smallest communication, direct or indirect, of any character 
 whatever with Mr. Adam, or with anyone on his behalf, until in 
 this House, in his official position as Commissioner of Works, 
 it was my duty to address questions to him on behalf of my 
 constituents. With that exception, I never had the smallest 
 connexion, direct or indirect, with Mr. Adam or with any mem-
 
 26 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 ber of the Government ; and to my belief — perhaps it may be 
 incorrect — I have always regarded the Liberal party as standing 
 in the way of my election, rather than as in any way helping my 
 return. (Cheers.) This, however, I submit, was matter 
 unworthy of this House. No such consideration has ever 
 entered at any time into the discussion of any other candi- 
 dature. (* Hear, hear.') I submit that a great House, which 
 claims the powers of one of the highest courts of these realms, 
 should try to be judicial. (Cheers.) 
 
 Then it is said that all that has happened I have brought on 
 myself ; that it is not the opinions which were alleged against 
 me, but, to use the words of more than one right hon. and hon. 
 member, the offensive way in which, at the table of the House, 
 I paraded my views, and threw down the gauntlet in the face of 
 the House. There is not a shadow of foundation for that 
 allegation. (Cheers.) The only way in which it is attempted 
 to support the allegation is by saying that, when at the table of 
 the House, and when in writing I claimed to affirm, giving no 
 reasons whatever in support of that, and when thereupon asked 
 under what law I claimed to affirm, I named the statutes ; then 
 it is said that that was a declaration of Atheism. But it is not 
 true, and no person with the smallest acquaintance with the law 
 should make such a declaration ; though I think that I heard a 
 right hon. and learned gentleman commit himself to the state- 
 ment that none but Atheists could affirm under the Evidence 
 Amendment Acts, 1869 and 1870. That is not so. By the law 
 prior to the passing of those Acts, any Theist who did not 
 believe in future rewards or punishments was one of those who 
 were not competent to give evidence on oath, who might have 
 been objected to as incompetent, and who became competent to 
 affirm under those statutes. Therefore there was no declaration 
 of Atheism involved in what was said at the table, and no member 
 has a right to examine my opinions. (Cheers.) I have never 
 uttered them in this House. Under great temptation I have 
 refrained from saying a word which could wound the feelings of 
 the most religious, although I have heard within these walls 
 within but a few hours language used by one who had declared 
 his religion which I should have felt ashamed to use in any
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 27 
 
 decent assembly.^ (Cheers.) Nothing of my opinions was com- 
 municated to this House until the Committee which examined 
 me before it asked whether I had written a certain letter to the 
 Times — and it has been stated over and over again on both sides 
 of the House that any declaration in the Times, or any declara- 
 tion outside these walls, is a matter with which Parliament has 
 no concern ; but when the Committee insisted I gave way, for 
 I had no desire to be a hypocrite or to conceal my real con- 
 victions. I had put, I hope as respectfully as man could put, 
 what I thought a fair reason for the line I took ; and although I 
 believe that it was a matter which the House had no right to 
 deal with — entirely without its province — yet when the Com- 
 mittee pressed me upon it I believed that I was dealing with 
 generous English gentlemen, who would not distort what they 
 had asked for into a declaration that I had paraded it at the 
 table of the House. (' Hear, hear.') I had to sit with pain 
 while reckless charges, probably supplied to members by 
 persons not having the responsibility of a seat in this House, 
 have sounded in my ears ; and I heard two right hon. members 
 and several hon. members quote against me during this week 
 letters as of " An Avowed Atheist ", as expressing my opinions 
 on religion and on family life. They were quoted against me 
 on the ist and the 3rd of May, although on the 26th of April, in 
 the paper in which these letters were printed, there appeared a 
 declaration that they were not written by an avowed Atheist at 
 all, but by a professing Christian, for the purpose of injuring me 
 and preventing my candidature ; and I ask the House whether 
 this is a loyal and brave way to deal with a man who has no 
 right of speech until too late to remedy the wrong done. ('Hear, 
 hear.') 
 
 Members have been industrious in reading all the things I 
 have ever written, and many I have not written. One hon. 
 member, the hon. member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie), 
 read to this House phrases which when he read them I could 
 
 ^ This referred to some exceedingly filthy and blasphemous language used 
 by Philip Callan, M.P., in the presence and hearing of the Right Hon. Lord 
 R. Grosvenor and other members.
 
 28 SPEECHES BY CHARLES DRADLAUGH. 
 
 not remember, but which I knew it was impossible that I could 
 have used in the way they were put, because they would 
 have been fatal to the candidature I desired to preserve in 
 Northampton. What do I find? I find that instead of its being 
 in any matter, or happening in any fashion, in connexion with 
 these contests, a portion of a speech attributed to me in a report 
 fifteen years ago has been taken, although at the top of the very 
 paragraph from which the hon. member quoted I find that there 
 is a declaration that I am in no way responsible for what 
 appears in the report. Surely it would have been generous to 
 have said that ; it would have been fair to have said that ; it 
 would have been just to have said that. (Cheers.) I do not 
 pretend that in everything I have said I have never deserved 
 the blame of this House ; but there is a great difference between 
 things deserving blame, and twisting and distorting every 
 phrase to make groundwork for the heaviest punishment that 
 can fall upon a man who desires to serve the constituency 
 which elected him to represent it in this House. (' Hear, hear.') 
 Then I heard that I had been convicted of circulating a filthy 
 book, and had escaped only by a legal quibble the punishment 
 it was said I deserved. The hon. member who thought it right 
 to say that in this House, might have said that the learned 
 judge who tried me — whose gravestone will perhaps protect 
 him from the charges and insinuations which have been heaped 
 upon the other judges who have had the misfortune to do me 
 justice — (cheers) — the late Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, said: 
 " That the defendants honestly believe that the evils that this 
 work would remedy, arising from over-population and poverty, 
 are so great that these checks may be resorted to as a remedy 
 for the evils, and as bettering the condition of humanity, 
 although there might be things to be avoided, if it were possible 
 to avoid them, and yet remedy the evils which they are to 
 prevent — that such is the honest opinion of the defendants, we, 
 who have read the book, and who have heard what they have 
 said, must do them the justice of believing". Is that the 
 janguage which one of England's greatest judges would use if 
 he had before him a man charged with circulating a filthy 
 book ? And the jury who found me guilty in their verdict
 
 AT THE BAR OF THE HOUSE. 
 
 29 
 
 said : " We entirely exonerate the defendants from any corrupt 
 motive in publishing it ". (' Hear, hear.') Surely when foul 
 words of condemnation come, a generous and strong opponent 
 would have at least said this on the other side, so that the 
 House might know how far the condemnation was warranted. 
 
 I will say no more personally save this : Members who have 
 said that I attacked marriage, that I attacked the family, cannot 
 have read what I have said on either subject. I have never in 
 my life attacked either. Members who charge me with Socialism 
 and Communism are ignorant of the whole history of my life, 
 and of the whole political strife in which I have been engaged. 
 (' Hear, Hear.') 
 
 But all these, although they were as true as they are false, 
 give you no right to stand between me and my seat. (Ministerial 
 cheers.) For I ask the House to be logical — (laughter) — I ask 
 the House with all respect to be logical — though I do not doubt 
 that it would be difficult for some members to get into that 
 frame of mind which would enable them to be so. I would ask 
 the House either to declare my seat vacant at once, or introduce 
 a Bill rendering me incapable of sitting for any constituency. 
 (Ministerial cheers.) Deprive me of all civil rights by law, and 
 then I must submit, as better men before me had to submit, 
 whom the Parliament of England attainted and outlawed ; but 
 while I have civil rights I will claim them. (Ministerial cheers.) 
 If the law cannot give them to me — and perhaps it is better 
 this House should be above the law — if the law cannot give 
 them to me, then I can only try, wherever voice may go, to 
 show that you, the High Court of Parliament, greater than the law, 
 have trampled on the law — (Ministerial cheers and counter cheers) 
 — and at least try at the hustings and in the ballot-box, when 
 the time comes, that the people whom you say are on your side 
 shall decide, as it is their lawful right to do. (Ministerial cheers.) 
 
 I heard a strange phrase from a noble lord, that both 
 sides had gone too far to recede. The House honors me too 
 much in putting me on one side and itself on the other. The 
 House, being strong, should be generous. The strong can 
 recede, the generous can give ; but the constituents have a 
 right to more than generosity — they have a right to justice.
 
 30 
 
 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 (Ministerial cheers.) The law gives me my seat. In the name 
 of the law I ask for it. (Ministerial cheers.) I regret that my 
 personality overshadows the principles involved in this great 
 struggle ; but I would ask those who have touched my life, not 
 knowing it, who have found for me vices which I do not 
 remember in the memory of my life, I would ask them whether 
 all can afford to cast the first stone — (Ministerial cheers) — 
 whether, condemning me for my unworthiness, then that, as 
 just judges, they will vacate their own seats, having deprived 
 my constituents of their right here to mine. (Loud Ministerial 
 cheers.) 
 
 1^ 
 
 ■fP
 
 INDIA: 
 
 HOW WE OBTAINED IT ; HOW WE HAVE RULED IT ; AND 
 HOW IT SHOULD BE RULED. 
 
 Delivered at the Town Hall, Northampton, November igth, 1883. 
 
 Friends, when I was invited to deliver the annual lecture in 
 aid of the Infirmary, I thought I might do that which would be 
 useful work in taking a subject upon which there is much mis- 
 information and very much misrepresentation. I take this sub- 
 ject really in view of the discussion on the Ilbert Bill; but there 
 is so little known among the general public as to our relations 
 with India that I thought you would permit me to roughly sketch 
 our past connexion with it, and show you what seem to me to 
 be our responsibilities in relation to it. 
 
 I am of opinion that we have obtained our authority in India 
 in a great part by means of which we ought to be heartily 
 ashamed. And I think if we continue to govern India there is 
 the weightiest duty upon every Englishman and Englishwoman 
 to take care that the despotic authority of England shall be used 
 as much as it can be to redeem our past and to make our Indian 
 fellow-citizens desirous of being governed by us. Conservative 
 speakers seem to hold a different view. They hold the view that 
 was put forward by Lord Ellenborough in the House of Lords 
 many years ago. He said then: " Our very existence in India 
 depended upon the exclusion of the Natives from military and 
 political power. We have won the Empire of India by the 
 sword, and we must preserve it by the same means." I say 
 that that is a shameful doctrine. I say that is a doctrine which 
 no Englishman, to whatever party he may belong, ought to pro- 
 
 31
 
 32 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 pound : and, although my views are well known, I desire to- 
 night not to treat this question in a party spirit. I desire to 
 appeal to Conservatives as well as to Liberals, to Radicals as 
 well as to Liberals and Conservatives, and to urge upon them 
 that there is the common duty of trying to deal with the immense 
 mass of the people of India, so that our Government, if it must 
 continue, shall produce as little misery as may be humanly 
 possible, and as much benefit as we can possibly contrive for 
 them. 
 
 I am sorry I did not provide such a map of India for you as 
 could be seen through this hall, because the very appearance of 
 India has something in it of such immensity compared with our 
 own small island, as at once to make us wonder how a handful 
 of Europeans should ever have acquired such authority over 
 that enormous tract of country. It is a pear-shaped triangle. 
 Its northern base, so to speak, if you turn it upside down, is the 
 famous Himalayan range. On its western side it is bounded by 
 the Arabian Sea ; and on a great portion of its Eastern side, 
 and on the South East, by the Bay of Bengal. Its apex is the 
 famous Cape Cormorin, a sort of pear-shaped curve, which com- 
 pletes the triangle. Its length and breadth in its widest part 
 are curiously almost the same, namely nearly 1,900 miles ; and 
 when you consider that that represents a space of something 
 like one and a half millions of square miles, you will form some 
 idea of the enormous extent of territory with which we have 
 to deal. At the census of 1881 that contained nearly 254 millions 
 of human beings, of whom 198,790,853 were under direct British 
 rule, and the others were in those Native States which are 
 subject to England and which are called mediatised States — 
 States regarded as feudatory to England. So that we have 
 254 millions of Hindu population — when I say Hindu popu- 
 lation I am not using the word in its religious sense, but 
 simply in its geographical sense, to designate the native popula- 
 ti-^n. We have as against that, in the same territory, 89,798 
 British-born subjects, men and women. Deducting the army, 
 which consists of 55,808, we have 33,990 of British subjects con- 
 trolling the welfare of these 254,000,000. And I would put to 
 you at once that if there were equality of interest, if you had
 
 INDIA. 
 
 33 
 
 to measure the desires of the 33,000 against 254,000,000, we 
 should be bound to pay the greatest attention to the wants and 
 needs of the 254,000,000, and, if necessary, to disregard very 
 much the desires of the 33,000 — when we remember that they 
 have gone to a foreign land for their own benefit, and the others 
 are there already in the land of their birth, where we are only 
 by right of conquest. 
 
 I hope you won't think me wearisome if I trouble you with 
 one or two figures of facts. I know they are always tiresome, 
 but 1 will make them as interesting as I can. The total expendi- 
 ture of India for 1882 was ^71,113,079. That expenditure has 
 increased 16^ millions in ten years. Now, when you remember 
 that, by over-taxation, famine has resulted in several districts — 
 that the population, the native population, have had no voice, 
 except such small voice as I shall show presently, in relation to 
 that taxation — I put it to you that a gross increase of 16^ millions 
 in ten years either has to be justified by great improvement 
 for the country, or, when we are making subscriptions in aid 
 of starved inhabitants of Hindustan, we ought to consider 
 whether we have helped to starve them first by the pressure we 
 have put upon them. Not only has taxation increased, but so 
 also has the debt. The total debt of India in 1882 was 
 ;^I56, 820,614. That debt has increased no less than 15-^- millions 
 in ten years; and it has increased 104 millions since the Crown 
 assumed the Government in 1857. ^^ is right that I should 
 say with reference to the increase in 1857 that there was, as I 
 shall have occasion to mention to you presently, an increase 
 of no less than 40 millions of debt in four years in connexion 
 with the Mutiny and its suppression. But let me urge to you 
 that this Indian debt is one we cannot afford to disregard in 
 this country. In the event of any insurrection having a 
 permanent character, that debt having been contracted under 
 English authority, the English taxpayer would have either to 
 pay it or repudiate it. 
 
 I won't, till I come to the end of my lecture, discuss further 
 the probabilities involved there. But I will mention to you that 
 which most of you will know, that until 1858 our relation with 
 Hindustan was only in connexion with the East India Com- 
 
 D
 
 34 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 pany, a Company which went there simply to make money. 
 Since then we have governed India under what is called the 
 government of the Governor-General in Council, and that is the 
 government of seven persons alone — the Government of Lord 
 Ripon, or whoever may be the Viceroy, and six gentlemen whom 
 I will describe to you. For all purposes, save one, they are 
 supreme. For all purposes, save one, every order they make 
 is an order against which there is only one appeal, namely to 
 public opinion in this country. And I am sorry to say that that 
 is an appeal which is very little hkely to be availing, for Enghsh 
 people have not paid the attention they ought to have done 
 to India, either in Parliament or out of Parliament. I have 
 seen Indian matters discussed with twenty men languidly sitting 
 or reclining on the benches of the House of Commons. And I 
 have not found amongst the people of England any great 
 interest taken in what may have been the nature of the debate. 
 Yet I ask you, you who rule 254 millions of people, you whose 
 rule, if it be bad, to them may mean crime and disaster — 
 I ask you, of whatever party you are, of whatever religion you 
 are — have you the right to be indifferent to the happiness or 
 misery of 254 millions of people whose destinies you control 
 without appeal ? Your judgment being final upon it, I ask. 
 Are you not bound to consider every question that arises, and 
 to influence the decisions that may be come to ? (Loud cheers.) 
 Now, the Governor - General in Council has six for his 
 ordinary Council : one for Finance, one for Legislative matters — 
 and at the present moment the Legislative member is at any 
 rate well-known in England, that is Mr. C. P. Ilbert, whose 
 name is identified with the Bill with which I shall presently 
 have to deal — one for Military matters, one for Public Works, 
 and two members of the Council who divide between them the 
 departments which in this country would figure as Home Office, 
 Post Office, Trade, Education, and Local Government. Now 
 for all purposes, save one, they are supreme. For new legisla- 
 tion they are not. For new legislation the statute requires that 
 every time they legislate there must be summoned not less than 
 eight and not more than twelve additional members, of whom 
 not more than half are to be official : half may be non-official.
 
 INDIA. 
 
 35 
 
 And, in addition, wherever the Council may be sitting, that is, 
 whether it be sitting in the Presidency of Bombay, Bengal, or 
 Madras, the Lieutenant-Governor and the Advocate-General of 
 the Presidency where it sits are also invited to those Legisla- 
 tive Councils. So you have twenty members of the Legislative 
 Council, of whom four are now natives, who sit when matters 
 of legislation are brought forward. 
 
 There is one thing one ought to say to the credit of Lord 
 Ripon, and that is, for the first time in the history of India, 
 knowing that the Bengal Rent Bill would be one of the matters 
 on which the Council would have to legislate, his lordship hae 
 consulted the large associations in Bengal interested in the 
 question as to the man they would like to have nominated to sit 
 on the Council to speak on their behalf. (Cheers.) I only hope 
 this may be only one specimen of wise direction on that subject. 
 
 Now, if you please, I want to say a word to our Conservative 
 friends. I want to express my intense regret that any question 
 affecting Indian rule should be made a matter of party cry and 
 party politics. We ought to forget the parties to which we 
 belong in dealing with Indian questions. We ought only to ask 
 ourselves, Is the measure for the advantage of the people of 
 Hindustan ? We ought not to ask who introduced it. We 
 ought not to ask who supports it. We ought not to ask which 
 Government brings forward the measure. W^e ought only to 
 ask, Is it a measure which is just, humane, wise and generous ? 
 And then each party should give it their support without 
 reference to who may be Prime Minister, or who the legisla- 
 tive officer who brings it forward. The danger of making Indian 
 questions matters of party cry is this. If the Tory cry now 
 succeeds — I won't say the Tory cry, but the cry put forward by 
 men like the Hon. Edward Stanhope, by men like the Rt. Hon. 
 James Lowther — (ironical laughter and hisses) — if the cry is to 
 be maintained that we are a dominant race, that we won India 
 by the sword and that we are to keep it by the sword, then 
 remember the answer tliat may come to that cry. The Sikh 
 people may say : " We can fight as well as you. We were 
 loyal during the Mutiny, when nearly all your rule was swept 
 away. We stood by you in the hour of danger. Our swords 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 have been drawn in your defence." Others may say : " Our 
 regiments have come to Egypt and to Europe at your beck 
 and call ; you can no longer rule us by force as you did, because 
 the enterprise and knowledge of the West which belonged to 
 you has been made more common to the world by education, 
 by telegraphs, by steam, by the thousand facilities which civili- 
 sation to-day puts at the service of the weakest". And they 
 may say: " If you rely on force, then we will reply by force, 
 unless you treat us so that we may love you, unless you make 
 it so that it is our interest to be with you. If you continually 
 teach us that we are slave and you are master, that we are 
 down and you are up ; if you continually teach us that, then 
 we may draw the sword when you are weakest, and our millions 
 will crush your thousands, as they must." 
 
 I don't think that the people of Hindustan desire to quarrel 
 with us. I believe that the best educated Hindus, and I have 
 had some opportunity of judging during the last twenty years, 
 are sensible that in the Western world there are resources and 
 traditions which they have not, which will benefit them : and 
 I believe that they desire to work with us. But there is much 
 dissatisfaction in Hindustan. Just think for a moment. Before 
 a native can be a civil servant, before he can occupy any one 
 of the posts which the English Government can give, he must 
 come over to this country to be examined, on the mere risk that 
 he may pass an examination which is not easy even for EngUsh- 
 men. He has to be examined in English. Look at the cost 
 of such a long journey. Look at the waste of time in such a 
 long journey. Look at the fact that if he be a Hindu he loses 
 caste entirely, and, if he fail, he is entirely an outcast from his 
 own home and people. I say it is a shameful thing. If there 
 are to be competitive examinations for Civil Service, and I 
 think it wise and right there should be, then the candidates 
 should be examined in Calcutta, Bombay, or Madras. Why 
 should they be obliged to cross the ocean ? It is a journey 
 none of them ought to be forced to take as a condition of 
 entering Government service. We ought to hold out facilities 
 for competitive examinations, and not raise these great obstacles 
 — we ought to hold out everv inducement to natives to become
 
 INDIA. 37 
 
 servants of the Government, if we want to keep our rule in 
 India. Thirty - three thousand cannot hold 254 millions in 
 check ; and I put it to you that this matter of Civil Service 
 Reform is one that will have to be dealt with. 
 
 But I must follow the line marked out by the title of my 
 lecture. I begin it by saying how we obtained our rule in 
 India. And I say without fear of contradiction that our past 
 in India has been so shameful, so tainted with crime or marked 
 with dishonor, that if it were the history of any other people, 
 •every English orator on every platform would denounce it 
 with the strongest words of castigation and shame. We went 
 there very early in the 17th century — perhaps a little to the 
 end of the i6th century. But we are traceable there early in 
 the 17th. The Portuguese and Dutch had gone there before 
 ois. The French were rivals with us. We all wanted to trade, 
 but the Portuguese and Dutch were weaker than we, and there- 
 fore we immediately came to the conclusion that they had no 
 Tight to trade there. At first the French were stronger than 
 we, and therefore we made a distinction. The Portuguese and 
 Dutch being the weakest, we arrived at the conclusion that they 
 "were pirates. We could not permit such a clashing with 
 British interests ; and as they wickedly persisted in trading to 
 places they had been abominable enough to find out before 
 we did, we burned their ships and hanged their crews, and 
 gradually they left off their iniquities. 
 
 At first we only went there as simple traders, and in 1613 
 the East India Company begged leave of the ruler of that part 
 of the territory on the gulf of Cambay, which is now within 
 the Bombay Presidency, to erect a British station at Surat ; 
 and directly afterwards they obtained permission to establish 
 another station a little to the north of that at Cambay ; and 
 directly after that at Ahmenabad. But these were only factories 
 or shops. We did not claim any right to be there, and paid 
 tribute or rent for the right to have our factories there. Three 
 years after that we came down to the South East, and there we 
 got leave to establish a station at Masulipatam, or rather more 
 East than North East of what is now Madras. About the 
 same time we got leave to establish another station at Calicut,
 
 38 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 on the West, almost on a line with Masulipatam. And then. 
 — we began to feel our feet. 
 
 At first we only asked rulers whether we might have juris- 
 diction over our own servants ; and the rulers granted that, with 
 strict provision that it was not to go any further. Then we 
 found out that we had a great deal of valuable property, and 
 we asked leave to erect Fort St. George, just by what is now 
 Madras ; and then, when we began to fortify, we proceeded to 
 kill. We did not kill the inhabitants of the country — they were 
 too strong as yet ; but we killed the Portuguese, and we killed 
 the Dutch, and we made short work of them. We made it 
 a rule to whip to death or starve to death the crews of every 
 one of the vessels that was caught trading, declaring that they 
 were pirates of the seas. 
 
 This encouraged us, and we began to think it was not worth 
 while asking further leave. We began to take it. Up in the 
 North of the Bay of Bengal, due east of what is now the City 
 of Calcutta, but which then did not exist as a city, and on 
 the coast, was a place called Chittagong. We tried to take it, 
 and the people of Chittagong wickedly resisted. We burned 
 one or two places on the coast, in order to show them that 
 they ought to appreciate the advantages of civilisation which 
 we brought them. We did not succeed, and about the end of 
 the century we humbly petitioned for leave to have trading 
 stations, at the three villages of Chuttanatti, Govindpur, and 
 Calcutta. Calcutta has grown from a village to a city since 
 then. In 1742 we were strong enough to steal, and we stole. 
 Perhaps I ought not to say that. I think it would be better 
 to say that finding ourselves strong enough to give the ad- 
 vantages of the civilisation we possessed to the uneducated 
 natives, we brought some of their territory within the benign 
 influence of our rule. 
 
 I won't weary you with the stories of what Clive did. You 
 will find them in Macaulay. I will hardly, except for one 
 thing, trouble you with the story of Warren Hastings ; but 
 it is needful I should tell you something of that, or you may 
 not comprehend what grievances India has against us. In 
 1780, Warren Hastings was impeached by the High Court
 
 INDIA. 
 
 39 
 
 of Parliament in England, and the grounds of his impeachment 
 which were proved in evidence were these — that he had been 
 guilty of injustice, cruelty and treachery, in hiring British 
 soldiers to extirpate the Rohillas. The Rohillas were the 
 inhabitants of the province of Rohilcund, an agricultural 
 people, with whom we had a solemn treaty of peace ; a 
 people who made no war on us, a people who wanted to 
 make no war on us ; and yet, for ;^20,ooo in cash, paid 
 to Warren Hastings, and ;^40o,ooo paid to the East India 
 Company, British soldiers were hired out to a native Indian 
 prince to devastate their country, burn their towns and villages, 
 kill their people, and ravish their women. He was charged 
 with cruelty to the Emperor Shah Alum, in withholding his 
 tribute ; with extortion and oppression in the case of the Rajah 
 of Benares ; with ill-treatment of the family of the Vizier of 
 Oude ; with improvidence and injustice in his policy towards 
 Faruckabad. He was charged with reducing Oude from a 
 garden to a desert. Think what it means to reduce a country 
 far larger than our own from a garden to a desert — a densely- 
 populated countr3\ It means that people die of starvation 
 in hundreds. It means that a state of things is produced, so 
 horrible as to shock even those who take part in it, and so 
 terrible in its horrors as to surpass the power of imagination 
 to conceive. It means a state of things in which men, women 
 and children are marked for misery, and shame, and death. 
 I will only read you one or two extracts to point what I say. 
 " The cattle were sold, tools pawned, seed-corn eaten, children 
 offered for sale, till purchasers could not be found ; and finally 
 the Government were informed by subordinates that the living 
 were known to prey upon the dead. Troops of famished 
 peasants, worn and wan, came crowding into the towns, 
 bringing with them pestilence in various forms, small-pox, 
 dysentery, and fever, and spreading terror and dismay among 
 rich men and rulers. Death did not heed being told to begone. 
 Its carnival was come, and the ghastly revel was prolonged 
 from week to week and from month to month, till the gravedigger 
 Avas weary, and the jackal and vulture grew lazy and tame." 
 You may ask, what is the use of reviving these things of
 
 40 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 one hundred years ago? I revive them because in 1879, when 
 a Tory Government wanted to extract money from the North 
 Western Provinces of India, when Sir George Coupar, our 
 governor there, petitioned that the taxes should not be en- 
 forced, and told the Government that if they enforced them 
 the people would be unable to cultivate their fields, the 
 Government insisted upon their enforcement, and within a 
 period of four months 250,000 people perished of starvation, 
 and tens of thousands died, because the tax-gatherer had 
 robbed them of the means of cultivating their fields. 
 
 I cannot go through the story of vice-royalty after vice- 
 royalty. It is enough to say that it is one page after another 
 of war and annexation. Every Viceroy who annexed territory 
 had a step in the peerage. Every Viceroy who annexed 
 territory figured amongst the grandees of our land. He had 
 example. He knew that he should not be punished, for when 
 Warren Hastings was impeached Lady Hastings brought 
 diamonds to Queen Caroline, and King and Queen canvassed 
 the peers for an acquittal. 
 
 This sort of thing ended in mutiny. *< Greased cartridges " 
 has been the story; but the annexations of Lord Dalhousie, 
 the seizure of Oude, and] other cases of territorial rapacity, 
 were the real cause. The " greased cartridges " were but 
 the spark ; there would have been no explosion if the powder 
 had not been already there. It is not that which lies on the 
 immediate surface that unlooses revolution. The causes of 
 each revolution grow in the miseries of the people for long 
 generations, and the outbreak comes when you least expect it. 
 
 It is no part of my duty to-night to tell the terrible story of 
 the Mutiny, or the more terrible story of its repression. If the 
 Mutiny was wicked, our repression of it was cruel, murderous, 
 and abominable. Nay, when Canning went there as Governor- 
 General, from 1858 to 1862, because he tried to be just he was 
 mocked with the title of " Clemency Canning ", as though 
 clemency were a shame, when in a judge clemency is the highest 
 honor. Yet in the peerage of Canning his clemency will shine 
 when the gems which he wore are forgotten. 
 
 I admit that the rulers of Hindustan have since then made
 
 INDIA. 
 
 41 
 
 efforts at wise legislation. The Penal Act of i860 and the 
 Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure of 1861 stand out as 
 marks of that wisdom. But I will ask you to remember that 
 the Hindus have to forget their history before they will love us. 
 They have to forget the frauds, the perjuries, the villainies that 
 have been perpetrated. They have to forget their burnt cities 
 and their ruined homes. They have to forget the wrongs of 
 their ancestors. And they have only now, if we want to hold 
 them, the guarantees of the future ; and unless we make that 
 future full of brightness and of hope, unless we try to show that 
 •our professions of freedom are not a sham, unless we try to show 
 that the civilisation of which we boast, and the benevolence 
 which, in famine time, we so widely advertise, are not all false, 
 not all a sham, we must show that we can be just and generous 
 to these people. 
 
 Now the questions which will be dealt with by the Govern- 
 General in Council, almost immediately, are important questions. 
 There is the Bengal Rent Bill, the Local Government Bill, some 
 measure in connexion with Civil Service Reform, and the Ilbert 
 Bill. 
 
 I confine myself now particularly to the Ilbert Bill, because 
 that is the question on which it is most needful to speak. And 
 I ask first. What is this Ilbert Bill ? Because I hold in my 
 hand a memorial sent to me, as to every other member of Par- 
 liament, against that Bill. You will find the Ilbert Bill best 
 •explained, popularly, in a speech made last week at Bristol by 
 Lord Northbrook. I shall use that speech, or some extracts 
 from it, because Lord Northbrook speaks with the authority due 
 to the words of one who himself has been Viceroy of India — 
 from 1872 to 1876. I will ask those who attack Lord North- 
 brook to remember that he was honorable enough to give up 
 what is probably nearly the highest ofiice an Englishman can 
 hold in the world — the position of controller of the destinies of 
 250 millions of human beings — rather than be guilty of a false- 
 hood towards these people. 
 
 Lord Northbrook, speaking of this Bill, reminds those to 
 whom he speaks that so long ago as 1833 the then responsible 
 Minister in England, as against the East India Company, used
 
 42 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 these words : " I wish it to be clearly understood that whatever 
 may be the immediate regulations of the Governor-General and 
 the India Council, no European shall enter India except upon 
 the condition of being placed under the same laws and tribunals 
 as the natives". There is nothing unfair in that. If you 
 go to a foreign country for your own benefit, why should you 
 have a superior position to the people who belong to that 
 country and to whom that country belongs ? You are an 
 intruder there. The least you can do is to meet them on a 
 footing of equality. And if you go as a conqueror and shelter 
 yourself like a coward and a mean rascal behind the bayonets of 
 the soldiery, then you have no claim on the sympathies of 
 intelligent people. Lord Northbrook points out that in pursu- 
 ance of this a law was passed by which Englishmen were made 
 subject to all the civil laws of the country ; and, at the present 
 moment, Englishmen in all things over that one-and-a-half 
 million square miles are subject to the Civil Judges, whether 
 they be native or European. In addition to that, in all the cities 
 of the Presidencies, Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, Enghshmen 
 were made also subject to the same Criminal Code and to the 
 same Judges, whether they were native or whether they were 
 European. I will ask you to remember that the bulk of these 
 33,000 people are precisely within the cities of Calcutta, of 
 Bombay, and of Madras, that it is a small proportion of them 
 only who are scattered through the country, and that proportion 
 not the most creditable. 
 
 I hold here a Government Report, not a Report of a party 
 character, but a Report made under the authority of Govern- 
 ments, both Conservative and Liberal ; and I find that since 
 railways have commenced, " mean whites " or European 
 vagrants have begun to spread over the country, and are 
 increasing in numbers, so that efforts have been made to grapple 
 with this evil. This Report has not been made for the Ilbert 
 Bill, for it was printed nine years before the Ilbert Bill was 
 proposed. The gaols and workhouses have found in them too 
 many of these European vagrants. But none of these have 
 been subject to Criminal Law, because there was no European 
 Judge ; and, in order to get them tried, you had to send them to-
 
 INDIA. 
 
 43 
 
 the High Court of Madras, Calcutta, or Bombay. Often you 
 could not transport the witnesses thither, and therefore there 
 was a failure and miscarriage of justice. 
 
 The Ilbert Bill is to remedy this, to give the same jurisdic- 
 tion outside the Presidency cities as exists inside. There is 
 no damage done. The Englishman will still have a right of 
 appeal. He may appeal to the Sessions Court or to the High 
 Court. He may be tried by a jury, half of which shall be com- 
 posed of Englishmen or Americans, in cases in which the law 
 provides there shall be a jury ; and there is no sort of pretence 
 of any injustice at all. What are the objections ? The objections 
 are urged in this memorial. The objections are also urged not 
 simply by wild Tory speakers at after-dinner banquets — they are 
 also urged by a man whose words I desire to treat with the most 
 profound respect — I mean Mr. Justice Stephen. Now Mr. 
 Justice Stephen claims that the Ilbert Bill ought not to be 
 accepted because it is the privilege of the European not 
 to be tried by a Hindu. I deny that privilege. If an 
 Englishman puts himself in contact with the Hindu, know- 
 ingly beforehand, he is bound to submit himself to the law and 
 he has no right to privilege which prevents his crime from 
 punishment. 
 
 The objections to the Bill are stated by Lord Northbrook ; 
 and before I refer to the memorial I will give Lord Northbrook's 
 statement of them. First, that Englishmen in India are a 
 dominant race, with right to be tried by their own countrymen 
 only ; secondly, that a change in the law is unnecessary ; and, 
 lastly, that for various reasons native judges are not to be 
 trusted to try Englishmen. But, as a matter of fact, native 
 judges have tried Englishmen ever since this English law which 
 has been in existence nearly fifty years ; and there have been no 
 complaints of their injustice or unfairness. Curiously, it was 
 one of the native magistrates who recently dealt with an 
 important case in which religion was involved. It was a native 
 Indian judge who dealt with the Salvation Army riots ; and on 
 that decision I have not heard any complaint that he was 
 unjust or unfair. As a matter of fact, Jews, Mahometans, 
 Parsees, men of every sort and creed, are tried without reference
 
 44 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 to their creed, and there has been no pretence for saying that 
 the law has been unfairly administered. 
 
 Now what does this memorial say ? That is, the memorial 
 of the Europeans who object to the Bill. " Not only are Euro- 
 peans in the interior of the country isolated in the sense of 
 being solitary units in the midst of tens of thousands of an alien 
 race, but, by reason of difference of language, habits, and feel- 
 ings, and the absence of common ties and sympathies, they are 
 also morally and socially isolated from the natives around 
 them." The people who have no sympathy with the natives 
 amongst whom they go, should not go there ; they should not go 
 amongst them if they intend to regard them as an alien race. 
 And if they go they have no right to ask us to protect them 
 with the sword, because they do not choose to be sympathetic 
 vi'ith the natives to whom it is their profit to go. I am afraid of 
 being wearisome in putting this question — but I have to ask you 
 when a memorial urges, as this memorial does, that there will 
 be false charges, and that people will be unfairly tried — I have 
 to ask if these things happen ? There are false charges in every 
 court in the world. But here justice has been administered by 
 these very natives in the three most densely-populated cities, 
 where most Englishmen have congregated, and there has been 
 no such complaint. 
 
 Now, what is the character of the Hindus ? And I take 
 again this Report, which is a statement of the moral and 
 material progress of India — a Government Report printed in 
 1874, and which is continued year by year. What does it say 
 of the people ? It says that, as a rule, they are " chaste, honest, 
 peaceful, singularly docile, easily governed, and patient ". 
 
 Why should we insult these people ? I ask you who have 
 made my poor words of service to the Infirmary by crowding 
 this hall, I ask you — and I would have you forget the speaker 
 in the sentiment I put — I ask you who really dislike me, or who 
 are in any way against me — do not let these people feel that 
 you intend to treat them always as a conquered race. If you do, 
 they will despair of justice, and they will try revenge. If you 
 hold them only by force they will break the fetters when they 
 can, and strike back with the steel when the steel is in their
 
 INDIA. 
 
 45 
 
 hands. The past we cannot change, but we may redeem it. 
 The shame of yesterday exists, but we may make the glory of 
 to-morrow so great that the people may forget the iniquity which 
 preceded it. We cannot make glory by dominance. That is a 
 brute doctrine, the doctrine of the days when men cased them- 
 selves in armor and pierced their way with steel. It is the 
 school, the lessons of equal justice, interest, and love, that 
 will win to-day. 
 
 I appeal to you to protest in favor of this Ilbert Bill as the 
 measure of your desire to do justice to those whom you have 
 wronged. 
 
 The Tories are talking in their meetings of a Mr. Atkin, or 
 Atkins, who has come here to represent somebody. I received 
 a strong letter from Madras last week asking me to assure every 
 audience I addressed, or any people with whom I had influence, 
 that he represented nobody but those who had paid him to do 
 their official work. He does not represent the people. And if 
 he did, the people who want you to rule by the sword don't 
 deserve to be represented. 
 
 We don't want to rule India by the sword. We want to put 
 before the people of India a future in which, if they will be 
 patient, as they have been, they may climb, slowly it may be, 
 but surely, to the fullest right of self-government, in course 
 of time. 
 
 We know that India is populated with divers races, that, 
 having broken up their old systems, they may not be able to 
 climb to the fullest enjoyment of freedom at once. They may 
 have to climb slowly and painfully, but that will give them the 
 opportunity of making their way upward all the more surely. 
 We will not shut the door in their face. If we are to rule 
 these 250 millions of people at all, we must rule them not in 
 the way in which we have gone to their country and taken 
 possession of it, but in the way in which we should like to be 
 ruled if it had been their people who had come and taken 
 possession of our country. 
 
 I regret that it should be needful, before an audience speak- 
 ing the tongue which pretends to be identified with the traditions 
 of liberty, to make such an appeal ; but it is needful. When we
 
 46 
 
 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 find words of mocking go from such gatherings as the recent 
 Conservative banquet at Wellingborough ; when we find words 
 of mocking go from a Conservative banquet at Bristol; when we 
 are told that Mr. Gladstone wants to put the EngHshman with 
 his neck under the heel of the Hindu ; I say either these men 
 are uttering wild and mad things, that they do not think, or are 
 uttering wicked things that they may provoke an echo from the 
 other side. The Hindus have been brave enough to fight 
 beside us, loyal enough to keep, our rule. We, at least, owe 
 them that, having taken their land with the strong hand, we 
 shall hold it as gently as it is possible for human hand to hold.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 Delivered at the Town Hall, Northampton, on January yth, 1886. 
 
 There is probably no subject on which any man could be 
 invited to speak more serious — not only in its actual influence, 
 but in what must come from it during the next few years — than 
 that of Capital and Labor. In old times the laborer was not 
 reckoned at all, except perhaps as a superior sort of animal — 
 a kind of conscious machine. He was never treated as a human 
 being to be reasoned with. If any of you take up any of the old 
 Roman books you find work and slavery not simply immediately 
 connected, but both having nearly the same signification — in fact, 
 in your language there is even yet preserved the evidence 
 of that old slave notion. In connexion with all kinds of labor, 
 the man who directed the labor was called master, the man 
 who performed the labor was called servant ; and the servant, 
 or serf, or slave, or bond-man, was owned by his lord and 
 master, owned as to life and to liberty — as to brain it was 
 seldom considered. 
 
 During late years there has been a vast change ; but Pro- 
 fessor Thorold Rogers, in a volume — or rather two volumes — 
 recently issued, entitled, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages", 
 says that " the pauperism and degradation of the English 
 laborer were the result of a series of Acts of Parliament and 
 acts of government which were designed or adopted with the 
 express purpose of compelling the laborer to work at the lowest 
 rate of wages possible, and which succeeded at last in effecting 
 that purpose". And if you look back to our old legislation you 
 would be astounded : there were statutes directing that wage 
 should not exceed this amount or that amount ; there were 
 
 47
 
 48 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 statutes making it crime to claim higher wages ; there wer& 
 statutes against combinations of workers, and the people were 
 treated as dangerous — not as men, not as women, but as the 
 lower classes — the dangerous classes, and the treatment some- 
 times made them so. Men who were not reckoned with as 
 thinking human beings, sometimes, in times of despair, times 
 of political excitement, times of starvation, times of anger, acted 
 as though they were unthinking, wild, ferocious beasts. If 
 you use the whip, the whipped one turns sometimes ; if 
 you use the fetter, when the fetter breaks there is no 
 restraining influence on the hand ; if you constantly drive by 
 fear, if there is no outlet of hope, if there is no opportunity, 
 no sort of break in the dark life, then when the day of 
 mischief comes it is fearful. And in every country it has 
 been so. In the past times the uprisings of the poor, the revolts 
 of the slaves, the wars of the peasants, the revolution of the 
 starved of France — and, coming to more modern times, the riots 
 of the Blanketteers in Lancashire, and in various trades — 
 these all were when men had no right of meeting, when such 
 a meeting as this could not have been held, when the fact that a 
 trades organisation convened a meeting for a man to address 
 it on the relations between capital and labor would have been 
 considered such an element of danger that the magistrates would 
 have prevented it, the military would have been called in to 
 disperse it, and the people who took part in planning it would 
 have been prosecuted. 
 
 It is perfectly true, as Professor Thorold Rogers points out, 
 that there have been great changes. Laws have been repealed. 
 " The despotic law ", he says, " of parochial settlement has been 
 materially modified ; working-men are no longer liable to im- 
 prisonment and penal servitude for trying to sell their labor 
 at the best advantage; and the wages of labor are no longer 
 mulcted by Corn Laws and other restraints of trade." But 
 although that is true, many of the effects of old bad laws still 
 remain. 
 
 Trades Unions, which have only had legal protection for com- 
 paratively the last few years, have not yet been able to grow into 
 the exercise of the full moral control which I trust they will exercise
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 49 
 
 by-and-by. Take for example one of the latest classes of labor 
 in which organisation has been attempted — I mean the agri- 
 cultural laborers. If it had not been for the work of men like 
 Joseph Arch and a number of others who have been asso- 
 ciated with him, especially for the last fifteen or twenty 
 years, the Franchise just acquired would have been simply 
 ■a. weapon for mischief rather than a tool for utility — simply a 
 sword for mischief rather than a shield for defence. It would 
 not have been, as it is in the hands of educated persons, the 
 opportunity of delivering a verdict, the opportunity of exercising 
 a judgment ; it would only have been an opportunity for 
 mischief, because the class had ever been oppressed and there 
 ■did not seem a possibility of their redemption. But Mr. Arch 
 has taught that class the advantages of organisation ; he has 
 taught them the advantages of education ; he has taught them 
 the advantages of sober, steady work for the deliverance of their 
 fellows ; and he has enabled them to play a part in the election 
 which has just taken place which has won the admiration even 
 •ot their foes by the judgment they have exercised. 
 
 In dealing with the relations of labor and capital, I 
 occupy an exceedingly difficult position : I have no capital, and 
 I have hardly the right, save that of sympathy, to speak for 
 those who are ordinarily called those who live by labor — not 
 that my life is ever free from labor, or that my day is ever 
 an idle one — and I have the difficulty in trying to treat the 
 subject impartially, as I hope I shall ; fairly, as I trust I may ; 
 but with my sympathy with those of whom I was born, and 
 to whom I belong — the poor of this land — I feel that I render 
 myself open to criticism, open perhaps to reproach, from both 
 sides. Those who own capital may fear my counsels as 
 extravagant, and those who plead for labor may think me 
 diffident and hesitating in the remedies I recommend ; and 
 yet I trust that all will do me this justice : that I shall not 
 speak simply to please, that I shall not counsel simply to gain 
 favor, and that the language I use is the language I have 
 •used for more than a quarter of a century of my life to those 
 who have permitted me from time to time to address them on 
 ■subjects of this character.
 
 50 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 I take it then that by all reasonable men, the laborer 
 is to-day reckoned with not as a servant, not as a mere 
 serf or slave, but he is reckoned with as a person, who 
 has his labor to sell, and who is entitled to make a fair 
 bargain for that labor before the world ; and there is neither 
 inferiority nor superiority between the buyer of labor and 
 the seller, so long as they are both honest ; that the 
 inferiority comes in when either tries to cheat. If, trade 
 being good, if, profit being large, the owner of capital con- 
 ceals the fact of his large profit and the goodness of his 
 trade, in order to extort from the hungry seller of labor a hard 
 bargain and a harsh contract, then that employer is lower than 
 the laborer whom he cheats. If the laborer, having agreed to 
 labor, having contracted to perform a duty, is idle, lazy, dis- 
 honest, fraudulent, then he is the lower, and he deserves the 
 contempt and scorn of those whose labor he ruins by his 
 dishonesty. 
 
 Unfortunately the purchaser of labor and the seller of laboi 
 do not meet on equal conditions. The laborer must sell his 
 labor at a fair price or starve ; the capitalist who does not buy 
 his labor may live, sometimes comfortably, till better times 
 come. Hunger cannot wait ; if the man would, his wife cannot; 
 if his wife would, the children cannot — there must be breakfast, 
 there must be food, and hunger frightens often a weak man intch 
 having day by day less than he should have in his struggle of life. 
 
 I propose to enquire what are the rights of labor, what its 
 duties ; what the rights and privileges of capital, what the 
 duties of those who possess it. I affirm that every laborer 
 willing to work has the right to life : and by life I do not mean 
 merely existence from day to day ; I do not mean merely con- 
 tinuing on sufferance from to-day till to-morrow; I do not mean 
 one constant round of toil that makes all life a gloomy cloud, 
 and has no gleam of sunshine in it — I mean life, reasonable 
 life, life with leisure in it, life with hope in it, life with relaxa- 
 tion in it, life with fair reasonable shelter, food, clothings 
 won by the wage-earner for himself, and for those of his family 
 who are yet unable to win it — short enough hours of toil 
 to give possibility of enjoyment for all, education for all, hope
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 51 
 
 for all ; time sometimes for music, if music may be ; time 
 
 for looking at sculpture, if sculpture be near ; time for pictures, 
 
 if pictures be gathered in your public galleries ; and if you 
 
 tell me that music, poetry, sculpture, and painting are luxuries, 
 
 I say they may be luxuries for the rich, but they should be 
 
 necessaries for the poor, the gleams of sunshine softening life 
 
 and making it worth living. How can you wonder at men 
 
 being rough and brutal, whose life has nothing soft, cheering, or 
 
 humanising in it ? How can you wonder at men using rough 
 
 words and coarse epithets, if no harmony comes into their daily 
 
 life ? How can you wonder at the surroundings of men being 
 
 brutal, if you never show them the beautiful, or give them the 
 
 opportunity of imparting their knowledge of it to those whom 
 
 they rear around them ? 
 
 In the report issued in 1875 by the Labor Bureau of 
 
 Massachusetts the Chief Commissioner, Mr. Carrol D, Wright, 
 
 a gentleman to whom labor is much indebted, says, in a 
 
 report made by him under the Legislature to the Senate of 
 
 Massachusetts : " It seems natural and just that a man's labor 
 
 should be worth, and that his wages should be, as much as, with 
 
 economy and prudence, will comfortably maintain himself and 
 
 family, enable him to educate his children, and also to lay by 
 
 enough for his decent support when his laboring powers have 
 
 failed". If you tell me that in any country a laborer cannot 
 
 win that much, then I say that must be a pitiful country, a 
 
 country that ought not to be able to afford any Rothschilds, 
 
 that ought not to be able to indulge in any wars, that ought not 
 
 to be able to afford any costly generals, that ought not to waste 
 
 any of its money in cannon, that ought to be economical in 
 
 Royal grants, and sparing in the matter of pensions. I can 
 
 understand that there may be countries where trade is so bad, 
 
 where commerce is slack, where enterprise has been so 
 
 crushed, that no kind of effort can bring anything in surplus 
 
 over subsistence, but England, at any rate, is not one of those 
 
 countries yet. And such an unhappy land should be the country 
 
 where there are no great landlords ; that should be the country 
 
 where there were no enormous rent-rolls ; that should be the 
 
 country where no man could take huge royalties from mines and 
 
 £ 2
 
 52 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 minerals, and, being himself worth his hundreds of thousands, 
 say that labor has too much, and is driving the trade away. 
 
 What are the rights of capital ? For capital has rights. 
 There are people who talk absolute nonsense, and say that 
 capital should be given without interest and used without profit 
 to the capitalist, and who talk of forcible revolution against the 
 capitalist class. Those men are either enemies of the people, 
 or they are idiots ; they are either traitors to the people, or 
 they are madmen. If you want to dig a field and you have 
 no spade, if you can earn something by digging and some other 
 one has that spade, you must pay for the loan and user of that 
 spade. It is impossible that capital will enterprise itself to 
 make you live more easily unless capital has some inducement. 
 
 What is capital ? Sir Thomas Brassey, speaking at the 
 Industrial Remuneration Conference — and I think that was a 
 good sign : rich men and poor men, men with millions and men 
 with nothing, met together in Piccadilly, London, in 1885, to 
 discuss if it were possible to improve the relations between 
 capital and labor. It is the first time that that ever was 
 done in England. It should be done again and again, until 
 working men and the people owning capital understand one 
 another, so that lock-outs and strikes will be regarded as 
 insanities of the past, and not weapons with which either 
 should meet the other. Sir Thomas Brassey, speaking 
 at the Industrial Remuneration Conference, speaking as a 
 representative of capital, used these three phrases. He 
 said: " (i) Abstinence from enjoyment is the only source of 
 capital ; (2) it is upon the increase of capital that advances of 
 wages depend ; (3) while labor is the vivifying principle which 
 preserves capital from decay ". Permit me to make one or two 
 comments on the first and second parts of this proposition. 
 While it is true that all capital arises from abstinence from 
 enjoyment, it is not true that capital is to be found always, or 
 mostly, in the hands of those who abstain. The enormous 
 accumulations of capital in the hands of an Overstone, a 
 Baring, a Rothschild, or Vanderbilt — these did not come by any 
 stroke of wit : there is no fashion of striking one blow upon 
 the rock and a stream of capital pouring out. This capital
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 
 
 53 
 
 represented pence there, shillings here, pounds there, which 
 were the surplus which men created by their labor, beyond < 
 what those men had to live upon. If men could save amongst \ 
 themselves, if men would knit their savings together amongst 
 themselves for trade enterprises which they all understood, the 
 capital and profit would pass into their hands. That will not 
 come to-day nor to-morrow — and I will tell you why : you are 
 not educated enough for that ; you mistrust one another too 
 much — not until men trust one another more — and that means 
 until you are truer to one another, for you would not 
 mistrust one another so much if you were all true to one 
 another ; it is because so many of you know that in the 
 struggle of life, sometimes driven by hardship, I admit, you 
 have pushed others out of your way, that you do not trust your 
 fellows as much as you should. 
 
 The accumulations of produce, of labor, are capital. Those 
 accumulations come into the hands of the crafty sometimes, the 
 clever sometimes. Sometimes the crafty and the clever leave 
 them to fools after them. But whoever may have the 
 accumulated wealth, you cannot expect, if you have nothing 
 but your labor, nothing but your muscle and sinew, that 
 capital shall clothe you, feed you, while you are working, 
 unless you pay capital something for it. Capital is entitled 
 to fair profit and reasonable insurance against loss, and to 
 hope for some prize for the capitalist in the struggle of life, or 
 he would not make the endeavor. Men will not risk thousands 
 in hazardous speculations, say, of mining or manufacture, 
 hundreds of thousands in enterprises which may fail, unless 
 they have some hope that they will gain some possible prizes. 
 
 The mistake that capital has made — and the mistake that 
 labor has made too, but that capital made with its eyes open, 
 and labor never having been permitted to see — was that they 
 believed that the interests of capital and labor were hostile to 
 one another, and the man who bought labor bought it as they 
 buy pigs, except that he bought it to starve instead of to fatten. 
 Wiser councils are prevailing, wiser thoughts are growing ; it is 
 beginning to be admitted that hostility between capital and 
 labor is injurious to both, and it is beginning to be urged that
 
 54 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 the best method for men to grow rich is to give the opportunity 
 to those who make their riches of sharing some of the enjoy- 
 ments that are accompanying the work they conduct. Un- 
 fortunately many employers of labor have deemed, and some 
 still deem, that it is good policy to get labor too cheap. It is 
 not, not even for them ; for if you buy labor too cheap, that 
 is, if you buy it so that it leaves the laborer no margin, 
 if you buy so that the purchase involves poverty and hunger, 
 what happens ? That poverty you have to feed ; you have 
 unwholesome and dangerous employment ; you have unhealthy 
 and immoral dwellings ; you have disease ; and you have crime. 
 Poverty, disease, and crime, cost more when they break out into 
 mischief both to rich and poor than any possible advantage in 
 the temporary bargain. I copied to-day from a report of the 
 Agricultural Commission of 1867 some words written by the 
 then Rev. John Fraser, whom many of you have since known as 
 the Bishop of Manchester — whose death all regret, whether they 
 are friend or foe to him, for he was a man who, although very 
 ardent in his faith, although very bitter against those he dis- 
 agreed with, was a good earnest true man, endeavoring to make 
 life better for all, and devoting himself, according to his light, 
 to the task of so making it. Now he, dealing with the Agri- 
 cultural Laborer, said, speaking of some dwellings he visited : 
 " Modesty must be an unknown virtue, decency an unimagin- 
 able thing, where in one small chamber, with the beds lying as 
 thickly as they can be packed, father, mother, young men, lads, 
 grown and growing-up girls — two and sometimes three genera- 
 tions — are herded promiscuously : where every operation of the 
 toilette and of nature — dressings, undressings, births, deaths — 
 is performed by each within the sight or hearing of all ; 
 where children of both sexes to as high an age as twelve or 
 fourteen, or even more, occupy the same bed ; where the 
 whole atmosphere is sensual, and human nature is degraded 
 into something below the level of the swine. It is a hideous 
 picture ; and the picture is drawn from life." That is what the 
 Bishop of Manchester said in 1867. You may tell me, " That is 
 18 years ago". But there was a Commission on the Housing of 
 the Poor, which reported during last year, and they said, not of
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. ^^ 
 
 agricultural districts or country places, but of great cities, 
 like Liverpool, like Manchester, like London itself, almost under 
 the very shelter of palaces, close to warehouses where millions 
 of pounds-worth of goods were stored, they said that in little 
 rooms, in filthy alleys, that even now in London itself, 
 you could find more than one family in one room, and several 
 famiUes in one house. There it is where typhoid comes, 
 there it is where small-pox touches, there it is where fever 
 rages ; it is on the hungry, on the poor, on the miserable, 
 that squalor and disease lay their foul touch ; and the men who 
 bought their labor too cheap, the men who exacted from them 
 the sale in despair, pay in crime — these make the burglars, 
 these the robbers in the streets ; and the gaol and the poor- 
 house stand as monuments to mark the crime of the nefarious 
 transaction. 
 
 1 am encouraged to hope because there has been a vast 
 ■change in the last few years. Sir Thomas Brassey said : " It 
 is in the highest degree desirable, as far as possible, to liberate 
 industry from the deadening influence caused by the antagonism 
 between capital and labor". Sir Thomas Brassey said that 
 which Trades Union leaders had been assailed for saying. It 
 was thought that there could be no hostility, that capital was 
 •so strong that it could ride over all ; and in some countries it 
 has. It has done it in Russia, it has done it in parts of Austria, 
 it has done it in parts of Italy; and you have Socialism, inter- 
 nationalism, anarchism : the revolt of hunger, and the stiletto, 
 ■dynamite, and other explosives. These are the results of 
 ignorance, misery, poverty, and despair, breaking out of all con- 
 trol. The question is, how can capital and labor be reconciled : 
 how far is the reconcilement possible ? 
 
 Once the capitalist foolishly thought that an Act of Parlia- 
 ment would do his work, and enacted that a man should not do 
 • more than so much. You have only to read the story of it 
 all in your own country in Thorold Rogers' " Six Centuries 
 of Work and Wages ". You read stories of battles, battles 
 where generals lead, battles where men draw the sword; but 
 any real history of the struggle of work for wages contains the 
 narratives of battles more severe, more enduring, more full of
 
 56 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 pain, more full of heroism too ; battles where the men are- 
 working that men may Hve, not die ; battles for their wives' 
 lives, battles for their children's lives, battling with pick and 
 bar, battling in the mine against fire-damp, gas, and water — 
 the one blows them limb from limb, another stifles them, 
 another drowns them. And the workers go, with the courage of 
 despair, day by day down in the cage again, always facing 
 death in this never-ceasing struggle for life ; and these make 
 the heroes out of whom the country grows. 
 
 I say that capital and labor may be reconciled by 
 treating men fairly and reasonably on one side, and by the 
 laborers knitting themselves together in the effort to try and 
 treat others fairly and reasonably too. I will not disguise 
 the difficulties ; I know there are many ; I know that when 
 disputes arise, on the one side the employer thinks you 
 are doing something unfair if you ask him how much profit 
 he makes, and on the other you are not sufficiently careful 
 sometimes when you think how little profit he may make. 
 Sir Thomas Brassey — and you will pardon me quoting him 
 so often, but it was a speech he made at the Industrial Con- 
 ference, which has not been enough commented upon — said 
 " The rate of profit in business is a subject of great importance 
 to the laborer ". That was perhaps the first time that that was 
 so plainly admitted by a great employer of labor. The employers 
 of labor have said, " You have no right to know our profits ". 
 The truth is that you have a right to know and the duty to 
 submit. And what you have the right to say is: "But you 
 have never told us your profits. We have seen some growing 
 rich, and we thought all could ; we have seen some have costly 
 mansions, and we knew sometimes we had no carpet to our 
 floors, and we cannot help noticing it." Sir Thomas Brassey 
 says, " More or less, wages must follow the fluctuations in 
 profits ". Men say, " Yes, we are content with that, if they 
 shall follow them upwards as well as downwards". " In many 
 cases and in many trades ", Sir Thomas Brassey says, " the 
 want of correct information as to the profits realised by their 
 employers constitutes a great difliculty as to workmen. They 
 do not know when to press their demand, nor when to
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 5/ 
 
 acquiesce in reduction in the rate of remuneration for their 
 labor." 
 
 Mr. Giffen, in an essay on the progress of the working 
 classes during fifty years prior to 1883, points out that by the 
 end of 1883 there had been a general improvement in the wage of 
 the classes he deals with ; but Professor Thorold Rogers makes a 
 comment upon that which ought to have special interest for 
 you. He says : " It is noteworthy that the kinds of labor for 
 which Mr. Giffen has adduced evidence have all been aided 
 and protected by Trades Unions". That is, in England, where 
 men have stood alone the stronger have pushed them down ; and 
 it is only where they have been organised, well organised, care- 
 fully led, thoroughl}- trusting, that they have been able to realise 
 the improvement in their wage, which should go with the 
 improvement of profits made. This shows the clear advantage 
 of association. It is the old fable of the bundle of sticks : the 
 one broken by itself with ease ; impossible for the strongest 
 man to break the bundle on his knee — he can but hurt his own 
 knee in the endeavor. 
 
 Now men of capital have long recognised the advan- 
 tages of association. The great bankers, the great railways^ 
 the great canal companies, the tramways, the insurance 
 companies, all these are associations of people of capital, 
 and do together what one or two cannot do by them- 
 selves. And you ought to learn the lesson too, why it is 
 that there is much of the capital, that the bankers use, from 
 your shillings and from j^our sixpences which you put into the 
 savings bank, and which they are able to use better than you. 
 Why better than you ? If you put them together under special 
 control in your own hands, why should not you use them as 
 well ? It is not because you cannot. The co-operative stores 
 in the country have shown what you can do if you try to do it. 
 Although only on a small scale, your own sick and trade societies 
 are showing what you can do if you will. I say only on a small 
 scale, for although it amounts to many hundreds of thousands of 
 pounds, it is small compared with the millions you put in the 
 hands of others to use. And what 3'ou do in the co-operative 
 system, what you have done in industrial insurance, with
 
 58 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 sick and benefit societies in connexion with your trades, what 
 you have done with your trades' associations, you ought to be 
 constantly doing. If you say you cannot, you deserve to be 
 serfs, slaves, animals to be whipped, imposed upon, and you 
 have no right to claim for yourselves the rights of human 
 beings. 
 
 I urge that there is a duty of association, as well as a right 
 that all workers should unite together. Every man who does 
 not unite in an association with which his trade is connected, is 
 failing in duty to himself and them, failing in duty to them if he 
 is strong, failing in duty if he is wise, for it is his duty to give 
 them the benefit of his strength and wisdom ; failing in duty to 
 them if he is weak and ignorant, because his weakness and 
 ignorance make them weaker in the struggle in which he gives 
 way. 
 
 Now there are two great trade societies in this country which 
 have permitted me to talk to them : I mean the North- 
 umberland Miners and the Durham Miners. When they had 
 no unions, their homes — why, what the Bishop said about the 
 agricultural laborer's home was true of almost every miner's 
 home. It was not his fault : he could not get any other home. 
 They were the pit cottages built by the pit owners. The 
 kennels for the owners' dogs were better than the miners' 
 dwellings, and yet good folk grumbled that these men went to 
 the public-house ! Why, when these men came out of the pit, 
 the coal-dust caked upon them through the sweat, dirty to a dirty 
 house, they washed in it as best they could. They worked nearly 
 naked in the pit ; they had to strip naked to wash — wives, grow- 
 ing girls, and lodgers round them. Can 3^ou wonder at immorality ? 
 The wonder is that our people have been so moral and so good, 
 and have improved so much as they have done. During the 
 last fifteen years, and during the last ten years especially, there 
 have been literally thousands of new houses built in North- 
 umberland and Durham. The pitmen have got votes, and they 
 have elected Local Boards of Health, and they have made 
 proper drainage, and they have done this under the guidance 
 of wise leaders. 
 
 It is only right I should say — because the Northumberland
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 59 
 
 ■and Durham pitmen, if they were here, would say it — that for 
 many years they have found the employers of labor ready to 
 meet them in this new work. There are some exceptions, I am 
 sorry to say; still the best of the men and the best of the 
 employers are making the worst of the men and the worst of the 
 employers better than they were. And the tendency is to do 
 everything by arbitration and conciliation. There have been 
 some failures. I will try to show the remedies. The dwellings 
 have improved, the wages have improved, and at the present 
 moment the Trades Unions of Northumberland and Durham 
 set an example to the whole nation, by having returned their 
 own representatives of their own class into Parliament, whose 
 election expenses they have paid, and whose salaries they pay 
 while they are there. 
 
 The Society under whose auspices I speak here to-night — 
 I mean the National Union of Operative Boot and Shoe 
 Rivetters and Finishers — is not so large as the Northumber- 
 land Miners' — it is not so big as the Durham Miners' — it is 
 not so large as it ought to be; but it is large enough to be useful. 
 I would like to see it much more extensive, much more efficient, 
 much more wealthy; and one of my objects here to-night is, if I 
 •can, to induce men who dp not belong to that Union to join it. 
 I especially address my remarks to those who do not approve 
 •of it amongst the workmen. I say that it is necessary that 
 there should be a Union in the trade, and if this one is not as 
 good as they think it could be, let them join it and make 
 it better. Standing outside they weaken it and themselves. 
 And I say to the employers : It is to your interest that this 
 Society should be made so powerful, that it shall do for you 
 what the coal owners of Durham and the coal owners of 
 Northumberland admit that the Trades Unions of Northumber- 
 land and Durham have done for them — avoid disputes, and 
 enable enterprises to be conducted with more profit to the 
 owners of capital as well as more advantage to the men who 
 worked in them. Although I do not call yours a big society, 
 it is not a little one. I understand that you have something 
 like ii,ooo members; that since 1874 you have paid some 
 ^^20,234 in connexion with trade conflicts; and that since 1875
 
 60 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 3'ou have paid ;^i9,45o in sick relief and in funeral grants to- 
 those who are your members and have been your members. 
 
 Workmen, to provide against distress, should rely upon 
 themselves and not on the parish. If you say, " My trade won't 
 give me medicine for my children ", I reply that it will if you 
 make your Society effective enough to extort from the buyers 
 of labor a full price for your labor. It would be no dearer 
 for the employers of labor to pay a full price ; and it is less 
 dishonorable than paying it in Poor Rate. Unfairly low wage 
 is dishonoring to payer and receiver. Labor does not want 
 charity, it wants justice : it wants life ; and that when it is 
 struck in battle by sickness, by disease, or when the wage- 
 earner is struck by death, there shall be some protecting hand 
 other than the Board of Guardians, other than the Union 
 Workhouse. I understand that you have a balance in hand 
 of some ;^8,447, of which £i\.,2i$ is in the hand of your Central 
 Union, and the other ;^4,232 in the hand of your branches.. 
 You ought to have ten times as much as that in hand. You 
 ought to be in a position to do this : Suppose you said to a 
 great shoe manufacturer, " I know you are making an enormous 
 fortune ". Suppose he answered, " I am making an enormous 
 loss ". You ought to be in a position to start a factory of your 
 own, where j'ou could make the same things and know then 
 5'our own profit and loss ; and then when j^ou understood whether 
 it were true that profit could be realised you would be able to 
 enforce the claim if it were true, and not be foolish enough tO' 
 persist in it if it were a mad declaration. 
 
 No. 15 of your rules desires to promote conciliation and 
 arbitration. Every sane man must agree that a strike is an 
 evil. It is an evil even when it is successful ; it is a horrible 
 evil, if not a crime, when it is a failure. It is an evil, because 
 you do not fight on like bases. A day's labor once lost you 
 can never get back ; it is gone, it is so much of the capital of 
 your life gone. Enforced idleness from a strike is bad; existence 
 on charity has a demoralising influence ; the influence on the 
 home is degrading. Strikes are always bad. I admit that if a 
 man has only the choice between starving and striking, it is 
 very hard to counsel him against a strike. I don't blame every
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 6 1 
 
 tnan who has advised a strike, or every man who has taken 
 part in one ; but I do say that the experience of England, of 
 America, of every country in the world, has shown that the 
 horrible evils that come out of great strikes are such as to 
 outweigh any advantages gained from them. 
 
 Why is there not more arbitration and conciHation ? An 
 •answer was given at the Industrial Conference. Mr. Lloyd 
 Jones complained that arbitration had failed in the opinion of 
 the men, because, he said amongst other things, the data were 
 not sufficient and not correct enough to base any decision 
 upon. 
 
 In America they have tried to cure this by having special 
 statistics collected without reference to disputes; when 
 disputes arise, both of you are interested in making out the worst 
 case. Americans have these statistics collected not simply in 
 one establishment, where they may be misleading, nor in one 
 town, where they may not speak the whole truth, but right 
 through the whole of the country. In i860 the Labor Bureau 
 of Statistics in Boston, Massachusetts, was established ; and 
 each year the Bureau publishes a report. At first everybody 
 cried out against it : the workmen said it was inquisitorial ; 
 the employers said it was abominable. But by-and-by both 
 found it admirable. Two other States took it up, and then 
 four others, till at last more than twenty States of the Union, 
 and the Province of Ontario in Canada, have Labor Bureaus, 
 all of which are issuing statistics showing the cost of living, 
 the rate of wages, the number of hours worked, the number 
 of people — men, women and children — and ages, the rate of wage 
 each class earns, how long they work in the year, how much 
 capital is used in each kind of enterprise, how much raw 
 material is required for it, what rate of profit is made, and 
 what is the proportion it bears towards wage. 
 
 Well, I hope within four weeks to propose in the House of 
 Commons that there be established an office or Bureau of 
 Labor Statistics to chronicle the following things : — 
 
 " I. Oharacter, and number of each character, of the various industries of 
 the United Kingdom number of persons and amount of capital employed in 
 each, specifying when any of these industries are increasing or diminishing, and
 
 62 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 why, and whether any special industry is limited to any particular locality, 
 and the reasons, if known, for such local limitation. 
 
 " 2. The hazardous nature or otherwise of each class of industry, with the 
 results to life, limb, and general health and habits of life, in each industry ; 
 giving also particulars as to laborers' dwellings, and whether held from 
 employers, and on what conditions. ' 
 
 I may say that some of the revelations in America have shown 
 that the different kinds of trades not only lead to different kinds 
 of diseases — that has been known for a long time — but also to 
 special habits, either moral or immoral as the case may be. 
 
 "3. Showing how many cases of exploitation in each industry by limited 
 liability companies or other corporations, with their subscribed and actually 
 paid-up capital, and profit, and loss, distinguishing cases where workers ta 
 any extent share profits. 
 
 " 4. The minimum, maximum, and average amounts of capital embarked 
 in each industry, distinguishing fixed and floating capital, the raw material 
 used, the gross wages paid, the value of manufactures produced, and the gross 
 and net profit. 
 
 " 5. The individual wages paid in each industry, distinguishing men, 
 women, boys, and girls, and specifying highest, lowest, and average wage; also 
 showing whether wage is paid weekly or at long periods, and in latter case, 
 whether companies' shops exist." 
 
 I press for these because I find that in several parts of the 
 
 United Kingdom, the misery and demoralisation arising from 
 
 a long wage-period and advances have never been properly 
 
 estimated or dealt with.^ 
 
 " Also showing the longest, shortest, and average number of hours worked. 
 per day, and the industries in which there is both night and day work ; and 
 showing the average duration of employment in each industry during each 
 year, and showing the cost and nature of living, including rent, food, 
 clothing, necessaries, and luxuries ; specifying the cases : — (i) in which the- 
 earnings of individuals and of families, where more than one individual was 
 wage-earner in a family, were large enough to leave a surplus beyond fair 
 subsistence ; (2) in which the family has subsisted without incurring debt or 
 receiving poor-law relief ; (3) in which the earnings did not equal the cost of 
 subsistence. Showing what trades and friendly societies exist in connexion 
 with various industries, with the amount of subscriptions and accumulated 
 capital of each, with annual amounts spent in strikes, sick and other relief, 
 etc., and whether such societies are registered under the Friendly Societies 
 Acts ; number of Unionists and non-Unionists in each trade ; comparative 
 states of trades in which Unions exist extensively, as against those having no 
 Unions ; amount of Savings Banks' deposits, and occupation of depositors. 
 
 ' I have endeavored to diminish this evil by the 3rd section of the Truck 
 Act. compelling advances without interest or discount.
 
 CAPITAL AND LABOR. 63 
 
 " 6. Specifying the other countries where any, and which, similar industries 
 are carried on, with similar details where ascertainable." 
 
 All these statistics can be procured with comparatively little 
 cost. A number of them already exist, but are so separated in 
 books as to be utterly inaccessible. Those relating to foreign 
 countries are, many of them, contained in our Consular reports. 
 They want systematising and gathering together ; and then 
 people would be in a better position to win their fair rights in 
 any wage contest. 
 
 I am pleased in Rule 34 to see that you give bonds on 
 behalf of your members as sureties for honesty. While work- 
 men are sureties for one another, the practice of honesty is 
 made more thorough amongst them. Poverty has often com- 
 pelled dishonesty, despair has often made men drink, the 
 wretched home has driven men away, and what was not 
 intended for dishonesty became it. But the knowledge that 
 your fellows are responsible for you will make you truer to 
 one another, braver and more loyal. I am glad to see that you 
 are willing to take women among your members. The only 
 unions that can well exist are unions in which the whole family 
 have an interest, in which the wife feels that the man does not 
 go away from her once a week simply to drink. Connected with 
 your unions you can — and ought to — establish places of meet- 
 ing in each town, where you can have your little reading-room 
 and library, and place of entertainment. You can do it without 
 trenching upon your means, and thus help yourselves step by 
 step. I am glad to see that you have means for helping your 
 sick, that you have duly registered yourselves under the law. 
 
 The great struggles of the future will be not between 
 Repubhcans and kings, not between heretics and churches, 
 but between laborers and employers of labor. Those strug- 
 gles may be beneficial to both, if they are struggles of reason 
 — if they are conducted considerately, usefully, thoughtfully ; 
 but they will be struggles which will be ruinous to both if they 
 are conducted with the notion that either has the right or the 
 duty to destroy the other. The progress of both can go 
 together — one may grow richer as the other grows happier ; 
 it is only wanted that there should be fairness, openness. There
 
 ■64 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 is no secret in this ; the man's muscle and the man's profit, the 
 man's hammer and his chisel and his plough : all these are 
 things that can be seen ; and — by those who know — the other 
 man's profit is seen just as clearly. To make fiction, to make 
 frauds, is dishonorable to all, and I plead here to laborers to 
 meet capital not in vengeance for the past, but for a good living 
 in the future. And I plead to owners of capital if I may : I 
 plead to them that the others are the strongest : money is not the 
 strongest : all they own of it only makes two or three years' 
 earnings. You can earn it — the Rothschilds' wealth, the 
 Overstones' wealth, the Barings' wealth ; you, the millions, if 
 you are only loyal to yourselves and to one another, may put 
 all this into your own Savings Banks, and your own Friendly 
 Societies, and your own Trades Unions, within a dozen years. 
 You accumulate it for others; you can do it for yourselves. 
 And I plead to you that your wives may be happier, that 
 your children may be more moral, that your homes may be 
 more pure, more clean, more wholesome ; I plead that your 
 whole lives may be better worth living.
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 
 House of Commons, 2271(1 of April, 1887. 
 
 Mr. Bradlaugh moved ; — 
 
 " That a humble address be presented to her Majesty, 
 praying her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to 
 inquire as to the extent to which market rights, and rights 
 affecting places where markets are held, are in the hands (i) 
 of public bodies, and (2) of private persons or bodies of 
 persons. To inquire generally how such rights are exercised, 
 and particularly what accommodation is given in return for 
 charges levied : in what ratio market tolls stand to the value 
 of goods on which they are levied, and how far the regula- 
 tion of markets by means of bye-laws or otherwise, market 
 rents, stallages, and tolls, and tolls affecting market towns, 
 are restrictive of trade. To report as to the advisability of 
 compelling the transfer of all such rights to local authorities : 
 of prohibiting the farming of tolls and stallages, of pro- 
 hibiting the placing of restrictions on the sale of goods in a 
 market that may be lawfully sold elsewhere, of providing — by 
 means of the .incomes from markets or otherwise — for the 
 extinction of the capital account chargeable to such markets, 
 and for declaring all markets to be free and open." 
 
 In proposing this motion, Mr. Bradlaugh said : I trust that 
 the Government will be able to accept the motion, which in 
 no sense raises a party question. The real object of the 
 motion is to decrease the cost of food to the poor — to increase 
 the facilities of the poor for obtaining good food at moderate 
 prices — to encourage the augmentation, by increased cultiva- 
 tion, stimulated by early sale, of home food produce. At 
 the present time market rights and tolls in many places have 
 the contrary effect. 
 
 {65 ) P
 
 66 bfiiliCHKS BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 Whatever may be the result of this motion, and whatever 
 action the Government may feel compelled to take, I desire 
 to acknowledge the courteous consideration which has been 
 given to the subject by the Right Hon. the President of the 
 Local Government Board. 
 
 I only propose in this speech to deal with England and 
 Wales, but the terms of my motion apply to the whole of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, and I trust that some Scotch and 
 Irish members will give the House the benefit of their special 
 knowledge. As to Scotland, I am personally without sufficient 
 information, though it is clear that the evil does not now 
 exist in Scotland to the same extent as in the rest of the 
 United Kingdom. There is a report of a Select Committee on 
 Market Tolls in Ireland in 1826, from which I will read a few 
 Hnes. The Committee reported that "many most exorbitant 
 and illegal charges are still made in markets, seaports, and 
 fairs in Ireland, all of the most injurious tendency in check- 
 ing commerce and industry. Several of these charges appear 
 to your Committee to be so burthensome and oppressive as 
 to produce the most mischievous restraint both on the sale 
 and transit of commodities." And they said : " Nor are 
 these examples of violation of the general principles of the 
 Common Law the only abuses existing ; the Statute Law has 
 been violated in many important particulars;" and they reported 
 specifically that "the intentions of the legislature, in exempting 
 from burden the food of the lower classes of the community, 
 have been defeated ". I beheve that Irish members sitting near 
 me will be able to state that many of these evils are as bad 
 in Ireland to-day as they were sixty years ago, and this 
 although a Royal Commission in 1853 had again strongly 
 reported against the same evil. Members for Ireland have 
 sought ineffectually to deal with this by legislation. Bills 
 have been introduced session after session into this House 
 by Irish members, which been blocked both by Tories and 
 Liberals, and have never even been discussed. The grievance 
 which was and is still endured in Ireland, is the grievance 
 which now exists in England and Wales. 
 
 1 submit that a Royal Commission is absolutely neces-
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 67 
 
 -•sary in order that the matter may be dealt with in a 
 thorough manner. Neither the House nor the Government has 
 .at present sufficient information on which to legislate wisely. 
 
 The President of the Local Government Board might say 
 that the Government intend to deal with the evils complained of 
 in a Bill which they are prepared to introduce with regard to 
 local government ; but I understand that such a Bill would only 
 propose to give local authorities power to acquire rights. This 
 is not enough, because in many scores of cases the local autho- 
 rities are as bad offenders as private individuals. There are so 
 many instances of the misuse of power by local authorities that 
 it is absolutely necessary that information upon the subject 
 :should be obtained by a Royal Commission before it is sought 
 to legislate. In any case it would be necessary to prevent local 
 authorities from farming tolls to private persons. 
 
 It might also be said by the President of the Local Govern- 
 ment Board that his department carefully revised all the bye- 
 laws of local authorities, and that there could be no fear of such 
 things happening as I complain of. This is no doubt true, but I 
 would point out that this care has not been exercised at all 
 times, and that there are in force at the present time in different 
 parts bye-laws of a very objectionable character. It is not 
 enough to give the local authorities power to purchase ; there 
 ;must be some restriction put upon them as to what they should 
 pay. 
 
 I am quite prepared to accept the position that where the 
 present local representatives under a charter have held markets, 
 and have done anything for the promotion of trade in a district, 
 they should be compensated. Where the local representatives 
 -of the holders of the original charters are simply leeches 
 sucking the vitality of the districts and giving nothing in return, 
 hindering food from reaching the poor, driving the sale of food 
 into " rings," limiting the number of shops, and taxing the local 
 produce that comes to market so that it does not pay the people 
 in the neighborhood to grow it — in such cases the local autho- 
 rities, on acquiring the market rights, ought not to be permitted 
 to pay the same price for them that they would rightly pay 
 where an owner had done a number of things to promote the 
 
 p 2
 
 68 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 convenience of buyers and sellers, and to encourage the trade of 
 the district. 
 
 I obtained last year an unopposed return of market rates 
 and tolls. But it did not include any of the many — and some 
 most objectionable — markets within the densely populated metro- 
 politan area ; in several cases there was a suggestive deficiency 
 of information, and in others the information given was mislead- 
 ing. Over and over again it was said that the gross receipts were 
 " not known ". Of course they were " not known " to any one 
 but the person who got them. And I was told that in several 
 cases the receivers of the tolls had said that it was not the 
 business of the House of Commons to inquire into the matter, 
 and therefore they did not intend to give any information. In 
 reply to the question whether the market was held in a street, 
 the answer "No" was given in many cases, thereby suggesting 
 that some sheltered place was provided, whereas the market 
 was held on an open space known as the market-place, and no 
 shelter of any kind was provided. 
 
 Originally these market rights were prerogatives of the 
 Crown, and grants have been made of them to ladies and 
 gentlemen in recognition of some service rendered to the 
 Crown, the service being deemed a sufficient consideration at 
 the moment, although it was one which in modern times no one 
 would deem worthy of such a recognition. Sometimes the 
 consideration was a valid one. There were charters which were 
 granted for the protection of trade. Often the lord of the 
 manor provided armed men to protect the market and those 
 who attended it, and in connexion with it there was a Court for 
 the settlement of disputes which was known as " Pie Powder 
 Court ". Although some of the Courts remained in name, all 
 that kind of responsibility ceased centuries ago. The rights 
 granted often included the power to set up a fair or a market in 
 the neighborhood, and under cover of a right of this kind, 300 
 or 400 hawkers had been prevented entering the district of 
 Rochdale for the purpose of supplying the people with food and 
 vegetables. Some of the charters date back to the time of 
 Henry I, Henry H, and Henry HI. Some of the toll receivers 
 had no charters. If they had them they had lost them ; but they
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 69 
 
 Still took the money. In some cases they took it quite illegally, 
 l)ut the local magistrates enforced the claim to the privilege as 
 their predecessors had done. 
 
 The old law as to market rights, which is still the 
 ■enforceable law, is : " The king is the sole judge where fairs and 
 markets ought to be kept ; and therefore it is said that if he 
 grants a market to be kept in such a place which happens not to 
 be convenient for the country, yet the subjects can go to no 
 other". (Bacon's Abridgment, Title, ''Fairs and Markets".) 
 ** If a person hath a right to a fair or market, and another erects 
 a fair or market near his," the charter owner may prevent all 
 sales even by hawkers or shopkeepers, and this " although the 
 new market be holden on a different day ". 
 
 Under this, the charter owner in East London has, as against 
 the Great Eastern Railway, been able to do much mischief. 
 The Clerk of the Whitechapel District Board of Works has 
 forwarded a long statement with respect to the evil effects of the 
 monopoly existing in the Spitalfields Market. I will only 
 trouble the House with one passage from the letter : " This 
 Board, having been informed of the motion which stands in 
 your name for Friday on this subject, have thought that their 
 experience as to Spitalfields Market, which demonstrates how 
 markets of insignificant origin may become very formidable 
 monopolies, may be of some value to you as a matter of 
 information ". 
 
 Important as is this report, I prefer to venture to appeal to 
 the hon. member for Preston, who has just had specially to 
 investigate this matter upstairs, to give the House the benefit 
 of his special knowledge on this subject. The effect of the 
 existence of private market rights is to unduly increase the 
 price of food, to limit in many places the sources of food supply, 
 to throw land out of cultivation, so far as varieties of dairy 
 and market produce are concerned, and to facilitate in hands of 
 private owners, or where the market rights are farmed, the 
 formation of " rings " for keeping up the prices of food, and 
 particularly of butcher's meat. In many places the poor have 
 had no opportunity of buying Australian or other imported dead 
 meat as such ; but as large quantities are known to have entered
 
 70 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 the districts, it has no doubt been sold as English meat at 
 English prices. In such places as I have described, the poor 
 are robbed in consequence of the existence of these rights. The- 
 regulations with respect to the sale of perishable food, such as 
 fish and vegetables, and sometimes for the limiting of the 
 number of shops in particular trades, are such that if they were 
 framed with the intention of preventing the poor from buying 
 cheaply they could not have been better devised for that purpose. 
 The existence of these market rights has created a class of 
 middlemen, who hinder distribution and render it costly. 
 
 If owners of land looked to their own interest, they would 
 prevent toll-keepers from interfering, as they did, with the sale of 
 produce and consequent cultivation of land, and would thus- 
 increase their rents. 
 
 Market rights, as I have explained, are claimed under 
 charter, or letters patent, nearly all were granted in feudal times, 
 in connexion with manors, under conditions as to population no- 
 longer even comparable, and with responsibilities and duties 
 now never performed. The charters are granted for no real 
 service or consideration other than the duty of protecting the- 
 traders at the market, of providing sufficient accommodation for 
 buyers and sellers, and of administering justice in connexion 
 with the market trade as to quality, weight, and so on. There- 
 are three classes of owners of market rights : — Cities or boroughs,, 
 with market charters or claiming prescription ; private indivi- 
 duals, under charters or alleged prescription, this last being 
 often a species of what in the colonies would be described as 
 "impudent squatting"; local authorities authorised to establish 
 markets under statutes, these now chiefly governed by Public. 
 Health Act, 1875, sees. 166 — 168. 
 
 Where local authorities claim to levy market tolls by pre- 
 scription, this claim is clearly unfounded, as the whole of these 
 local authorities must have been instituted since the Public 
 Health Act, 1848, and many since the Local Government Act,, 
 1858. I will take as a sample of many, from p. 72 of the return, 
 the case of Slaithwaite. In many cases local authorities have 
 acquired chartered rights, paying heavily for them, thus unduly 
 taxing food of the district to recoup outlay. I agree that in ali'
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. Jl 
 
 cases local authorities ought to acquire, and I do not object to 
 the toll-owners being paid fully where some consideration has 
 been shown in providing market premises ; but I do object to 
 twenty or twenty-five years' purchase, or a heavy rent, being 
 given where the toll-owner is only a leech. In many cases the 
 local authorities have been compelled to pay enormous prices 
 for the charter rights they required. 
 
 I do not propose to give the Royal Commission any power 
 over contracts which have been completed, but it is necessary 
 to show the House the kind of cases I desire to prevent in 
 future. In 1846, Manchester purchased manorial rights and 
 property at the cost of ;^20o,ooo. I think that more than 
 ;^i 70,000 represented the value of the manorial rights. Since 
 then Manchester has had to pay ;^359,ooo for its own markets. 
 The food of the district has been unduly burdened by the pay- 
 ment of that ;^i 70,000. In Bradford the corporation acquired 
 on lease from the toll-owners the market rights for a payment of 
 a rent of ;£^5,ooo a year. The markets were held in the streets 
 until the corporation leased the rights, so that the charter went 
 back to a time when Bradford was a little hamlet. This ;^5,ooo 
 a-year taken from the corporation is a tax on the food of the 
 poor. In Huddersfield the return is modestly reticent, but as far 
 as I can learn some ;^44,ooo have been paid for the street right. 
 
 There are many cases of absolutely illegal assumption of 
 rights, and of illegal levy of tolls. I will take as samples from 
 p. 21 of the return, the Nottingham Highway Board at Basford, 
 and from p. 64, a market committee at Fareham. There are 
 many cases in which the return lacks frankness on these points. 
 In Ware a private owner has been levying tolls. That cannot 
 be by prescription or by charter, because the market was 
 established on the 24th of March, 1886. This market is chiefly 
 accessible by a bridge, and there are tolls for the bridge which 
 come into effect only on market days for cattle, sheep, and pigs; 
 thus the food of the unfortunate people of Ware is doubly 
 burdened. 
 
 Even in municipal boroughs the markets are very often in 
 private hands. In Rochdale the old market proprietors got a 
 statute passed in the reign of George IV, which shows how
 
 72 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 iniquitous some private Bill legistation could be. They claimed 
 exclusive rights over the whole of Rochdale, though the borough 
 limits have been since largely extended. There has been taken 
 from every hawker who came within the borough 30s., and 
 some who could not pay it have been sent to gaol. One of the 
 hawkers went to a lawyer, who held that the old proprietors had 
 no right to levy such a tax. Then they shut every hawker out 
 of Rochdale, a borough which has set a better example than any 
 town in England, or in the world, in its co-operative endeavors 
 for procuring necessaries of life cheaply for its people. At least 
 the House will be with me in slaying this iniquitous usurpation. 
 I have received from 2,000 to 3,000 letters dealing with this 
 subject, but I will content myself with specifying four instances 
 in which these tolls have caused considerable hardship to the 
 population of these particular towns. The towns I will select 
 are Market Drayton, Fleetwood, Taunton, and Bridgewater. 
 In the first-mentioned case tolls are charged on all vegetables, 
 though sold in the open streets, and no accommodation is 
 provided. The restrictions are of such a nature that people 
 who were growing agricultural produce and bringing it into the 
 town will not now do so in consequence of the annoyance. 
 The result has been that the trade has fallen into the hands of 
 the middlemen. At Fleetwood hawking from door to door is 
 forbidden, and it has been announced that farmers are to be 
 forbidden to sell milk to customers except in the place where 
 they pay toll. At Taunton butchers are not allowed to open 
 shops except on payment of £10 ; and at Bridgewater^ they 
 allow only a certain number of shops connected with par- 
 ticular trades in the town. What is the effect of Hmiting the 
 number of shops ^ in this way ? To heighten the prices of 
 commodities to the poor. 
 
 Not content with reaping a harvest of this kind, however, 
 the toll-owner, when markets are held in the open streets, 
 robs the ratepayers in another way. After the cattle market 
 or other market has been held, there is scavenging to be done 
 
 ' The Market Toll Collector, Bridgewater, afterwards wrote me that on this 
 point I had been misinformed, and I corrected the statement in the Tima. — C. B.
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 73 
 
 ^t the cost of the ratepayers ; the toll-owner escapes. He 
 carries off his tolls in his pocket ; there is nothing which can 
 be rated ; and the local ratepayers are left to pay for scaven- 
 ging the streets. How many hundreds such cases there are in 
 England and Wales alone is shown by the return, which is 
 divided into three parts ; (i) Municipal boroughs ; (2) Im- 
 provement Acts and local government districts; (3) Rural 
 sanitary districts. In Part i, 255 corporations made returns: 
 of these, in 223 cases, rights belong to corporation ; of these 
 223, 75 are farmed, and of the total 255, 125 are admittedly 
 held in the open street, whilst more are actually so held. In 
 Part 2, 249 markets under local authorities are shown : of 
 these 161 belong to private owners, and of the remaining 88, 
 17 are farmed ; 145 of these are admit cedly held in the open 
 street, the real number so held being far larger. In Part 3, 
 206 cases are stated to be ail in private hands, and mostly 
 held in the open street. 
 
 In any reform of local government which may hereafter 
 be introduced, I trust that steps will be taken to prevent 
 municipal authorities from farming tolls. 
 
 The effect of such a remedy as I propose will be to 
 increase the wage of every wage-receiver without increasing 
 the amount which his employer has to pay him. The value 
 of the wage to the laborer must not be measured by its 
 nominal amount. It is what it will procure of food and 
 other necessaries of life. Cheapen the cost of food, as this 
 proposal would, and the value of the wage is augmented. 
 Afford facilities for better food, and the standard of comfort 
 is heightened. I trust I shall receive the support of the 
 Government. There are cries outside for turning society up- 
 side down, of real grievances pressing on the poor. I have 
 never in my life been a revolutionist so far as this country 
 is concerned — I have always urged the redressal of wrongs 
 by Parliamentary action. But a crisis is undoubtedly coming, 
 and unless Parliament deals with these outside clamors and 
 shows that it intends to redress the wrongs which can be 
 redressed, we cannot complain if violent men should become 
 prone to use violent language.
 
 SECOND READING OF AFFIRMATION BILL. 
 House of Commons, March i^th, 1888. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — This Bill consists only of two clauses, 
 expressed in almost the same language as that which was 
 used in the Affirmation Act of the Quakers. The only- 
 difference is one made in accordance with a suggestion that I 
 should make it differ from the Affirmation Act which applied to 
 the Society of Friends, by introducing words to provide that the 
 initiative should be taken by the person who desired to have the 
 opportunity of affirming. To meet that suggestion, which does 
 not appear to me an unreasonable one, I have introduced the 
 words "upon objecting to being sworn" in the first line in the 
 clause. As the law then stood, in reference to jurors, no juror 
 who is without religious belief, or who, having religious belief, 
 does not believe in future rewards and punishments, can take 
 the oath or affirm. There is no provision to allow a person^ 
 under these circumstances, to affirm, except the provisions 
 which relate to jurors who have religious belief, and that is 
 clearly marked. I do not know that it will be necessary to make 
 any long statement on that point. The law was clearly put by 
 Lord Bramwell in 1881, when he said that the class of persons 
 mentioned in Section 4 of the Evidence Further Amendment 
 Act, 1869, who were at that time incompetent, but for that Act 
 to give evidence from want of religious belief, would not be 
 permitted to serve on a jury on the condition of merely making 
 a solemn affirmation or declaration, instead of taking the oath. 
 That decision was concurred in by the Lords Justices. 
 
 In the case of a juror without religious belief being sworn by 
 mistake, or because the matter had not been brought to the know- 
 ledge of the Court, or supposing he affirmed, as some persons had 
 
 ( 74)
 
 SECOND READING OF AFFIRMATION BILL. 75 
 
 affirmed as jurors, under what I may call the Religious Belief 
 Clause, then it is quite clear that, in a criminal trial, error may be 
 brought after conviction and sentence, and a murderer may thus 
 escape punishment. In 1838 Lord Denman moved in the House 
 of Lords a Bill for the substitution of affirmations for oaths, and 
 drew attention to a case in which a murderer had escaped 
 because a Presbyterian in Ireland — a Dr. Cook — had insisted 
 upon taking the oath in the manner in which Presbyterians 
 thought binding upon them, but had not been sworn in the 
 method required by law. The point was raised after conviction 
 and after sentence, and the objection was sustained. The con- 
 sequence was that the prisoner who was convicted in that case 
 escaped the sentence which had been passed upon him. During 
 later years there have been a large number of jurors who, being 
 without religious belief, or at any rate claiming to be without 
 such belief, have been ordered to stand aside. They were 
 persons summoned to serve and sit as jurymen, and when they, 
 in bona fide, brought the matter under the notice of the Court, or 
 made a claim to be exempt on the ground of having no religious 
 belief, they were able to escape the performance of their duty. 
 In either case, it is equally bad for the rest of the public that 
 these men are not allowed to act as jurymen. They can neither 
 affirm nor can they take the oath. The law has been laid down 
 beyond the possibility of question by the High Court sitting at 
 Bar, by three judges whose decision was affirmed by the Court 
 of Appeal, that if a person so disqualified has taken the oath, 
 however regularly in point of form, yet he has not really taken 
 it in point of law, and error might be brought. It is to avoid 
 the possible consequence of this state of things, that I appeal 
 even to those who take a somewhat hostile view of my Bill, as 
 to whether legislation on this question would not be wise. 
 
 There is, however, another view of it which appears to me even 
 more serious. Painful scenes are sometimes enacted, especially 
 in coroners' courts, on the question whether jurymen are entitled 
 to affirm or not, and occasionally squabbles occur on matters of 
 religious opinion. I have noted some twenty or thirty such 
 cases within the last two or three years, and I have several 
 times in the House brought such cases to the notice of the
 
 76 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 Attorney- General. The coroner decides sometimes in one way, 
 sometimes in another, and great suffering is often entailed on the 
 relatives of the deceased who are in waiting at the inquest. 
 Surely this is a reason for making the law clear. In regard to 
 jurors, then, I would put the matter in this way : jurors without 
 religious belief, or jurors having religious belief of some kind, 
 who yet did not believe in future rewards and punishment, were 
 by law incapable of taking the oath, and were not by law per- 
 mitted to affirm. 
 
 Leaving that class, I come next to the cases of the 
 'Oath of Allegiance, with respect to which there is no pro- 
 vision for affirming at all except in the case of Quakers, 
 Moravians, and Separatists. A Christian, in the fullest sense 
 •of the word, who conscientiously objects to take the oath on the 
 ground that oath-taking is unlawful by the terms of his own 
 creed, is not entitled to affirm his allegiance. There is no pro- 
 vision for a case of this kind at all, and yet the oath is taken, 
 not only by Members of Parliament and Justices of the Peace, 
 but by barristers, solicitors, a variety of constables, officers and 
 the rank and file of the Arm}^, petty officers in the Navy, and 
 •others. There is a decision of the Court of Appeal confirming 
 that of the Court of three Judges — of whom the present Lord 
 Chief Justice is one — a full report of which is in the Library of 
 the House. If that decision is good — and as it is the decision 
 •of the Court of Appeal it must be assumed to be good law — its 
 effect is that no Justice of the Peace without religious belief 
 ■can have the oath administered to him, and in consequence 
 his acts are open to challenge in a variety of ways : ways 
 with which I need not trouble the House at any length. Nor 
 can any soldier who falls within this category be properly 
 attested. 
 
 There is no need to enlarge on the serious inconveniences 
 which may follow, nor do I wish to deal with the matter 
 •simply from the point of view of the Oath of Allegiance 
 as taken at the table of the House. I am happy to say that 
 my Bill is no longer a party measure. It has upon its back the 
 endorsement of Members of both sides of the House, and it is 
 within my own knowledge that these members consider this to
 
 SECOND READING OF AFFIRMATION BILL. 77- 
 
 be a fair and proper solution of an exceedingly difficult problem, 
 which may now be settled without a particle of bitterness. 
 
 There has necessarily been present to my mind the considera- 
 tion of objections which members may fairly feel in dealing with 
 such a measure as this. I would point out that the whole 
 tendency of legislation for the last sixty years has been to 
 abolish oaths which were once thought necessary, substituting 
 for them, in cases of testimony, affirmations which carry with- 
 them all the legal consequences which attached to the oath, sO' 
 that a false statement made under affirmation should bear with 
 it the same penalties as attached to perjury. I have seen, 
 however, that several members have written to their constituents 
 with reference to this measure, saying that so far as it applied tO' 
 the Oath of Allegiance they have no objection to it, but that 
 they did object to it so far as it applied to witnesses. I will just 
 point out to those hon. members, that the law already gives 
 witnesses who are without religious belief the right to affirm, so- 
 that they are raising a difficulty which does not occur. It may 
 be said, " If so, why do you not exempt witnesses from the 
 operation of your Bill ? ". I will answer that question at once. 
 It is because, unfortunately, the wording of the Evidence 
 Amendment Acts of 1869 and 1870, is so peculiar that it has 
 given rise to a variety of practices, and only met the cases 
 which I have previously referred to. When the Evidence 
 Amendment Act of 1869 left the House of Commons, it did not 
 contain the words which gave rise to the misconstruction. 
 They were inserted somewhat suddenly in the House of Lords, 
 and were as follows : — "If any person called on to give evidence 
 in any Court of Justice, whether in Civil or Criminal proceed- 
 ings, should object to take the oath, or should be objected to as 
 incompetent to take that oath ". 
 
 The only person who can be objected to as incompetent to 
 take the oath is a person without religious belief, or one who, 
 having religious belief, does not believe in a state of future 
 rewards and punishment. Any such person should, " if the pre- 
 siding Judge is satisfied that the taking of the oath would not be 
 binding on his conscience," make a promise and declaration. 
 This has unfortunately given rise to much difficulty. In 1875
 
 78 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 a case was brought before the Court of Queen's Bench, the late 
 Lord Chief Justice presiding. Mr. Woolrych, the police 
 magistrate, had refused to receive the affirmation of a man 
 ■called Lennard, who had avowed himself an Atheist. The 
 Court of Queen's Bench made the rule absolute for a mandamus 
 requiring Mr. Woolrych to take the evidence on the ground 
 that he ought to have been satisfied that an oath would have 
 had no binding effect upon Lennard's evidence. Unfortunately, 
 the case was not reported. It was, however, traceable by the 
 lawyers, there being a record of it in the Rule Office, though 
 there was no official report of the case. The consequence has 
 been that — especially in proceedings before the magistrates and 
 in the inferior Courts — a curious looseness has been observed 
 in the construction of the words " the Judge shall be satisfied 
 that an oath has no binding effect upon his conscience". 
 
 As an illustration of the difficulties on this point, I have received 
 a letter which states the matter very clearly. The writer says : — 
 " A witness in a court of law objects to take the oath, and states 
 that he is without belief in ' a future state of rewards and 
 punishments,' but confesses to a belief in the existence of a 
 Supreme Being, and declares that the taking of an oath would 
 have a binding effect upon his conscience. In such a case, if I 
 rightly understand the law as it at present stands, the witness 
 would be utterly incompetent, and his testimony therefore 
 wholly inadmissible. For, not possessing the required belief 
 as to a future state of rewards and punishments (Reg. v. Taylor, 
 Peake, ii ; Maden v. Catanach, 31 L. G. Ex. 118), he would 
 be unqualified to take the oath, even if he changed his mind 
 and waived his objection to taking it ; and the opportunity of 
 ■ajffiyming would be denied to him, because, as it seems, to the 
 right to affirm there is attached a condition precedent ' that 
 the Judge must be satisfied that the taking of the oath would 
 have no binding effect,' etc. — a condition which in the present 
 case clearly remains unsatisfied." This clearly shows the 
 extremely unsatisfactory character of the present law. 
 
 I was present at a trial in which the present Lord Chief Justice, 
 with his usual kindness, took a great deal of trouble, and occupied 
 :ii0me seven or eight minutes in ascertaining whether an oath
 
 SECOND READING OF AFFIRMATION BILL. •]9 
 
 would have a binding effect upon a witness's conscience. A 
 short discussion took place, in which an explanation was given 
 on the part of the witness, and an interpretation on the part of 
 the Bench, before it could be ascertained whether the oath 
 would have this binding effect on the witness's conscience. In 
 minor proceedings, such as those in the coroner's courts and 
 before the magistrate, cases of this kind constantly occur, and 
 they have arisen because the wording of the Evidence Acts left 
 room for much misconstruction and misinterpretation in practice. 
 
 It is known to all who watched the progress of the Acts of 1869 
 and 1870, as I have done — and the Amending Act of the latter 
 year passed in consequence of objection to my evidence, that 
 the Bill left this House without the words which have caused all 
 the difiiculty, and which were introduced in the House of Lords 
 to meet the objections of a member of that assembly. It had, 
 however, the effect of importing into the matter an element of 
 extreme difficulty. In England, Ireland, and Wales, all wit- 
 nesses — whether they have religious belief or none — can 
 affirm. In Scotland that is not the case. This Bill would 
 relieve witnesses in Scotland, as the Acts of 1869 and 1870 had 
 relieved them in England, Ireland, and Wales. To illustrate 
 the necessity for the Bill, I will instance a case at Aberdeen of 
 the week before last, where the sheriff was obliged to refuse the 
 testimony of an Atheist who claimed to affirm, at the same time 
 expressing his opinion that the attention of the Legislature 
 ought to be directed to the question. The sheriff also pointed 
 •out the serious consequences which might ensue in a murder 
 case, the learned gentleman using these words : — " Supposing 
 this man was the only witness in a murder case, the murderer 
 must escape because of a technical objection to his evidence". 
 
 There has been during the last 60 years, as I have already said, 
 a disposition to give every facility in our Courts for the ascer- 
 tainment of the truth, and to get rid of all incompetence to give 
 evidence ; and my Bill is a contribution to the attainment of 
 that end. There was an amendment upon the paper which 
 asked the House not to consider the Bill, but to refer the 
 ;j^rievance to a Royal Commission. I would suggest that the hon. 
 member who is to move that amendment can hardly have
 
 80 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 remembered that there was a Royal Commission which, in 1867, 
 issued no fewer than five reports, one of which was signed by Lord 
 Lyveden, the present Lord Sherbrooke, and others. This report 
 stated that " oaths of allegiance had seldom been found to be of 
 any practical benefit to the persons or institutions whose safety 
 and interest it had been sought to maintain by imposing them^ 
 In peaceful and prosperous times they were not needed, and in 
 times of difficulty and danger they were not observed." Com- 
 menting upon the oath of allegiance imposed by the Mutiny 
 Act, the Commission reported that it would be idle to describe 
 this ceremony as either solemn or impressive, nor did it even 
 appear certain that it was intelligible to the lads who invoked 
 Almighty God. The words of the Commission were these : 
 " As an -example of an oath which appears to us open 
 to nearly every possible objection, we may cite the oath 
 of allegiance imposed by the Mutiny Act on recruits for the 
 Army, which the Commission in its Report recommends to be 
 maintained. The oath is a part of the ceremony of attestation 
 which is necessary to complete the enlistment. It may be taken 
 before any Justice of the Peace, not being an officer in the Army, 
 and in London it is commonly taken before the Magistrate at the 
 Westminster Police Court. There at certain fixed times, before 
 and after other business, recruits are attested and the oath ad- 
 ministered to them in a body by the Usher of the Court, the 
 recruiting Sergeant and his batch of recruits being surrounded 
 by any persons who happen to be present, and who are not 
 required to suspend any conversation in which they may be 
 engaged." 
 
 I pass by the historical portion of the Reports of the Com- 
 mission, because it does not affect what I desire to put to 
 the House. There is, however, an objection which I feel 
 it my duty to consider, and which has been urged. 
 Last year the Right Hon. J. G. Hubbard, now a member 
 of the other House, who has very frankly admitted that 
 the general sense of the House was in favor of the second 
 reading, objected that the Bill did not exclude the Coro- 
 nation or episcopal oath. I will say frankly that I thought 
 it would have been impertinent on my part to make such
 
 SECOND READING OF AFFIRMATION BILL. 8l 
 
 ■a proposal, but I should offer no objection in the Committee 
 to an amendment to that effect. Last Session gave me great 
 encouragement. There were two divisions taken, nominally 
 on the question of adjournment, but really on the principle 
 of the Bill. On the first division the majority was 91 in its 
 favor, and on the second the majority was 104. It is with no 
 desire to avoid the subject that I have passed over the recent 
 Mstory of the question in this House ; I think it better taste on 
 my part to avoid it now that the question is no longer one of 
 party bitterness, and now that members on both sides are trying 
 to find a solution of the difficulty, which is to me no longer a 
 personal question, although I should be glad if the House would 
 permit me to do by law what it was my desire to do eight years 
 ago. But I am now pleading for cases in a large number of 
 which serious evils may arise. I plead in accord with the 
 general legislation of this century, in which, step by step, dis- 
 qualifications and disabilities have been removed. I plead in 
 favor of the recognition of a principle which the late Mr. Justice 
 Mellor put so clearly in his marvellously able pamphlet. Speak- 
 ing of the legislation of 1869 and 1870 on this question, the 
 learned Judge said : — " The legislature has enabled even Atheists 
 to depose without any obligation of taking an oath, but at the 
 same time making them hable to punishment for false testimony 
 as if they had committed perjury. Profoundly convinced by 
 long experience of the general worthlessness of oaths, especially 
 in cases in which falsehood cannot be tested on cross-examina- 
 tion or criminally punished, I have become an advocate for the 
 abolition of oaths as the test of truth ; but I would retain the 
 punishment for false declarations wherever the law prescribes a 
 penalty for a false oath." It may be urged that this is an 
 argument for the abolition of oaths altogether. I admit it ; but 
 I am not prepared to ask the House to go with my argument 
 and abolish oaths altogether, because I know there are many men 
 ■ — many conscientious men — who think that they ought to be per- 
 mitted to swear their allegiance. I do not propose to interfere in 
 any way with their tender consciences. I only ask an option for 
 all who are either disabled by law at present or who desire to be 
 relieved from a position which often becomes intolerable. 
 
 G
 
 THE COMPULSORY CULTIVATION OF 
 WASTE LANDS. 
 
 Speech delivered in the House of Commons, May, 1888. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — The array of amendments which has 
 been put down to the motion I have now to submit 
 induces me to 1 ope that the subject is, at least, one in 
 which the House is beginning to take a greater interest; 
 and the almost unanimous expression of opinion among 
 those who had given notice of those amendments, that there 
 was a large quantity of uncultivated land in this country, 
 also leads me to hope that I may be able to secure their 
 assistance against the other amendment which challenges that 
 proposition. There is an amendment put down by the hon. 
 member for Wandsworth (Mr. Kimber), which, if not moved to- 
 night, may I suppose be taken as a speech for the debate, and 
 which declares that the proposition contained in my motion is 
 one not altogether consistent with the liberties of a free people : 
 besides, the process of compulsion shadowed forth in it seems so 
 repugnant to the hon. gentleman that he feels he must earnestly 
 protest against it at once. There is to me a comfort in being 
 opposed by a devoted follower of the Government like 
 the hon. member for Wandsworth, because, when the hon. 
 member saw the First Lord of the Treasury going into 
 the lobby in support of that motion — as he was bound to 
 do if he carried out the traditions of his own Government — 
 I hoped that the hon. member would no longer feel inclined 
 to denounce the principle of compulsion. (A laugh.) I 
 should hardly have ventured to take up the ground I have 
 upon this subject, if I had not known that the present Leader of 
 the House, and the Prime Minister, belonged to a Cabinet which 
 
 (82)
 
 THE COMPULSORY CULTIVATION OF WASTE LANDS. 83 
 
 had twice, within the last nine years, deliberately made pro- 
 posals and put them into force for the compulsory taking of 
 uncultivated land. In Cyprus, a law was passed to promote the 
 cultivation of land, and the ordinance was dated the 2nd of 
 April, 1879. Among other things, it enacted that where a land- 
 owner had left more than two-thirds of his land which was 
 capable of cultivation in an uncultivated state, he should pay a 
 penalty, a tax on the whole of the land left uncultivated and 
 uncropped, to the Government, as a fine for not having cultivated 
 it. That having failed, the Government took more stringent 
 measures, and in an ordinance dated June 24th, 1885, it was set 
 forth that all cultivable land which had been left uncultivated 
 for ten years should be confiscated by the Government. I hope, 
 therefore, that the hon. gentleman who is to reply to me on 
 behalf of the Government (Mr. W. H. Long), and who last year 
 so eloquently denounced the proposal shadowed by the Bill of 
 1886, will now, with these Cyprus ordinances before him, modify 
 the severity of his antagonistic criticism. In the discussion of 
 this question I will lay down certain propositions, the first of 
 which is : That the ownership of land should carry with it the 
 duty of cultivation or utilisation. This was generally admitted 
 in last year's debate. In a crowded country like this, I think 
 that no right of property should allow a man to pursue a dog-in- 
 the-manger attitude, and so arrest development of the natural 
 resources of the soil. The authorities should compel the 
 possessors of land to use it for the general welfare. The action 
 of the Government in Cyprus shews that they have accepted 
 that proposition, at least, in part. In the debate on this subject 
 last year, the right hon. gentleman the member for the Sleaford 
 Division of Lincolnshire said that land carried with it the 
 duty of cultivation, no less than the practice, unless, indeed 
 there were good reasons to the contrary. Unfortunately, I have 
 learnt that in law the ownership of land does not carry with it 
 that duty; and further, I shall submit that it has not carried 
 with it the practice of cultivation. In the case of " the Attorney- 
 General against Lord Sefton", to which my attention has been 
 drawn in the debate on death duties, the following facts appear 
 from the judgment of Mr. Baron Martin : " Earl Sefton died 
 
 G 2
 
 84 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 2nd August, 1855. He was the owner of land in Toxteth Park, 
 Liverpool. This land then, and for ten years previously, had 
 been wholly unoccupied and unproductive." In 1862, seven 
 years after, some of it was sold " at the rate of upwards of 
 ^4,000 per acre, which is forty times the value of the best 
 agricultural land". "The present income is nil, but the land 
 is of enormous value, thousands of pounds per acre more valu- 
 able than the best agricultural land ;" and Baron Martin added, 
 "a great quantity of by far the most valuable land in the 
 kingdom is similarly circumstanced ". This land, which paid 
 nothing in respect of local burdens, which contributed little or 
 nothing to the Imperial exchequer, was held not to be liable to 
 even succession duty, although Baron Martin said, " I cannot 
 believe that it was the deliberate intention of the legislature to 
 relieve such land from the payment of duty". Lord Chief 
 Baron Pollock said: " The proprietor of property in this country 
 has a right to make what reasonable use of it he pleases, and 
 sometimes even an wwreasonable use of it, and he is not bound 
 so to use it as to yield the largest revenue to the Government, 
 or to pay taxes as if he did. A landed proprietor whose park is 
 over the most valuable mineral property has a right to say : ' I 
 prefer living where my ancestors have lived to obtaining the 
 wealth which opening the mines would afford '." Now I chal- 
 lenge the doctrine that a man has any right to prevent the 
 opening up of mines underneath his property. I do not 
 challenge the fact that this may be the law : but I do challenge 
 that it should be the law. In this high court of Parliament, 
 which has the right and the duty to alter the law, I submit that, 
 in a crowded country like this, where admittedly hunger and 
 misery exist, no right of property ought to be allowed by which 
 a man may retard the natural development of the wealth of the 
 country for the benefit of the toilers and workers in it. (Hear, 
 hear.) If the law at present gives the right to an owner of 
 50,000 acres to say that, although his land will provide employ- 
 ment to hundreds or thousands of people in mines underneath it, 
 he will not permit mines to be worked there, and wiil thus 
 compel the people to starve ; that law should be altered, and the 
 authorities should have the right to step in and compel him to
 
 THE COMPULSORY CULTIVATION OF WASTE LANDS. 85 
 
 utilize his property, even as they compel the laborer to utilize his 
 labor, for the well-being of society, of which the individual is 
 a part. (Hear, hear.) The mere laborer is not permitted to 
 say : " I will not work ; I will do as I please with my muscle and 
 sinew ; " the law punishes him as a rogue and vagabond, 
 society passes on him moral condemnation, when he does not 
 with his labor fulfil his part in contributing to the local and 
 imperial burdens. My next proposition is : That there is now a 
 large quantity of land in the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
 and Ireland which is in a vacant, waste, or uncultivated state, 
 and which might and ought to be properly cultivated or utilized. 
 In speaking of cultivation I do not necessarily mean corn- 
 growing. I mean that the land should be utilized for whatever 
 it can be used most profitably. Last year I estimated that 
 there were some 12,000,000 acres of land in the United Kingdom 
 and Ireland in an uncultivated state ; which land might well be 
 cultivated for profit ; and the right hon. member for the Sleaford 
 Division then asked : "Where did those 12,000,000 acres come 
 from?" and the hon. member for Maldon (Mr. Gray) disputed 
 the accuracy of this estimate. Taking England, Wales, and 
 Ireland — for I propose to leave Scotland to the hon. member for 
 the Leith district, who I hope will second the resolution, and 
 who will be able to speak with a special knowledge of the 
 country — Mr. Denton, in his evidence before the Royal Commis- 
 sion on Agriculture in 1882, said that the irreclaimable land in 
 England and Wales was 4,722,100 acres in extent, the cultivable 
 land 27,000,000 acres, and the uncultivated land capable of 
 improvement 5,596,000 acres. As an illustration of the kind of 
 land, I will quote a passage taken from the Weekly Bulletin of 
 nth February, from an article headed "A Sussex Desert". 
 The editor says : " When we were told a few days ago that in 
 the middle of Sussex, within less than two hours' reach of 
 London, there were something like 100,000 acres of land abso- 
 lutely without cultivation of any sort, lying wild and waste, 
 much as they did in the times of the Henrys, we were at first 
 disposed to doubt the sanity of our informant. But as he gave 
 us chapter and verse, furnished the name of the noble lord who 
 owns this immense tract of land, and provided us with careful
 
 86 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 directions as to the station at which we were to stop to reach 
 the spot, etc., we determined on at least ascertaining by the 
 evidence of our own senses whether it could be actually true 
 that while tens of thousands of people are on the verge of 
 starvation in London, there are within easy reach of them tens 
 of thousands of acres of land lying idle which, under proper 
 cultivation, would support an even larger population." 
 
 Sir W. Bavtelott : Will the hon. member state who is the 
 owner of this land ? 
 
 Most certainly I will. The writer gives the name as 
 Earl Delawarr, and he adds : " Why, we ask in amazement, 
 is all this vast tract of country left to lie idle ? Simply, 
 we are told, because ' my lord ' wills it so. Is the soil 
 barren ? Not at all ; it will grow almost any crops to per- 
 fection, and in proof we are pointed to the little oases, at long 
 intervals, which have been reclaimed and brought into cultiva- 
 tion. A drive of twelve miles over a beautiful undulating 
 country, on which the great sun stretched down his long rays like 
 loving arms, and yet not a third of the forest had been seen. 
 One vast solitude, stretching away mile after mile, which might 
 be changed like magic into smiling cornfields and verdant 
 pastures, be dotted with homesteads and alive with lowing 
 cattle and bleating sheep, but for the imperious will of one 
 noble and reverend lord ! " 
 
 Viscotmt Cuvzon : Does the hon. member say that Lord 
 Delawarr owns all this land ? 
 
 I have no personal knowledge on the subject. The 
 Weekly Bulletin said it was the property of Earl Delawarr. 
 I can only vouch for the fact that it is uncultivated ; but, 
 from letters I have received, I believe it to be capable of 
 profitable cultivation. The Weekly Bulletin writer concluded his 
 article by saying : " Of course, many who read this will say at 
 once that the land must be worthless, or it would long ago have 
 been brought under cultivation. But surely the villagers who live 
 upon its borders must know its character and its capabilities, 
 and they one and all agree that most of the forest so-called is as 
 fine land as ever laid out of doors. We confess ourselves to be 
 of the same opinion. What has Lord Delawarr to say ? " As
 
 THE COMPULSORY CULTIVATION OF WASTE LANDS. 87 
 
 to Ireland, Professor Baldwin and Major Robertson, one of 
 whom had been intimately connected with the present parlia- 
 mentary Under Secretary for Ireland, affirm that there are 
 6,000,000 acres of land in Ireland "comparatively worthless", 
 and they declare that the greater part of this land ought to be 
 cultivated, and could be profitably reclaimed. Professor 
 Baldwin, in his evidence before the Duke of Richmond as to 
 Ireland, said : " There has been a good deal of exaggeration 
 with regard to the waste lands of Ireland. I have gone very 
 carefully into the matter, and I do not believe that there are 
 more than 1,500,000 acres of waste lands that would admit of 
 reclamation; but there are at least 1,000,000 of acres of bog- 
 lands in Ireland that would admit of reclamation ; " and he 
 added there was " at least three or four times that " of " semi- 
 waste ". These 4,000,000 acres of semi-waste Professor 
 Baldwin thinks could make provision for a large number of 
 families if they were allowed to cultivate. Major Robertson 
 agreed that there were large quantities of waste and semi- 
 waste lands on which people might be profitably planted. 
 Why is not all this land reclaimed ? Why do we talk of 
 emigrating people while it is left thus uncultivated ? I will 
 also quote what Mr. A. J. Kettle gives as evidences of the 
 hindrances to reclamation in Ireland. He says : " In the 
 greater part of Mayo, and, in fact, all over the mountain and 
 tog sides in Tipperary and Kerry, the land had been reclaimed 
 by the tenants, and that without any assistance from the land- 
 lords. They created property in a rude way, and the moment 
 that it by means of their exertions furnished a crop, the land- 
 lords raised their rents from is. per acre to 2s. 6d. per acre, in 
 order to reap a profit on it." " These small tenants were put 
 on some bog or swamp or mountain land, and they reclaimed 
 this either from a state of nature, or barrenness, or a state of 
 swamp." Describing Connaught, the Most Rev. Dr. Duggan 
 said : " We have bogs and mountains unreclaimed ; not only 
 that, we have agricultural tenements not half tilled". Mr. 
 E. D. Leahy said : " There is no question that there is in 
 Ireland a vast quantity of reclaimable land". Mr. E. Murphy 
 said : " I have seen large tracts in the south and west of Ireland
 
 88 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 where there might probably be a good deal of reclamation". Mr^ 
 J. Hegarty stated to the Commission that " a large quantity of 
 land in Ireland might be made into productive land ". Mr. A. 
 L. Tottenham, M.P., a Leitrim landowner, conceded that the 
 bog of Allen and other bogs lying in the centre of Ireland might 
 be reclaimed by the population. There is plenty of evidence 
 that land in Ireland has been reclaimed by tenants without any 
 assistance whatever from landlords, who, however, raised the 
 rent upon it as soon as it had been made to produce anything ; 
 with better security the land now unreclaimed could be made 
 equally productive. Similar things have happened in England, 
 particularly in the case of lands controlled by the Duchy of 
 Cornwall. A letter now before me gives an instance where no 
 acres at South Tawton, formerly common land, producing 
 nothing to the Duchy, has been reclaimed by poor laborers 
 with the free consent of the commoners, and now the Duchy 
 officials demand rent. I do not pretend that all kinds of culti- 
 vation could be made profitable in this country. (Hear, hear.) 
 But we import three millions' worth of eggs annually, and 
 uncultivated lands would at least maintain the poultry that might 
 produce eggs in lieu of those imported. In many places 
 agricultural laborers are not permitted to keep fowls, and in 
 some places where they do so the business is made utterly 
 unprofitable by the landlords' foxes. We also import enormous 
 quantities of fruit and dairy produce that we ought to produce at 
 home. It is true there are difficulties in the way, and among 
 them, one is the favoritism shown by our railway companies to 
 imported produce. The Mayor of Manchester gave evidence 
 that produce can be brought from France at lower rates than 
 those that are paid for carrying English produce one-third of 
 the distance. It is dearer to take fruit from one part of 
 Lincolnshire to another than to take it from the South of 
 France to a Lincolnshire market. Speaking without special 
 knowledge, I believe that part of the evil results from the charge 
 being made per ton — many trucks now being half empty, 
 which, if the maximum charge were per truck, it would be the 
 interest of the cultivator to fill. The question is, further, 
 much complicated by the existence of market tolls and regu-
 
 THE COMPULSORY CULTIVATION OF WASTE LANDS. 89 
 
 lations, as well as by the absence of market facilities in many 
 places in the country. These difficulties, I trust, may however 
 be met by the Royal Commission which the House has autho- 
 rised, and which is now sitting. I will ask the House not to 
 reject my motion because of the difficulties in the way ; but to 
 remember that I am raising the question, less for the purpose of 
 making an attack upon landowners, than for suggesting the best 
 way of meeting the rising storm which must one day break 
 out from the close juxtaposition, especially in our large towns, 
 of hunger and misery with vast accumulations of wealth. 
 Will it not be wise to meet that storm by remedial measures ? 
 The Socialist cry which is heard everywhere, is it not transla- 
 latable into the expression of hunger and want ? If I now 
 plead with the House on this question it is because I am 
 speaking for the class among whom I was born and for whom 
 I am bound to plead. (Hear, hear.) I am convinced that 
 much of the land in this country, which now does not pay, could 
 be made to pay. As a striking proof of that, I will cite one 
 remarkable instance brought to my notice, where a landowner in 
 Northumberland, having failed to get anything out of 700 acres, 
 had handed them over to his bailiff, with the result that the 
 land was made profitable to the landlord. I am now asking 
 the House to listen ro facts ; and my proposition is that the 
 ownership of land involves duties as well as rights. And my 
 desire is to avert in England what in Ireland has already 
 become, and in Scotland is gradually becoming, a fearful 
 war between one class of society and another. I earnestly 
 hope, therefore, that I shall not be met by a bare non possumus. 
 My plan will do far more for the people of this country than the 
 many plans for the employment of the unemployed, plans 
 which generally and ultimately involve an increase of debt and 
 taxation. I have modified my motion into a form which I hope 
 will prove acceptable to the House. It is said that I propose to 
 confiscate property ; I do nothing of the kind ; but even if I had 
 proposed to do that I could plead the authority of the present 
 Government. (Hear, hear.)
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 
 
 Examined before the Royal Commission. 
 
 (Lord Derby, Chairman.) 
 
 I would submit, first, that the local authorities should be 
 empowered and required by law to acquire all existing rights to 
 hold markets, to levy tolls, and to make regulations in connexion 
 with markets. The reason why I say that they should be required 
 as well as empowered, is that I think it possible, if the local 
 authorities only had optional powers, powers which they might 
 or might not exercise, they would sometimes be deterred from 
 resorting to the exercise of those powers owing to the expendi- 
 ture which, rightly or wrongly, they might think that they 
 would be put to in the compulsory acquisition of market rights. 
 I would respectfully submit that the legislation which will be 
 necessary should entirely sweep away all private market rights ; 
 and that where compensation is given (I use that phrase, and 
 the Commissioners will see presently my reasons for it), the 
 compensation should be on an adequate scale, to be settled, not 
 by the ordinary means which would be open to local authorities 
 treating with an individual or with bodies, but either by the 
 High Court or by some specially appointed tribunal, which 
 would be competent, not only to investigate the title of the 
 person claiming charter or other rights, but also to ascertain 
 how far he had acted in fulfilment of what I should submit is 
 the expressed or understood obligation in connexion with all 
 charters, namely, the protection and development of the market. 
 So that in ascertaining the compensation to be given, all these 
 matters might be taken into consideration, under authority 
 given by statute, in a way that I do not think at present they 
 
 (90)
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. gi 
 
 -could be taken into consideration. And I would submit that 
 it might possibly be best that the acquisition of market rights, 
 so far as England is concerned, should be undertaken by the 
 County Council in each case. The reason why I say " so far as 
 England is concerned" is only because as yet no County Councils 
 are established elsewhere ; but the same principle would of 
 course apply if County Councils are established elsewhere. I 
 suggest that the amount which is necessary for the purchase 
 of the rights should be defrayed out of a special loan fund, 
 and apportioned equally amongst the sanitary districts in 
 respect of which the rights are acquired, and that each 
 such sanitary district should be empowered to carry on 
 the markets in such a way as would eventually extinguish 
 their proportion of the loan charges. I submit next that 
 the local authorities should be absolutely prohibited from 
 leasing or farming any market ; that where the charter owner, 
 or manorial owner, or prescriptive owner of market rights, has 
 not provided any market accommodation whatever, his present 
 rights should be extinguished, abolished, and cease, without 
 . any compensation whatever ; that where he is providing some 
 accommodation, but clearly insufficient accommodation, the 
 compensation should not exceed seven years' purchase, calcu- 
 lated on the average of the last ten years of the net annual 
 receipts by him. It may be that the charter owner, desiring to 
 provide the fullest accommodation, has been by local circum- 
 stances, by possible conflict with private rights, prevented from 
 acquiring the property that might be necessary for the proper 
 development of the market ; but where he had tried to provide, 
 or had provided, proper accommodation, then the compensation 
 money should be ascertained by valuation and arbitration, as in 
 the case of any freehold. Then I submit that when the tolls are 
 in the hands of the local authorities, the tolls which they levy on 
 foods ought never to be in relief of the rates, but should be only 
 sufficient to provide, first, for the maintenance and necessary 
 extension of the market ; secondly, for a sinking fund for the re- 
 payment, spread over not too long a term of years (say, thirty 
 years, which seems to me to be sufficiently long), of all moneys 
 expended in acquiring rights, purchasing land, and erecting
 
 g2 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 buildings ; and I think also that the tolls might be so calculated 
 as to provide a small, not a large, reserve or contingency fund 
 to meet sudden increases of population. Sometimes, in the case- 
 of new manufacturing industries, there are instances in which 
 there has been increase of population which has rendered neces- 
 sary an increase of market accommodation ; and there would be, 
 I think, no harm and some advantage in the power to have a 
 contingency fund, not too large, for such purposes. Then, if the 
 Commission would permit me to say so, on the evidence as 
 taken, there seems to be — whether from the class of people 
 examined or not I do not quite know — a rather widespread 
 opinion, that markets should be conducted with a view to the 
 advantage of the tradesmen of the town. That seems to me 
 upside down, if I may be allowed to put it so roughly. I think 
 that the markets should be conducted primarily in the interest 
 of the consumers of food. I do not know that I need trouble 
 the Commissioners with the references, in any case, to the 
 evidence, but I may say that it is sometimes put that hawkers, 
 for example, should be licensed and put under stringent rules, 
 and regulations. I should rather submit to the Commissioners, 
 that the class of people who supply foods to the poorest persons 
 should be encouraged, and that no difficulties whatever should 
 be put in their way ; that, in fact, the powers of the local 
 authorities shall be limited, so that they should be unable to 
 check free trade in food ; that they may afford additional 
 facilities in markets, but that they may not, either under cover 
 of protecting their market or otherwise, hinder anyone from 
 taking to the most wretched, in the cheapest fashion, any foods- 
 that it may pay the hawkers to bring, or that the others may 
 desire to get. I do not think that the ratepayers in a town 
 should be allowed any more favorable use of the market than 
 persons who come into it who are not ratepayers. I have- 
 noticed that, in one of two cases, there has been evidence given 
 which seems to imply that persons coming out of the country, 
 who did not pay rates, were not entitled to share in the market 
 advantages on the same terms as the ratepayers. I suggest, 
 that every facility ought to be given for the obtainment and 
 selling of food, and that that is of the highest importance ; and.
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 93 
 
 that the mere small relief to the rates or the ratepayers ought 
 not to be allowed to weigh against that. Then I respectfully 
 suggest that there should be the most complete and thorough 
 statutory a^'olition of all through tolls, and of any tolls which in 
 any degree resemble the Continental octroi; and that there should 
 be provision in any legislation to prevent tolls, rents, or stallages, 
 operating oppressively against small traders. I would submit 
 that, so long as high rents and tolls are demanded from persons 
 such as small growers, holders of allotments, and small farmers 
 having surplus stock, which they may take to the nearest market 
 to dispose of, the imposition of these high tolls operates to the 
 discouragement of that industry, and the community is deprived 
 of home-grown food ; and I suggest to the Commission, that at 
 present our system gives an advantage to foreign food-raisers 
 •and foreign food-vendors over the home-raisers and home- 
 vendors ; and I say that that is amply shown by the fact that 
 small quantities of produce of various kinds are collected over the 
 whole of Europe, and imported into this country, and that there 
 is nothing like a similar attempt made at present to bring into our 
 markets small quantities of home-grown produce, even though 
 grown within a few miles of the market. Then I think it is 
 clear that there are a considerable number of bye-laws, regulations, 
 and scales of tolls in different places (without its being necessary 
 to specify any particularly) which are open to objection ; and I 
 submit, therefore, that in any legislation, there should be an enact- 
 ment that the local authorities should have power to make new 
 Tules ; and not only that they should have power to make new rules, 
 but that, say, the Local Government Board should, upon the matter 
 coming before them from any district, have power to compel the 
 local authorities to make new rules; and that any such new rules, 
 when made, should be submitted for the approval of the Local 
 Government Board, or such other authority as was thought 
 right. I think it might be well, if it be possible, that the Local 
 Government Board, or some special authority created by tlie 
 Act, should frame some kind of regulations which might apply 
 as a guide everywhere upon the subject. At present, as I under- 
 stand it (I am not quite sure that I am speaking correctly on 
 that, and therefore, I speak subject to correction), where any
 
 94 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 Government department is required to confirm anything, in the 
 first place, it is no part of their duty to raise objections which 
 are not raised before them ; and I suggest that the regulations of 
 which I am speaking ought to be framed and considered, subject 
 to the kind of objections which poor people would make if they 
 had the power to make them, and which appear to arise over 
 and over again in the course of the evidence which has been, 
 taken. I propose also that the tribunal I suggested, which 
 should deal with compensation, that is to say, with the 
 amount of purchase money and so on, ought to have the 
 duty imposed upon it of ascertaining whether the charter 
 owners have fulfilled the conditions of their charters. In 
 some cases, it is possible that the charter owner has held his 
 market on a day on which the original charter did not authorise 
 him to hold it, or has assumed to hold it on additional days 
 when he had no authority to do so. I would suggest that, if 
 legal proceedings had been taken, say, by the Attorney-General,. 
 it is fairly clear that these charters or patents might have been 
 quashed in olden times, and that all these matters should be 
 taken into consideration in determining what, in cash, the 
 charter owner should get on being deprived of his rights. 
 
 Lord Derby : To take these points which you have raised 
 one by one ; in the first place, I observe that you think the local 
 authority should not merely be empowered, but should be 
 required, in every case to take charge of the markets. Let me 
 put such a case as this : That the local authority finds itself 
 already heavily burdened with debt, that the rates are high, and 
 that the market is in private hands, but has been so carried on 
 as not to give rise to any local complaint ; under those circum- 
 stances do you think it would be desirable, not merely to force 
 the seller to part with what he does not wish to part with, but 
 to force the local authority to become a purchaser when neither 
 the authority itself nor its constituents desire that it should da 
 so ? — Yes, I do, and for these reasons : I start first from the 
 principle that market rights in private hands are bad ; I quite 
 concede that there are very many cases in which the private 
 owner has used his power as wisely and humanely as it is 
 possible for a man to use it, but I do not think that such excep-
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 95 
 
 tions ought to prevent the general enactment. Either the 
 market is profitable to the private owner, or it is not. If it 
 were not profitable to the private owner he would not carry it 
 on ; at least, I have not met any such instance anywhere. If it 
 were profitable to the private owner it would be no burden to 
 the local authority to take it, and it would be equally profitable 
 to them, and therefore no real increase of burden upon the 
 ratepayers would result. 
 
 Admitting, at any rate for argument's sake, that all market 
 rights in private hands are bad, do you not think that the local 
 authority may be left to judge of the badness ? — No, because it 
 is quite clear that the local authorities at present have not been 
 as active as they should have been in a large number of matters 
 — not only in the case of markets — and if it be admitted that 
 market rights in the hands of private owners are bad, I do not 
 think that the local authorities should have left to them any 
 option of permitting the continuance of an admittedly bad thing. 
 
 Is there any precedent that you are aware of for compelling 
 a local authority to purchase something which it does not want 
 to purchase ? — No, I think not ; I am not aware of any, although 
 there may be precedents ; but I would respectfully suggest that 
 if the thing be good it would be well to make a precedent ; and 
 local authorities are now being compelled by Parliament to do a 
 number of things that they have heretofore not been compelled 
 to do. 
 
 You say that the local authorities should in every case be the 
 County Councils ? — No, I beg your Lordship's pardon ; I did not 
 express myself clearly. What I felt was this : The authority 
 for the acquisition of the market rights, I suggested, should be the 
 County Council, but only because over a large district I thought 
 that the County Council could probably raise the money on 
 cheaper terms and in a better way ; and I also thought I had 
 expressed in my answer my intention that each district should 
 be empowered to carry on its own market, and to carry it on in 
 such a way as would extinguish their share of the loan charge, 
 which I suggest should be apportioned equally among the 
 sanitary districts. 
 
 I am not sure that I understand the process that you propose.
 
 g6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 Take the case of a large borough within a county ; you would 
 say that the County Council should buy the market and hand 
 it over to the borough ? — I think that most of the large boroughs 
 are made counties of themselves by the operation of the Local 
 Government Act. 
 
 That is only so in the case of the largest boroughs ? — Yes ; 
 so that that, if it would be difficult, I submit does not arise in 
 the case of very large boroughs. 
 
 You think that the middle-sized boroughs would be content 
 to have the market which is held in them purchased by the 
 County Council ? — I think it would be an advantage, if my assump- 
 tion is correct, if the County Council could borrow large sums 
 for the whole of these purposes in a sort of general loan, on easier 
 terms than each small authority having to buy its market could ; 
 and I think that it would also leave less possibility of jobbery 
 in the loan, and involve less charges for commission in raising 
 the loan, and so on. 
 
 I suppose you would admit that the question whether the 
 County Council or the borough should be the purchasers is a 
 question of detail ? — Quite so ; that is a suggestion which I 
 respectfully put before the Commission. 
 
 You would prohibit the local authority from leasing a market; 
 that is, of course, in pursuance of the principle that markets 
 ought not to be in private hands ? — Yes ; and I also think there 
 is clear evidence that where markets have been leased, or, what 
 is the equivalent of leasing, farmed in any way by individuals, 
 sometimes the evils have been even greater than where the private 
 owner has hiro.self exercised any authority, because the lessee 
 has tried to make his thirteenpence for a shilling, and has not 
 been careful as to how he made it. 
 
 The person who leases the market has only an interest for a 
 limited time, and probably has no interest in the surrounding 
 district ? — That is so. 
 
 As to the special tribunal which you propose to create for 
 the purpose of buying up markets, why is the matter not one 
 that could be dealt with by the ordinary courts of law ? — I think 
 it might be dealt with by the ordinary courts of law ; but what 
 I want to shut out is this : whether it be a division of the courts
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 97 
 
 of law which deals with it or not, I want the amount which is to 
 be paid to the charter owner not to be a matter in which the 
 personal local influence of the charter owner operates upon the 
 local authorities. Many of the members of the authority, being 
 elected, are sometimes more or less under his influence, because 
 the very fact of his being the charter owner generally implies 
 the possession of estates in the district, and considerable local 
 influence ; and there are cases in which, where a very large sum 
 to my mind has been demanded by the charter owner, there has 
 been reluctance in fighting him in the council, because of his 
 being deservedly respected for other matters and so on, which 
 prevent the thing being discussed upon business grounds. 
 
 Then you mean that it should be taken out of the hands, not 
 of the courts of law, but of the local authority ? — Out of the 
 hands of the local authorities. 
 
 That they should have no option as to the procedure or as to 
 the price ? — No. 
 
 That neither the purchaser nor the seller should be consulted, 
 but that the price should be fixed irrespectively of both of them? 
 — Yes. The only thing I would suggest is that it might perhaps 
 be cheaper to appoint a special tribunal in the nature of an 
 official referee, or something of that kind, than to add it to the 
 work of the courts, in view of the delay which necessarily results 
 from its being taken with other matters; and, perhaps, the form of 
 being represented by counsel and other details might be omitted 
 before some tribunal specially appointed. 
 
 Now, with regard to the question of compensation where 
 satisfactory accommodation has been provided, you would con- 
 sent that the seller should receive the fair market price for the 
 thing which he is selling ? — Yes. 
 
 You say that where no accommodation is provided the rights 
 should cease without compensation ; is it to be assumed that in 
 every case the charter has been granted upon condition of 
 accommodation being provided ? — The theory that I should 
 respectfully submit to the Commissioners is this : that all these 
 charters were originally granted, or that the legal assumption in 
 connexion with them was, that the person to whom the charter 
 was granted, protected the people coming to sell and to buy, and 
 
 H
 
 gS SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 also provided some kind of accommodation for them in selling and 
 buying ; probably in the old times he had most to do in providing 
 armed men to prevent them from being robbed. There are clear 
 cases of this, and I say that where this has died away and the 
 charter owner has continued to take for nothing a profit which 
 was granted originally on the condition of something being done, 
 he is not entitled to any compensation for having that determined 
 which appears to have degenerated into the acceptance of money 
 without right. 
 
 Then it follows that your argument upon that point that 
 where inadequate accommodation has been provided, there should 
 be some compensation paid, but not to the full value ? — Yes. 
 
 How would you test the inadequacy of the accommodation ? — 
 I should leave it to the special tribunal that I have been speak- 
 ing of to take evidence upon it in each case where complaint was 
 made ; I should not like to lay down any hard and fast rule. I 
 would say, certainly, that there is insufficient accommodation 
 where you find a large number of persons who attend the market 
 complaining, for example, that in winter and in inclement 
 weather it is impossible for them to carry on their trades. 
 
 But there may be cases where very little accommodation has 
 been provided because very little accommodation has been asked 
 for ; is not that so in out-of-the-way districts ? — If that be so, I 
 would suggest, either that the charter owner's rights are very 
 small, and the question of compensation is a very trivial question 
 there, or that, perhaps, the not providing of sufficient accommoda- 
 tion may have been the reason for the non-attendance at the 
 market, for indifference to it, and for want of complaint about it. 
 
 You have laid down another principle, that the tolls may not 
 be in relief of the rates ; you put broadly that the markets are 
 to be self-supporting, but that no profits are to accrue from them 
 to the local authority ? — Save that I would allow a margin for a 
 contingency fund ; and it is of course possible that if the con- 
 tingency did not arise, that fund might become a source of profit to 
 the local authority ; but I do not think that it would be fair, 
 looking at the development of the population and the needs of 
 markets, that they should be hampered; I think they should have 
 a contingency fund, and a means of meeting these difficulties.
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 99 
 
 You say that the rates should be primarily in the interests of 
 the consumer, and that the powers of the authorities should be 
 so limited that they should not check the supply of foods ; but is 
 it in any case their interest to check the supply of food ? — I do 
 not think it is in any case their interest to do so, but I think they 
 have very often done it. 
 
 In what way ? — I think by high tolls in some cases ; and by 
 stupid regulations, if I may be permitted to say so, w^hich give 
 preference in other cases ; and I think the fact that what the 
 French call la petite culture is more attended to on the Continent, 
 and that produce finds its way from France, and from other parts 
 of Europe into England, instead of from close handy, shows that 
 they have done so. 
 
 But is not that part of the general system by which dealings 
 on a large scale are generally more profitable than dealings on a 
 small scale ? — I am not sure that it is clear, that to the public 
 ■consuming and raising foods, dealings on a large scale are more 
 profitable. I am sure that to the conveyers of produce, such as 
 the railway companies, to the factors who deal as middle men 
 between suppliers at a distance and consumers at home, large 
 quantities are a benefit ; but I am not speaking for the factors, 
 the middle-men, and the conveyers of produce. What I would 
 suggest is that by facilitating the small raising of food produce 
 here you develop industry, and you increase opportunities of 
 employment as well as make the food cheaper. 
 
 Do I correctly understand that you would give any special 
 advantage to the very small traders in the market ? — Special 
 advantage, no ; but I would not have such a minimum rate of 
 stallage or toll as should preclude it from being profitable to the 
 small sellers to come in. 
 
 You think that the minimum is apt to be fixed too high ? — I 
 think so. I consider that the tendency of all regulations should 
 be to encourage the small dealers ; but I do not think that the 
 encouragement should ever be in the nature of giving a special 
 advantage to a special man, because he is a small man. 
 
 You only wish to put him upon an equal footing with others, 
 and that cannot be done unless a very low minimum rate is 
 fixed ? — Quite so. 
 
 H 2
 
 loo SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 You have not touched upon one subject which has been raised 
 before this Commission, I mean as to that kind of monopoly 
 which the existing law gives to a market for a certain distance 
 round ; would you in all cases do away with that ? — I should do 
 away with it. 
 
 Even in the case of a borough, you would not allow any 
 private person to set up a new market, I presume ? — I think that 
 all markets should be in the hands of local authorities, and there- 
 fore, necessarily, I would not. 
 
 You have said that no markets should be in private hands ; 
 therefore, clearly, that would exclude the possibility of any private 
 person setting up a new market ? — Quite so. 
 
 But subject to that, and all markets being in the hands of 
 some public authority, you would leave the authority to determine 
 how many markets there should be ? — Yes. There is just one 
 point which has occurred to me on that, and on which I am not 
 quite sure that my law would be right. I remember that in the 
 case of the Spitalfields Market, and the Great Eastern Railway 
 Company, some shops were held to be markets ; I should not in 
 what I have just said about private markets include shops as 
 markets. 
 
 It would be necessary carefully to distinguish what is a shop 
 and what is a market ? — Yes. 
 
 Then you say that the local authorities ought to have power 
 to make new rules for markets where desired ; that, I presume, 
 would be inherent in their authority, would it not ? — Not only 
 should they have power to do so, but I think that they should be 
 bound, say, within two or three years (the time is a matter of 
 detail), to examine and revise their rules now existing in all cases; 
 that those should be submitted to the Local Government Board, 
 if that be the proper authority, for examination and confirmation ; 
 and that the mere fact that they have existed for some time 
 should give them no sort of sanctity so far as that is concerned. 
 
 Then you would let the Local Government Board have 
 power to compel them to make new rules if necessary ? — Yes. 
 
 Would you give the Local Government Board a corresponding 
 power to veto any new rules ? — Yes, I would give them not only 
 the power to veto, but the duty of raising objections, if objections
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. lOI 
 
 were not raised before them ; my suggestion being that some of 
 the poorest who are most affected have neither the knowledge 
 nor the means, sometimes from want of knowing how to do it, 
 to go before the Local Government Board upon such points. 
 
 Lord Balfour of Burleigh: I should like a little further explan- 
 ation as to the exact local authority which is to be compulsorily 
 obliged to acquire markets in any given district ? — I think that 
 in each case it should be what you would ordinarily describe as 
 the local authority. It was rather for the purpose of raising 
 money generally that I put the County Councils. 
 
 Your desire being that those who use the market and benefit 
 by the market should have the management of it ? — That is to 
 say, that the representatives of those who use the market and 
 benefit by the market should have the management of it. 
 
 How will you insure that the constituency which elects these 
 representatives will be even generally the same as those for 
 whose benefit the market is established ? — It never will be en- 
 tirely so ; but there is nothing perfect in legislation at any rate, 
 and therefore we get the nearest we can to it. We cannot get 
 the local authorities elected by the consumers, nor would it be 
 fair with reference to other matters which they have to deal with ; 
 so that one takes, without making a fresh authority, the authority 
 which certainly will have the burden of taking charge of these 
 things and keeping them up and maintaining them. 
 
 But do not these difficulties, although they may be diffi- 
 culties of detail, suggest some doubt in your mind as to the 
 wisdom of compelling the local authority, as distinguished from 
 empowering it, to buy up and manage markets ? — No. 
 
 Would not the evil of one set of people managing a market, 
 which is used largely by and established for others, arise in the 
 case which I have just put ? — Yes ; but the evils on balance do 
 not appear to me to be shown to be so great in the case of 
 management by local authorities as in the case of management 
 by private individuals. I think that if we take markets now 
 •existing in the hands of local authorities, even allowing to the 
 fullest all objections that may be urged against them, they 
 liave been much more beneficial to the people than those in the 
 hands of private owners.
 
 102 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 But would it not be, as the Chairman suggested to you in one 
 of his questions, that when these grievances did exist, if the 
 local authorities had the power, they would be quick to act ; but 
 that when they thought that the difficulties that would occur 
 would be greater than the existing evils, they would not act, 
 and that therefore it would be a pity to do away with the 
 elasticity of the system ? — I do not see my way to modify the 
 answer which I have already given. 
 
 I understood you, I think, to say that this special tribunal 
 was to investigate the title, and the manner in which the present 
 owner of the market had discharged his duty ? — Yes. 
 
 How far back would you go in that investigation ? — I think 
 that in order to prevent harassment, it would be a fair thing to 
 limit the time to which they should go back, but I have not 
 considered the point at which the limits should be fixed. I 
 think they should ascertain first what the original charter was,. 
 and unless there had been clear evidence of greater advantages 
 having been afforded at particular times which had subsequently 
 been diminished, there should be some limit as to the time of 
 going back. 
 
 Could you suggest any limit ? — No, I have not sufficiently 
 considered it to suggest a limit, but I should see no harm in 
 limiting it to the last 40 years, or something of that kind. 
 
 Did I rightly understand you to say that when, in the 
 opinion of this tribunal, insufficient accommodation had been 
 provided, you would only allow seven years' purchase of any 
 net revenue which was going into the pockets of the present 
 holder of the market ? — Unless the charter owner could show 
 that he had tried to provide sufficient accommodation, and that 
 he had been prevented from providing it, as might be in some 
 cases by the adjoining owner of private land asking an exorbitant 
 price, or by the local authorities preventing him, as they might 
 do, supposing that the powers in their hands happened to 
 conflict with his. 
 
 Would you lay down a hard and fast rule that if a man had 
 spent a considerable sum of money, but not in the opinion of the 
 tribunal a sufficient sum, you would still give him only a seven 
 years' purchase of the revenue that he is deriving from bond Jide
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. I03 
 
 expenditure ? — Certainly, if the tribunal found it to be insufficient, 
 because, although it might be considerable, so far as that 
 individual was concerned, it might be absolutely ridiculous as 
 compared with the population for whom he ought to have pro- 
 vided the accommodation. 
 
 But you would have, would you not, to allow a very con- 
 siderable amount of discretion to the tribunal, because the 
 necessity for increased accommodation might have arisen very 
 suddenly, or the trade might have increased very rapidly ? — 
 I think there should be very wide discretion in the tribunal, 
 because so many new matters with no precedent to guide them 
 in coming to a decision would arise. 
 
 Would you allow any appeal from the decision of that 
 tribunal ? — It would depend upon what the tribunal was. If 
 the tribunal was a Division of the High Court (and I ara 
 inclined to think that that would be an expensive tribunal) I 
 should think not ; but if a special tribunal was erected of an 
 inferior character (not using the word in any disrespectful 
 sense), then I think there might be, and perhaps ought to 
 be, an appeal to the High Court of Justice ; but I would 
 not have it appealable to the Court of Appeal and to the 
 House of Lords ; I do not think there should be that 
 expense, because that might be practically ruinous to the 
 one side or the other. 
 
 They would have to deal so much with matter of fact, at 
 least, as much with matters of fact as with matters of law, that 
 you think that an appeal to a Court as such would not be satis- 
 factory ? — No, I am not putting it in that way ; I only thought 
 that one appeal to an independent tribunal was sufficient, because 
 the questions that arose would be very limited ; but, on that, 
 I have not a very definite opinion. 
 
 On what principle do you think that the revenue derivable 
 from the markets should be raised — upon rents for the accom- 
 modation of the people who wished to sell, or duty upon packages 
 of goods going in ? — I think that the guiding principle should 
 be to let all produce come in on the easiest terms, and what- 
 ever method was found to involve the easiest terms, consistent 
 with the convenience of the market, I think should be adopted.
 
 104 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 I have not special knowledge enough to enable me to answer the 
 question otherwise. 
 
 Should the local authority that owns the market in the first 
 instance fix the method ? — As I suggested in my statement in 
 chief, I think it is possible that the framing of general regulations, 
 and so on, will have to be done by some authority, as a general 
 guide in this matter. There will always be special instances at 
 seaports and inland places, places easily accessible by rail, 
 and places not easily accessible by rail, places where the sur- 
 rounding population is of a character likely to bring in small 
 quantities of produce, and places practically excluded from that, 
 where different reasons would operate ; and I should hardly 
 like to express a more definite opinion. 
 
 Surely, as a general principle, it would be better that the 
 local authority should make the first draft of the byelaws, and 
 then submit it to the revising authority ? — Clearly, I think so. 
 
 In your opinion, what should that revising authority be, the 
 Local Government Board or the County Council ? — I have no 
 objection to the Local Government Board except this : that I 
 think the less we go to the centre the better ; and as you have 
 got your local authorities now, they, with special local knowledge, 
 ought to be far better able to say what is right than the central 
 authority, which must get information somehow with somebody 
 to guide it. 
 
 You would be in favor of transferring the powers from the 
 Local Government Board to the County Council ? — I think so. 
 
 One risk would be that you would thereby not perhaps secure 
 regulations on the same general principles ? — I see no reason 
 why you should not have them on the same general principles, 
 if the general principles are expressed in the legislation, which 
 is what I have suggested. 
 
 But if the general principles can be laid down in the legisla- 
 tion, you would like to see the confirming power transferred to 
 the County Council ? — Yes, certainly. 
 
 What are the small growers and producers, to whom you 
 particularly refer as being put to a disadvantage, in comparison 
 with those who produce abroad ? — I will take a case at once. I 
 was lecturing in a northern town, and I was having my tea
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 105 
 
 with a friend who attended the lecture, a working man working 
 in a mill. His wife raised eggs, and I went carefully into the 
 statement with her as to the cost of the fowls and food, and I 
 found that this poor woman was making a profit of some 6s. or 
 7s. per week, not a large sum perhaps for the Commission to 
 •consider, but a very large sum for them. This woman appeared 
 to be very lucky in the position in which she was. The small 
 cottage in which they lived, in a small street, happened to abut 
 upon some waste land which is the property of the municipality 
 of Rochdale, and for a very trifling sum she had the permission 
 to let her fowls run over it, so that she conducted it at great 
 advantage there. But I would suggest that there are many 
 cases in the agricultural districts in which that advantage 
 might be easily acquired. First, I think that there are instances 
 showing that the persons who might keep the fowls and raise 
 the eggs are prevented from doing so ; and there are others in 
 which there is no inducement to the parties to make the exertion. 
 
 Of course it is obvious from your statement that the indi- 
 vidual to whom you refer in this case conducted her business 
 under exceptional advantages ? — No doubt. 
 
 But what is there in the existing market regulations, or in 
 any regulations which you dread in the future, to put at a dis- 
 advantage those who can conduct such a business as you 
 describe ? — That very case illiistrates it. This woman might 
 occasionally have sold her eggs for a better price to the hawkers 
 who would have taken them round, and thus have saved her 
 the trouble of taking them to her customers ; but she was 
 prevented from doing so by the regulations in force at Rochdale, 
 of which, I think, the Commissioners have evidence. 
 
 Would those regulations have been relaxed in favor of those 
 sending in eggs from abroad ? — Oh, yes. 
 
 Why so ? — The eggs come in from abroad, and they do not 
 come into the hawkers' hands at all. You see abroad the 
 equivalent of your hawker only as a collector, and not as a 
 distributor. He goes round and collects from all these small 
 people, and delivers to the factors that which is sent by cheap 
 through rates: to take my own illustration, to a large egg vendor 
 in Rochdale, to whom those who want eggs have to go.
 
 Io6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 If there were any large number of small producers in this 
 country, what is there in any regulations which, you apprehend, 
 would prevent the collector going round in the same way, 
 and handing the produce in large quantities to the sellers ? — You 
 will never, I think, have an attempt at small growth here until 
 the people are reasonably sure of a fair possible profit upon their 
 exertions. 
 
 With regard to your recommendations on the subject of 
 hawkers, is it your view that persons should be absolutely free 
 to hawk goods without any intervention on the part of the local 
 authorities ? — Except the police regulations, which apply to 
 hawkers generally. 
 
 Such as that they must not be an annoyance by their cries, 
 and so forth ? — Those are the ordinary kind of regulations, 
 which I do not propose should be interfered with. 
 
 You do not object to those regulations ? — I do not consider 
 that it comes within my province to examine them. 
 
 I understood your recommendation to be so general that you 
 would allow hawkers to go without any interference at all ? — 
 Without interference from market authorities; that was the 
 only kind of interference that I was referring to. 
 
 You made no recommendation then that the restrictions, 
 for the general convenience of the inhabitants should be re- 
 laxed ? — No. 
 
 Mr. Childers : I will not examine you upon your general plan,, 
 which appears to me perfectly homogeneous and self contained ; 
 but there is one point as to which I should like a little more 
 information. You propose to sweep away all private rights of 
 market altogether, and to confine market rights to local autho- 
 rities ; would you explain to the Commission precisely what you. 
 mean by market rights ? Market rights are a monopoly against 
 other people ; in what way would you restrain other people 
 from competing with the market ? — I would impose no new 
 restriction upon any one in competing with the markets. If one 
 had to deal with the thing now on a plain sheet of paper, I am 
 not at all sure that I should be disposed to advocate the creation 
 of market rights even on the part of local authorities ; but I have 
 to deal with a state of things which exists, and which, on the
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. I07 
 
 balance, seems to be attended with more advantage than disad- 
 vantage, and any attempt to aboHsh which entirely seems to me 
 to open the door to possible difficulties which I admit I have not 
 fully considered, and which I am not prepared to deal with. 
 Therefore this is rather an alleviation of existing evils, and as 
 making the best provision one can for food reaching those who 
 need it under the easiest and cheapest circumstances. 
 
 But would you kindly explain to the Commission what 
 restrictions you would still leave ? I think you said that you 
 would not allow any private persons to form a market in compe- 
 tition with an existing market ? — I have not contemplated that 
 it is at all possible that any private person would try to form a 
 market anywhere. I do not think that he could do so. In the 
 only cases in which there has been any attempt to form a 
 market by private persons, they have had to come to Parliament 
 for powers. There are two cases which were rejected, one, I 
 think, the year before last, and one the year before that. If a 
 private person was foolish enough to build a big market on land 
 which he had bought for the purpose, or which he had acquired 
 for the purpose, I would not interfere with him at all ; but I do 
 not think he would find it a wise investment for his money. 
 That private person would have no right to levy tolls ; he could 
 only take tolls by bargain with the people who chose to come 
 to his place, and if certain people chose to come to his place 
 and pay him so much for coming there, with no exclusive rights 
 against anybody else, except within the limits of his place, I do 
 not think I should impose any restrictions^ 
 
 Hitherto, of course, no private person could get a market 
 right, if he had no charter, even if he was within the distance, 
 except by Act of Parliament. The point that I want to put to you 
 is this : Do you propose that in the future, restrictions should 
 still continue, so that if I or a Company in possession of a certain 
 amount of land were to put up a market, I should be restrained 
 from putting up that market if it was within an area in which a 
 local authority had a market ? — My proposition does not deal 
 with that, because if you registered your Company, unless you 
 obtained statutory powers, which I should oppose and urge 
 ought not to be granted to you, you could not possibly acquire
 
 108 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 any exclusive market rights. All that you could do would be 
 to open a big building where people might come to sell and 
 where others might buy from them, but you could not possibly 
 have any sort of right against other people. 
 
 I was not dreaming of exclusive rights at all. — I should not 
 prevent it in such a case. 
 
 You would not draw any distinction in future between a 
 market and a shop. If I liked to establish a shop on such a very 
 large scale as that, it would be practically a market ; and if I 
 sold goods in it, you would not restrain me from doing so because 
 I was not a local authority ? — No, because it is clear that, as 
 against the local authority providing the accommodation, you 
 would have no inducement to do so ; for I am proposing that 
 the local authority itself shall be prevented from making profit 
 out of its market in relief of the rates, and there is no induce- 
 ment to a private individual to undertake a necessarily profitless 
 enterprize. 
 
 And therefore you would trust to that being a bad specula- 
 tion ? — I would trust to the things which govern ordinary trade. 
 
 You would not set up any Parliamentary objection to it, 
 so that I should be restrained before I even went into the 
 business at all, from considering whether I would do it or not ? 
 — My view is to encourage people to sell and to buy, not to pro- 
 hibit anyone from selling and buying. 
 
 On whatever scale ? — On whatever scale. 
 
 Even if I followed the ordinary machinery of a market on my 
 own property ? — You would not follow the ordinary machinery, 
 because you could not by law levy any tax ; you could only 
 make special bargains with the people, who came to you in each 
 instance, which would not be enforceable apart from the special 
 bargains. 
 
 But if I ran that risk, and made a special bargain in 
 each case, you would not prevent me ? — I should not prevent 
 you. 
 
 Then while you would encourage in every possible way, and 
 make it, in fact, compulsory upon certain local authorities to 
 establish markets, you would not interfere in the least with the 
 sale on their own property, by any person or company, of the
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. IO9 
 
 same goods which may be sold in the market ? — Most certainly 
 not. 
 
 Sir Thomas Martineau : Would your limit of the seven years' 
 purchase apply only to those cases where the owner had not, as 
 you think, done his duty under his charter, or in the provision of 
 the necessary accommodation ? — Not quite so. Where he had 
 not done his duty at all I would give him nothing : I think he 
 has too much already ; but where he had insufficiently done his 
 duty, and the insufficiency had not been caused by matters. 
 over which he had any control, I would give him limited com- 
 pensation. 
 
 In a case where everything has been done that he ought to 
 do, or could be expected to do, you would put no limit at all to 
 the compensation ? — No, I would leave that to the tribunal to 
 assess just as in the case of any other compulsory expropriation. 
 
 Without limit ? — I think that a man who has done his best 
 should be liberally dealt with when you cancel his ability to do 
 it any longer. 
 
 Are you aware that in some of these cases where there has 
 been a sale and purchase of rights, the future contingencies are 
 very largely taken into account in fixing the price ? — Yes, I 
 think that would be all matter for the tribunal to deal with. 
 
 So that it might be that a price would be fixed which was 
 not based altogether upon what had been received, but upon 
 the expectation of what the future receipts might be? — I must 
 not be taken as implying that there is any case conceivable to 
 me at the moment, in which increase beyond the actual value 
 can be considered ; but I should not like to exclude the possi- 
 bility of cases which I have not considered. 
 
 We have had evidence in one or two cases here of that hav- 
 ing very much affected the price which has been asked for 
 market rights. — I would suggest that sometimes local con- 
 siderations have operated very much — the very thing that I 
 have tried to exclude — in the settlement of local bargains. 
 
 If the price is to be regulated by future expectations, as well 
 as by what has been done in the past, it very much affects the 
 answer which you gave to the noble Chairman, as to tlie point 
 whether the income received by the present owner would be a
 
 no SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 fair equivalent for the purchase money fairly given by the local 
 authority ? — I would not take any larger methods of calculation 
 in examining and assessing the purchase money to be paid in 
 the case of an owner of market rights compulsorily expro- 
 priated, than I would in the case of any other individual com- 
 pulsorily expropriated, either by a railway company or by a 
 local authority for other purposes. 
 
 But the effect might be this : that a very large sum of money 
 would have to be found by the local authority, for which it 
 would not get any corresponding income at the time of its 
 purchase? — I cannot convey into my answer an assumption 
 that that is possible. I cannot assume any case in which the 
 assessment of the amount will involve the payment of 
 a sum of money for which return cannot be got. That 
 would seem to me to show at once that an improper sum 
 had been fixed. 
 
 Do you not think that if there had been a steady increase in 
 receipts for a long series of years, it is a very conceivable case 
 that an arbitration or special tribunal would so take that into 
 account that, in fixing a price, he would name a sum which 
 would cover the probable increase for a reasonable time ? — It 
 is quite impossible to answer a general question of that kind, 
 because I have in my mind now, a district not very far distant 
 from Sheffield, in which there had been a gradual increase of 
 population in connexion with a developing industry, and in 
 Avhich that increase has not only entirely ceased, but the 
 population has lamentably diminished by the transfer of that 
 industry to another place. I therefore could not give a specific 
 answer to the general question. 
 
 What I want to call your attention to is this : that if it 
 should be enacted that a local authority should be bound to buy 
 the markets, whether they wished it or not, whether they think 
 they can make it a good bargain or not, you may be landing 
 some of them in a very large outlay, for which they will not get 
 an immediate remuneration ? — I do not quite know whether the 
 stress of that question comes on the word "immediate", but I 
 cannot conceive any fairly assessed purchase money which 
 does not give them a return. If there is any stress on the word
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS III 
 
 ■*' immediate ", of course these local authorities never do im- 
 mediately get back their outlay. 
 
 Supposing that they do not get back their outlay for lo 
 years, which is a large part in the life of a ratepayer, it is a 
 •severe tax on the ratepayers in the meantime, is it not ? — I could 
 not, unless I had some special case to consider, bring my judg- 
 ment to bear on a proposition which does not seem to me at 
 present (I say it respectfully) well founded. 
 
 I will not pursue it further, except to ask whether you have 
 considered the possibility, in any legislation of that kind, of 
 making an exception in favor of cases where peculiar hardships 
 might be shown ? — No. I quite admit that all laws involve 
 some hardships ; I am not sure that any such hardship could 
 arise, but I do see the possibility of exceptions being very 
 dangerous in the destruction of the utility of legislation. 
 
 You would not even allow an exception under an order from 
 the Local Government Board, or any central board, on cause 
 being shown ? — I think that dispensing powers are not good 
 generally. 
 
 With reference to the byelaws, Lord Balfour asked you 
 about the confirming authority. A large number of the larger 
 boroughs and cities, as you have mentioned, are now governed 
 by County Councils ; I suppose that in those cases you would 
 still go for the confirmation of byelaws to the Local Govern- 
 ment Board ? — Yes ; I would not leave people to confirm their 
 •own byelaws. 
 
 And you would not take Liverpool to Lancaster, for in- 
 stance, or Birmingham to Warwick ? — Whatever the ordinary 
 law has done with reference to other matters in that respect, I 
 would not propose to make any exception, but to follow what 
 happened under the Local Government Act, to which I am sorry 
 to say I have not given quite sufficient attention from that point 
 ■of view. 
 
 Mr. Picton : His lordship put it to you that if the price were 
 fixed by the special tribunal that you have indicated, neither 
 purchaser nor seller would be consulted, but the price would be 
 fixed irrespective of both ; but I do not understand you to object 
 to the possibility of settlement by mutual arrangement ? — Yes,
 
 112 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 I rather think I should, and I will tell you why; I want to avoid 
 dealing with instances as to which my information may be doubt- 
 ful, and which would be unfair to persons mentioned in their 
 absence ; but I think I know instances in which, by mutual 
 agreement, sums have been already agreed to be paid, either as 
 cast down, or say as a sum of /"5000 a year for ever, which 
 have seemed to me to be open to objection, and I do not think 
 that local authorities should be permitted to make unfair agree- 
 ments. They would be exceptional cases, and they would be- 
 come more exceptional still as the thing went on. The interests: 
 require watching, as the evidence shows. 
 
 Are you aware that under the Elementary Education Act, 
 bargains made by School Boards have oftentimes to be approved 
 by the Education Department before the price is agreed upon ? 
 — I should have no objection on the ground of saving of expense. 
 If the persons came together and arrived at the sum, and that 
 was submitted to some authority for confirmation, there would 
 be no use putting people to the expense of ascertaining a thing 
 if they could reasonably agree upon it. 
 
 To that extent your answer would be modified? — If my 
 former answer implied more than that. 
 
 With regard to the necessity of compelling local authorities 
 to purchase, you ground that necessity on the interest of the 
 consumer, do you not ? — Yes. 
 
 As a universal rule, the objects of markets ought to be to 
 distribute commodities as cheaply as possible to the consumer ; 
 your view, as I take it is, that unless there was one universal 
 rule appHed, and all markets passed into the hands of the local 
 authorities, there would be some consumers neglected and 
 unfairly treated ? — Yes. 
 
 Mr. Ckarrington: With regard to compulsory purchase, the 
 case of a private market where the market owner offered it to 
 the public authority for the price which it had cost him was 
 before the Commission, but they, on looking into the figures, 
 considered it a bad investment on the part of the public, and 
 declined it. Now if there was compulsory purchase in such a 
 case as that, either the one or the other would be a great loser; 
 either the public would lose in giving too much, or the market
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. 
 
 113 
 
 owner would lose a great part of what he had spent ? — No ; with 
 submission, because either the price asked was a fair and 
 reasonable price, and the refusers were wrong in their judgment, 
 or it was too high. If the price was too high the vendor would 
 not get it from the tribunal ; and if the others had been mis- 
 taken in their judgment, there is no reason why they should 
 persist in it. 
 
 In this case the vendor only asked what he had spent upon 
 it ? — But it is quite possible that a man may have spent on a 
 horse more than the value of it. 
 
 Mr. Elton : It seems to me that by the details into which you 
 descended in your statement, you rather veiled the real idea that 
 underlay them. What you mean is not a series of purchases and 
 sales between contracting parties ; they are only dummies, and 
 they are not according to your plan, as I understand it, to 
 contract at all. What you want is to abolish the existing system 
 of markets, with compensation to private owners on proper 
 rules ? — Quite so. 
 
 I have heard the discussion, and I daresay it has occurred to 
 you that there may be difficulties, if you express it in language, 
 in saying " purchase" when you really mean abolition ? — Yes. 
 
 The theory of the English markets, so far as it has appeared 
 in the Blue Books, seems to be rather what you said, that it is a 
 monopoly of taking toll granted in consideration of public con- 
 venience being provided ? — That is my view, and if I may be 
 permitted to say so, I think the public are very much indebted 
 to the Commission for the statement of the law and history of 
 the markets in the report already issued. 
 
 That accommodation was sometimes provided, of course, in 
 moderrit-imes, and sometimes m very ancient times. You rather 
 assumed in-line of your answers that if a person had given the 
 accommodation in very ancient times, and had never given any 
 since, he could not possibly be legally taking the money now-a- 
 days for what his ancestors had done ; is that your view ? — If I 
 used the word "legally" I was, perhaps, thinking of the word 
 "morally ". 
 
 I venture to correct you, because you are no doubt aware 
 that it has been decided in the courts of law that a somewhat
 
 XI4 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 problematical antique benefit to the public is sufficient con- 
 sideration for a modern toll ? — Yes. I am not quite sure 
 whether, in these cases, the non-performance has been argued 
 with the help of the Attorney- General as a reason for stopping it. 
 
 The great case of Gunn v. The Free Fishers of Whitstable 
 was taken to the House of Lords, and it was laid down in that 
 case ; but that view you would modify at any rate ? — Yes, the 
 word " legally " was clearly a wrong word to have used. 
 
 Take a case where a person had provided accommodation in 
 this way : that when he built the town he left one of the streets 
 very much wider than the others, and called it a market place, 
 the market still being held there ; and he, perhaps, still the owner 
 of the soil, and, further, they have their markets there; would you 
 consider that sufficient accommodation ? — I would rather not put 
 myself in the position of the special tribunal to determine what 
 is sufficient. I do not consider that I have the ability to deter- 
 mine what is and what is not insufficient accommodation. 
 
 That follows from your previous answer. You said that you 
 would not regard the accommodation which was given in those 
 very ancient times as making a title to modern toll. I took a 
 well known case (I think it is Leeds) where, in one market, it was 
 stated that the owner left one of the streets a good deal wider 
 than the others, and called it a market place, and built the 
 town in that particular shape ; is that the kind of ancient 
 accommodation that you would disregard ? — That is a matter 
 upon which I would rather not express an opinion. I would 
 rather leave that to the tribunal whose duty it would be to 
 adjudicate upon it. 
 
 Then, of course, there is another view of markets which has 
 prevailed in some other countries, that the market is merely a 
 matter for the local authority to administer as an ordinary 
 matter of public convenience ; that is the view to which you 
 lean ? — If "public convenience" includes in it the getting to the 
 consumer in the easiest and cheapest manner all that he requires 
 of food produce. 
 • You would do away with monopoly as far as possible ? — Yes. 
 
 Either for persons or for classes ? — Yes. 
 
 Even for the class of the ratepayers of the place where the
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. II5 
 
 market is founded ? — I think that the ratepayers, in relation to 
 food, should have no rights superior to those of the consumers 
 of the food. I do not think that the ratepayers should have to 
 incur a special burden for the consumers, but they ought not to 
 have any privilege as against the consumers. 
 
 Instead of providing this food supply by means of a fran- 
 chise or privilege you would substitute a new principle of doing 
 it through local self-government ? — I think so. 
 
 Of course, there are a great number of private Acts regu- 
 lating markets over the country : I understand your view to be 
 that if you established a system of making market schemes 
 subject to proper bye-laws, you might follow some other 
 examples, and say that all Statutes and Acts inconsistent with 
 that scheme are hereby repealed ? — I think it might be as well 
 in the general legislation to repeal all these Statutes at the end 
 of, say, three years, so as to give sufficient time. 
 
 That is what we have done in the case of the Endowed 
 Schools Department ? — I quite agree that your opinion and 
 information upon that matter would be much more valuable than 
 mine. I have not sufficiently considered it as a point of detail, 
 and, therefore, I should not express an opinion upon it. 
 
 Would it not be more convenient not to go into all these 
 hundreds of Acts and abolish them separately, but to allow 
 schemes to override them when made ? — Except that I would 
 not leave them to live if by accident the schemes were not made. 
 Then with regard to the compensation, I understand that 
 you want to avoid the evils which have sometimes occurred in 
 the case of Lands Clauses Act compensation ; that is to say, over- 
 valuations and valuations on wrong principles, and local land 
 surveyors giving people large prices. Have you ever considered 
 the way in which the Land Commissioners manage the com- 
 pensation in the case of the enfranchisement, for example, of 
 copyholds ? — No, my information is very incomplete on that 
 point ; I have only very general information upon it. 
 
 Take the system to be something like this : that except the 
 parties agree a competent valuer shall go down, acting on certain 
 principles laid down, that he holds an inquiry and fixes the value, 
 that it is subject to an appeal to the Board of Agriculture, or to 
 
 I 2
 
 Il6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 the Land Commissioners, or the Local Government Board, or 
 whatever may be the tribunal existing at the time ; and that then, 
 if they do anything wrong, there should be an individual appeal 
 on the point of law by way of injunction or mandamus to a 
 court of law, but that a department should do it rather than a 
 tribunal in the sense of a court. Do you think that is a con- 
 venient system ? — I think it is. 
 
 Would not that work out your plan ? — I think it would. I 
 only used the word to avoid the difficulties which you have 
 already anticipated. However, that is a matter of detail. 
 
 You are not hard-and-fast devoted to having a judge, and 
 a court, and wigs, and all that sort of thing, in the case of 
 every market in England ? — Certainly not, if it were possible to 
 avoid it. 
 
 You take it that it might well be considered whether that 
 Land Commission plan, subject to an appeal in case of a legal 
 point arising, might not be the best method of dealing with the 
 matter ? — Yes, and I think that it would be an advantage to 
 deprive any such negotiations of the character of htigation. 
 
 Unless a point of law arose ? — Unless there was an absolute 
 necessity. 
 
 What you said about model bye-laws and model schemes is 
 carried out in other departments, and that, of course, would be 
 most convenient. Then, putting it shortly, the observations 
 which you have made about the principles on which compensa- 
 tion should be assessed would, in my view of a department 
 doing it, be laid down as rules ? — Yes. 
 
 Such rules as the Land Commissioners issue to the public 
 now about copyholds ? — Yes. 
 
 That in fixing the compensation the valuer should take into 
 account the following rules as to whether accommodation has 
 been properly provided, and so on ? — I would rather not go 
 into the " as to's " ; I am agreed in the main. 
 
 As to such points as those you have mentioned to-day ? — 
 Yes. I should not like to give a list of cases from which I 
 might omit something or in which I might improperly include 
 something. Such details, governed by what I have already said, 
 I should think ought to be included.
 
 MARKET RIGHTS AND TOLLS. II7 
 
 The principle which you suggest, or something like this, 
 might be embodied in rules for the guidance of the tribunal ? — 
 Yes, or any principles which the Commissioners finally considered 
 should govern the matter. 
 
 I will not go into such details as those of sham markets. 
 You would not interfere with stores ; anybody who tried to set 
 up a sham market would not get any compensation ? — No. 
 Perhaps I may be permitted to add that I do not think that 
 anybody setting up any kind of market from now, ought to be 
 entitled to any compensation under any legislation. 
 
 You told us that they could not set up any market at all, in 
 which I quite agree ? — That is so. 
 
 When you started the discussion which led to this Com- 
 mission being appointed, you mentioned two or three towns in 
 which I am interested ; I should like to know whether you have 
 made further inquiry as to those, or whether you have read the 
 evidence. I see that you have been speaking of them quite lately ; 
 have you any special objection to the way in which the markets 
 in those three towns, Taunton, Bridgewater, and Chard, are 
 conducted, or do you wish to modify the observations that you 
 have made ? — If the Commission will permit me, I may only say 
 that I have read as carefully as it is possible the whole of the 
 voluminous evidence which has been taken, except the batch 
 which reached me last night. If I may say so, I am perfectly 
 content with the case as the Commission has taken it ; I think 
 that it has been most exhaustively taken ; and I have no desire 
 to make any kind of comment upon it. Naturally my speech in 
 Parliament, though I tried to make it as accurate as I could, 
 was made upon the^;^ parte statements that reached me up to that 
 time, and I would rather not put it as in any way clashing with 
 the evidence that has been taken. There was one obvious error, 
 I think, as to Bridgewater, which I corrected in the Times 
 the following week. I think, if I may be permitted to say so, 
 the case which I submitted has been more than made out. 
 
 With regard to the cases of Taunton, Bridgewater, and Chard, 
 subject to the correction which you have already made in 
 public, you prefer that the evidence should be taken as it has 
 been published by the Commission, rather than that we should
 
 ii8 
 
 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 go back to the statements which might possibly have been (I 
 do not say they were) inaccurate in some points ? — Certainly. 
 I should prefer that the Commission disregarded the speech I 
 made on that occasion entirely so far as regards matter of fact, 
 because it was made on imperfect information. I think it has 
 been more than substantiated right through, but there may be 
 inaccuracies as to place, or date, or detail. 
 
 And you refer us to the evidence on those points ? — Quite so. 
 
 Chairman : Is there anything that you wish to add ? — Nothing 
 at all except to express my regret for having detained you so 
 long.
 
 RELIGIOUS PROSECUTIONS ABOLITION BILL. 
 
 House of Commons, 12th April, 1889. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, — the Bill, the second reading of which I have 
 asked the House to pass, is directed against prosecutions which 
 are partly prosecutions at common law and partly prosecutions 
 by Statute. The Statute is the 9th and loth William III, 
 chapter 35, and that Statute enacts that any person convicted of 
 blasphemy shall, for the first offence, be adjudged incapable and 
 disabled in law, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, to have, 
 to hold, or enjoy any office or offices, employment or employ- 
 ments ; and shall, for a second offence, be adjudged disabled 
 from being a plaintiff or defendant in any suit, or from being the 
 guardian of his own children, or from being capable of receiving 
 any legacy, and shall be liable to imprisonment for the space of 
 three years. The Act has been held to be supplemental to the 
 common law. I may best describe the Statute by using the 
 words of Lord Coleridge, uttered in a case which was tried six 
 years ago. In the course of the defence, the Statute had been 
 described as shocking, and Lord Coleridge said : " Some old 
 things, and amongst them this Statute, are shocking enough, and 
 I do not defend them". In a judgment which Lord Justice 
 Lindley delivered in 1885, His Lordship spoke of this Statute 
 as cruel in its operation against the persons against whom it was 
 directed. The Statute of 6th of George, chapter 47, which 
 applies to Scotland, makes the offence punishable by 14 years' 
 transportation. Now, Mr. Justice Stephen in his " History of 
 the Criminal Law", which was written and passed through the 
 Press in 1882, although it was pubHshed in 1883, wrote : 
 *' Offences against religion can hardly be treated as an actually 
 
 ("9)
 
 120 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 existing head of our criminal law. Prosecutions for such 
 offences are still theoretically possible in a few cases, but they 
 have in practice become entirely obsolete." Unfortunately, 
 whilst the History was passing through the press, several 
 prosecutions were initiated. One of these cases was tried at 
 Maidstone ; two were tried at the Old Bailey ; and two, in one 
 of which I was myself the defendant, were removed by certiorari 
 to the High Court, and were tried before the present Lord Chief 
 Justice of England. Here are two views of the law which it is 
 my duty to submit to the House, one, the view taken by the 
 present Lord Chief Justice of England — namely, that it 
 is only the manner of a blasphemous libel which should 
 be censured, and that a calm, and clear, and cool statement 
 of views could not bring a person within the operation of 
 the laws relating to blasphemy ; and the other, the view which, 
 with all submission to the great Judge who has expressed the 
 contrary opinion, I am afraid is the real view of the law — the 
 view which was formed by Mr. Justice Stephen and Mr. Justice 
 Hawkins sitting in the Queen's Bench Division, and which was 
 mentioned in the charge of Mr. Justice North in the trials at the 
 Old Bailey ; and formed in the case of the Attorney-General v. 
 Bradlaugh reported in the Weekly Reporter, vol. 433, especially 
 by Lord Justice Lindley. It seems to me that the real state of 
 the law has been very fully explained by Mr. Justice Stephen in 
 an article that appeared in the Fortnightly Review, and which 
 had been published in examination and criticism of the charge 
 of Lord Coleridge to the jury in the case of the Queen v. Foote 
 and others. Mr. Justice Stephen there urges that the law as 
 it now stands is a bad law, and recommends the very measure 
 which I am bringing before the House to-night. It is right, 
 however, I should state Lord Coleridge's view — the view that 
 it is the manner and not the matter of the blasphemous libel 
 which should be considered — before I put what I conceive is, 
 unfortunately, the real view of the law. Lord Coleridge says : 
 " It is clear, therefore, to my mind that the mere denial of the 
 truth of the Christian religion is not enough alone to constitute 
 the offence of blasphemy ; " and he goes on to point out that all 
 prosecutions for blasphemy, according to his view, tend to failure.
 
 RELIGIOUS PROSECUTIONS ABOLITION BILL, 121 
 
 Further on in his judgment, Lord Coleridge says : " Persecution, 
 unless thorough-going, seldom succeeds. Irritation, annoyance, 
 punishment which stops short of extermination, very seldom 
 alter men's religious convictions. Entirely without one fragment 
 of historical exaggeration, I may say that the penal laws which 
 50 or 60 years ago were enforced in Ireland were unparalleled in 
 the history of the world. They existed 150 years ago ; they 
 produced upon the religious convictions of the Irish people 
 absolutely no effect whatever." I submit to the House, that all 
 kinds of enactments which are in the nature of persecution for 
 opinion, are enactments which fail in doing anything except 
 driving the expression of opinion into its worst and roughest 
 forms, and therefore, they ought not to be desired by anyone 
 who has in any degree any faith in any kind of liberty. Mr. 
 Justice Stephen, reviewing the charge of Lord Coleridge, a 
 charge which he praises in language not too strong, says : " My 
 only objection to it is that I fear that its merits may be transferred 
 illogically to the law which it expounds and lays down, and that 
 thus a humane and enlightenedjudgment may tend to perpetuate 
 a bad law by diverting public attention from its defects. The 
 law I regard as essentially and fundamentally bad." Now 
 when a learned judge, who is now engaged in trying cases, can 
 thus describe this portion of the law, I think I can submit there 
 is something like a prima facie case for its repeal. Lord Justice 
 Lindley in delivering judgment in the case of the Attorney- 
 General V. Bradlaugh adds : " It is a mistake to suppose, and I 
 think it as well the mistake should be known, that persons who 
 do not believe in a Supreme Being are in the state in which 
 it is now commonly supposed they are. There are old Acts of 
 Parliament still unrepealed by which such people can be cruelly 
 persecuted." And it was because Lord Justice Lindley found 
 this law on the Statute Book, that he said he felt constrained 
 to hold it as he did in the case then before him. What 
 is the state of the law ? I prefer to put it in the words of Mr. 
 Justice Stephen rather than in my own. He quotes in support 
 of his statement a large number of cases, and he proceeds : " The 
 result of the examination of the authorities appears to me to be 
 that to this day Blackstone's definition of blasphemy must be
 
 122 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 taken to be true ; and, if this is the case, it follows that a large 
 part of the most serious and most important literature of the 
 day is illegal — that, for instance, every bookseller who sells, 
 every one who lends to his friend, a copy of Comte's Positive 
 Philosophy, or of Kenan's Vie de Jesus, commits a crime punish- 
 able with fine and imprisonment. It may be said that so 
 revolting a consequence cannot be true; but, unfortunately, 
 this is not the case. I suppose no one will, or indeed can deny 
 that if any person educated as a Christian, or having ever made 
 profession of the Christian religion, denied that the Bible was 
 of divine authority, even by word of mouth, he would incur the 
 penalties of the 9 and 10 William III, c. 32. I will take a 
 particular instance by way of illustration of this. The late Mr. 
 Greg was not only a distinguished author, but an eminent and 
 useful member of the Civil Service. I suppose he was educated 
 as a Christian, and no one could have a stronger sympathy with 
 the moral side of Christianity. In every one of his works the 
 historical truth of the Christian history is denied : and so is the 
 divine authority of the Old and New Testament. If he had 
 been convicted of publishing these opinions, or even of express- 
 ing them to a friend in private conversation, his appointment 
 would have become void, and he would have been adjudged 
 incapable and disabled in law to hold any office or employment 
 whatever; in a word, he would have lost his income and his 
 profession. Upon a second conviction, he must have been 
 imprisoned for three years, and incapacitated, amongst other 
 things, to sue or accept any legacy. About this there neither is, 
 nor can be, any question whatever." And after a long and 
 careful summary of the law, as laid down in many decisions, 
 Mr. Justice Stephen winds up : " In my own opinion the practical 
 inference is that blasphemy and blasphemous libel should cease 
 to be offences at common law at all, that the Statute of William 
 III should be repealed, and that it should be enacted that no 
 one, except a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England, 
 should be liable to ecclesiastical censures for ' atheism, blas- 
 phemy, heresy, schism, or any other opinion'. Such an 
 abolition would not only secure complete liberty of opinion on 
 these matters, but it would prevent the recurrence at irregular
 
 RELIGIOUS PROSECUTIONS ABOLITION BILL. 123 
 
 intervals of scandalous prosecutions, which have never, in any 
 one instance, benefited anyone, least of all the cause which they 
 were intended to serve, and which sometimes afford a channel 
 for the gratification of private malice under the cloak of religion." 
 I ask this House to give eflfect to what the learned Judge has 
 said. I know there are one or two arguments that may be used 
 to weigh heavily against me. One is, that the class for whom I 
 speak is a comparatively small class. (Mr. DeLisle : " Hear, 
 hear.") There would be no reason in denying liberty to one 
 man, even if he stood alone. Every opinion, in every age, has 
 been at some time small ; and those who hold opinions which, 
 within 100 years, have been the subject of cruel persecutions 
 within this realm, should be the last to endorse the doctrine of 
 persecution against those weaker than themselves. It may be 
 urged that the severe penalties of the law are seldom enforced. 
 It is only about 50 years ago that, under this Act, one man 
 suffered nine years and eight months' imprisonment in this 
 country, and was also condemned to pay an enormous fine. It did 
 not check his issuing the literature against which the prosecution 
 was directed. It only had the effect of endearing him to a large 
 number of people, and of making many purchase the writings he 
 issued, who might otherwise not have done so. I hardly like to 
 seem to be thrusting my personal case upon the House, but I 
 may be permitted to remind the House that the declaration has 
 been made very formally, in print, that the prosecution which 
 was directed against me was initiated for the direct purpose of 
 disqualifying me, under this Statute, for the term of my natural 
 life, from taking part in the political work of the country. I 
 submit to the House that, ruling as it does over 330,000,000 of 
 human beings, of every kind of faith or lack of faith, it is our 
 duty to treat all alike. What is the effect of the law as it 
 stands? Two years ago a legacy was left to myself and a 
 gentleman in Manchester for the purpose of endowing an 
 institution. We were all persons who might have been indicted 
 as blasphemers under the law. The legacy was left for purely 
 educational purposes, but the legacy was set aside, first of all 
 in the Court of the Palatine of Lancaster, and next on appeal, 
 on the ground that a bequest for such a purpose was an illegal
 
 124 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 bequest and voidable. It may be said: " we would not object to 
 your being allowed to utter your views, but we object to your 
 uttering your views in offensive language ". But if persons 
 utter their views in an offensive manner, and so as to provoke a 
 breach of the peace, they are punishable under the law as it now 
 stands. The fact that the law is not always enforced ; the fact 
 that it is seldom enforced ; the fact that Mr. Justice Stephen in his 
 *' History of the Criminal Law " describes the law as obsolete; 
 the fact that Lord Justice Lindley has referred to the law as 
 cruel in its operation, should tend, I submit, to induce the 
 House to grant the Second Reading of this Bill. I can quite 
 understand it is possible that people will say that views differ- 
 ing from their own should not be offensively urged ; but that 
 brings in the question of the manner of the advocate rather than 
 that of the matter, and I put it to persons who hold this view, 
 whether the keeping on the Statute Book of this harsh and 
 cruel law does not deprive many of us, who may wish to tone and 
 temper argument, of any fair reason for checking harsh or hasty 
 speech or utterance. Again, let me point out that the word 
 *' blasphemy " for which you punish to-day, has been an ever- 
 changing word. It is only 240 years ago that a man, Naylor, the 
 Quaker, of the same faith as the man (Mr. Bright) whom all of us 
 in this House honored, was tried for blasphemy. George Fox, 
 William Penn, and scores of their co-workers were sent to goal, 
 or whipped at the cart tail as blasphemers. The Unitarians, 
 had they lived even later than the times of which I have just 
 spoken, would have come within the penalties of this Statute, 
 which Lord Coleridge says gives a ferocious power against 
 people, and which Lord Justice Lindley condemns as an essen- 
 tially bad law. I feel that this is not a time of night to trespass 
 unduly on the attention of the House. I can only appeal to the 
 generosity of the majority, but I would point out to them the 
 position in which they put those who differ from them when they 
 lack generosity themselves. I have sometimes tried to argue 
 with my friends in France against the strict enforcement some 
 of them have put on the Anti-Clerical laws; they have answered 
 me, "the Church shows us no mercy". It is that kind of 
 unfortunate spirit which treats opinion as if it were a crime, and
 
 RELIGIOUS PROSECUTIONS ABOLITION BILL. I25 
 
 thought as if it were a crime, when the very honesty of the 
 utterance of that thought, that expression of opinion, shows you 
 that the persons against whom you direct your Statute have at 
 least the virtue of honesty to redeem their action from being 
 classed with that of the ordinary criminal. It is against this 
 unfortunate spirit I am arguing; it is for these people I am 
 pleading to-night. I am pleading for many who have found 
 trusts for their children cancelled, as was the case with a 
 member of this House, honored while sitting in it because of the 
 family to which he belonged, and for the great name and greater 
 traditions associated with it — I mean Lord Amberley. He 
 found his trust for his children cancelled, because the man 
 whom he honored enough to give the trust, might have been 
 brought within the scope of this statute. It is too late to-day 
 to keep these penalties on the Statute Book. The Bill may not 
 receive sanction for its second reading to-night; but it is some- 
 thing — and I thank the House for it — that the House has 
 listened patiently and generously to an appeal made on behalf 
 of an unpopular minority ; and one day or other justice will 
 have to be done, and I ask the House to do it whilst those for 
 whom they are asked to do it are few and weak, rather than 
 leave us to win, as win we will, that outside public opinion by 
 the ballot which determines what the law shall be. 
 
 XKS^
 
 PERPETUAL PENSIONS. 
 
 House of Commons f May i6, 1889. 
 
 Mr Speaker,— I beg to move "That this House dissent 
 from so much of the proposals of the First Lord and Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, contained in the Treasury Minute of July 20, 
 1888, relating to perpetual pensions, as proposes ' that holders 
 of pensions, allowances, and payments which the law officers of 
 the Crown consider to be permanent in character, and to which 
 no obligations of an onerous kind attach, should be invited to 
 commute such pensions, allowances, or payments on the same 
 terms as have been accepted in the numerous cases already 
 commuted ' ; and this House approve the Report of the Select 
 Committee on Perpetual Pensions, * that the rate of commuta- 
 tion usually adopted, of about 27 years' purchase, is too high ' ". 
 In view, sir, of what I understand to be the general wish of the 
 House, that an early division should take place upon the 
 motion, I do not intend to cumber the discussion with matters 
 of personal detail of the pensions which can be found by all hon. 
 members in the Report of the Select Committee — in the 
 evidence, as well as in the appendices to the Report. I shall 
 only take the distinction made by that Report, namely, that 
 there are some pensions, not many, granted for services rend- 
 ered, and a great many ranking under circumstances difficult to 
 justify at any time, and almost impossible to justify with the 
 feeling at present prevalent in the House. I hope it will not be 
 necessary to treat the subject as a party question, although the 
 Government may feel bound to defend a minute for which, as 
 it is, I presume, the work of the Permanent Secretary to the 
 Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is nominally respon- 
 sible. At no time has the agitation on the question been of a 
 
 ( 126 )
 
 PERPETUAL PENSIONS. I27 
 
 party character, and the vote to be taken will not, I hope, be 
 made by the Government one of mere party allegiance. When 
 I had the honor'^ef bringing this motion before the House — very 
 imperfectly, it is true — in the short autumn Session of 1881, I 
 presented a number of petitions, a large proportion of the 
 signatures to which were those of Conservatives. Now, to-night, I 
 am merely asking the House to stand by the decision of its own 
 Committee — a decision not arrived at by a party or majority 
 vote, but with absolute unanimiity and with the consent of her 
 Majesty's Attorney-General, who then represented the Govern- 
 ment very effectively upon that Committee. The constitution of 
 the Committee shows ten supporters of the Government, and seven 
 members of the Opposition, and I think that without exceed- 
 ingly strong grounds, grounds which I have never yet heard 
 alleged, it will be almost to much to imagine that the 
 House will repudiate the decision of the Committee, which has 
 been practically endorsed by the House itself, in a resolution of 
 March 23, 1888. I hope that the House will on this occasion, 
 as it usually does, support Committees which have been at 
 great pains to examine into grave matters, involving much 
 detail, and that it will not hastily and lightly dismiss from its 
 attention a judgment arrived at after full consideration, after 
 many sittings, and with the absolute and active concurrence of 
 the Attorney-General and nine supporters of the Government. 
 The resolution arrived at by the Committee was to the effect 
 that steps should be taken forthwith to determine hereditary 
 pensions and allowances, with due regard to the just claims of 
 the respective recipients, and to economy in the public service. 
 In consequence of that resolution, the minute with which I 
 disagree was laid on the table of the House on July 20 last, and 
 20 days had to elapse before it could come into force. As the 
 minute, however, was in print during only the last three days 
 of the interval, it was impossible to challenge it at the time. A 
 day for its discussion was promised in the adjourned session last 
 year, but the promise could not be fulfilled, and therefore, 
 though nearly a year has elapsed since the minute was first laid 
 on the table of the House, the delay in challenging it has not 
 been due to any fault of mine. This opportunity is now given
 
 128 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 me, in accordance with the terms of the letter sent me by the 
 First Lord of the Treasury, specifically promising an early day 
 this Session. In the minute the Government agree that pen- 
 sions, allowances, and payments ought not in future to be 
 granted in perpetuity ; that offices with salaries and without 
 duties, or with mere nominal duties, ought to be abolished ; and 
 that the existence of all perpetual pensions, allowances, and 
 payments should be determined and abolished. The Govern- 
 ment, having agreed to that last declaration, are hardly dealing 
 fairly with the House if they propose to give all pensioners, in 
 abolishing their pensions, a sum which would realise to them 
 for ever an amount nearly equal to the pension. I see the 
 Chancellor does not agree with me, but I am going to quarrel 
 with his arithmetic, if the House will bear with me. 
 
 Mr Goschen : We do not propose to give in each and every 
 case any particular sum. 
 
 I am delighted to hear that, but if there is to be a 
 distinction between cases it is a pity the Government have 
 not said so before. The Government say most accurately that 
 it is not in their power to bind their successors, and I am glad 
 of the admission, because it has weight in reference to a later 
 statement in the minute to the effect that the present Parlia- 
 ment and Government are bound by the Acts of previous Parlia- 
 ments and Governments. If the former declaration be true, 
 there can be no force in the latter one. I would urge as a prin- 
 ciple that no Parliament has the right to bind for ever all future 
 Parliaments in relation to payments which may come to be 
 considered as disastrous, fraudulent, and demoralising. The 
 Government state : " The remaining payments and pensions 
 due to individuals are i6 in number, involving a yearly cost of 
 nearly ;^i 2,000, while further annuities, amounting to between 
 ;£'23,ooo and ;^24,ooo a year, are mainly payable to bodies and 
 corporations ". I do not know whether the word " mainly" was 
 used accidentally or designedly, or whether it was used to cover 
 the fact that there are other individuals not included in the 16, 
 and other pensions not included in the ;^i 2,000. They are 25 
 in number, and I will read them to the House. It is just I 
 should say the Secretary to the Treasury has laid on the table
 
 PERPETUAL PENSIONS. X2g 
 
 to-day a paper in reference to this subject. In the paper there is a 
 statement that there are only i6 individuals receiving pensions. 
 Let me read my list to the House. It is one which members 
 can check for themselves from the appendices to the Report of 
 the Select Committee: "(i) Viscount Exmouth, ;^2ooo; (2) 
 Earl Nelson, ;^5ooo ; (3) Lord Rodney, £^2000 ; (4) Duke of 
 Grafton, officer of the Pipe, ;^62 gs. 8d. ; (5) Sir Edward Hulse, 
 ;^io 4s. 6d.; (6) Heirs of T. Warren, /12 7s. 2d.; (7) F. J 
 Prescott, ;£'26i 5s.; (8) E. Wadham, £g; (9) Duke of St Albans, 
 ^965; (10) Earl Dysart, £"75 los. ; (11) Lord Dauverquerque, 
 ;^375 i6s. ; (12) Marquis of Devonshire, ;^2i6 3s. 4d. ; (13) 
 Marquis of Devonshire, £1$ iSs. 4d. ; (14) Duchess of Lan- 
 caster, ;^8o3; (15) Duke of Cornwall, £16,216 i6s. ; (16) Sir 
 Patrick Walker's heirs, ;^242 15s.; (17) Duke of Hamilton, 
 ^45 los. ; (18) Mary Pendrell and Richard Pendrell's heirs, 
 ^100: (19) William Pendrell's heirs, ^100; (20) Jno. Pendrell's 
 heirs, 100 marks; (21) Humphrey Pendrell's heirs, 100 marks; 
 (22) George Pendrell's heirs, 100 marks ; (23) Elizabeth Yates' 
 heirs, ;^5o; (24) Duke of Grafton, ;^687o; (25) Duke of Rich- 
 mond, ;^i9,ooo." I, therefore, make the number of individuals 
 25, and the amount a few thousands more than ;^i2,ooo. 
 
 Mr. Goschen : Will the hon. gentleman refer to the particulars 
 of the grants to the Duke of Richmond and Duke of Grafton ? 
 
 I can quite understand why the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer has been misled by his advisers as to these particular 
 pensions. It is the fashion to say that the pensions of the 
 Duke of Grafton and of the Duke of Richmond have been 
 commuted. Neither of them has been commuted. [The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer signified dissent.] I see the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer disagrees with that, but as I have 
 given at least 16 years to the study of this question, and had 
 the opportunity of considering it while Parliament allowed me 
 to do nothing else, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will 
 perhaps allow me to state my own view of it, especially as it 
 is fully coiroborated. What was done in the cases of the 
 pensions of the Duke of Grafton and of the Duke of Richmond ? 
 The Duke of Richmond was the son of one of our kings, who 
 would not in ordinary law have been entitled to any kind of 
 
 K
 
 130 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 maintenance. He was, however, provided for by his father out 
 of the coal industry of this country by is. per cauldron upon 
 coal, a charge which operated as a curse on the Tyneside 
 industry for fully a century and a quarter, and which at the 
 end of the last century was turned into a cash payment of ; 
 /"igjOoo, to secure the due payment of which — perhaps to pro- 
 tect it from irreverent hands, like those of Joseph Hume, or 
 from worse ones, like those of myself — a sum of money was 
 invested in Consols. The money was not given to the Duke 
 of Richmond, but kept as the property of the nation, with the 
 First Lord of the Treasury, for the time being, always one of 
 the trustees. It is true that with the consent of the House the 
 bulk of the sum of ^633,000 so invested has since been invested 
 in land, every farthing of surplus on which beyond the ^ig,ooo 
 per annum belongs to the nation. It is true that until the 
 Committee sat there was great doubt whether a large amount 
 of this land had not been dealt with as if the nation had little 
 or only a remote right to it. But each parcel of this land is 
 scheduled in the Report, and I cannot understand why the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer leaves it out, because, if I am well 
 informed, this land is worth more than ;^ig,ooo a year ; it has 
 often brought in more since it was bought ; and therefore I 
 wonder that the acute mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 has not looked for this surplus also. I mention this to show 
 the absolute carelessness of the Treasury in dealing with 
 matters of such importance. The case of the Duke of Grafton, 
 as to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer also asks for 
 information, is a case of similar provision made by the same 
 king for another of his sons, but by another of his wives, I do 
 not mean by the Queen. This was only one of several provi- 
 sions. I know nothing more monstrous tha.n the story of the 
 Grafton pensions, some of which have been commuted and are 
 now outside the reach of Parliament, but which within the last 
 40 years have brought to the dukedom of Grafton enormous sums 
 out of the taxpayers' pocket for services, if they could be called 
 so, against which all the morality of this nation would revolt ii 
 the persons had happened to be the poor, the wretched, and the 
 miserable. All the pensions of the Duke of Grafton, save three,
 
 PERPETUAL PENSIONS. I3I 
 
 had been commuted before 1881. Large as has been the income 
 of the Duke of Richmond, it has been a trifle compared with 
 the pensions poured into the pockets of the Grafton family. 
 Every member of the first Earl of Grafton's family was pen- 
 sioned, and the pensions reverted, on the decease of the original 
 pensioner, to the Earl. The pension of the lady whose services 
 originated the pensions with which I am now dealing was fixed 
 for life, with reversion to the Earl of Grafton, who afterwards 
 was Duke of Grafton. In the case of the Grafton money a sum 
 of ;^30,ooo still stands in the ConsoHdated Stock, but in the 
 case of the Duke of Richmond there is only £80 odd standing 
 there — possibly left there to keep the account open — the rest of 
 the money having been put in land. I have only given these 
 particulars in answer to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 Now, the Government go on to state their disagreements. The 
 Committee recommended that in all commutations of existing 
 pensions and allowances, the Lords of the Treasury should take 
 into consideration the causes of such pensions, whether or not 
 any real service had been rendered by the original grantee, or is 
 now performed ; and I understand the Treasury, as represented 
 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the First Lord of the 
 Treasury, to say they will do nothing of the kind. Their reasons 
 astonish me. They say they are not prepared to commit them- 
 selves to a pledge which may bring the public faith in question, 
 and they make their case strong by referring to the report of 
 the Select Committee which was appointed by Mr. Spring Rice 
 in 1837. They say they are now going to do what the Com- 
 mittee did in 1838, and they add, " The Committee, it is true, 
 recommended that a few pensions should lapse or be modified". 
 That is rather an astounding presentation of what that Com- 
 mittee did. There was a Committee which the right hon. 
 gentlemen do not allude to, which sat prior to 1838, but which 
 is referred to in the report of the Committee of 1838. That 
 Select Committee of 1830 reduced the pensions, which amounted 
 to £1^5,750 per annum, to ;^75,ooo. Was there a breach of 
 faith in that, or did they do the duty this House should always 
 do — stop improvident payments by whomever made ? What did 
 the Committee of 1838, on which the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 
 K 7
 
 132 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 chequer and the First Lord rely, do ? The Committee said it 
 did not appear to them rash or unjust, but, on the contrary, 
 strictly their duty to inquire into the causes which originally 
 produced and justified the grant, and to find out whether they 
 still existed ; and they further said they endeavoured to decide 
 whether each separate grant could be either objected to or 
 defended — the very thing the Treasury to-day say they will 
 not do, and which they said they would not do on the authority of 
 the Committee of 1838. As I have said, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer and the First Lord of the Treasury say the Com- 
 mittee recommended that a few pensions should lapse or be 
 modified. I find that the Committee instituted such a search- 
 ing inquiry that 21 pensioners resigned their pensions rather 
 than face the inquiry. They absolutely suspended eight pen- 
 sions. With reference to six pensions, they lessened the 
 amounts paid and shortened the time for which they were to be 
 paid; while with respect to 14 pensions, they reported that they 
 did not consider it expedient that any of them should be con- 
 tinued. Parliament endorsed what the Committee did, and 
 this is what the Treasuary calls recommending that a few 
 pensions should lapse or be modified ! I do not want the 
 Government to get rid of 21 pensions, or even to suspend eight, 
 or thus deal with six or 14 ; all I ask is, that the House having" 
 determined they thould be abolished, and a Committee of the 
 House having unanimously voted that 27 years' purchase is too 
 high, and that they should not give to any pensioner who has 
 rendered no service at any time an amount which is equivalent, 
 or nearly equivalent, to a perpetuation of the pension, the 
 Government should act accordingly. This is no party question. 
 Conservatives as well as Liberals have pledged themselves 
 upon it. The Committee has dealt with the question in no 
 rough spirit. The Attorney-General, representing the Govern- 
 ment, has carefully gone through every line of the Report, and 
 in these circumstances it is, too much for the Government to 
 come forward and say they intend to fly in the face of the 
 constant declaration of the representatives of the nation. The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, indeed, suggests, and suggests 
 truly, in the paper which has just been laid on the table, that
 
 PERPETUAL PENSIONS. I33 
 
 even at 27 years' purchase there will be an effective saving to 
 the nation of, roughly, something like ;!^gooo a year. I admit at 
 once that that is better than nothing. But that leaves the 
 Richmond and the Grafton pensions entirely out of the ques- 
 tion ; because under no circumstances can they be dealt with as 
 part of the scheme on which the House is to pronounce an 
 •opinion to-night. I have never denied that a commutation is a 
 saving. I am glad that 330 pensions have been commuted 
 since I commenced my attack upon them, because I know 
 that involves a considerable saving to the nation ; but I say that 
 now you have a solemn judgment of the Committee ; you have 
 deputed a Committee to examine whether or not the rate of 27 
 years is too much, and that Committee has reported that it is; 
 and it is no answer to say, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 says, that because the conversion scheme was carried last year 
 therefore we are to go back. Whether the people put their 
 money into the Funds or anywhere else is no affair of mine, but 
 of these pensions not one-fourth should be given at all ; and, in 
 fact, it is a shame to the House that it has suffered them to be 
 paid so long. It is not a sufficient answer to say that a saving 
 comes to the nation at 27 years' purchase, for the Committee 
 knew that. In the minute to which I am objecting, the Govern- 
 ment say that they cannot agree that the terms given to indi- 
 viduals are too high, and they do not agree because some sav- 
 ing comes to the nation in commutation. It will not do, 
 because some nobleman or gentleman, or some person high in 
 influence, may feel dissatisfied, to go back on the decision of 
 the Committee and undo all they have done. The plea put 
 forward in the minute, that it would be a breach of faith, cannot 
 be maintained for a moment, except in the cases of pensions for 
 which services may have been rendered ; and if there are such, 
 I do not want to put on the Government any stress of strict- 
 ness. But, I understand the Committee have said, in effect, 
 that 260 years, 240, or 200 years ago, pensions were put upon 
 the taxpayers that ought never to have been so put, for causes 
 that cannot ever be plainly stated in the House of Commons 
 without provoking immediate reprobation, and without seeming 
 to make a grossly personal attack. But if persons do not wish
 
 134 
 
 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 to inherit the blame they should not wish to inherit the profit. 
 Although I fear I have already trespassed too long on the 
 indulgence of the House, there is still one point I must answer. 
 I do not often endeavor to ascertain the feelings of hon. 
 members on the other side as to any proposition I intend to 
 submit to the House, for I think it is hardly fair to do so. But 
 one of the most intelligent members of the party opposite said 
 " I agree with you in principle, but it is a small matter". But 
 I say nothing is too small to be honest upon, and if you require 
 honesty from the people, you must be honest towards them in 
 all matters, whether they affect ;^io,ooo or £10. I ask the 
 House to affirm the principle, and I confidently ask the House 
 not to go back upon the unanimous decision of the Committee.
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND, 
 
 AND WHAT WAS DONE WITH IT. 
 
 House of Commons, August 2jth, 1889. 
 
 I have placed on the Paper notice of my intention to 
 move an Amendment expressive of the deep regret of the 
 House, that the accounts have not been laid before it at 
 a period when they could be properly debated. I do not 
 propose to move that Amendment, because the state of the 
 House is such that no division on it could accurately represent 
 the feeling of the House upon it ; and if I did divide, it might 
 go forth to the people of India, that a very large number of 
 members had no regard whatever for the Indian people, and 
 that a very small number of members of this House thought 
 their affairs ought to come before Parliament for discussion. 
 Therefore, while making as I do a most earnest protest — a pro- 
 test which, I believe, would be joined in by members on the 
 other side of the House as well as by members on this side, if it 
 were not for party exigencies at this late period of the Session 
 — I desire to give it especial emphasis, because of the fact that 
 the modification in the new Rules of Procedure, during the last 
 two years, has deprived those who desire to present to this 
 House any statement or criticism, of any opportunity whatever 
 of doing so, unless such opportunity is furnished by the action 
 of the ballot. Even if a member happens to be fortunate 
 enough, as I was early this session, to obtain first place for 
 a motion dealing with the affairs of India, it may be that the 
 Government will take away the opportunity which the ballot 
 has given him. India stands here in an entirely different posi- 
 tion from any other part of the dependencies of this great 
 
 ( 135 )
 
 136 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 empire. There is no colony, however small, but that, upon the 
 estimates, we have had afforded us one or more opportunities of 
 raising any question which any member thinks ought to be 
 brought before this House in relation to it ; but the same thing 
 cannot be said with regard to India, with the enormous popula- 
 tion, to which the hon, gentleman the Under Secretary has 
 referred, of something hke 210 millions of actual subjects of the 
 Imperial Crown, and another 65 millions of people more or less 
 subject to its influence. I am of opinion the present system is one 
 which any person taking any interest whatever, however remote, 
 in the honor of Britain, ought to deplore and endeavor to have 
 changed. I would venture to appeal — it seems rather a mockery 
 to say, to the Government, with only the Under Secretary for 
 India, able representative of the Government as he is, present 
 in the House. It seems also a mockery to appeal to the leaders 
 of the party on this side of the House, none of them being 
 present. I deem it right to say that if the Government are deaf 
 to our appeal, and if they will not so modify the new rule as to 
 enable us to raise questions which we cannot now raise during 
 this debate, I shall take the one opportunity which I have never 
 taken since I have been a member of this House, and shall take 
 care that the question is raised by an amendment to the 
 Address. At any rate, the Government cannot deprive me of 
 that opportunity, as they have twice this session deprived me of 
 the opportunity I had obtained by means of the ballot. While 
 I admire the good-humored and able speech to which we have 
 just listened, I could not help being struck with the marvellous 
 coolness— I suppose I must not say audacity— which character- 
 ised some of the statements of the Under Secretary for India. 
 He was good enough to tell us that the only proposal of 
 economy had come from the Government; but he coolly ignored 
 the fact that he and his Government had taken away from me 
 the opportunity I had obtained of submitting to the House pro- 
 posals which I thought would have tended in that direction. 
 He had the frank audacity to inform the Committee that the 
 Council of India Bill had been hindered on this side of the 
 House, and had only got through with great difficulty, when he 
 knows as well as any other member of the Committee that the
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND. 137 
 
 Government never put it down earlier than the ninth order of 
 the day — I think that one night I saw it the 19th — and when he 
 knows it was in the power of the Government to have put it 
 down as the first or second order of any day they pleased, and 
 so have tested the question whether there was any real opposi- 
 tion to it. Surely the hon. gentleman might have acknowledged 
 that on the first appeal made to me by the leader of the House, 
 to the eflfect that if I kept on the paper a notice of amendment 
 I had to the second reading of the Bill he would be obliged to 
 withdraw it, I at once withdrew the notice, although I regarded 
 the Bill as wretchedly small and exceedingly ineffective, and 
 although I regarded it as being more effective in words than it 
 would be in reality. If I had pressed my amendment on the 
 attention of the Committee, I should have pointed out that any 
 discussion of the Indian Budget with the benches as they are 
 now is utterly impossible. It is impossible to take the sense of 
 the Committee on any proposition which may be submitted to it 
 without a shamefvd and disgraceful exhibition of the utter 
 neglect by so many members of Parliament of the interests of so 
 many millions of our fellow - subjects. I cannot say I quite 
 followed the right hon. gentleman's first figures. It seems to 
 me that they do not quite agree ; but on this point it may be 
 that I did not pay sufficient attention to his corrections, and I 
 shall confine myself more especially to the figures which I have 
 in print, and which at any rate are capable of being more clearly 
 examined. The hon. gentleman complained that he was met 
 by ironical cheers when he referred to the chief increase in the 
 income of India this year as resulting from the Salt Tax ; and 
 he went to the length of saying that he was shocked by 
 the statements made by people, who ought to know better, as 
 to the effect of the increase of the Salt Duty on the consump- 
 tion of salt. Well, he managed to shock me, because, with the 
 almost blind reliance that I have on the accuracy of everything 
 told me by the hon. gentleman, notwithstanding that I have 
 occasionally found that he has been misled by those who instruct 
 him to reply in this House, I had thought that the Blue Book 
 circulated under his authority amongst the members of the 
 House, only within the last few days, has told us expressly that
 
 138 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 the consumption of salt had fallen ofFin consequence of high prices, 
 which prices I proposed to show were the result of the increase 
 of duty. I do not understand why he should be shocked at our 
 entertaining an opinion which the Government of India officially 
 puts to us. The hon. gentleman complains also that we have 
 spoken of the " Famine Insurance Fund ". Well, that is how his 
 own Government have spoken of it and have described it. They 
 have now spent the whole of the fund, and do not like to ac- 
 knowledge that such a fund existed. In a marvellously emphatic 
 tone the hon. gentleman appealed to the Committee, and said : 
 " We have spent the surplus we had ; if a larger surplus is 
 wanted for this purpose, do gentlemen on the Opposition side 
 of the House advocate increased taxation, which is the only 
 way of getting a larger surplus ? " Our answer is that we have 
 had increased taxation for the purpose of raising a specific sum 
 which you pledged yourselves never to apply to any other 
 purpose ; that you have applied it to many other purposes ; that 
 you have seldom applied it to the purposes for which it was 
 intended. Before examining the memorandum of the Under 
 Secretary, which was issued later this year than last, I will very 
 briefly draw the attention of the Committee, in view of the 
 fall in silver, to the impolicy of maintaining even the slightest 
 hindrances to the consumption of silver for manufacturing 
 purposes. As was most fully pointed out in a debate on this 
 question in another place about a month ago, the duty of is. 6d. 
 per ounce, and the requirement of hall-marking, are practically 
 prohibitive of the importation for trade purposes of Indian 
 manufactured silver articles, and the exportation of English 
 manufactured silver for the Indian market. I appeal specially 
 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this question, which is of 
 high importance to India, and vitally affects our silver trade 
 with many foreign countries. I now come to that branch of 
 the speech made by the hon. gentleman, the Under Secretary 
 for India, which has occupied so prominent a position in this- 
 evening's debate. I allude to that portion of it which relates tO' 
 the provision for famine relief and insurance, or, as I prefer to 
 call it, to the Famine Insurance Fund. I ask the Committee tO' 
 turn to the famine relief and insurance item, on page 50, in the
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND. I39 
 
 explanatory memorandum of the Under Secretary. But, in the 
 first place, I desire to say a word or two as to what has been 
 urged by the hon. gentleman with reference to the correction of 
 figures which appear in that memorandum. I would point out 
 that it would have been quite possible for the Government to 
 have taken the discussion on the Indian Budget a week or a 
 fortnight after the Indian Budget statement had been circulated ; 
 and had the hon. gentleman taken that course there could not 
 then have been any necessity for the corrections he now makes. 
 The hon. gentleman has taken credit for the fact that the 
 memorandum has been circulated for a period of more than six 
 weeks ; but I would point out that it was published later this 
 year than last year, and it might have been criticised at an 
 earlier date, as the financial year ends at the same date in one 
 year as in another. I think that, considering the matter is one 
 which affects the welfare of 275 millions of her Majesty's sub- 
 jects, the Government ought to recognise it as being one of 
 sufficient importance to be discussed in this House at a period 
 of the year when it can be freely and fairly debated, and nearer 
 to the end of the financial year. It is quite possible that every 
 explanation the hon. gentleman has given has been compre- 
 hended by every member of this House except myself; but I 
 certainly do find it difficult to follow a set of figures, as to which 
 the hon. gentleman himself is not quite sure, and which, even in 
 their corrected form, do not commend themselves to us as 
 matters about which there is a possibility of our all being in 
 agreement. 
 
 The hon. gentleman has referred to the Famine Insurance 
 Return, which I myself moved for, and which has been laid on 
 the table of this House. He referred to it as a document of 
 which the Government might fairly be proud. Now, sir, I should 
 say that if it were possible to imagine any man holding the 
 position of a minister being capable of shame — and I believe such 
 a phaenomenon has never been known in the history of Parlia- 
 ment — I should have thought that that return was a document 
 of which any minister ought to be heartily ashamed ; and 
 although I do not put it personally to the hon. gentleman as 
 being any ground for shame on his part, yet I think he might
 
 140 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 reasonably feel a sort of vicarious shame in finding that promises 
 which have been so solemnly made, have nevertheless been so 
 deliberately broken, and that a large sum of money collected 
 for a particular purpose, has been just as deliberately mis- 
 applied. The hon. gentleman, the Under Secretary for India, 
 referred to the origin of the Famine Relief Fund, but he did 
 so in the vaguest of all fashions. The first reference I will make 
 is to the financial statement for 1878-9, to the financial resolution 
 of the Government of India, dated i8th March, 1878, and to a 
 minute by the Viceroy of India, dated 12th March, 1878, for a 
 detailed explanation of the principles on which it was proposed 
 to make a systematic provision against periodical famines and 
 deaths from starvation. In the Parliamentary Paper, No. 37, 
 dated 1878, page 5, the speech of the Finance Minister in the 
 Legislative Council of the Government of India proposes to 
 raise an additional ;^i, 500,000 a year "on account of famine 
 alone ", and he says that this is done because of the *' recog- 
 nition of her Majesty's Government of the duty of making 
 definite provision for the cost of famine". On page 24 of that 
 paper, he further says : " It is the firm intention of the present 
 Government to apply the funds now to be provided for this 
 special purpose strictly to the exclusive objects which they were 
 designed to secure;" and he also goes on to say: "The Govern- 
 ment of India intends to keep this million and a-half as insurance 
 against famine alone". Now, there have been twelve years 
 during which that sum of a million and a-half has been collected, 
 making a total of ;^i8,ooo,ooo sterling ; and I shall presently show 
 that that money has not been kept, as was promised, and also 
 how little of it has been spent for the purposes it was intended 
 to serve. The hon. gentleman the Under Secretary has told us 
 that it has been religiously disbursed. For my part, I cannot 
 imagine in what sense the hon. gentleman uses that expression ; 
 but I can say that it was certainly not honestly disbursed nor 
 truly disbursed. Well, in the same speech the finance minister 
 says : " We consider that the estimates of every year ought to 
 make provision for religiously applying the sum I have men- 
 tioned to this sole purpose ; and I hope that no desire to carry 
 out any administrative improvement, however urgent, or any
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND. I4I 
 
 fiscal reform, however wise, will tempt the Government to 
 neglect this sacred trust ". They imposed a specific tax of 
 £"1,500,000 and promised that it should be devoted to famine, 
 and to famine alone, and hoped that no Government would be 
 able to make away with it. Indeed, the then Viceroy, Lord 
 Lytton, used language so strong that I feel bound to refer to it, 
 and to show that this " sacred trust " was neglected by Lord 
 Lytton himself for the purposes of war ; while when the noble 
 lord the member for Paddington, Lord R. Churchill, was Secre- 
 tary for India, the same " sacred trust " was abandoned for 
 purposes of annexation. As I have said. Lord Lytton, the then 
 Viceroy, used very remarkable language on the 27th December, 
 1877, which is to be found on page 36 of the paper I am refer- 
 ring to. He anticipated that objectors might say, "Your good 
 intentions are possibly sincere ; but the path to the nethermost 
 pit is already paved with good intentions ". I do not know 
 whether the hon. gentleman the Under Secretary was thinking 
 of that downward path when he spoke of the money having been 
 religiously disbursed ; but Lord Lytton proceeds with what the- 
 objectors might say as follows : " Promise is a good dog, but Per- 
 formance is a better : we have often heard the bow-wow of the 
 first ; we have yet to see the tail of the second. We have been 
 told over and over again by the highest authorities that India is 
 to be insured against famine in this way, or in that ; but when 
 famines come upon us we find that the promised way is still 
 wanting." Lord Lytton then solemnly declared : "We promise 
 nothing which we have not, after long and serious consideration, 
 provided ourselves with the means of performing. I must have 
 very imperfectly explained myself thus far if I have failed to 
 make it clearly understood that I am not now speaking of what 
 we ought to do, or would do, to insure this country against the 
 worst effects of future famine had we only the means of doing 
 it ; but of what we can do, and wiU do, with the means already 
 provided for, in the measures now before the council." In the 
 debate on the i6th January, 1878, in the Legislative Council, in 
 ParHamentary Paper No. 118, of 1878, page 5, a native member 
 of the Legislative Council, speaking of this famine insurance, 
 suggests : " That it should be formed into a separate fund with
 
 T42 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 a separate account, so that it may satisfy the people that it is 
 what it in reality is intended to be — a separate famine fund ". 
 And, on page 44, Lord Lytton says: "The necessity of a 
 Famine Insurance Fund, and the duty of the Government to 
 provide such a fund, has been generally acknowledged ". And 
 yet this session the Under Secretary denies that it ought to be 
 •called a fund, and admits that that duty has never been fulfilled. 
 These are not mere empty words, for the hon. gentleman said he 
 did not know whether his trusted Indian Councillors had been 
 dead or alive. 
 
 Sir J. Gorst: I did not say that I did not know whether they 
 were dead or alive ; but that the hon. gentleman did not ask the 
 question whether they were dead or alive. 
 
 Whether we were told that he did not know whether they 
 were dead or alive, or whether the hon. gentleman's own 
 experience of the Indian Council rendered it difficult for him to 
 •distinguish if it was a Council composed of living or dead men, 
 is a matter upon which it is not necessary to dilate. At any 
 rate, in order to raise that ;^i, 500,000 it was necessary to levy 
 increased taxes on the natives of India. Well, what does the 
 finance minister say upon this ? In 1878-9 the finance minister 
 •observed, by way of justifying the increased taxation: " I feel 
 confident that I shall be able to satisfy the Council and the 
 public that the resolution which the Government has proclaimed 
 will be faithfully carried out, and that the proceeds of these new 
 taxes will be expended for the purpose of providing what I have 
 called an insurance against famine, and for no other purpose 
 whatsoever ". If words have an)'- meaning at all, Lord Lytton 
 and his finance minister say: " We impose a special tax — a new 
 tax — for the purpose of raising a special sum of money, and 
 pledge the honor of ourselves and our councillors that that 
 money shall never be applied to any other object ". If hon. 
 members will refer to the Return moved for by myself, they will 
 see that this promise was never kept, except when Lord Ripon 
 was Viceroy. That I am not stating the case unfairly, may be 
 seen from the minute of the Viceroy, dated 12th March, 1878. 
 The Viceroy then wrote: "The sole justification for the increased 
 taxation which has just been imposed upon the people of India, for
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND. I43 
 
 the purpose of ensuring this Empire against the worst calamities 
 of future famine, so far as such an insurance can now be practi- 
 cally provided, is the pledge we have given that a sum not less 
 than a million and a-half sterling, which exceeds the amount of 
 the additional contributions obtained from the people for this 
 purpose, shall be annually applied to it ". And here I would ask, 
 how have you applied the ^18,000,000; and I repeat that I will 
 show that, except when the Marquess of Ripon was Viceroy, you 
 never applied it to the purpose for which it was intended, and 
 that if you have not got it now it is because you have devoted 
 it, as I have already said, to purposes of war and annexation, 
 and the erection of costly buildings at Simla, and for similar 
 purposes, while the people of India have been starving. The 
 Viceroy's minute goes on to say: "We have explained to the 
 people of this country that the additional revenue raised by the 
 new taxes is required, not for the luxuries but for the necessities 
 of the State, not for general purposes but for the construction 
 ■of a particular class of public works ; and we have pledged our- 
 selves not to spend one rupeeof the special resources thus created 
 upon works of a different character". The English language 
 has very little value if this can be so translated from the Minis- 
 terial benches as to explain away its plain and direct meaning ; 
 and surely in such a case we ought not to be treated with what 
 I must call a miserable farce of arithmetic like that I hold in 
 my hand. But there were people who doubted whether this 
 ;^i,5oo,ooo would be applied to its intended purpose ; and when 
 the British Indian Association later on hinted at the possible 
 breach of faith on the part of the Government, Lord Lytton 
 openly rebuked them in these memorable words :—" You have 
 entirely failed to recognise the fact that the sole purpose of this 
 additional taxation you complain of was the preservation of the 
 lives of the people from the effects of famine. To insinuate the 
 contrary is to insinuate a calumny." After the 11 years' ex- 
 perience we have had, I not only insinuate the contrary, but I 
 say that that which Lord Lytton characterises as a calumny 
 has been proved up to the hilt. I now proceed to complain of, 
 and criticise, the Return. The tax was first imposed in 1878, 
 but the Return commences with 1879-80. Why is the year
 
 144 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 1878-9 omitted? Surely ;^i, 500, 000 is a sum worthy of being" 
 accounted for. Probably the hon. gentleman the Under Secre- 
 tary will tell us what was the intention of the Indian Govern- 
 ment in omitting that year. He might also tell us what was the 
 amount applied in 1878-9 to the prevention of famine, that being" 
 a year so close to Lord Lytton's solemn promise. I refer again 
 to the summary of the twelve years contained on page 4 of the 
 Return. There ought to have been ;^i 8,000,000 sterling raised 
 by additional taxation for famine relief alone during those 
 twelve years. How is that sum accounted for? It is only 
 alleged that 9,900,737 tens of rupees, or much less than 
 ;^i 0,000,000, has been so applied; and I ask what, in that case, 
 has become of the remaining amount of over ;^8, 000,000 ster- 
 ling? The only years in which Lord Lytton's promises were 
 kept were the years 1881-2, 1882-3, 1883-4, 1884-5, and 1885-6, 
 during which years Lord Ripon was Viceroy. In those years 
 the promise which Lord Ripon did not make was kept ; but the 
 promise which Lord Lytton did make has never been kept at 
 all, and since Lord Ripon's time no one appears to have been 
 in a position to keep it. I may here say that I am going to 
 make the Under Secretary and the Secretary of State himself 
 both responsible for what has been going on. Reverting to 
 Lord Lytton's specific declaration that the " sole purpose of the 
 additional taxation " was the " preservation of the lives of the 
 people from the effects of famine ", I will ask the Committee 
 to refer to page 2 of the Return. I would remind the Com- 
 mittee of the questions I have felt it my duty to put, sometimes, 
 I fear, in a way that must have been somewhat wearisome to 
 the House, and for which I invariably laid myself open to 
 rebuke ; and I would point out that since last October it was 
 certainly known to the Government of India that famine was 
 approaching in Madras and Bengal and was also threatening 
 in Bombay. This was known, so far as a great portion of India 
 was concerned, by the partial failure of the south-west mon- 
 soon of 1888, which was due in June and July. The effect of 
 this was aggravated by the almost complete failure of the 
 north-east monsoon which was due in October. The Govern- 
 ment must have known that the natural result of these things
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND. I45 
 
 without any other cause would have been higher prices for food, 
 great pressure, possible hunger, and even probable famine. 
 Well, what is the estimated provision made by the Government 
 out of the earmarked ;^i, 500, 000? It is of no use your saying 
 you have not got it. You have spent it. You took it, and pro- 
 mised to keep it for the purpose of saving hfe in case of famine. 
 See what a mockery you have made of it ! This Return shows 
 that ;^20,500 was devoted for relief — namely, ^500 for charitable 
 reHef in Madras, and ;^2o,ooo for charitable relief in Bengal. 
 No provision was made by the present Government for the 
 relief works, for want of which hundreds of people certainly, 
 many thousands probably, died of starvation before the works 
 were commenced. I beg pardon ; I was wrong in saying the 
 Government made no provision. In 1888-9 they actually wrote 
 off as irrecoverable the sum of ;^2oo, which was the amount of 
 debt due from some wretched Madras agriculturalists whose 
 debt had been outstanding from the famine of ten years ago. 
 The general result is that in 1 1 years real famine relief has been 
 given to the extent of 2,631,750 tens of rupees only; and on 
 page 5 of the statement exhibiting the moral and material pro- 
 gress of India we are told that " no surplus was available as a 
 reserve against famine in future years". This ;^i 8,000,000 has 
 been extracted from the peasantry of India on the solemn pro- 
 mise that it should only be applied for the purpose of making 
 provision against times of famine, and that promise has never 
 at any time been kept. In 1877-8 the Government found itself 
 unable to make provision against famine, but at least it did 
 something for the prevention of starvation. I trust I shall not 
 shock the Under Secretary in what I am about to state. I 
 know that his feelings are generally shocked, especially by any 
 statement made from this side of the House with regard to legal 
 questions, which may be accounted for by the fact that the hon. 
 gentleman has been sitting for so many years on the same bench 
 with the law officers of the Crown. Now, what did the Govern- 
 ment do? On the 19th January, 1888, they actually raised the 
 salt duty 25 per cent. — viz., from two rupees per maund of 82 
 lbs. to 2^ rupees per maund ; and the Government themselves 
 in their own statement, say that the effect of this was to reduce 
 
 L
 
 146 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 the consumption of salt. Less salt means less food, and the 
 official declaration is that in 1888 the consumption of salt fell off 
 markedly in the district of Ganjam. Page 75 of the statement 
 — and a very explicit statement it is — shows that the consump- 
 tion of salt in Ganjam fell from I2'3i lbs. per head to 8-27 lbs. 
 per head, owing, as the Government say, partly to high prices, 
 or, as I say, almost wholly to the high prices resulting from the 
 increased duty. No wonder there have been famine and starva- 
 tion in Ganjam. If I possessed the cool freedom of speech 
 which characterises the hon. gentleman the Under Secretary of 
 State for India when attacking members on this side of the 
 House, I should be inclined to use exceedingly hard words 
 against a Government, which takes credit for its high officials, 
 going into a district where it had been pointed out that famine 
 existed, and where, having previously extorted some Rx. 1,800,000 
 to make provision for such contingency, they must have known 
 that it was going on eight or nine months before (for it had 
 been pointed out in this House). 
 
 It is one of the misfortunes of only one debate in the year 
 taking place on the finances of India, that a member is obliged 
 to be exceedingly wearisome in the length of the matter he 
 addresses to the House. But I must ask the Committee to 
 note on page 4 of the explanatory memorandum, a most extra- 
 ordinary difference between gross and net revenue and expendi- 
 ture — the gross being swollen by matters of account, and clearly 
 in some instances creating a false impression. For example, 
 railway receipts go to make up gross totals. From page 12 it 
 will be seen that in three years 1887-90, railways impose a 
 burden upon the taxpayers of Rx. 7,502,780, though the hon. 
 baronet, the member for Hythe (Sir E. Watkin), urges the 
 Government to spend ;^i 00,000,000 on more railways. In the 
 official statement, page 14, it is admitted that "Though the 
 dividend on the total railway capital is apparently more than 
 5 per cent, and though the Government is not liable for more 
 than 5 per cent on any guaranteed capital, or for more than 
 per cent on State Railway capital ; still the Indian Treasury 
 lost on its current railway transactions Rx. 2,267,800 in 1887-8, 
 and estimated to lose Rx. 2,115,000 in i888-g". The actual
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND. I47 
 
 loss turned out to be more than half a million of rupees larger 
 than the estimated loss. I am sure the Under Secretary did 
 not purposely omit it, but I should have liked an explanation 
 of the fact that the actual loss was more than half a-million of 
 rupees greater than the estimate. 
 
 Sir E. Watkin : The hon. member has referred to me. I 
 should like to ask whether he is not aware that it has been 
 proved that the advantage to the people of India is greater than 
 the total value of the railways ? 
 
 The hon. member will have an opportunity of following 
 me. I do not see how his interruption is to the point. There 
 is one matter as to which the hon. gentleman the Under Secre- 
 tary has told us nothing in his explanatory Memorandum, and I 
 am rather surprised that he has not, because it is a matter upon 
 which I have felt it my duty to ask him several questions already. 
 He has not in the Memorandum under the head of " Railways " 
 given any information as to the change of policy with reference 
 to the projected railway to Chittagong, as to which a concession 
 of 3,000 square miles of waste land with the right to prospect 
 for coal and petroleum has either been actually granted, or is 
 under consideration. If this be a wise policy there is no neces- 
 sity for concealment, nor ought members of this House to be 
 driven to obtain information from private sources. I do not 
 suggest that such a concession would be bad or good, but the 
 House is entitlad to know what are the views of the Department 
 and of the Viceroy. What is the reason of this entire change of 
 policy ? on what conditions are these rights of prospecting to 
 be conceded ? The hon. gentleman, in reply to a question the 
 other day, said that if all railway enterprise was to wait until 
 Parliament had expressed an opinion there would be no railways 
 in India at all. I admired the cleverness and ingenuity of the 
 reply, but unless the Secretary of State is the master of Parlia- 
 ment as well as of India, it was his duty in making his annual 
 statement to tell us if such a change of policy has been made or 
 is contemplated, to give the House information on this point so 
 as to enable the House to form a judgment upon it. Referring 
 to irrigation works on page 13, I wish to ask as to table 2, which 
 in col. I states the total cost to 1886-7 as Rx. 23,770,346, from 
 
 I. 2
 
 148 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 what date the commencement of cost is taken ? And whether 
 the two tables mean that a total expenditure to the present 
 date of Rx. 25,332,935 shows an estimated loss for the year of 
 Rx. 725,400 ; and whether, as a higher loss still is shown in the 
 two other years given, he will date the deficit for the preceding" 
 years ? I also ask the Under Secretary, as he states the total 
 capital outlay to date on the irrigation works, first, to state the 
 total deficit of all the years covered by the capital outlay. I ask 
 whether the Rx. 629,400 mentioned in col. 3, table i, page 13, is 
 the portion of the Land Revenue from new works only, or does 
 it include receipts from old works ? And I ask whether, to 
 give the Committee an opportunity of comparing, he can state 
 the amount credited to Land Revenue from irrigation in 
 1858 ? Further, I would ask him if he will state the net 
 addition to the food production of the Empire which has accrued 
 from the total expenditure of ;^25,ooo,ooo ? In the statement 
 of assets and liabilities on page 20 I would ask are the railway 
 and irrigation works set down at their full cost ? Is any allow- 
 ance made for depreciation ? Is any Sinking .Fund provided ?' 
 Referring to page 10, on Burma, I would ask the Committee 
 to note that while the cost of annexation was originally 
 estimated in November, 1885, at some ;^27o,ooo, it has already 
 cost some ^"8, 000, 000, and it is impossible to limit the further 
 expenditure required to carry out what the Under Secretary 
 of State has called the pacification of the country. I note that 
 in relation to the Burma Ruby Mines Parliament has never had 
 submitted to it the particulars, with the names and amounts of 
 the various tenders. I would ask the Under Secretary to state 
 the cost of, and incidental to, the sending out of Mr. Barrington 
 Browne as Government expert ; what kind of valuation he 
 made ; and the general nature of his Report ; and how many 
 higher tenders — and to what amount — were received than the 
 one accepted, with the names of the persons tendering. 
 
 Sir J, Gorst : I can answer that at once ; there were none. 
 
 I should like to know whether the hon. gentleman attaches 
 any subtle meaning to the word " tender," and whether there are 
 not offers in writing within the knowledge of the Viceroy of 
 India ?
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND. I49 
 
 Sir J. Gorst : The tender for the Burma Ruby Mines was 
 ■settled in this country by public advertisement in the news- 
 papers. Tenders were received at the India Office, and they 
 ■were opened in my presence. I can vouch for the fact that 
 those tenders were received. 
 
 I cannot think that I and the hon. gentleman mean the same 
 thing in the words we are using. I should be glad, however, if 
 the hon. gentleman would oblige the committee with the names 
 and particulars of the various tenders, together with the replies, 
 so that the committee may be enabled to form a judgment as to the 
 higher or lower tenders. Will the hon. gentleman tell the com- 
 mittee why it is stated here — 
 
 Sir John Gorst : In what statement ? 
 
 In your own book \Jiolding it up~\ on page 17 of the Govern- 
 ment statement dealing with the moral and material progress of 
 India — that a lease of the Burma Ruby Mines was granted to a 
 British company in 1887-8, when the hon. member more than 
 once in the most express terms has stated in the House that no 
 such lease has been granted ? The company is to pay a rental 
 of ;^40,ooo a year and one-sixth of the profits, and I should like 
 to know why it is that in the estimated receipts for i888-g and 
 1890, there is no sum whatever even entered in the Estimates as 
 likely to be received ? If the hon. member tells me that this 
 statement as to the rental to be paid is not true, I will not press 
 him further, but he must not wonder if I am a little shocked— 
 electrified — in dealing with such matters. 
 
 And now, I have only to apologise to the Committee for 
 the length of my remarks. I hope, however, that what I 
 have said will show that there is some need for effective 
 financial control in India, and that if it be possible — as I 
 believe it to be — to exercise that effective financial control 
 in this House, even supposing more than one day in the 
 year is devoted to the work, something will be done to enlarge 
 the legislative councils in the various provinces and to 
 increase their powers, so that they may have a better oppor- 
 tunity of interpellating in relation to these matters of finance. 
 I would assure the hon. gentleman, the Under Secretary of State, 
 that it is not our desire to destroy provincial activity in India.
 
 150 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 On the contrary, we desire to enlarge and develop it. I should 
 like to see the Government carry out their promises in this 
 respect. I should like, to use the words of Lord Lytton, 
 " having heard their bow-wow of promise, to see at least the tail 
 of the performance ". We hope that there may be enlarged 
 Councils strengthened by a Committee of this House, or a Joint 
 Standing Committee of both Houses, to which may be addressed 
 questions on which it is necessary that some expression of 
 opinion should he obtained as to the advisability of bringing 
 matters in dispute before Parliament. Although, in the present 
 scanty House, it seems a mockery to do so, I would venture to 
 appeal to hon. members, and, if necessary, I will go from this 
 House to Parliament, and from Parliament to the people — that 
 some opportunity of bringing forward their grievances may be 
 given to those who are connected with the movement for reform 
 in India. I agree that they are only a small body, but small as 
 they are, they are sufficiently important to have some attention 
 paid to them. There assembled at Allahabad some 1,200 dele- 
 gates, representing some three millions of people, and I appeal 
 to the English people for reasonable attention to the wants of 
 India, especially as its grievances are now finding constitutional 
 expression in the great Congress movement, of which Lord 
 Dufferin said that he regarded with feelings " of approval and 
 goodwill their natural ambition to be more extensively associated 
 with their English rulers in the administration of their own 
 domestic affairs ". From the report of that Congress, it is 
 evident that the natives are inspired with a laudable ambition to 
 be more closely associated with their English rulers in the 
 administration of their own affairs. 
 
 It is, of course, impossible to hope that within these walls 
 any criticism or complaint made under existing circumstances 
 will have any very great effect, but I do hope that the protest 
 now made and concurred in, as it seemed to me at the 
 beginning of the speech with which I have troubled the Com- 
 mittee, by members sitting on the Conservative benches — 
 that the protest now made against the late period of the 
 session at which this subject is brought forward will not be 
 without effect. The House is wearied with the labors of a long
 
 THE STORY OF A FAMINE INSURANCE FUND. I51 
 
 session, and the bulk of the members have gone away. I do 
 not make this protest from party motives, as I acknowledge that 
 the party with whom I vote are as amenable to ever}' kind of 
 blame in the matter as the party opposite. The right hon. 
 gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is now in his place, 
 and I appeal to him, during the Recess, to give effect to words 
 which I hope I have not wrongly understood — and I am only 
 dealing with words uttered across the floor of this House — which 
 have come from the Leader of the House, that it is only due to 
 the vast mass of our Indian fellow-subjects that at some time 
 they may be able to approach this House in a constitutional 
 way, with the Speaker in the Chair, and not be driven to bring 
 forward their grievances at a time when a question of finance is 
 imder discussion, -and they are not susceptible of radical and 
 effective debate.
 
 INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS. 
 
 Bombay, December 2gth, 1889. 
 
 Friends, fellow-subjects, and fellow-citizens — (cheers) — I 
 address you as friends, for the greeting you have given me 
 entitles me to use the same language to you that I would to 
 those at home. (Loud cheers.) You have made me feel since 
 I have been here that home has a wider significance than I have 
 yet given it, for I have learned that if I have only a little home 
 I have one, too — a larger one, in your sympathies, in your 
 affections, and — I trust to deserve it by future work — in your 
 love. (Loud cheers.) I address you as fellow-subjects, for we 
 are here loyal to one rule with the best of loyalty. (Renewed 
 cheers.) That is no real loyalty which is only blind submission. 
 (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Real loyalty means that the governed 
 help the governors by leaving little for the Government to do. 
 (Renewed cheers.) And I feel proud to be fellow-subject with 
 you, in the hope that the phrase fellow-citizen may grow into 
 reality even before my life is ended. (Cheers.) 
 
 I pray your indulgence to-night, for this is the first speech 
 I have made since I looked into the blackness of the grave ; and 
 I am not sure how far I may trust my tongue to be the inter- 
 preter of what I would wish to say ; but of one thing I am sure, 
 that you have over-rated alike my work and my ability. (Cries of 
 " No, no ".) I pray you be as indulgent to me as you have been 
 generous. And if you disagree with what I say, let me say it in 
 my own poor fashion, that you may find at least my meaning 
 clear to you. I am here only a visitor by your courtesy, a 
 member of a great assembly, the mother of Parliaments, within 
 the walls of which I am. one of the poorest members, and to its 
 generous audience is due any praise that I may have had in 
 
 ( 152 )
 
 INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS. 153 
 
 advocating the cause of those to whom I belong — and when I 
 say to whom I belong, I was sorry to hear that I was thanked 
 for my work in a popular cause. But for whom should I work if 
 not for the people ? (Loud and prolonged cheers.) Born of the 
 people, trusted by the people, I hope to die of the people. 
 (Renewed cheering.) And I know no geographic or race 
 limitations to this word " people". If the nationality — pardon 
 the v/ord — to which I am proud to belong, has raised its empire 
 here, the rule carries with it the duty on the part of every 
 citizen to recognise that which I recognise in you, a loyal 
 •constitutional association for the assertion of your just claims, 
 and for the amelioration of your homes and the advancement of 
 your industries. (Cheers.) 
 
 And I will ask you not to expect too much. One man 
 is only a water drop in the ocean of human life. You are 
 the breeze driving the water drop on to the western side 
 of the seas, and by your encouragement adding others to 
 it and giving it a force that shall wash away the old 
 rock of prejudices that has hindered progress. I have noted 
 with pride the speeches here, which show that you share our 
 language, our traditions and hopes, and are willing to work with 
 us to make our triumph peaceful. (Cheers.) Do not expect too 
 much, and do not expect all at once. (Hear, hear.) Grand as 
 this assembly is, mighty in its suggestiveness, by its delegates 
 travelling hundreds, thousands of miles, you are yet only the 
 water drop of the nearly two hundred and ten millions whom 
 you number under our empire — yours and mine, not mine 
 against yours, not EngHsh against Indian, but a common 
 empire to be maintained for common interests. (Loud cheers.) 
 Do not be disappointed if of the largest claims only something 
 is conceded. If not just now, it shall be on a day that is to 
 •come. Just now you have those to stand in the House of 
 Commons and plead for you — not me alone. There are 
 members as devoted to you as I can possibly be ; and I hope 
 ■soon to see added to those ranks one speaking with that 
 authority, that knowledge, which his long residence in India has 
 given him. I mean your President, Sir William Wedderburn. 
 (Cheers.)
 
 154 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 I would remind you, as encouraging you to patience-— 
 (hear, hear) — that in England great reforms have always been 
 slowl}' won. Those who introduced them first have been called 
 seditious, sometimes sent to gaol as criminals. (Cries of 
 " Shame ! ") But no imprisonment can crush the truth. It may 
 hinder it for the moment ; it may delay it for the hour ; but the- 
 oppressed opinion acquires electric force inside the dungeon cell, 
 and moves to the front again when the prisoner comes out. 
 (Cheers.) 
 
 Your presence here to-day confutes and answers by antici 
 pation one sneer that I have heard spoken within the walls 
 of Parliament itself. It is said there is no Indian nation, and 
 that there can be no Indian National Congress. It is declared 
 that there is no Indian people. There are over two hundred 
 millions of diverse races and diverse creeds. But the lesson I 
 read here is that this Congress movement is an educational 
 movement acting as a hammer upon the anvil of millions of 
 human brains, until it welds into one common whole men in 
 whom the consciousness of the need for political and social 
 reforms, and the desire to effect such reforms, are higher than all 
 distinctions of race and creed. (Loud cheers.) 
 
 It will be my duty, as it is my right, to present to Parliament 
 directly I get back, on the very first day of its opening, the claim 
 you make to have a Bill considered. (Cheers.) On the second 
 day the Bill will be introduced. For so much I can answer; 
 I can answer for nothing more. (Laughter and cheers.) I think 
 it possible that the Government may introduce some Bill them- 
 selves. If they do it will take precedence of, but it wiU not evade, 
 the one you have charged me with ; because on the Government 
 Bill in committee I can take the decision of Parhament on every 
 one of the propositions you desire, just as upon the Bill with 
 which you have charged me. It is not easy work ; and I have 
 been glad to see that you can meet and discuss differences as- 
 you have done. It shows that men who can give lessons to one 
 another, express diversity of views with one another, can 
 be trusted with the right of electing and being elected to- 
 make the laws they can so discuss. (Loud cheers.) Then you 
 may take it that, either on your own Bill or on the Government
 
 INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS. I55 
 
 Bill, the decision of the House of Commons will be taken on 
 your proposals ; and you can help that decision, for you have 
 the constitutional right, not of going into the House and being^ 
 heard yourselves, but of sending your petitions there — (cheers) 
 — from every town, from every division — from far-off Sind and 
 from every part. And I would ask you, if you really want to 
 make me your mouthpiece in that House, to send signatures ta 
 petitions which you understand, by the thousand, by the 
 hundreds of thousands, by the million if you can, so that India's 
 people may kneel — and there is no shame in kneeling — on the 
 threshold where the mother of Parliaments sits, and ask that she 
 may do justice to those 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 miles away, in the 
 same way that she has done such justice to those who can 
 assemble with a living voice within hearing of her own walls. 
 (Cheers.) 
 
 You will permit me to say, although I am only a guest, 
 that we are here not in a seditious movement; we are not 
 seeking — though if we did there would be no crime in the high 
 endeavor — to transplant the democratic institutions of England 
 to this land. We are only seeking, in the hill which is hard tO' 
 climb, to carve steps in which the strongest may stand, and 
 there giving support, may help their weaker brothers to higher 
 positions. (Cheers.) It is said there are many who stand aloof 
 from this movement. But on looking at you my wonder is that 
 in its infancy so many have joined it. (Laughter and cheers.) 
 It is said that there are influential men of this party and of that 
 who have not yet come in ; but the sun's rays grow as the sun 
 rises. (Cheers.) You are the dawn ; I see the day, and do not 
 count the rays which are yet below the horizon. I count the 
 gilding of the clouds I see, from the rays I do not yet see. 
 (Cheers.) 
 
 , I feel I should like to have the title which some have given 
 me in sneer and some in hearty meaning, of "the Member 
 for India ". (Cheers.) But men whose measure I cannot hope 
 to cope with have partly held that title ; and I am not to hold it 
 simply by great efforts on great occasions, but by small doings 
 wherever there is injustice to be redressed. (Cheers.) I know 
 how Uttle it is one man can do ; and little though one man can
 
 156 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 do, I will tell you what he can do. When after rain and storm 
 the waters have gathered in some huge store, one man may 
 make the little boring through which the water begins to 
 percolate that, as it grows in stream, washes all away. I will try 
 and be that man, leaving greater ones than I can ever be to 
 swim on the tide when the water flows in fulness. (Cheers.) I 
 am here because I believe you loyal to the law — (cheers) — which 
 [ am bound to support. (Cheers.) I am here because I believe 
 you wish — as we in England have — to win, within the limits of 
 the constitution, the most perfect equality and right for all. 
 (Cheers.) 
 
 1 have no right to offer advice to you, but if I had, 
 and if I dared, I would say to you men from lands almost as 
 separate, although within your own continent, as England is 
 from you — I would say to you men with race traditions, caste 
 views and religious differences — that in an empire like ours what 
 we should seek and have is equality before the law for all — 
 (cheers) — equality of opportunity for all, equality of expression 
 for all — penalty on none, favoritism for none. And I believe 
 that in this great Congress I see the germs of that which may 
 be as fruitful for good as the most fruitful tree that grows under 
 your sun. (Cheers.) I am glad to see that you have women 
 amongst you — (cheers) — although they are few, for they are 
 your mothers and teach your children ; glad to see that in your 
 land you are ready to learn, as we in Britain have learned, that 
 wives may counsel their husbands ; and that great thoughts and 
 great endeavors are not made less because the man goes to the 
 woman for counsel in the hour of need and makes the woman 
 stronger. (Cheers.) 
 
 1 fear I have already spoken to you too long. (Cries of 
 " No, no ".) If not for you at any rate for myself. (Laughter.) 
 I beg you — many of you here the most eloquent whom I 
 have heard — I beg you put into your own words and into' 
 your own thoughts what you would have me say at home 
 for you and let that there be said. (Cheers.) One thing 
 be sure of — I will only advocate the right. (Cheers.) I 
 must judge the right I advocate, and I may not always judge it 
 as you do ; but as long as you let me speak for you, I will only
 
 INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS. I57 
 
 Speak that which seems to me to be right and true. (Cheers.) 
 In this movement let there be no force save the force of brain,. 
 no secret union — let all be open, frank, and before the law. 
 Then if mischief touch you, so far as one man may and so far 
 as one man's speech can. English liberty shall put itself on the 
 side of yours. (Cheers.) This is the first and it may be the 
 last speech I may ever make to you — (cries of " No, no.") — but, 
 when I am speaking on the other side within the walls of our 
 Parliament house, let me beg you to think, and let me think, 
 that you are listening, and that if I do rightly you will be 
 generous with me in your judgment, and that even if I do not 
 always plead with the voice that you would speak, you will 
 believe that I have done my best. And I mean my best to be 
 the greater happiness for India's people, greater peace for 
 Britain's rule, and greater comfort for the whole of Britain's 
 subjects. (Loud and prolonged cheering.) 
 
 Mr. Bradlaugh then withdrew amid continued cheering, and 
 the meeting afterwards dispersed. 
 
 
 tff.
 
 THE MAHARAJA OF KASHMIR. ' 
 
 House of Commons, July yd, i8go. 
 
 I am obliged to move the adjournment of the House, because 
 it is the only possible way in which any appeal for the Maharaja 
 of Kashmir can be submitted to Parliament. The Government 
 of India have deprived this chief of his authority and of his 
 property under cover of allegations which are emphatically 
 denied by the Maharaja himself. The Maharaja, as I shall 
 show, has applied for a trial in India. That has been denied 
 him. The Secretary of State here has been asked to sanction 
 an enquiry, and has refused ; the leader of the House has been 
 asked to appoint a Select Committee of enquiry, and has also 
 refused ; so that neither judicial nor Parliamentary nor Govern- 
 mental enquiry is being allowed, although this gentleman has 
 been subjected to penalties which in the case of the meanest 
 person in this country would entitle him to have the accusations 
 brought before some tribunal and witnesses against him heard. 
 There is no other manner of bringing this matter before the 
 House than by moving the adjournment. Though I can 
 understand that hon. gentlemen opposite may think it unfair 
 that the adjournment should be moved, they must remember 
 that on Indian matters I have always shown the greatest con- 
 sideration to the Government ; so much so that at the beginning , 
 of this Session I did not avail myself, as I might have done, of 
 my right to move an amendment to the Address, and I only now 
 make a motion for the adjournment because there are no Esti- 
 mates in Supply in which, as in any other case affecting any 
 other portion of her Majesty's dominions, a question of griev- 
 ance may be raised. It is either in the manner I am raising it 
 to-night tliat this grievance must be submitted, or not at all. 
 
 ( T^« )
 
 THE MAHARAJA OF KASHMIR. I59 
 
 Now on May 14th of last year — that is more than twelve 
 months ago — the Maharaja himself asked the Government of 
 India for a fair trial. I will read to the House presently the 
 touching words in which that appeal for a fair trial was made. 
 From then till now, except in a despatch from which it vidll be 
 my duty to quote, no kind of answer has been made to that 
 appeal, and the Maharaja has been condemned unheard. I 
 should have pressed this claim for enquiry twelve months ago, 
 but there were then no papers before the House. It would 
 have been open for the Government to say, in the fashion in 
 which rumor has said, that this unfortunate gentleman has 
 been guilty of crime or was suffering the consequences of vice, 
 because these suggestions could be found embodied in official 
 despatches to which I shall refer, and that there was, therefore, 
 a lack of duty in bringing the matter before the House until the 
 Government had put before it the statements on which they rely. 
 
 Although this unfortunate gentleman was deprived of his 
 authority and his property at the beginning of last year, the 
 presentation of papers has been delayed until last week. They 
 have been repeatedly pressed for by myself and other members. 
 Until the Government had put their case on the table, any one 
 •else would have been at a great disadvantage in submitting to this 
 House any matter for its decision. 
 
 I do not propose to ask the House, in the division I shall 
 •challenge, to express any other opinion of the facts I shall 
 submit than that when such a penalty is enforced against 
 a prince with whom we have a treaty — who has recently 
 been regarded as being in the position of a feudatory prince — 
 the man so dealt with is entitled to that which any other 
 subject of her Majesty, if he be a subject of her Majesty, is 
 entitled to, viz., a fair trial before condemnation. The 
 Under Secretary must not shelter himself under considera- 
 tions of State. If considerations of State can justify the 
 Government of India in depriving one man of his authority and 
 property unheard, there is no protection for any one, be he 
 prince or peasant, throughout the whole of our Asiatic dominions. 
 
 The other day the question was stated as simply as possible 
 in the language of the right hon. gentleman the Under Secretary
 
 l6o SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 for India (Sir J. Gorst), in answer to a question put by myself. 
 The right hon. gentleman said, " The action of the Government 
 in Kashmir had been based, not upon grave personal charges 
 made against the Maharaja". I would ask the House to re- 
 member that, because this man's character has been rumored 
 away and lied away with the help of forged letters during the 
 last year and a-half — forged letters used as instruments of 
 political warfare — letters, the authenticity of which has been 
 denied by the Maharaja, letters which have never been pro- 
 duced in his presence, and which yet the Government have 
 the face to refer to in their worst fashion in one of the 
 despatches I shall read to the House. 
 
 I shall be relieved from any question as to the personal con- 
 duct of the Maharaja. He may be good or bad. I do not care 
 what he is — he is entitled to justice. If he has been criminal let 
 him be condemned and punished, but do not rob him under cover 
 of a criminality which you dare not bring in evidence against him, 
 and as to which you will allow no enquiry either in India or 
 here. The right hon. gentleman the Under Secretary said the 
 action of the Government was based upon the long-continued 
 misgovernment of Kashmir. Well, this unfortunate gentleman 
 has only been the ruler of Kashmir for about five years, and 
 I will quote the testimony of the Government itself that, ta 
 within a few months of the time he was dispossessed, mis- 
 government did not exist as far as it was in his power to help 
 it. I cannot conceive — I should not be justified in saying before 
 you, sir, anything more impudent — but I can conceive nothing 
 more cool than the audacity of the confidence that this House 
 would be imposed upon by the statement of the right hon. 
 gentleman, the Under Secretary, that there had been long-con- 
 tinued misgovernment in Kashmir such as justified the dethrone- 
 ment of this man. Vague statements there are here, but not 
 one statement of fact. Misgovernment must be made up of 
 something. You may shadow a man, put him unjustly in prison, 
 or take away his property. None of these things are alleged 
 against this unfortunate gentleman. Well, the right hon. 
 gentleman went on to say that the Government of India have 
 never attached any importance to certain treasonable and
 
 THE MAHARAJA OF KASHMIR. l6l 
 
 criminal correspondence attributed to the Maharaja. It would 
 have been as well not to have so described the character of the 
 correspondence if no importance was attached to it. Why 
 suggest that it was criminal and treasonable if it was not true, 
 as it was not, that he was responsible for it ? I do not suggest 
 that the right hon. gentleman has made an inaccurate statement, 
 .but I do say he has been ignorant of the facts. 
 
 I will read the evidence given by the Viceroy himself with re- 
 gard to this correspondence which the right hon. gentleman dare 
 not lay before this House, which he dare not put in print, but on 
 which the emissaries of the Government have hed away the Ma- 
 haraja's character during the last year and a half. I will dispose 
 of this point at once because, fortunately, we have the papers on 
 the Table and are able to deal with them. So far from its being 
 true that the Government have never attached the smallest 
 importance to the correspondence, the Viceroy himself says 
 the Government were justified "not merely by the disclo- 
 sure of these letters " — so that they consider themselves in 
 part justified by them — [Sir J. Gorst indicated dissent.] 
 The right hon. gentleman shakes his head. It is the 
 Viceroy's head that should be shaken here. I admit that the 
 right hon. gentleman dare not rely on the letters. I admit the 
 right hon. gentleman has too much good sense to use in 
 justification of the position assumed by the Government letters 
 which the man himself declares to be forgeries, and which the 
 ■Government have never dared to produce to his face. But 
 in a long despatch, dated "Simla, June 26th, 1889", I say 
 the Viceroy did say these letters were amongst the things on 
 which the Government acted in condemning this unfortunate 
 gentleman. 
 
 What did the Maharaja himself say about these letters ? 
 In a letter, which unfortunately time will not permit me to 
 read fully to the House, he made a plea for justice, first to 
 the Government of India, and then through the Government 
 to the English Parliament. He said: "these letters are nothing 
 but most daring forgeries"; and he suggests that one of the 
 forgers, if not the only forger, is his brother, whom the Govern- 
 ment of India has placed in the position of authority of which 
 
 M
 
 l62 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 they have deprived this unfortunate gentleman himself. My 
 allegation will be that it was on those letters — for the papers 
 disclose nothing else, and further negative everything else — 
 that this action of the Government was based. (Sir J. Gorst 
 again expressed dissent.) The right hon. gentleman shakes 
 his head, but I have read the papers, which he evidently has 
 not done himself, and I shall read extracts to the House tO' 
 show that I am within the mark in every statement of this kind 
 I make. Why did the Government of India, twelve months- 
 ago, say they did not merely act on these letters ? What did 
 that phrase mean if they did not act on them at all ? Have 
 the Government since discovered they are forgeries ? If so, 
 as they are part of the case on which misgovernment and 
 criminality are alleged against this unfortunate gentleman, the 
 whole story of it does now fall to the ground, at any rate rests 
 on other matters, with reference to which this man demands 
 to be put on his trial, and as to which no evidence has been 
 offered. 
 
 Lord Cross, speaking last year at Sheffield, used words 
 a little stronger than, and, if I may be allowed to say so, 
 not quite so skilful as the euphemistic language of the First 
 Lord to-night, and of the right hon. gentleman the Under 
 Secretary last week. He said, " we did interfere in the matter 
 of the Kashmir, and why ? Because the people of Kashmir 
 were so ground down by the tyranny and mis-government ot 
 the Maharaja that we were bound as the paramount power 
 to interfere for the protection of the interests of the inhabitants." 
 Where in these papers is there one instance of this grinding 
 down ? If you want to steal Kashmir, as unfortunately we 
 have stolen State after State in India and other parts of the 
 world, then say so at once, and at least have the merit of honest 
 thieves ; don't be hypocritical, by saying you set up self- 
 government where self-government has no real existence.. 
 
 What is the position of Kashmir towards this country ? 
 Fortunately the history is not long, so far as it affects this 
 unfortunate man, and I will deal with it as briefly as it is 
 possible to do. The history of Kashmir, for the purpose of 
 to-night's discussion, began with the Treaty of 1846, with the
 
 THE MAHARAJA OF KASHMIR. 163 
 
 grandfather of the gentleman whose cause I am pleading. 
 Then for a considerable money payment, recorded in the third 
 section of the Treaty, the British Government transferred and 
 made over for ever, in independent possession, to Maharaja 
 Golab Singh and the heirs male of his body, the territory which 
 includes Kashmir and Jummoo. This is not a case of an 
 ordinary feudatory State. So little is it regarded as a feudatory 
 State, that in the statistical abstract of this very year, you 
 have the evidence of its non-inclusion up to 1881 amongst 
 the feudatory States, and there was never anything to suggest 
 that we had a right or duty to send a Resident there until 
 1885, on the death of the father of the present Maharaja. 
 I won't trouble the House with what passed until a few 
 days before the commencement of the reign of the present 
 chief. The Maharaja Golab Singh, with whom the Treaty 
 of the i6th of March, 1846, was made, was succeeded by 
 his son about the time of the Indian Mutiny ; and Lord 
 Canning, in an official document, gave Maharaja Rumbir Singh, 
 who had succeeded Golab Singh, in 1857, ^^^ Sanad of adoption, 
 which provided that in case of failure of issue he and his 
 successors would be competent to adopt an heir and thus 
 perpetuate the line. This was given on the ground of the great 
 service rendered by the Maharaja during the Mutiny. The 
 Maharaja Rumbir Singh was ill in 1884, and I am afraid that 
 some fourteen or fifteen years ago, when Jingoism was specially 
 paramount in the making of great military frontiers and things 
 of that kind, we looked with longing eyes upon the property of 
 others, and were disposed to ignore any sense of justice in our 
 deahngs with them. It was then said that Rumbir Singh had 
 misgoverned his country. If he had, it was a matter with 
 which, except as being by treaty the paramount power, in which 
 case we might have made remonstrance, we had nothing 
 whatever to do. But, as a matter of fact, we made no remon- 
 strance to him. The Under Secretary of State dissents. Then 
 why is it not in the papers ? The papers began in 1884 with a 
 despatch relating to the alleged misgovernment during the time 
 of the present Maharaja's father. The words of the despatch 
 preclude the possibility of remonstrance having been made. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 But what happens is that while the Maharaja was dying, the 
 Viceroy of India, looking to the matter, as he says, with a view 
 to his troublesome neighbors on the north-west frontier, suggested 
 certain reforms which on the accession of the son of the then 
 dying man it would be well should be carried out ; and I will 
 read to the House in the words of Lord Dufferin himself the 
 admission that many of these reforms had been carried out 
 during the short period that this gentleman sat on the throne. 
 In 1885 the succession of Prapat Singh was formally recognised 
 by the Government. He came to the throne under the treaty 
 which I have read to the House. One new departure there was 
 against which the Maharaja protested, namely, the establish- 
 ment of a Residency, instead of Kashmir being an independent 
 possession, which under the treaty it was, subject to the su- 
 premacy of the Empress Queen, After the appointment of a 
 Resident, it is a monstrously unfair thing to spring a mine four 
 or five years afterwards, and allege as an excuse for confiscating 
 property and power that there had been misgovernment where, 
 if there had been misgovernment, it should have been reported 
 day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year. 
 There are no such reports. If the Secretary of State has got 
 them he ought to have printed them. 
 
 I am not asking the House to say that this unfortu- 
 nate man is guiltless, but I am asking them to say that 
 he is entitled to be tried, and to have an enquiry before 
 he is deprived of his rights. In 1889 the Government 
 deprived this gentleman of his chieftainship. By what 
 right? By no right save the right of force. By what law? 
 By no law save the law of force. Upon what charges ? Upon 
 charges of the vaguest description. It is clear these papers are 
 delusive papers. There must have been reports made to the 
 Viceroy, which reports ought to be in the hands of the House. 
 If it is said that they are of a confidential character ; if it is said 
 they cannot be produced, at any rate the witnesses who can 
 prove the occasions of misgovernment ought to be produced in 
 some court. Is it because this man is rich; is it because his 
 property is in a place where you want to have possession 
 because of frontier considerations, that he is to be deprived of the
 
 THE MAHARAJA OF KASHMIR. 165 
 
 right which you admit to the meanest person accused within this 
 country, or within the Asiatic dominions of the Empress Queen ? 
 It is a monstrous thing, and I ask the House to look at it with- 
 out consideration of party ; because you must remember it is not 
 a question only of this man, but of every feudatory prince whose 
 property you may want to take and merge in our dominions. 
 The papers have not been put on the table in a hurry. They 
 have been in the skilled hands of the Under Secretary. We 
 all know how frank the Under Secretary can be if he tries, and 
 I ask him to tell the House how many papers relating to these 
 important despatches between the Government of India and 
 the Secretary of State have been kept back, and why ? It is 
 clear some have — the language shows it. Why are any kept 
 back? They have been kept back because the action of the 
 Government cannot be defended. I do not know what the 
 charges are against the Maharaja, and I am only asking that 
 this Parliament shall say that the Government of India, how- 
 ever powerful, and whatever the State considerations are, has 
 no right to rob this man. 
 
 On the 14th of September, 1885, the Viceroy sent a 
 
 despatch to which I must allude for a moment. It was 
 
 sent just on the accession of the present Maharaja to the 
 
 throne, and I allege to the House it makes a clear bill up to the 
 
 time, so far as any charges of misgovernment entitled our 
 
 Government to interfere. The Viceroy says : " I trust that 
 
 your highness's life may be long and prosperous ; and that, in 
 
 all difficulties of whatsoever kind, you will rely with confidence 
 
 upon the goodwill of the British Government, which will never 
 
 fail you so long as you are loyal to the Crown, and earnest in 
 
 the desire to rule your State with justice and moderation. Your 
 
 Highness has before you a difficult task. During the illness of 
 
 your father the administration of the State became seriously 
 
 disorganised, and it Mrill be necessary for you to introduce many 
 
 reforms." I will show you that three years after Lord Dufferin's 
 
 time reforms had been carried out, and that misgovernment is a 
 
 pretext for steahng the man's property. The Maharaja wrote 
 
 in reply protesting against the Residency being placed upon 
 
 him. He said : " I do not hesitate to admit that the existing
 
 l66 iPEECHHS BY CKaRLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 state of affairs in Kashmir and Jammu urgently requires 
 immediate introduction of substantial reforms into the adminis- 
 tration of the country, and now that I have power commensurate 
 with my responsibilities, I beg to answer your Excellency that 
 nothing shall be spared on my part, and no time will be lost to 
 prove beyond any possibility of doubt that it is my ambition to 
 succeed in making my country a model of a well-governed State 
 in alliance with the Government of India." 
 
 Having got the Resident at the capital, what do we find ? We 
 find that the Resident wants to get rid of the Maharaja; he sub- 
 mits some report to the Government, the particulars of which we 
 do not know, and a report, the particulars of which we do know, 
 dated March 5th, 1888. Let me point out in the first place 
 that in the despatch of the 5th of March, 1888, there is 
 nothing to justify any of the words of Lord Cross at Sheffield, 
 or the words of the Under Secretary of State last week, as to 
 misgovernment, or the words of the First Lord of the Treasury 
 to-night. Now, what was the decision that the Government of 
 India came to in August, 1888 ? It was that the condition of 
 the State did not seem to demand such action as Mr. Plowden 
 had suggested, and that the Government had therefore deter- 
 mined not to resort to measures which would have the effect 
 directly or indirectly of taking the power out of the Maharaja's 
 hands. Yet no less than seven months after that despatch 
 power was taken out of his hands, and taken out solely on these 
 letters. Solely, perhaps, is a strong word to use ; but it was 
 immediately after coming into possession of these letters, 
 which suggested the worst of crimes — letters which the Maharaj^^ 
 has always denied, and as to which he is certainly entitled to be 
 heard before a Select Committee of this House or before the 
 Viceroy himself. He had confidence in the British Govern- 
 ment, but he had no confidence in the officials who, he said, mis- 
 represented him. The decision that there should be no inter- 
 ference with the Maharaja, directly or indirectly, disposes of Mr. 
 Plowden's report of the 8th of March, 1888. 
 
 I come now to April, i88g, when we had some further action. 
 I will first mention that on the 25th of July, 1888, Lord Dufferin 
 wrote : " I do not overlook the f?ct that since the appointment
 
 THE MAHARAJA OF KASHMIR. 1 67 
 
 of the Council of which Diwan Lachman Dass was a member, 
 considerable progress has been made in the direction of reform ; 
 useful work has been done with regard to the revenue admini- 
 stration, and in the reorganisation of the Public Works and 
 Medical Department. But much remains to be done." This is 
 not the language of condemnation of chronic misgovernment and 
 the grinding down of the people. Misgovernment is only on 
 invention — an excuse for having dispossessed this man, and I 
 think I have a right to quote the evidence given by Lord 
 Dufiferin in 1888. This unfortunate prince, hampered by the 
 Resident who dictated the policy he should pursue, did make 
 such reforms as entitled him to the praise of Lord Dufferin — a 
 statesman of the greatest eminence, of the keenest judgment, 
 and a man who cannot be charged with being at all partial to 
 the class of man I am defending here this afternoon. 
 
 Now I come to these forged letters. There is a batch of thirty- 
 four, and the Maharaja says that they are all forgeries. I do not ask 
 you to say whether they are or are not, but I say that if they are 
 used against him he is entitled to go into court and cross-examine 
 the witnesses against him. Other letters on which the Govern- 
 ment have relied have been abandoned as forgeries within the 
 memory of many of us in this House. What is the character of 
 these letters as described by the Resident ? The character of 
 them is that the Maharaja offered large sums of money to 
 certain individuals on condition that they would murder, or 
 cause to be removed, Mr. Plowden, the late Resident. It is 
 alleged that these letters showed treasonable correspondence 
 with the enemies of England. All these things are denied by 
 the Maharaja. I do not ask you to say whether the Maharaja 
 is right or wrong, but I say that when letters alleging murder 
 are produced against a prince with whom we have a treaty of 
 alliance, immediately after which we take away his property, 
 the commonest and the merest justice demands that he should s 
 have an opportunity of being heard before a Select Committee 
 of this House, or some tribunal competent to deal with his 
 offence, if offence he has committed. The Government are not 
 going to stand by these letters to-night, but the Viceroy has 
 stood by them, and I will read you words in which they are so
 
 l68 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 stood by. The Viceroy said " In the spring of this year " — that 
 is last year — "my attention was called to the documents referred 
 to in your Highness's letter. Many of these had every appear- 
 ance of being genuine, and they have moreover a striking resem- 
 blance to those other papers of which I have already spoken, and 
 which came into the possession of the Government of India at a 
 previous time." " Your Highness is correct in expressing your 
 belief that the action subsequently taken by my Government was 
 not justified merely by the disclosures contained in these letters." 
 Where is the report upon which they acted ? The man had a 
 right to be tried. The letters are vague statements. The 
 Viceroy goes on : " Notwithstanding the ample resources of your 
 State, your treasury was empty ". Well, if you are going to- 
 dethrone every Prince whose treasury becomes empty, I do not 
 know how far you are prepared to carry your policy. Does the- 
 Government really mean that ? If that be so, how is it they 
 took from this man the advance or deposit or loan of a large 
 sum of money, amounting to twenty-five lakhs of rupees ? They 
 had this in their hands when the treasury was empty. Whjr 
 did they take money for Lady Dufferin's admirable fund ? 
 Why, if the treasury was empty, did they not reckon the mil- 
 lions of rupees for railway works in the interest of frontier 
 defence ? Treasury empty ! Why, you and your Resident 
 helped to empty it, and then you tell this unfortunate man it is- 
 a reason why he should be dethroned ! 
 
 Sir J. Gorst : Will the hon. gentleman finish the sentence? 
 
 Mr. Bradlangh : You put on the table what you please, and 
 I have to make the best I can with the House half empty, 
 because every member feels the difficulty when the motion 
 for adjournment is moved. I have, with such knowledge as 
 is supplied, to make what case I can with this far off matter. 
 
 Sir J. Gorst : I only interrupted the hon. gentleman to point 
 out that he had not read the sentence to the end, and I thought 
 to put the case fairly it should be given to the end. 
 
 Mr. Bradlaugh: I will read it to the end and show that the- 
 right hon. gentleman gains nothing by making me read it. " Not- 
 withstanding the ample resources of your State, your treasury was 
 empty ; corruption and disorder prevailed in every department
 
 THE MAHARAJA OF KASHMIR. 169. 
 
 and every office ; your Highness was still surrounded by low and 
 unworthy favorites ; and the continued misgovernment of your 
 State was becoming every day a more serious source of anxiety." 
 Well, there is not a word affecting finance there. I was going" 
 to deal with each allegation in turn. " Low and unworthy 
 favorites ! " Every prince has these even in his own house- 
 hold ; every Oriental prince has such. The whole history of 
 our transactions with native princes shows that when we have 
 hankered to take their money, their land, their position, we have 
 used vices which appeared at the time to suit our purposes and 
 help us to gain our ends. I do not know what the right hon. 
 gentleman means by inviting me to read to the end, as if I had 
 omitted some allusion to the empty treasury. Why, the Indian 
 Government had then twenty-five lakhs of rupees of his, and 
 millions of rupees had been laid out in railway works. Who are 
 these low and unworthy people ? It is not enough to make a 
 vague statement : where is the evidence ? Let the man be tried» 
 A man complains of a burglary in his jeweller's shop, and you 
 say to him, " Oh but you were misusing the jewels ". 
 
 I ask the House to take at least some tone of dignity in this 
 matter. This despotic government of India, as an Indian Secre- 
 tary once said, has no public opinion to influence it, no Parliament 
 to control it, no Press to criticise it. The Government of India is- 
 a despotism that has in many degrees been well for India ; it is a 
 despotism which has brought in its train advantages which many 
 of these poor people would not otherwise have obtained ; but it 
 cannot be denied that in many respects that despotism in the 
 past has been tainted with fraud and crime, and I hope it is not 
 left to the present Government to revive these evil traditions 
 in obtaining possession of Kashmir. The Empress Queen, the 
 paramount Power, acting as Judge, has condemned this man 
 unheard. No man should be under menace of this injustice. 
 The grandfather of the Prince bought these lands, and we by 
 treaty declared they belonged to him for ever. (Sir John Gorst 
 expressed dissent.) The right hon. gentleman does not seem to 
 be acquainted with all these facts in the history of India. Shall 
 I ask him to read and tell us the exact sum paid for the Maha- 
 raja's dominions ?
 
 170 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGh. 
 
 How do the Government justify their action? They 
 say the Maharaja resigned. He says he did nothing 
 of the kind. I am more inchned to believe him than 
 even the Under Secretary, for whose statements I have 
 always the profoundest respect. Officially, there could be 
 nothing better than the way he answers questions in this 
 House ; but when history some fifty years hence comes to deal 
 with him, the comment of the historian will be how wickedly 
 the Government deceived the Under Secretary, by making him say 
 as truth the things that were not true. 
 
 It is said the Maharaja voluntarily resigned. It is true 
 that on March 8th, 1889, the Maharaja issued the follow- 
 ing document. I will abridge it ; if it is said I am incorrect 
 I will read the whole willingly; but I do not think my 
 abridgement will differ from the exact words. The Maharaja 
 appointed a Council who were to govern the country for 
 five years, he reserving to himself all his princely rights and 
 reserving certain powers, but allowing them much the same 
 authority as, allowing for Oriental position, a Cabinet enjoys 
 here. The Government of India do not accept that, yet they 
 say they accepted a voluntary resignation. What he offered 
 they would not have, what they wanted they took from him. 
 The Maharaja says that even in the decree of March 8th he acted 
 under pressure. I do not ask the House to accede to that, but 
 I do say that he is entitled to a Select Committee here — or he 
 would be even content with an enquiry conducted in India, if 
 Lord Lansdowne will give his personal attention to it. The 
 right hon. gentleman is better acquainted with the Government 
 of India than I am. He knows that Residents are not always 
 perfect, that Residents sometimes quarrel with a prince, and 
 that matters are alleged as facts which do not always bear the 
 test and scrutiny of examination. 
 
 This man through my mouth appeals to this House, 
 not that you should declare that the Government of India 
 is wrong — he simply asks for an enquiry. He has a right 
 to that enquiry. I regret that the appeal has not been made 
 by an abler tongue, by a better informed man. But I am 
 limited to the information that the Parliamentary papers
 
 THE MAHARAJA OF KASHMIR. I7I 
 
 presented to the House, and such records as the history of India, 
 enable me to present, and I say without fear of contradiction that 
 no case is made out for the action that has been taken. In 1888 
 the Government of India and the Secretary of State in Council 
 at home came to the conclusion there was nothing for which 
 directly or indirectly the Maharaja ought to be deprived of 
 power ; and within seven months they take it all away. If 
 you trample on treaties, if your obligations to the Princes of 
 India are to be broken, and the native rulers are not to rely on 
 your word, and English justice in India is a shadow and a 
 delusion, let that be known : but let those who hold a contrary 
 opinion vote for my motion as the means of protest. The 
 government of India is no party question ; alike for Liberal 
 •or Conservative, Radical or Whig, it is our duty and our 
 interest that our paramount rule in India should be just.
 
 CLOSING ADDRESSES AT VARIOUS CONFERENCES 
 OF THE NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 
 
 Charles Bradlaugh, President. 
 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne, June ist, 1879. 
 
 In bidding you farewell, let me pray you take home for the work- 
 of the coming year some of that sturdy Northern spirit which 
 has ever characterised the Tyneside. I desire for each indi- 
 vidual more real, more true, self-assertion. You want to feel that 
 the body you belong to is worth belonging to, that the cause you, 
 serve is worth the service ; you need to be proud, not ashamed 
 of your opinions, and to be ever ready to avow them ; not im- 
 pertinently thrusting them forward, not aggressively obtruding 
 them, but holding your colors, so that while you are by, none 
 shall dare insult them nor touch them without feeling that the- 
 hand which holds them can strike a blow in their defence. 
 
 And there is need of individual efifort ; national work is nothing 
 without local work ; individual life is made up of its seconds, its 
 minutes, its hours, which add and roll into months and years ; 
 society life is made up of its individuals, who weld themselves 
 together to form the mighty whole. Let each year find you 
 with a fuller table of contents to show the year's work. If, as 
 you say, you take pride in my work and my name, make it your 
 work and your name by joining your efforts to mine ; and 
 remember that if I am strong, my strength is made by yours, 
 and because I believe — believe with my whole heart and mind — 
 in the grandeur of our work and in the love and trust the 
 workers give me. 
 
 There is plenty of local work to be done ; go avowedly 
 as Freethinkers on to your local boards ; in every munici- 
 
 172
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 173 
 
 pal election — and here I desire to honor Mr. Slater, whose 
 long life of earnest discharge of duty has placed him high 
 in honor among his fellow-townsmen — in every School Board 
 election, in every Parliament contest, you should be the 
 most earnest workers. And here let me pay tribute to Mr. 
 Forster, who has worked most ably at Darlington. Work 
 may be done in the local Press; no wrong should pass 
 without protest ; and here recognition is due to Mr. Symes 
 for the work so well and so carefully done. Let us feel 
 that we are alive, with a sting to use if sting be needed ; not on 
 •our knees, not cringing, not creeping, but walking on our feet, 
 erect, unflinching. Let us aid each other, and grow strong by 
 each other's help ; not for my sake, not for me, Charles Brad- 
 laugh, but for that mighty cause which lived ere I was born, 
 and will live long after my bones have crumbled in the grave. 
 
 I believe the prospect before us is better than it has been at 
 any period during the last fifty years. Though I am now 
 turning grey, I am still young — as young as I was twenty years 
 ago — young in hope, young in energy, young in trust, 
 young in ambition, young in strength, young in heart. 
 Mr. Symes said the fight was unequal. Yes and no; the 
 army against us in numbers is greater than our own, but it is 
 not armed with weapons so good ; every new book is a new 
 weapon for us ; every discovery in science, every fresh truth, 
 every step in civilisation, every struggle of thought, all these 
 make new weapons for us, and day by day the fight grows less 
 unequal. Unequal ! Have you seen the flood kept back by the 
 barrier ? The barrier looks so strong, and the water looks so 
 weak, until the barrier rots, and grows worm-eaten and worn, 
 and the flood bursts over it and through it, bearing it all away ; 
 the old flood-gates are the Church, the priests, the creeds — they 
 are rotten, they are worm-eaten, they are crumbling ; but the 
 peoples are the flood behind the barrier, and the flood-gates are 
 giving way. 
 
 Mr. Symes was right when he said that liberty's chief 
 foe was theology. It is so in France, where the Republic 
 and the Roman Catholic Church stand face to face, and the 
 fight is nearing ; we may hereafter have the same battle to fight
 
 174 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 here with the same strong enemy. Fight theology always ; but 
 fight also politically and socially. Freethought must be 
 identified with progress. In France civil marriages, civil 
 funerals, mark the Radical party. Our chief fight here just 
 now is the political and social one ; fight the priest in his 
 stronghold, fight the priest in the school, and let us keep our 
 children from his touch. The Press is fighting for us, often 
 unwillingly, often reluctantly, not always consciously. 
 
 Before the next Conference there may be another fight in the 
 struggle which has been going on in Northampton. I trust that the 
 next fight may carry your flag into the Commons' House. I have 
 hope, I have trust, I have ambition. Many men and many 
 women who made our movement are forgotten ; the memory of 
 their names has passed away ; we have not looked back enough. 
 Other men and other women have cut their names deep in the 
 rocky path upwards. I have the hope, I have the trust, I have 
 the ambition, that by and by those who hereafter read our story 
 may find my name cut faintly there beside those names, and at 
 least I shall have done nothing to militate against the glory of 
 the cause. 
 
 London, May i6th, 1880. 
 
 I must not again go over the record of our year's work, but 
 that record is one in which we take just pride. Glancing at the 
 late election struggle, we see in nearly every borough our men 
 on the right side. We do not claim perfection for our party,, 
 but we do claim that its men are more thorough, more earnest^ 
 "more hearty in their work than most, and that they are, in the 
 vast majority, to be found on Liberty's side. 
 
 1880 gives fair promise for 1881. A large part of this promise, 
 in bud to-day, depends on you for its fruition. If each of you 
 takes care that no child of his is taught theology, there will be no 
 need for attacking theology twenty years hence ; but there is 
 need to-day. We cannot deal with the field as though it were 
 virgin soil, as though there were no weeds in it, as though
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I75 
 
 spade and plough had never touched it, as though it had 
 not for years been sown with the falsehoods of theology, and 
 rolled hard with priestly customs. Many a weed has grown 
 upon it ; we see the seeds. I see them in the religious tracts 
 showered on me by the dozen — as though I had not read the 
 rubbish long ago : accounts of Atheist deathbeds, with nothing 
 in them save the inventive genius of those who serve the Lord. 
 
 While I am determined that in the House of Commons I will 
 never use my position there against religion, let all understand 
 that outside the House I will not change one syllable of all I 
 have to say. The field, then, is covered with many weeds, 
 and the weeds are so twined round many a good plant, that it is 
 hard not to destroy the plant while you pull off the weed. 
 Weeds you may burn, forests you may hew down, but the roots 
 are left cumbering the soil, sucking its moisture, draining its 
 nourishment. The trunk may be rotten, yet vermin may hide 
 there ; the trunk may be rotten, yet fungi may grow there ; we 
 must rid the earth of it, not only for ourselves, but for the future. 
 
 Who is on our side ? Every schoolmaster, even though he 
 know it not ; every library ; every book that is not filled with 
 fable and bound in fraud : for every book written with honest 
 purpose, aye, though it be against us, may light a spark of 
 thought that shall burn and blaze in the future. 
 
 Who is on our side ? The bold were on our side long ago. 
 Dungeons held them, faggots and fire stifled and scorched them, 
 penal enactments crushed them, yet the bold went on. And 
 there is life in their deadness, not the sham immortality, but 
 the true, as Bruno's spirit goes through the world, alive as 280 
 years ago. 
 
 Who is on our side ? our work is not only negation, not only 
 mocking, not only hewing: mock, sword, mace, these are all 
 weapons in our fight ; but we would rather not fight, but grow ; 
 we would rather not fight, but march ; we would rather not 
 fight, but work our hope out in life ; but when we strive to do 
 our duty well, on every side foes swarm hidden, forging lies like 
 stilettos to stab us unawares. 
 
 It is something to remember how we have grown. This 
 little hammer that I hold in my hand is the hammer used by
 
 176 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 Julian Hibbert, by Richard Carlile, by Gale Jones. If you had 
 told Richard Carlile that before the wood had grown rotten 
 its holder, without one wavering of principle, would stand in 
 the legislature of the nation, he would have thought it a wild 
 dream. 
 
 Friends, you have done rnuch for me. Without your 
 aid I should not be entitled to the greeting (pointing to 
 the motto behind him) given me here to-day. Some folks 
 are here to remember me very young. I am speaking in 
 the presence of old men who have known me from my 
 boyhood until now. I was born to no large estate. Without 
 your aid I could not have won the present victory. I owe you 
 much : whether the debt will be paid in the future, only the 
 future can tell. Yet I may, perhaps, dare to say to you that 
 the debt is not all on one side ; I, too, have striven to aid you 
 in the time past. You have heard me speak of my ambitions. 
 Suffer me to say a word of them to-night. One ambition I had 
 and have, one as strong as ever, that men may number my 
 name among the names of those who made this free platform 
 possible. This ambition I hope to keep unchanged until I die. 
 Though my life may not be over-long, yet I hope to see our 
 party so organised as to be able to defend its weakest. My 
 other ambition is to be recognised as wielding political power 
 for good or for ill. For good, I hope. For Good, for Liberty, 
 for Redemption, for all without distinction of color, of skin, of 
 race or of type, but for our common Humanity. 
 
 We ought all to be gratified by the assurance of our growing 
 strength that comes to us in the bitterness of clerical attacks, in 
 the wild fanatical rage, since my election, of prayers and of ser- 
 mons. The Central London Branch has decorated this room with 
 the Northampton colors : let me hope that none of you in the years 
 to come may be ashamed that your Society wore them to-day. 
 1849 to 1880. It is a large piece out of a man's life. From 
 Bonner's Fields to Westminster Hall. It is a long stride. 
 And I have climbed, not crawled ; marched, not crept ; I have 
 held clenched fist, not silken hand. But, friends, do not expect 
 too much now. Man can only do what man may. I will try 
 and do my best. More than this none may promise truly. I
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY, 177 
 
 will try to do as our bravest dead would have done in my place. 
 Thomas Allsop gave me that motto of " Thorough " (pointing 
 to the beam). Strafford put bad tradition into it, but it is a 
 good motto, for without that a man is nothing, I am ready to 
 learn ; I have learned much since I first stepped to your front ; 
 I have much to learn in my new place. I will try always to be 
 "Thorough " there, and if you do not always agree with me, let 
 me have fair trial before you judge. 
 
 I have learned to love many of you, for in the hour of trial 
 men and women of Lancashire, of Yorkshire, of Tyneside, of 
 Glasgow, have stood by me, and have been my friends. In the 
 old times many abrave man has fallen, because he has been 
 alone. During thirty years, lone though I have often seemed, I 
 have never been utterly alone, and all through men and women 
 have loved me, men and women whose love kept my heart warm 
 when it seemed well-nigh frozen. What one man may do, I will 
 strive to do : the result must be left for the story to tell. 
 
 Of my foes — for those in front, they must move. For those 
 behind me, who ought to be with me, they are finished. I have 
 no word of further reproach for them, but also I will not work 
 with them. Foes in front I will fight, and friends I will win in 
 the new circle as in the old, but for those who have known me 
 for years, and whose petty jealousy makes them slander me, 
 let them stand off ; my way is in front. 
 
 Let me speak to you of my duty, my faith, my hope. 
 It is my duty to build up, but also to attack. A big wall 
 blocks the way ; I hold a crowbar in hand, and will pull 
 down and make way for the sowers with their bags of good 
 seed. It is my duty to build up, but also to attack. In 
 the far West a man is promised land, and he finds his land 
 covered with trees marking centuries of growth ; he must clear 
 before he can build : he must cut logs before he can raise the 
 hut : these trust me with the axe, and I will wield it to make 
 room for the builder. It is my duty, and it is no painful duty ; 
 it would be pain to be shut out from doing it. I read to-day in 
 many journals — ^journals which have discovered in me ability 
 they never saw before, powers of oratory they never knew of — 
 J read in these remarks as though my position were one for pity,.
 
 178 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 as though I stood only with tabooed men. Were it so, it were 
 no cause of pain. Last Tuesday I saw a member of a httle 
 sect which men tried to crush and failed. Fifty-five years ago 
 that sect was in a worse case than we are to-day. They could 
 not sit on juries ; they could not give evidence in criminal 
 courts ; they are now in the Cabinet. We see the fetters falling 
 from us ; we see the redemption of our children by the con- 
 science clause. When I see this, I feel pride, not pain — pride 
 which knits itself into my life, my hope, and my faith. Faith ? 
 Yes, my faith. I have faith more than many. I do not believe 
 in the far-off yesterday, too far off to catch a glimpse of, nor in 
 the far-off to-morrow in worlds of the future. But I have faith 
 in Humanity, faith in men and women, faith that is proved by 
 test. Humanity grows larger, not lesser. Look back and see 
 men, ignorant, savage, brutal ; see them growing ; see struggHng 
 thought moulding itself into speech ; see speech, the child of 
 thought, bringing forth new thought out of her ever-fruitful 
 womb. Humanity is growing larger than castles, larger than 
 temples, larger than empires, larger than creeds, larger than 
 churches; men once built these, now they are outgrowing 
 them. I have faith in that Humanit3^ I have hope in the 
 future ; hope in deliverance from the fears, the shackles, the 
 fetters of the past. The age is not far off when men shall be 
 free and equal, not in the dead level of that equality which 
 can never come, but the age in which men rank higher than 
 kings, and priests are not. 
 
 Bury, Jvme ^th, 1881. 
 
 Something had been said by Mr. Slater about the change in 
 the day — beginning so gloomily and ending so brightly, and he 
 (Mr. Bradlaugh) thought tliat might be taken as an emblem of 
 what the Freethought struggle had been. The morning of 
 Freethought was gloomy, but the storm was lighter now. Any 
 quarrel they had that day, any fighting or penalties they risked,, 
 were trifles when compared with the risk Bruno and others,.
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 1 79 
 
 whose names even were lost to them, faced in paying the 
 penalty in fighting for what was enjoyed now. 
 
 He could not help congratulating them on the general pro- 
 gress of their movement — a progress shown in the intense fear 
 manifested in most Christian declarations, and that fear was 
 especially on the part of the State-aided clergy. These had 
 most to fear, because their weapons against all Nonconforming 
 bodies were solely reason, argument, discussion, and pleadings, 
 as those bodies might plead with them ; but against the others 
 they claimed to tear asunder the statutes which gave preference 
 to one religious body over the others, and which gave it a 
 position which ought not to belong to a State establishment. 
 
 He desired to say a word of thanks both to the society 
 and the open conference for the trust and confidence which 
 they had been good enough to express. It was necessary 
 that he should speak honestly and plainly. The political 
 struggle was not a struggle of Freethought against religion. 
 It might be made a struggle by those who opposed them, of 
 Freethought against bigotry. It would be unjust in the extreme 
 — knowing what they owed to Nonconformists at Northampton 
 during the past two years — it would be unjust indeed on 
 their part not to recognise that when men like John Bright 
 stood out as he had done ; when men like Henry Richard had 
 taken the ground he had taken, and when a man like Mr. 
 Gladstone, not without pang and grief to him, claimed 
 the same right for the man who was attacked for his 
 Atheism as he claimed for every other citizen — it would be 
 ungrateful and wrong indeed for them to pretend that the 
 struggle which they were fighting side by side was a struggle for 
 their party. Naturally their party was advantaged at any 
 advance in freedom and by everything which tended to snap 
 some of the old ties which hindered and prevented progress, but 
 only in that sense could the struggle be said to be a Freethought 
 struggle. 
 
 Now a word on the gravity of the twelve months they 
 had to face. They were going to their homes, but he could not 
 fight without their help, and he wanted them to know the people 
 they had to fight. If he read the signs of the times aright, the 
 
 N 2
 
 t8o speeches by CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 thing which was expressed by Professor Rainy and Dr. Begg, in 
 Scotland, and in a coarser manner by a man like Dr. Berger, 
 that which found expression in Convocation and which was 
 more virulently and grossly put in the Whitehall Review, showed 
 that there was some intent on the part of some to try to revive 
 the old blasphemy laws for the purpose of defeating him with 
 one weapon when they failed with the other ; and that fight was 
 the more difficult because they had to deal wdth the grossest 
 misrepresentations from the daily press, and wdth grave mis- 
 apprehension on the part of the people who should be on their 
 side. 
 
 Some men in some meetings stood up and said that if 
 his conduct had been different the result would have 
 been different, and that the law would already have been 
 changed. Such a man had the advantage of his ignorance to 
 protect him from the charge of unfairness. But in the position 
 in which they had placed him he had generally succeeded in 
 winning from the judges who had decided against him some 
 compliments for the industry he had exercised in ascertaining 
 the law. They had to meet with most wicked representations 
 as to what they did and taught. He said nothing of the foul 
 pamphleteer who for election purposes strung together some 
 truths and many falsehoods for the purpose of producing an 
 untrue impression. He had paid to Henry Varley a compliment 
 he perhaps should not have done, in asking him to submit his 
 pamphlet to arbitration. Henry Varley had refused that, for 
 he would have him (Mr. Bradlaugh) sue him for libel, as he 
 knew that reiterated actions meant ruin to him in the mere 
 cumulation of expenses. The only court before which he (Mr. 
 Bradlaugh) would sue him would be that of public opinion. 
 
 It was not only a coarse speaker like the Vicar of 
 Bolton, or the men like the Rev. Dr. Begg, who, corrected in a 
 misrepresentation, still repeated it, but he found that men whose 
 honesty in ordinary life he felt sure about constantly repeated, 
 as though they were his, views on Socialism which he did not 
 hold, views on marriage which never had an equivalent in his 
 feelings, and declarations on prostitution which were abhor- 
 rent to his thought. He found that he had not only to
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. l8l 
 
 answer for what he had said, but for a number of assertions 
 which, as they knew, never from the beginning of his hfe until 
 now came from him. 
 
 There were some good but weak people, who were good 
 enough to tell him that they were his friends, and he dared 
 say meant it, but of whose friendliness he had not had 
 the slightest trace during the whole of his career ; they 
 perhaps thought that neutrality was true friendship ; if 
 they did, he did not. They said that if he had done some- 
 thing different he would have served the movement better. 
 When he was sent to do parliamentary work he was not 
 sent to serve the movement; he was sent to serve Northampton. 
 He would not do anything to hinder the movement or be untrue 
 to it, nor did he intend abandoning one declaration that he had 
 made ; but it was not true that he had gone to the House to 
 fight the battle of Freethought. He could fight that on the 
 platform and in the press. 
 
 He had no intention, if he could avoid it, of ever opening his 
 mouth on the question of religious belief in St. Stephen's, where 
 he meant to sit for many years. But it was said that if he had 
 pursued another course he would have won the right to affirm. 
 They should see if it were so. A man brave and true, one John 
 Archdale, who had a religious objection to the oath (which did 
 not weigh with him), saw in the form of the oath an absolute 
 breakage of a command which seemed to him divine, and 
 refused to take the oath, and 150 years passed before the right 
 to affirm was accorded. That was longer than he (Mr. 
 Bradlaugh) could afford to wait. He might be told that things 
 moved quicker now, but he did not believe that bigotry would 
 make one step until they pushed it. 
 
 Men tried to win the right to affirm for Freethinkers long before 
 he did, and they failed ; he might boast that he partially won it, for 
 the Act of 1869 was framed by the Hon. George Denman after 
 a special argument in a case of his own, and after consultation 
 with him on the subject. For years the fight went on. It was 
 not won by standing or by remaining outside ; it was only won 
 by fighting thoroughly and completely, as he meant to fight 
 that case. The people who told him that he might have
 
 l82 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 refused the oath and still have kept his seat were people utterly 
 unacquainted with parliamentary law. Such people referred to 
 Baron Rothschild, who took the oath of allegiance and therefore 
 protected his seat ; but did not take the oath of abjuration, in 
 which occurred the words " on the true faith of a Christian," the 
 refusal of which did not cause him to vacate his seat. 
 
 With regard to the growing feeling in the country he was 
 bound to say that the provincial press was much more fair and 
 just, he might say generous, to him than the London press was. 
 He had not often trespassed on their columns with any sort of 
 explanation, but had left his opinions to speak for themselves. 
 But in London they had powerful daily papers, which would 
 suppress as far as they could all traces of the agitation ; they 
 would ignore its facts and neutralise its forms. They had a 
 powerful organisation against them. So powerful that he found 
 last week that at several post-offices in Ireland the postmasters 
 exposed in the offices notices asking the people to sign petitions 
 against his admission to Parliament. He was bound to say that 
 on his making representation, the Postmaster-General had 
 written saying that he had given orders for the removal of the 
 notices. But that showed them the grave difficulties they had 
 to contend with in that fight. 
 
 In many cases they had evidence, which was extremely 
 difficult to bring before Parliament, that petitions were sub- 
 mitted to Sunday school children and were signed indiscrimin- 
 ately by those children from eight to twelve years of age ; he 
 had cases in which children had had petitions brought to them 
 to sign ; being told that it would help them to go to heaven if 
 they helped to keep an Atheist out of Parliament. That was 
 the sort of thing which made him ask them if they would work 
 for him. 
 
 He was proud to see that the Northampton colors were so 
 worn. The selection of those colors was a question with which 
 he had nothing to do in 1868. They had been worn in many a 
 lawful struggle for law and liberty ; they were never defeated. 
 It might be said they were defeated in 1868 and twice in 1874 
 but those were only repulses and not defeats, for they were 
 skirmishing only to gain the victory in the end.
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 183 
 
 He wanted them to work unitedly ; they had been told 
 that if there was no division amongst them people on the 
 other side might say that he was their dictator. If they 
 were afraid of that they should not belong to the 
 society. If he was good enough to be their general by their 
 commission in the fight, they must let him be their general 
 while the fight was going on. He should not like to measure 
 the feeling of Northampton against theirs, but he would forfeit 
 the right to sit in Parliament rather than forfeit the right to 
 hold their love and trust. 
 
 For him, personally, the fight was a fairly big one ; it was 
 not merely the litigation in which they boasted they would 
 ruin him. It was not easy after travelling all night, as he 
 had to do lately, to go into court in the morning to argue 
 points of law — it was not easy to hold one's own and keep 
 one's temper ; it was not easy to meet foes when amongst 
 those foes were those who pretended to be friends. There were 
 some who pretending friendship tried to trip him, who said the 
 bitter word which reached him from behind, and then the 
 struggle was made harder still. Luckily that was not his first 
 fight ; it was at present his biggest fight — he did not mean 
 the litigation ; he did not mean the common informing 
 tools. He saw in the papers a paragraph speaking of the 
 generosity of the common informer — in the papers was the only 
 place in which he had seen it. It was stated that the informer 
 might have arrested him, but the man never had the legal right 
 to do it ; he never had judgment to do it. If he had had 
 judgment, imprisonment Tor debt under ordinary circumstances 
 was abolished eleven years ago, and if it were not, imprison- 
 ment for debt did not apply to a member of Parliament under 
 any circumstances whatever. The Tories said they would 
 make him bankrupt ; let them not believe it until they saw it. 
 
 They might leave that side of the fight. The serious 
 part of the fight did not lie there, but elsewhere. It was no 
 light thing for one man to challenge the authority of the House 
 of Commons, even if the House of Commons gave a decision 
 against the law, as it had done. It was said that new 
 legislation was required to admit him. It was not true. If he
 
 j84 speeches by charles bradlaugh. 
 
 •\vas not qualified by law, they could turn him out. He was only 
 Icept outside by pure physical force, and he had only for the- 
 present submitted to that physical force because the man whom 
 they had charged v/ith the duty of taking care of the affairs of 
 the State had to face a state of things in Ireland which was- 
 shameful to ail English people, and he would not, if he could 
 help it, permit himself to be made the means, even for one 
 moment, of delaying the remedy — if remedy were possible — still 
 less the means of harassing the man whose life was a mighty 
 one, whose career was a grand one, who stood now on the edge 
 of the tomb, with the shadow of the grave near him. No 
 thought of his, no word of his, should give him pain if it 
 were possible for him consistently to avoid it. But the fate 
 of the Irish Land Bill once settled, so far as the House o 
 Commons was concerned, and then his duty was clear. The 
 Government would be able to pass the Affirmation Bill, or it 
 would not. They would be able to introduce it, or its introduc- 
 tion would be obstructed. If they were able it would be his 
 duty to wait a reasonable or unreasonable time, because the 
 advantage of affirmation was so great that as long as the people 
 of Northampton were good enough to give him leave to wait, he 
 should do so. If the Bill were obstructed, hindered, or 
 rejected — it was possible it might be in the House of Commons,. 
 and still more possible in the House of Lords — then his duty 
 was clear — to that table he must go again ; to that table 
 he would go again. If, then, an accidental majority of the 
 Tories and weak-kneed Whigs, relying upon physical force, 
 and physical force alone, if for the first time in the history of 
 England a majority of the House of Commons, having no 
 law on its side, used force against one man, grave as the issue 
 was, serious as were the consequences, he had looked at them 
 all, and would not give way. 
 
 International Freethought Conference, London, Septemlev 2^th, i88i.> 
 
 At a gathering at which Freethinkers are present from many- 
 foreign countries, it is an acceptable task to endeavor to trace 
 the progress of heresy throughout the world.
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I85. 
 
 It is somewhat wonderful that in the last quarter of the nine- 
 teenth century it should be possible, in any civilised country, to 
 make the heresy of any woman or man matter of reproach or 
 hindrance to her or him. It is, indeed, to the heresy of the 
 world that all progress is due. Without the sceptical challenge, 
 the firm enquiry, the examining doubt, the testing and verifying 
 experience, there would always have been the stagnation of 
 ignorance, or the deterioration and warping influence of 
 superstition. In old times much heresy was impossible ; 
 there was no general education ; there could not be any popular 
 heresy. The heretics were few in number, their brilliant mental 
 achievements and often terrible sufferings marking them out in 
 the darkness of their age and country, as stars stand out 
 clearest in the blackest night. There are many classes of 
 heresy. Religious heresies — challenging either the religion of a 
 particular country, or assailing the very foundation of all 
 religions — political heresies and social heresies. In an Inter- 
 national Freethought Conference it is with heresies in questions- 
 of religion that we are alone concerned. We do not, in tlius 
 limiting our work, mean any slight to earnest workers for human 
 enfranchisement in social or political matters. We only desire 
 to keep our propaganda distinct and clear. Political and social 
 needs may vary in each land, but the conflict between ignorance 
 and reason is in truth but one conflict in all climes, whatever the 
 formula attacked or faith asserted. 
 
 In matters of religion there can only be two clear logical 
 positions. One, the completest submission of the intellect 
 to authority: to some book, or church, or man. The other,, 
 the most thorough assertion of the right and duty of indi- 
 vidual thought and judgment. These positions are so an- 
 tagonistic that there can be no truce or peace between the 
 defenders of the one and of the other. As Freethinkers we 
 claim this right and duty of individual thought, the free and 
 complete expression of the individual judgment. Guided, and 
 aided too, this thought must needs be, by the thought of 
 yesterday and of to-day. But we deny that yesterday's thought 
 ought to be allowed to conclude all thinking. We deny that. 
 yesterday's knowledge may be held to include all that is or cart
 
 lS6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 be knowable. We claim to search for truth, and to show others 
 what we find, that they, with us, may test whether it be true or 
 no. We assert the right to think, and to tell openly and clearly 
 all w^e can of what it is we think, and how we think it. 
 
 We affirm that in no country ought thought on matters of 
 religion to be hindered by penal law^s. We declare that in every 
 country religious disabilities should be swept away. We do not 
 want to train our children while babies so that they must grow 
 into the assailants of any creed, but we refuse to allow the priest 
 to twist and distort the infant mind with creed and fear. We 
 would have. children's education limited to science, leaving each 
 unfettered to build his theory or choose his creed as brain- 
 strength comes with growth. We have no desire to prevent or 
 punish any religion by law. We would have all religions, like 
 all sciences, on equal terms, the reward being in the future to the 
 greatest discoverer of new truths, not as it has been in the past, 
 to the most obstinate upholder of ancient delusions. We claim 
 the same equality of citizenship for professors of belief, unbelief, 
 and disbelief. But if special honor is claimed for any, then 
 heresy should have it as truest servitor of human kind. W^e, 
 here, all claim to be Freethinkers, therefore, we are no more all 
 of one thought than w^e are of one stature or of one country. 
 Nor do we make any claim that we, or any other thinkers, know 
 all that can be known. We stand by the great ocean of the 
 unknown, each mental eye seeing different shades of color on its 
 waves, each thought-diver gathering from its depths truth- 
 corals and pearls, that others missed to grasp or cannot 
 reach. 
 
 In one of the very oldest countries, but where education has 
 been most general and most esteemed, there heresy has been 
 reputed and valued, instead of punished. That country is 
 China. Professor Douglas, writing for the Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowledge, admits that Confucianism " has supplied 
 the guiding principles of all that is great and noble in the life of 
 China for more than twenty centuries ". Yet there is nothing of 
 Ihe supernatural in the teachings of Confucius. He troubled 
 himself much as to how men might live. He concerned himself 
 not at all with what should be their career, or if they should
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 187 
 
 liave any career, when they were no longer Hving. This 
 paradox has no place in his teachings. So of another great 
 child of this Chinese race, Laou-tze. Of him Professor Douglas 
 writes : " Of a personal God, Laou-tze knew nothing ; and, 
 indeed, a belief in such a being would be in opposition to the 
 whole tenor of his philosophy ". Yet these twain are, with 
 Buddha, the great masters of Chinese thought. 
 
 Perhaps the clearest record of heretic progress is preserved 
 to us from Greece. There — almost about the very time when 
 Buddha indelibly engraved his name on Chinese thought — 
 philosophy lifted its head in Greece, and made thought easier in 
 all time for all the Western world. There is not the time to- 
 night to trace the history of Greek Scepticism, nor to linger over 
 the page that tells of the hemlock cup which silenced the tongue 
 without smothering the sayings of questioning Socrates. We 
 must not even — after some centuries leap — stop to pity the sore 
 martyrdom or to admire the eloquence of the pure, the beautiful 
 Hypatia. Temples have been built to these and their heretic 
 brothers and sisters, not in marble or in granite, but in working, 
 stirring, doubting, reasoning, truth-coining, human brains. 
 
 It would be ungrateful to quite pass by Arabian heresy and 
 our indebtedness to it, even though we have not space enough 
 to give due honor ; it is to the Arab of the tenth and eleventh 
 centuries that we to-day owe much. When learning had been 
 trampled down throughout all Christendom it was the Arab who 
 not only gathered and preserved the mental legacy of India, 
 Italy, Greece, and Egypt, but added to it the tenfold interest 
 •of his new discovery and keen thinkings in every then possible 
 branch of science. 
 
 But our business to-night is with heresy since real heresy 
 has been possible. That is, possible for the many. That is, 
 since the printing press has been known in Europe, and since 
 men talked to men openly in their own tongue. In the great 
 arsenals of Europe huge monster cannon are built to shatter 
 human homes, and shot and shell are cast and filled with which 
 to load these cannon. The printing press is our grand cannon ; 
 thought, question, and affirmation our shot and shell. Book 
 -and tongue are our sword and bayonet ; pen and speech our
 
 l88 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 lance and spear. But neither our writers nor our speakers- 
 have gone through the fight unscathed. 
 
 Italy shows us, during the last three and a-half centuries^ 
 a terribly full martyrs' roll. Dungeon, rack, and faggot were 
 the ready arguments of the Roman Catholic Church. And these 
 were freely used. The mere list of names of these Italian 
 martyrs for Freethought would take more time than to-night 
 can be spared ; but one name must at least be repeated with 
 much of reverence and more of triumph : — that of the man 
 burned in Rome 281 years ago. A man whose tongue, pen, and 
 body were alike untiring ; who in Naples, Switzerland, France, 
 England, Germany, and Venetia worked to make Freethought 
 possible for us ; who lay eleven long years in prison ; who 
 endured the rack and perished at the stake. True till death, 
 the grand and glorious Giordano Bruno, whose ashes were 
 scattered in Rome, but whose memory still lives, whose energy 
 still survives, whose martyrdom we honor, and whose marble 
 presentment we hope ere long to see challengii.g the Vatican, 
 with the promise of the Freethought victories which the 
 twentieth century shall bring to crown this nineteenth century 
 effort and to redeem that sixteenth century shame. 
 
 In France it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 that the struggle was most fierce, and for some time least 
 fruitful. The mass of the people fed too little to think much, 
 and the work of the Encyclopaedists was as that of the sower on 
 the rock so far as concerned the great mass of the nation. But 
 the men who were imprisoned and whose books were burned 
 during the Regency and in the reign of Louis XV made possible 
 the more general intellectual array of this century. Fewer 
 giants perhaps, but more men. The fire which burned Vanini 
 in the beginning of the seventeenth century is quenched for 
 ever; and, though the priestly hatred against Voltaire still 
 lives, the wit they fear, and hate because they fear, has been 
 fruitful mother of freer thought in France. 
 
 Holland and Germany have been mighty for thought-leading 
 through Europe, from Spinoza to Kant, Fichte and Feuerbach. 
 In England, from Hobbes to Mill, a grand march of great 
 thinkers. But it is not alone of the great thinkers we have here
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 189 
 
 to take account ; it is of the village orator, the local pamphlet- 
 eer, the poor and often rough-mannered defender of the right 
 of speech and of publication. These in turn have each and all 
 had hard battles to fight. Gaol for themselves ; poverty and 
 contumely for their families. To be " infidel " was worse than 
 to be burglar. For the " sinner " there was welcome by the 
 pious: he might repent. For the heretic thinker, no mercy to 
 be shown him. But the poorer soldiers have left scant personal 
 record of their work. This work is best known by the platform 
 and press which they have won for our use. Who shall tell in 
 ■each land the histories of those humbler ones who have faced 
 hunger and mockery, prison and shame, to win even the 
 grudged freedom we enjoy to-day ? They are the privates in 
 the Freethought army, their loss scarce counted in each 
 country's victorious progress. 
 
 In every department of science the triumphs of heresy are 
 
 'distinct and clear. In astronomy the e pur si miiovc has been 
 
 real moving onwards. The sun and moon are no longer the 
 
 two great lights, with little twinkling stars, to give light to 
 
 the central earth. The aforetime heresy of Copernicus and 
 
 Galileo has conquered. The astronomic heresy which the 
 
 priests could not crush has become the astronomic science to 
 
 which they give their sanction. In geology the vast periods to 
 
 which yet no maximum limit can be set utterly outshadow iha 
 
 old church chronologies, which place the creation of the world 
 
 B.C. 4,004 ; and the evolutionist helps us to trace back into the 
 
 vastnesses of these geologic aeons how the development of life 
 
 has slowly but surely progressed. To-day the churches cannot 
 
 burn Darwin, Huxley, or Wallace ; Broca, Topinard, or 
 
 Hovelacque ; Vogt, Haeckel, or Biichner. The priest of the old 
 
 altar of the unknown is powerless save for petty spitefulness 
 
 against the newer workers in the temple of truth. Even in 
 
 psychology, the domain in which the priest was lord and the 
 
 creed was master, even there heresy triumphs. Mental diseases 
 
 are no longer demoniacal possessions ; science cures, prevents, 
 
 and alleviates, where religion chained the lunatic to the walls 
 
 and exorcised the devil - possessed unfortunate. Maudsley, 
 
 Huxley, Tyndall, Clifford, Lewes, great living and, in thought
 
 igO SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 still living, dead, these honored names mark heresy's- 
 triumphs. 
 
 And perhaps you will pardon a poor addition to these 
 mighty things in the mention that even in the Cortes of 
 Catholic Spain Martos and Castelar are claiming to get rid of 
 the oath, which we, too, have had to fight at home. 
 
 Edinhnrgh, May 2StJi, 1882. 
 
 It is my duty and my pleasure, as President, for the current 
 year, to deliver the closing address of this first Freethought 
 Conference openly held on Scottish soil. We may congratulate 
 ourselves on its national character. Forty towns, some in the 
 extreme south and south-west of England, have sent their dele- 
 gates, some of them travelling over 500 miles to be present 
 here ; so that we may take the gathering as a fair proof of 
 real earnestness. It has been a source of great pleasure to 
 me, and I am sure to all, to find the thorough unity and 
 harmony of discussion prevailing. Our Scotch friends seem to 
 have laid aside to-day their critical swords, but I trust that 
 they do not think that we resent criticism ; we have often found 
 theirs most useful. Let me thank all for their efforts to make 
 everything harmonious. One speaker has referred to Scotland 
 as a land of bigotry. Perhaps that is so ; but let us not 
 forget that the land of bigotry is also the land of earnestness,, 
 and I almost prefer bigoted earnestness to hypocritical indiffer- 
 ence. There is hope of winning the one ; there is little use 
 in the other. But Scotland has higher attractions to Free- 
 thinkers than that of earnestness. Freethought owes enor- 
 mously to Scotch thought, whether it be for or against itself. 
 Some of the closest reasoners bear Scottish names. Need I 
 add to that of David Hume the names of Dugald Stewart, 
 of Adam Smith, of Sir WilHam Hamilton, to prove how much 
 Scotland has contributed to our strongest thought, not claiming 
 them as agreeing with us, but as helpers to us, since all strong, 
 thought makes the possibility and the education of Free-
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. IQI 
 
 thought ? It is right also to say here that Scotland, above 
 the other English countries, has done most to destroy the hope 
 of bigotry by its universities throwing open the highest educa- 
 tion to the children of the poor. Scotch, too, is that Chambers' 
 literature which has done so much for education, without serving 
 one sect more than another. But I must turn from this, lest 
 you should think that I am trying to flatter you, and I know 
 that flattery is considered by a Scotch audience as the worst 
 of briber}', and that you would rather I should break your heads 
 with hard blows against your most cherished opinions than try 
 to win you with compliment, however well deserved and sin- 
 cerely meant. 
 
 The post renewed to me by our society to-day is a 
 post ot honor, of higher honor than could have been fore- 
 shadowed sixty years ago. Some of you are old enough to 
 remember hearing from lips living at that period what the posi- 
 tion of Freethinkers was in Scotland then, how impossible it 
 woula have been to have then held such a Conference as ours. 
 One value the post has to me is that it brings me into contact 
 with men of every country who hold that the position entitles 
 me to their friendly greeting, greeting not to me for my own 
 sake, but for your sake in whose trust I stand. This free 
 platform that has been won needs from us to-day vigorous 
 defence. You have heard from Mrs. Besant and Mr. Foote 
 how that liberty is won and is grudged. Won, in that the laws 
 against us are not enforced, but the laws are there and may be 
 enforced. We have not yet won equality with other sects ; we 
 have not yet won social liberty and equal right. Our platform 
 is only tolerated. Tolerated ? But no one has right to tolerate. 
 I have no right to tolerate the thought of the churches. They 
 have no right to tolerate mine. Their thought is theirs of 
 right ; mine is mine of right ; and the judgment of to-morrow 
 only can be final both on their thought and on mine. But I 
 ask you to remember that no strong defence can be made by 
 one. 
 
 Sixty, nay fifty, years ago men and women w^ent to gaol 
 in Edinburgh for holding the opinions with v/hich we ar2 
 identified to-night. There was no society to stand by theiu
 
 ^92 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 then; no organisation to aid them then. We should be as 
 weak as they, were it not for the pubhc opinion made by the 
 organised propaganda we keep up. You have the right to help; 
 you have the duty of work and the right of work, so that all the 
 pressure may not fall on a few. None has the right to stand 
 .alone, to refuse to join a society. Why not ? Because he could 
 not think save for the thought before him. Because he could 
 not know but for the destruction of the censorship which blotted 
 pages out of the books which teach him. Because his thought 
 would be silenced but for the struggles of gallant thinkers of 
 yesterday. Each who links himself to our Society makes us 
 stronger to meet the powerful organisations against us, and in 
 some measure repays the debt he owes to the Freethinkers of 
 the past. 
 
 Mr. Foote has spoken to us of the heretical works of 
 the great dead, of Emerson, of Rossetti, of Darwin. As he 
 spoke I remembered the Anti-Clerical Conference in Rome, 
 held when the CEcumenical Council was sitting there, in which 
 I was invited to take part by Ricciardini. I was reminded also 
 of a remarkable phrase in the London Spectator, that Carlyle 
 had denied miracles, while Darwin left no room for a special 
 providence. Westminster Abbey for Darwin's bones ; Belfast 
 pulpits against Darwin's brains ; and Darwin's monument his 
 work, destroying the Church which enshrines his coffin, and 
 which is the most powerful foe of education in this land. 
 
 The signs of persecution spoken of by Mrs. Besant are not con- 
 fined to England, Scotland, and Ireland. There are traces of 
 fierce activity in France and in Italy; the Roman Catholic Church 
 in those lands must either drive back heresy or be broken ; the 
 school is rising against the Church, the schoolmaster against 
 the priest who trades on ignorance. Here among ourselves 
 there is a danger in the growing strength of societies cast out 
 from other lands, and it is not wise to ignore it. We have 
 Cardinal Manning interfering in our political strife ; a foreign 
 Cardinal impudently issuing his Bull to a free people ; it scarce 
 needs another Luther to burn such Bulls as his. It is too 
 late for Rome to try and grapple with the Rationalistic spirit of 
 lo-day 1
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I93 
 
 Is the power of the priest broken ? I wish I felt sure 
 .it is. Some of the weapons of the priest are broken. His 
 rack, his faggots, his chains, his prisons are broken, but his 
 power, while the power of the confessional exists in these lands, 
 over our mothers and sisters is not broken, and we must break 
 it. The power of the priest is shaken, but I fear another 
 generation or two must pass ere it will be wholly crushed. Yet 
 well may Mr. Foote have said so, when he knows that in Rome 
 itself, where Bruno died, to-day orators speak, under the very 
 shadow of the Vatican, the heresy for whose sake he gave his 
 life. I ask you to-night to join hands to forward this great 
 cause. You need not lectures now and then, not applause of 
 some favorite orator, but that every Freethinker should think it 
 his duty to stand by the colors. There are matters connected 
 with the press which we are bound to guard ; we must keep it 
 thoroughly free, and we must try to create a public opinion that 
 will prevent any taint falling on those who work for us, any 
 slur, any injury to their means of livelihood ; we must win for 
 the platform the right enjoyed by the pulpit, and give to our 
 speakers the same honor as is given to the most favorite 
 preacher. We want a platform guarded by an enlightened 
 public opinion, so that no bishop, no member of the House of 
 Commons, no assembly of a kirk, shall dare to join immorality 
 with unbelief. Why should these two be united ? Why should 
 immorality be connected with unbelief rather than with belief ? 
 Freethought should surely rank higher than the mumbling of 
 old prayers ! 
 
 You will think that I ought not to conclude without some 
 words as to my personal fight. I can only say that I shall 
 fight on, that I have never been beaten in the long run yet, and 
 that I don't mean to be now. I have been reproached for lack 
 of education ; one word certainly I have never learned : Defeat, 
 and I am too old to begin to learn it now. So far as their legal 
 attacks are concerned, I will fight them in every court. If 
 bankruptcy must come, let it come to those who commenced 
 the fight ; we did not. Let us empty their purses, and teach 
 them to regret that they ever provoked the struggle. That is 
 my fight. On the hustings the fight is yours. You must show 
 
 o
 
 JOA SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 no mercy, no sparing, when you deal there with the men who 
 have insulted the women of our party. We cannot in every case 
 win the seat, but we can always make it lost to the man who 
 has maligned us. No seat of these that I can strike at will I 
 spare. I have settled about a dozen of them already. I do not 
 pretend, friends, that I shall in the future do all you wish ; a 
 man can only do his best. My judgment may not always be 
 yours, but I will try to guide it by the best judgments of those 
 who have gone before. 
 
 The Edinburgh society has set before us two mottoes : 
 one that of the N. S. S., " We search for truth " : the other 
 my own, "Thorough". For the Freethought one I say, that 
 we do not pretend to know all truth, but we have learned 
 enough to know how vast is that for which we search : no 
 statute has the right to check our search ; no Church has the 
 right to stop it ; no priest has the right to hinder it ; no curse 
 has the right to doom it ; no prejudice has the right to forbid it. 
 Truth we will have, if human effort may make the road to find 
 it. Our grasp is not big enough to hold all we find, but by 
 gripping some facts we may teach others to grip more strongly, 
 while we learn ever that truth lies beyond. For my own motto, 
 I will strive to justify it, both in the office you have given, and 
 in any other I may win. And when my work is over, and the 
 stone covers the spot wherein I lie, may I be entitled to have 
 the word " Thorough " carven upon its face. 
 
 Manchester, May i^th, 1883. 
 
 Crowded as this gathering has been, I have seen gaps 
 in it which make sorrow to me — gaps, which old faces 
 used to fill ; gaps where sturdy friends, tried in struggle, 
 used to sit ; gaps where younger ones sit to-day, but which 
 are still gaps to me, carved by the hand of death, and left 
 empty for ever. 
 
 In re-electing me President I would ask you to remem-
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I95 
 
 ber that I am only what you make me. I have only the 
 strength you give me; I wield only the authority you 
 form for me. I am your mouthpiece, not your dictator ; 
 your servant, not your master. I am your standard-bearer, 
 not your leader : standing in the front rank because you 
 put me there. It is the trust you give me, the love you 
 bear me, the sympathy you show me, the loyal work you do 
 in response to my appeal, that make me strong ; it is the echo 
 you send out from every village, every valley, every township, 
 when I call to you, that rings into every church and chapel 
 in the land. Therefore, now, I appeal to you that in the 
 coming year you will help and sustain me and the Executive 
 you have elected to do your work. The world expects more 
 from us to-day ; the opposition is fiercer, more bitter, more un- 
 sparing than ever. It needs that we should be not reckless, but 
 firm ; not insulting, but not flinching ; we fight not with our own 
 strength, yet with the strength of generations upon generations 
 who lie in their graves, but whose work lives in our work to-day. 
 I appeal to you to organise and unite. Isolated, you 
 are like the dust, blown by every breath of wind ; linked 
 ■together you are rock. Children linked to;^ether could hold 
 a strong man, who could throw them over one by one. 
 Link yourselves together as our cause is linked with all that is 
 great and grand, noble and sublime. There is no need to 
 .ask you to unite for great things, but for small : a crisis finds 
 you all ready, but I want you ready when you do not see the 
 ■crisis, when you do not see the difficulty. I want you to form 
 part of the political life of the district to which you belong. 
 When men see you firm, when they admire your straight- 
 forwardness, when they note your courage, they will turn to 
 you as leaders in the hour of strife. 
 
 A man whom I will not name, in an influential posi- 
 tion, with wealth at his disposal, a power in chapels 
 throughout the land, a man of lifelong integrity, said to 
 me lately: "One thing, Mr. Bradlaugh, I cannot under- 
 stand, and that is how ready your people are to help ours, 
 though they disagree with us". I answered: "We are ready 
 •to help you when we think you right ; we judge your work, 
 
 o 2
 
 196 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 not your creed ". In all contests, municipal and political^ 
 teach men to turn to you, and try to judge with as much 
 freedom from prejudice as you can. If a man is not all you 
 want, yet select the best man you can find and work for him. 
 No Freethinker who can get a vote should remain without one- 
 He is disloyal to the cause if he leaves ungrasped a sword he 
 might use. The suffrage is a weapon, and it is one we will 
 use ; those members who have trampled on our rights, those 
 members who have slandered our lives, those members whO' 
 have gibed at our ignorance, those members who have insulted 
 our women, we will meet those members at the polling-booth,, 
 and we will fight them there. We may have a general election 
 before the year now commenced has closed. There are storm- 
 signals flying, and I promise you to keep a sharp look-out, and 
 to give warning of the bursting. We are a fighting party ; we 
 are fighting for our existence ; our platform is not yet free. 
 The danger is not so much from the prejudiced folly of a man 
 like Mr, Justice North, as from the reasoned views of such a 
 man as Mr. Justice Stephen. 
 
 All Liberals have rejoiced to hear, or to read, the hu- 
 mane, the generous, the kindly, the broad, the liberal views 
 of the Lord Chief Justice of England ; but we must re- 
 member that these views only open out possibilities ; they 
 are dicta which may grow into law, if we are careful and 
 wise. Now, the history of the law is really our danger, 
 and in the hands of judges determined to strain the law the 
 platform would be made precarious. Carlile spent nearly nine 
 years and eight months in gaol to make our platform. Poor 
 men went from your valleys in hundreds, and lay in gaol to make 
 the platform safe, to win the right of speech. The right of 
 speech, the right of platform, the right of press, these rights 
 have not been given : they have been bought with hunger, as 
 men in gaol left their families starving outside ; they have been 
 bought with torture of heart and torture of body ; not with the 
 torture of the rack, for that was merciful — the rack was followed 
 by the grave ; this torture left men — living men — surrounded by 
 starving wives and starving children, yet they bore all that they 
 might win freedom for us.
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. I97 
 
 Our worst danger, however, is not from indictment for 
 blasphemy, but from Rome ; Rome, which is minghng now 
 in our poHtical strife ; Rome, which dared to send message 
 to Northampton to bid free EngHshmen vote as the Vatican 
 •dictated ; Rome, as to which Sir Massey Lopes in the 
 House said he rejoiced in its aid. Rome is too bold ; we 
 ■will not have it. Rome has cursed Italy ; it shall not curse 
 us again. Rome shall have free church for its worshippers, 
 free bench for its bishops, free right for its speech ; but 
 Rome shall not touch our liberty, Rome shall not master our 
 political life. Rome shall not put back our Freedom's clock 
 to the time of the Middle Ages ; we will break first the hands 
 that touch it. We see an ominous union of Newdegate and 
 Manning ; the old ultra-Protestant has forgotten the words, 
 bitter and coarse, with which he assailed the scarlet lady of 
 Babylon, words too coarse for repetition in our meeting here. 
 Yet we see him walking into the lobby arm-in-arm with the 
 protege of Cardinal Manning, and we must admire the forgetful- 
 ness of each. But most of all must we admire the forgetfulness 
 of the Protestant ; for Cardinal Manning only uses the ultra- 
 Protestant as his tool against a foe more dangerous to Rome. 
 The fight between us and Rome must come one day. It may 
 be far-off; it may be to-morrow — the fight between Rome and 
 Rationalism, between the fullest assertion of the right of private 
 judgment and the most complete submission to authority. 
 
 I have now only to dismiss you and to look into the coming 
 year. Shall we have more blasphemy prosecutions ? I think 
 not ; at any rate as against myself, unless Sir Hardinge Giffard 
 learns some fresh trick of law, I may hope to give reasonable 
 account thereof. But am I right to say that I think there will 
 be no more ? Baffled against one, may they not try to touch 
 another whom they deem less skilful of fence ? Shall more men 
 wear prison dress ? Shall more men live on prison food ? I 
 cannot tell you how pained I felt, when, on visiting Holloway 
 Gaol, I heard a letter and a number given to summon one, and 
 then a letter and a number given to summon another, and when 
 two men came in, in dirty brown prison garb, bearing letter and 
 number, and I recognised them as those I knew. They have
 
 ig8 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 offended against good taste ? But do you send men to gaol for 
 offending against good taste ? Do you dress men in prisoner's 
 garb for offending against good taste ? Do you shut men up 
 in small cells for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four 
 for offending against good taste ? Do you make men pick 
 oakum for offending against good taste ? At any rate men are 
 not so treated who offend grossly. To-day on the walls of 
 your city I see huge bills headed "Blood and Fire", and if 
 religion be a reality, what could be more offensive than those 
 bills ? And if good taste is to be the rule, what of those 
 religionists who libel our dead, who slander our living, who shut 
 our men out of employment, who close colleges against our 
 women, who mock us with our ignorance while they shut us 
 out from knowledge ? 
 
 I have said many a bitter word and many a harsh thing ; 
 perhaps some had been better not said. Yet were I to live 
 my life again, with the knowledge of how cruel, how merci- 
 less the Church has been, how it has made speech impos- 
 sible, how it has poisoned our lives, I might wonder that 
 all my language had not been bitter instead of only some. 
 It is better not to offend, if offence may be fairly avoided, 
 and it is better because we hurt the good men, not the bad. 
 Good men, such as Canon Shuttleworth and my friend, 
 Stewart Headlam ; among Dissenters, such as Charles Wil- 
 liams : among the United Presbyterians such as Mr. Marjori- 
 banks ; in the Church of England, such as the Vicar of Coal- 
 ville : we regret to give these men pain, and if we needed any- 
 thing to make our tongues gentle and to soften our memory of 
 yesterday's wrong, we might find it in one of England's greatest 
 judges, Christian to the utmost, creed-bound to the fullest, 
 wrestling with his creed that he might do justice, and wringing 
 himself with pain that he might not injure us. I ask everyone 
 of our speakers, every one of our writers, while they are striking 
 at the Church which has cursed the land, at least to remember 
 that there was one strong in creed, strong in prejudice, separ- 
 ated from us by an abyss of judgment and of feeling, who yet 
 stretched his hand across the gulf, and strove to be gentle as 
 •well as just.
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. IQQ 
 
 I cannot part with you without reminding you how Free- 
 thought is spreading through the world, through India, through 
 New Zealand, through Australia, through the United States, 
 through Holland, through Germany, through Italy, where no 
 Atheist is precluded by his non-belief from the enjoyment of 
 civil rights, through France, where the vast gathering round the 
 grave of the man she loved, where the sympathy, the hope, the 
 love, the patriotism shown, were all without shade of religion. 
 But though the cause is winning, the struggle is not over yet. 
 We struggle against the fetter-customs of yesterday, against the 
 reputations made when men libelled and racked and burned the 
 heretic. Time is on our side ? Yes, for our cause ; but Time 
 marches with iron scythe and cuts down the living soldiers, and 
 their blood waters the fields over which they march. Time is 
 always on the side of Truth ; but in time they have racked our 
 warriors ; in time they have burned our martyrs ; in time men 
 have lain in dungeon, and the grave had given the fulness of 
 time to the man yearning for freedom. 
 
 Friends, I finish gratefully, hopefully ; gratefully, for all you 
 have done ; hopefully for the coming year. I greet you as 
 fellow-soldiers in the army that fights for liberty. All truth, 
 all right are not ours, but we have the right to search for truth 
 in trust for those who come afterwards, and we will do our best 
 to make the search rich for those for whom we gather. 
 
 Plymouth, June ist, 1884. 
 
 Let me congratulate you on your unanimous and hearty way 
 of work : this informal Parliament grows more useful every 
 year, although there is no way of holding it together save by 
 goodwill and by desire for the good of the common cause. 
 
 Twenty-four years ago, as has been already said, I was 
 brought up through a hole in the floor into the dock of the Devon- 
 port police court ; I was not then tried for blasphemy, because 
 the Young Men's Christian Association had been too hasty : they
 
 200 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 had arrested me as soon as I had said : " Friends, I am about 
 to address you on the Bible ". Even then my reputation had 
 such a peculiar turn that it was thought that these words 
 justified my arrest. We have had some growth since then, 
 some change in position since then. Then, in court in Devon- 
 port, in court at Exeter, where I fought the matter. Freethinkers 
 were objected to, and their evidence was rejected on the ground 
 of their heresy. We have destroyed that, but we have not yet 
 destroyed the insult attached to our evidence-giving, we have 
 not destroyed the power of the bigoted to make the giving 
 painful and difficult ; but we will. This we may boast, that we 
 have always fought within the law. We have threatened no 
 violence, we have used no violence, we have acquiesced in no 
 violence, we have encouraged no violence. We appeal to men's 
 brains, to men's reason, and we may remind those who are 
 against us that wherever Freethought makes its way in a 
 country, there the reforming spirit in politics is orderly, peace- 
 ful, and must be useful. 
 
 I am glad that you have carried Mr. Foote's motion on 
 the Blasphemy Laws. For years in that agitation I stood 
 almost alone. Twenty-three years ago I was rebuked by 
 one who then stood high in the Freethought ranks for wast- 
 ing the energies of the party in attacking obsolete laws. 
 Bad laws live for mischief always. They are weapons in the 
 hands of the cruel, which may be used at any time. The iron 
 was cold then when I struck it, and the effort was wearying ; 
 but if we did not repeal the laws, at least we won friends enough 
 not to leave their victims undefended when they were them- 
 selves silenced. I ask you not to let this resolution be of words 
 alone. You, who by your presence here, show that you are 
 Freethinkers, I ask you, hundreds of you not enrolled in our 
 ranks, I ask you to come boldly out and join us, for to be 
 Freethinkers to-day, and not active workers, is treason to the 
 common cause. In the coming year there will be fighting 
 enough for all. On June 13th I am to argue whether Atheists 
 have any civil rights at all ; whether holding the position you 
 have given me, and which I am proud to hold, whether that 
 position in free England makes me an outlaw, without political
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 201 
 
 lights. I shall argue with ten times the force because you 
 trust me to argue it, and because I shall know that I am 
 arguing for you and not for myself alone. I mean to win. 
 The matter is so grave that I would not say so to you unless I 
 felt sure, and you know that I have never said so to you unless 
 where I have won before the finish. I cannot tell you when, 
 nor where, but if it has to be in the House of Lords then I 
 will go there to win, and will win there. But I will try to win 
 before. 
 
 If we want to measure progress we must not reckon it by 
 the last twenty-four years : twenty-four years is nothing but 
 a speck of time in history. We must not measure it by the 
 twenty-five years before that, although that quarter of a century 
 held in it nine years of gaol for Richard Carlile ; although in it 
 hundreds went to prison for blasphemy, out of one shop alone 
 nine men and two women. It is something to be proud of in 
 our movement that women have shared in its perils ; something 
 to be proud of that we have women now, able to endure, able to 
 speak, able to instruct, and to make us purer by struggling by 
 our side. We must not measure our progress by the century. 
 One hundred years ago they burned Diderot's works, and this 
 year Freethinkers will gather in honor of Diderot's centenary. 
 One hundred and ten years ago in France penalty of death was 
 put on any who should dare to publish any " book calculated to 
 disturb the public mind ". A Nonconformist sent Mr. Foote to 
 . gaol last year, but a hundred years ago Lord Mansfield rebuked 
 the persecution of Nonconformists, declaring that the city of 
 London, in paltry thieving spirit, nominated Nonconformists to 
 offices they could not fill, so that they might fine them for the 
 non-fulfilment ; Lord Mansfield characterised that persecution 
 as mean and paltry ; persecution had been cruel, it had become 
 petty. And persecution is always petty — petty, paltry, and 
 short-sighted. The twelve months' imprisonment have given to 
 Mr. Foote a force and an influence, not among you who love 
 him, but among those who hate him, that no work could have 
 won in the same time. 
 
 Three hundred years ago Bruno was burned for Athe- 
 ism ; to-day in the Italian Parliament men sit who hold views
 
 202 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 more extreme than those for which Bruno suffered in the 
 Piazzai dei Fiori in Rome. Then Galileo was compelled to 
 recant, while he muttered : E pure si muove. Then Spinoza 
 was excommunicated by the Jews, the Jews who have suf- 
 fered so much, and who suffer still, and who, like many who 
 are persecuted, are sometimes too ready to persecute in their 
 turn. Take Pomponatius racked, Vanini mutilated, and then 
 you can measure the progress made, for as against these the 
 three, or nine, or twelve months' prison may seem as sun- 
 shine. 
 
 We, meeting in Conference, take this position : that no autho- 
 rity save that of reason is valid ; that no place save that of 
 freedom is worthy; we dictate only by the clash of thought, 
 and we are against every form of ecclesiastical establishment, 
 not because we disagree with its creed, but because every form 
 of thought should be equal in opportunity. 
 
 I thank the Plymouth Branch that opposite Mr. Foote's 
 words they have put the word I hope to deserve, " Thorough ". 
 We mean to be thorough. We claim no right to dictate 
 views to others, but we do claim that none who hold ours shall 
 be forced before a judge ; we claim education secular and 
 universal, no social, no political, no religious disabilities put 
 upon us ; we will not have toleration, but equality ; falsehood 
 should not be tolerated, it should be exposed, but none should 
 punish the man because his views are false. Leave him to- 
 judge. Give fair play and free play to all. 
 
 It would be unfair now to keep you longer, so I will only say 
 that the morrow is full of promise. Fifty years ago education 
 without religion was impossible ; it was superstition or nothing ; 
 on your knees or nothing ; church prayers or nothing. Now we- 
 may try to walk, even if we stumble. I thank you, friends, 
 that you have trusted me to lead you for another year. There 
 is fighting to be done, and I still can fight. I have said nothing 
 to you to-day of my political struggle, because it would not be 
 fair to others. Cordially agreeing as I do with what Mr. Foote- 
 said of those who are willing to stand beside us in fighting for- 
 liberty, you will recognise how I feel to good folk who disagree 
 with my heresy, but who are good enough to give me their
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 203 
 
 political trust, and hopeful enough to believe that I shall not 
 dishonoi it. 
 
 Birmingham, May 2^th, 18S5. 
 
 Not all of you in this great meeting are of us ; not all of 
 you are for us : not all of you, perhaps, are even well inclined 
 towards us ; yet all of you, every one of you, friendly or hostile,, 
 ally or foe, is lending strength to us to-night : is helping us to 
 mark a great step of progress in this land. Progress, but pro- 
 gress not yet complete ; which until it is complete must be 
 painfully won, hardly won, sorely won ; won, as he (Mr. Foote) 
 helped to win it by gaol-suffering as payment won as she (Mrs. 
 Besant) helped to win it by house laid desolate, and heart-strings 
 wrung, and child's life torn away. 
 
 I congratulate you on the progress Freethought has made 
 throughout the world. Here we meet in this noble hall by 
 grace of your good town. In New Zealand, Robert Stout and 
 John Ballance, men holding the views I hold, speaking as 
 openly as I speak, hold office, one as Prime Minister, the 
 other as a Cabinet Minister. In New Zealand there is perfect 
 equality for all before the law, without mockery of oath to make 
 shame or taunt of. There an Affirmation Bill has given to every 
 one the fullest right, without hindrance, without insult, without 
 question. New Zealand gives us promise of what we shall win; 
 win with your help, if you will give it ; win despite your hinder- 
 ing, if you will hinder ; win in any case, for we will have it. 
 
 To-day we have still many disabilities, but we have also 
 many possibilities of hope. Disabilities not only complained 
 of by men of our own side, but recognised as such by those 
 outside our ranks. Mr. Justice Stephen has sketched 
 the Blasphemy Laws in what he calls " all their naked 
 deformity". Lord Justice Lindley, administering the law 
 against unbelievers, admitted that there were laws against 
 heretics of "cruel severity". We demand the repeal of all
 
 204 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 such laws; we demand equality of civil right. We do 
 not ask for toleration from our enemies. Toleration implies 
 superiority ; we claim equality. We claim fair play. We say 
 that in the conflict of thought, in the multiplicity of creeds, in 
 the multitude of churches, in the myriads of sects, some must be 
 wrong, all may be wrong, and the duty of each is to give fair play 
 to all. 
 
 In a country like Great Britain, in an empire with 
 350,000,000 of subjects holding differing faiths, the duty of a 
 Government is to hold the scales level, giving privilege 
 to none, putting penalty on none, yielding protection to all. 
 And we are grateful to your Corporation in that it has 
 held the balance even ; that it asked no pledge from us 
 that it does not ask from all ; put no restriction on us that it 
 does not put on all ; and I ask it to believe that we desire to 
 take no advantage beyond that which each body has which 
 meets in this hall. We do not deny to any the right to worship ; 
 we do not ask that any shall not be protected in their worship if 
 they need protection : but we do claim that we may stand as 
 safely as they may kneel. We challenge only any special 
 privilege for any ; we rebel against any special penalty on any ; 
 claiming fair play for all, free ground for all, equality for all 
 before the law. 
 
 There must be, with liberty of thought, many shades 
 of thought. We claim free utterance for all of them, 
 however extreme any may be. Let enlightened public opinion 
 hear all, weigh all, judge all. Let all thoughts be equal 
 before the law, with no opinion-penalty, no opinion-impri- 
 ment, no opinion-heartwring. Against special disabilities 
 we are rebels. Years ago, long years ago, generations ago, 
 the fire burned up Bruno. Those fires were relit here, and 
 Priestley saw their flames lick up his library and his instruments; 
 now in this hall his pictured face looks down from the place in 
 which you have raised it high in honor, looks down on a 
 crowd to which our speech utters his thoughts carried further 
 than he carried them. We have the right to think as far as 
 we can. Are you more enlightened than we ? then answer us. 
 When our thoughts have been uttered let the best exponents of
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 205 
 
 orthodoxy answer them ; but do not burn, do not imprison. I 
 say nothing of the small obstacles that have lain in my own 
 path ; you have helped me to climb them, and you have lifted 
 me higher than I could have lifted myself. We will think, and 
 we will let our thought be heard. 
 
 Mr. Foote has referred to Victor Hugo, and we may well 
 Join in reverent tribute at his grave, for he was a big man among 
 small men, a big pen writing clear strokes where others scratched, 
 a painter with huge brush painting upon the world what he saw 
 and what he dreamed, beyond the petty gutter-realities of many 
 who mocked him. This man, dying, would have no priest at his. 
 side ; he was, as described in the Times, a " Voltairean Deist ". 
 A few years ago he presided with Victor Schcelcher and Maria 
 Desraimes at a Freethought Conference at Paris. Recently he 
 was named on the Committee of Honor for the Bruno Memorial, 
 for that monument which marks the progress of Freethought, 
 which climbs the Roman hill to look down on the Roman 
 mockery that has hindered hope, poisoned Italy, and is now 
 dying of its own corruption. 
 
 We have no creed, but we have much faith ; faith in the 
 possibility of human progress ; faith in digging after truth ; faith 
 in searching after truth ; not in looking backwards to yesterday 
 but in working for the morrow ; not in lying prone on the ground 
 praying, but in climbing upwards towards the light. We be- 
 lieve in the decrease of human woe, as men hate less, as they 
 love more, as each helps the other to make his grip the firmer. 
 We believe in the lessening of human hatreds, as men recognise 
 that varying opinions may be held with equal honesty. We 
 believe in the use of reason instead of force, in peace instead of 
 war. Religion may bless bayonets ; Freethought cannot. To 
 us war is murder, capture is theft ; we have no joy in ruined 
 homes, in fire-scorched villages, in trampled fields ; we would 
 rather strive to raise than to strike down, and we believe that 
 bright eyes and keen intellects are better than armed men. 
 
 We do not pretend that we are always right ; we only 
 try to be. We do not pretend that we have truth, but that 
 we search for it. Our motto is : " We seek for truth ", and 
 with Lessing we believe that he is most ignorant who thinks he
 
 2o6 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 knows all. Let us search. If you have the truth, we will have 
 it from you. We are ready to listen, if we may question ; ready 
 to hear, if we may answer ; ready to receive, if we may test the 
 purity of the coin you give. 
 
 I thank those of you who are not of us. I congratulate 
 those of you who are. I thank those who are not of us for their 
 kindly courtesy, and I would say to them : We are on the side 
 of the poor ; we plead for those who are mocked and insulted, 
 for those who are called " dregs " and " scum ", and if you help 
 us we will help you, that we may all have our truth truer, 
 healthier, fuller in the age to come. 
 
 Glasgow, June i^th, 1886. 
 
 In speaking here to-night, and delivering the closing speech 
 of this meeting, I am conscious that there are probably many 
 present who do not hold the views with which we of the 
 National Secular Society have been concerned to-day. On 
 behalf of those who have to-day elected me as their President 
 for another year, I stand here to claim for them from those of 
 you who do not agree with us a right equal to your own : a 
 right to think, to speak, to do. You may say : Have you not 
 that right ? Do you not use it ? We use it, but your laws do 
 not give it to us ; you deny it to us in your habits. Habits 
 cannot be changed in a day, but laws may. 
 
 With a general election now imminent, with power in your 
 hands, I would put two points to those who disagree with us. 
 You gain nothing by keeping bad laws. Bad laws give us a 
 right of complaint. While they exist your religion of love is a.f 
 sham ; your declaration of brotherhood is a pretence. You may- 
 say, what laws ? 
 
 First, take the laws about oaths, and see how they hinder 
 us. If we do not take them, they are a difficulty, a block in our 
 way. If we do take them, you who compel us to do so cry out 
 that we are hypocrites. The hypocrisy is yours : the dishonor 
 is yours ; so long as you force your oaths on us. North of the
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 207 
 
 Tweed no unbeliever in future rewards and punishments has 
 any right to take an oath, nor has he any right to affirm. If he 
 state his views, or if his views be known, if he has expressed 
 them in unguarded conversation, his evidence can be objected 
 to. If the case be a civil one, his claim may be shut out ; if a 
 criminal one, the criminal may escape, the innocent may suffer, 
 for want of his excluded evidence. A juror who disbelieves in 
 hell can neither affirm nor swear. The witness, however, may 
 by travelling escape his disability. If he goes to Newcastle, 
 the judge will accept him ; the objection is valid north, but not 
 south, of the Tweed. The question ought surely not to be one 
 of geographical limitation. Be fair; allow a man his choice 
 between oath and affirmation. A man who is honest enough to 
 avow unpopular opinions is a man likely to speak the truth. 
 Every Christian should work for this reform, until the men 
 who you say mock the oath are no longer compelled to take 
 it. We do not ask to escape the legal penalty attached to false 
 swearing. We are willing that the same penalty shall attach to 
 our simple declaration. We only ask that we may not be forced 
 to go through a form of words of which we do not know the 
 meaning, and to which you attach meanings as various as your 
 opinions. I do not argue with you as to the meaning of the 
 phrases, " Swear not at all " ; " Thou shalt not take the name 
 of the Lord thy God in vain ". But I remind you that the 
 Bishop of Peterborough has told you that if you pretend we are 
 hypocrites you fail ; that if we say words to which we attach no 
 meaning we cannot blaspheme ; that in so doing we give no 
 pledge of belief. 
 
 Secondly, we complain of the Blasphemy Laws ; laws 
 under which Mr. Foote was imprisoned, under which Mrs. 
 Besant was deprived of her child; laws under which the 
 late Lord Amberley's \vill was cancelled, and the trust he 
 made for his children's education was set aside; laws which 
 Mr. Justice Stephen said he wanted to expose in all their 
 hideous iniquity. We demand that these laws shall be repealed. 
 They are of no service, save for purposes of persecution. They 
 do not serve religion nor check heresy. Voltaire mocked at 
 them : Hobbes sneered at them. You may lock up one or two
 
 208 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 by means of them : but you cannot lock up thought. If your 
 rehgion is true, you should not want them ; if it is false, you 
 should not have them. If your religion is love, you should not 
 use them ; if it is hate, they should be taken from you as weapon. 
 A Bill is now brought forward to abolish them, brought- 
 forward by religious men ; by men who believe that persecu- 
 tion is bad, and that it shows the weakness of those who use it. 
 
 We appeal for equal right. We shall win that right. 
 You cannot prevent ; you can only hinder. Many have been 
 burned, but burning has not stopped thought. Many have been 
 imprisoned, but imprisoning cannot stop speech. Our platform 
 is won, despite stake and gaol. The pen, the telescope, the- 
 microscope, are won for fuller teaching, for finer touches, for 
 new fact and new thought. We are heretics, you say ; we 
 claim equal right as men. We are men, and you can be no- 
 more. We claim the right to reason, the right to argue, the 
 right to answer. The gaol door is no syllogism ; the gaoler's 
 key is no argument. But you say we use mocking words. 
 Why not ? You mock at every religion save your own, and 
 why not we at yours ? But if you would not have us mock, 
 treat us justly ; if you would have us kind, treat us kindly ; if 
 you want us not to use words that hurt, then be fair. Many 
 creeds have lived and died ; perhaps yours may be wrong. If 
 you are sure that you are right, then you can afford to be- 
 generous ; if you are sure that you have the truth, then the 
 greater need to be just. 
 
 I dare not fancy that you all agree with me ; I know there: 
 are some here who think that we are not right. But remember 
 how many have been denounced in their own time who have 
 been honored afterwards, and though we may not deserve 
 to be ranked with them, yet you may be wrong in your 
 hasty forbiddal of new thought. Bacon was assailed as a 
 Materialist ; Newton was decried as a heretic. Men who were 
 branded Atheist in their own age have been canonised in the 
 ages after them for their efforts for human redemption. 
 
 I give you thanks for the patience with which you have 
 listened to much with which you disagree, and I bid you all 
 good-night.
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 209 
 
 South Shields, May 20th, 1188. 
 
 It is now my dut)' to deliver the closing speech of this 
 Conference gathering. 
 
 Some of you may be inclined to ask why it is that we invite 
 outsiders who do not agree with us to listen to declarations that 
 must often be ofifensive to them ; you may ask why do we make 
 parade of the strength of a movement which, from your point of 
 view, can only be mischievous and injurious. I will try to 
 answer that question. We ask those who do not agree with us, 
 we ask those who think we are wrong, we ask those who say 
 that they are right and we in error, to give us the evidence of 
 their conviction of having the truth by working to make us as 
 free as they are. We ask that there shall be no penalty on our 
 opinions ; we ask that there shall be no disabilities following on 
 the expression of our opinions ; we ask that there shall be no 
 privilege connected with any phase of speculative thought. 
 Have you the right ? What higher privilege do you ask than 
 the privilege of having it ? Have you the right ? Then do you 
 need the State to add bribe to duty ? Have you the right ? 
 Then do you wish to have our error marked with the prison ? 
 Have faith in your OAvn conviction. Have belief in your own 
 creed. Fling your truth into the arena of public discussion, 
 relying on its own virtue to bring it out the victor. Who is 
 there among you most convinced of the truth of his religion ? 
 On what does he rely ? His religion is but one among many ; 
 within the limits of this empire there are scores, hundreds, of 
 jostling creeds ; how can you be sure that you are right ? If 
 you rely on reason, let us reason. Do not gag us when we 
 argue, send us to gaol when we speak. Or are you only sure 
 that you are right so long as there is no challenge ? Here is 
 one who is sure he has fine gold, but he will not assay it ; who 
 is sure he has gems, but will let no lapidary touch them ; who 
 has diamond, ruby, all that is priceless, but who hides them 
 away where none can see them, lest they should prove to 
 be false. 
 
 We appeal tc you for fair play. We ask you to join us in
 
 210 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 demanding for all equal right before the law. We ask you to 
 join us in working for the removal of every disability on opinion. 
 We ask you to join us in securing the repeal of all penalties on 
 heresy. You may say that, granted the laws are harsh, they 
 are not often enforced. Not often enforced ! If they are 
 enforced once, it is too often. But they are always being 
 enforced. A man who was on this platform last night, was 
 reproached by the pastor of his church because he had let his 
 roof shelter my ungodly head while we were engaged in political 
 work. We claim that within this empire, wherein exist so many 
 different creeds, that neither the affirmation of one nor the 
 denial of another may avail for privilege or penalty, that the 
 sword of the law shall strike none because he differs from 
 his neighbors in his creed. Neither law nor custom should 
 punish unbelief nor reward belief ; a man is neither vicious nor 
 virtuous because of his unbelief; let men's lives be tried and 
 measured by their discharge of duties. We claim that all 
 opinion shall be open to criticism, and that no criticism shall be 
 subject to punishment. 
 
 Mrs. Besant spoke of Freethought and Free Speech as 
 means to an end. What end ? The enfranchisement of the 
 human mind from the trammels of old legends, which the 
 ignorance of some, the credulity of some, the folly of some, the 
 fraud of some had bound around it, till like the constrictor they 
 cramped and crippled the brain into helplessness. Means to an 
 end ! what end ? The freeing of the human mind from the 
 fetters of prejudice, prejudice which drives the poor into 
 hypocrisy because of the penalty on honesty. Why should you 
 do the Freethinker wrong ? why should you libel him, slander 
 him, starve him ? is that the best way to teach him you are 
 right ? The man who is outside the chapel because he deems it 
 right to stand there should be subject to no prejudice from the 
 man inside who kneels there because his father knelt there 
 before him. Means to an end ! what end ? The freedom of 
 the human mind from priestly dominance, whether it be by 
 attempt of Roman bull or as here by a broken-horned bull, who 
 runs against a post which hurts him more than he hurts it. 
 Freedom from the priestly interference which twists science ere
 
 NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY. 211 
 
 it reaches the child, and which deforms it for men and women. 
 The end that man may work out his own deUverance, free to 
 use his brain as sword, as spade, as plough, without bondage to 
 any. 
 
 In the brief but pregnant speech of your townsman, he 
 alluded to your School Board. I am glad that he and other 
 Freethinkers sit on the School Boards of the kingdom, but I am 
 sorry that no School Board, not one, from one end of England 
 to the other, has ever encouraged parents to take advantage of 
 the conscience clause and to withdraw their children from 
 religious education. In four words, themselves a speech, Mr. 
 Peacock said : " Education is our salvation ". It should be our 
 salvation. One hundred years ago the ignorant population of 
 France believed that a king might be their salvation. Now, a 
 population spread over every land thinks that the spiritual king 
 in Rome will be their salvation. But education, to be salvation, 
 must begin when the sheet of the new life has nought written 
 on it save the lines of tendencies drawn there by heredity, by 
 the father and mother and their fathers and mothers before 
 them ; it must be free to receive the impress of every fact, free 
 to receive the light of every new discovery of science, free, so 
 that as the brain grows it may examine all religions through its 
 microscope, as the biologist examines every minute living form. 
 
 Do you ask why we are not content to go on our way, why 
 do we war against other creeds ? Because they war on us, 
 they attack us, they will not let us have the salvation of 
 education. You give the Bible to the young children in the 
 school ; although it may be criticised by men, you guard it from 
 all criticism till the edge of criticism has been blunted in child- 
 hood by belief. We war against creeds, because if a Freethinker 
 endowed a library of Atheist books, the law would take away 
 the endowment and prevent their educative influence. Mrs. 
 Besant spoke of the price some had paid for liberty. But that 
 price is not yet paid. Richard Carlile paid a small part of it, 
 with his nine years of prison. One after another has paid some 
 of it. But no one has yet paid the full price, and when the 
 grave closes over each, each has paid a little more, and even then 
 prejudice exacts the interest of the yet unpaid purchase-money.
 
 212 SPEECHES BY CHARLES BRADLAUGH. 
 
 We are driven to attack Christianity, because it is the State 
 religion, because it attacks us. And it is hard to say what 
 Christianity is. Christianity in Rome will not let Bruno's 
 monument be raised ; but in England a Cardinal goes to West- 
 minster Abbey where Darwin lies among the saints of science. 
 Those who to-day played their tunes outside this hall [the 
 allusion was to the passage of a Salvation Army procession 
 during the morning and afternoon meetings] think that they 
 are Christians. Who is the Christian ? This Church or that ? 
 All creeds are modifying ; all creeds are changing. And this 
 is not only true of our own time. Religions, like languages, 
 like nations, have their periods of growth, their prime, their full 
 strength, their hour of decay, and out of each grows another of 
 a higher type. 
 
 I am afraid that I have kept you with my speech even now 
 unfairly, and I will only say one or two words more ere I close 
 this meeting. We are not here to-night in a spirit of defiance 
 or of warfare ; we are here letting you know in what we differ, 
 if you do not agree with us. But we are obliged outside to be 
 at war and in defiance, so long as the laws are harsh and 
 customs harsher, so long as the children of the poor are marked 
 out for scorn as though to be unbeliever ought to be brand of 
 contempt. All are infidel to every religion but their own ; all 
 are unbelievers in the eyes of those who differ from them. And 
 you who are against us, have you ever thought that as Bruno, 
 who three hundred years ago was bound to the stake with iron, 
 scorched by the flames which licked his life away, is looked on 
 to-day as a martyr of science, so in the future some of you may 
 be marked as infidels who are most believers, and some of us as 
 saints who now are most condemned ? 
 
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 LOS ANGELES ^^ 
 
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