The True Story of my Parliamentary Struggle. Bradlaugh Charles

his seat any Member to whom they might have an objection; and although such a thing is, luckily, not probable now, there have been times, even in the history of the House of Commons, when a majority, even of election committees, as I read in the Records of the House, have sought by mere prejudice to exclude Members. It is, therefore, the more necessary that at any rate a Member should have the right to be heard in his own defence. I submit that there is no precedent whatever for preventing a Member from taking his seat and the Oath, on the ground of conduct not amounting to absolute legal disqualification. There is no such precedent to be found at all, and I have searched very carefully indeed. I put the question to Sir Erskine May lest anything should have escaped me, and I say absolutely there is no precedent. Then I submit that it would not be consistent with the dignity of the House to examine any statement made by any Member outside the House, as to any of its procedure, and that in fact the House has firmly refused to allow a Member to be challenged as to whether or not some of his extra-Parliamentary utterances were inconsistent with his Oath of Allegiance; and here I should like the Committee to come to a decision, because it would alter and abridge my argument. If the Committee thought (I will put a suppositious case) that, say there were some document that they thought they had the right to take into consideration here, then while I should object to that, I should like to have the opportunity of addressing the Committee as to that. So far as the evidence has gone, I have not heard of any, except the mere statement in the House, only I judged from a question put by an honorable and learned Member that something was passing in his mind (which, by the way, did not seem to me to be the fact) justifying a question put to Sir Thomas Erskine May as to whether the Oath could be administered to a man who had done something either actually or by implication repudiating the effect of that Oath. I have heard nothing in the evidence, so far as it has gone, giving the slightest color or warranty for such a question. If there are any facts to be dealt with by this Committee other than that, then I should like to know the facts, and to argue upon them; but it would be only wasting the time of the Committee to address argument to any point which the Committee would not think it right to consider; and I should be glad if, before going further into my statement, the Committee thought it right to intimate to me their view upon that.

      The Committee deliberated.

      87. Chairman: I think the Committee would like to understand from you the kind of objection that you are anticipating before you proceed with your argument; as I understood you, you took this kind of objection: “I wish to know whether the Committee are going into any proceedings external to the proceedings which took place in the House, or will entertain the consideration of those questions,” and that if they did so you would wish to be heard upon that point; I understood you also to say that beyond that general question as to any proceedings which may have taken place as part of the transaction in any other place than the House itself, you wish to know whether the Committee would take such matter into their consideration; am I right in supposing that to be the character of your objection? – Not quite. Practically my question is this: Will this Committee take any facts into consideration other than those of which I have heard evidence given, and those which have been stated by myself in the course of my argument? If so, I should like to know, because I understood the permission of the Committee to be that I should address them at the close of the case before their deliberations, and I should submit with all respect that the Committee would not take one matter of fact into their consideration to influence them in their deliberations which I had not the opportunity of addressing them upon. If they have finished, and if there are no facts except those which I have heard to be dealt with, it enables me to turn out and eliminate a portion of the argument which I have prepared.

      The Committee deliberated.

      88. Chairman: The Committee have considered the matter which you have submitted to them, and they request me to inform you that members of the Committee do propose, after your statement is concluded, to ask some questions of you; but I have to inform you, at the same time, that you will be invited, and are invited, to state any objections that you may entertain to any such questions when put, and that you shall have a full opportunity of addressing the Committee after they have heard your answers to the questions so put? – That will enable me to eliminate a portion of my argument. I wish to submit to the Committee one observation on the precedent of Daniel O’Connell, and that is that, as a matter of fact, the evidence of Sir Thomas Erskine May shows that he misapprehended that precedent. It was a refusal by Daniel O’Connell to take the Oaths by law required of a member at the date of his election. Between the date of his election and the date of his refusal the law had changed, but it had not changed (so the House interpreted the Statute, or so the Statute ran, I do not know which) at the date of his election. So that I submit that Daniel O’Connell’s case is a case of a Member refusing to take the Oath by law required; and I further submit that the Parliamentary Debates will show that the words which appear as being used by Mr. O’Connell on the 19th of May, sufficiently expressed his reason for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy some days at least before the House asked him again to take it. Then I have only two other matters which I should wish to submit to the Committee. One is that I have, neither directly nor indirectly, obtruded upon the House, since I have been a Member, any of my utterances or publications upon any subject whatever; that there is no precedent, except in the case of John Wilkes, for any reference on the part of any opposing Member to such publications by any Member prior to the taking of his seat; and that the ultimate decision of the House in John Wilkes’s case is directly against the introduction by any Member hostile to me of any such matter as a reason for my not being allowed to take my seat. Finally, I most respectfully submit that I have grave matter of complaint that my privileges as a Member of the House of Commons have been seriously infringed, and that the rights of the electors, my constituents, have been ignored in the attacks made upon me without previous notice to me; attacks to which I had no opportunity of making a dignified reply; attacks which, if the newspaper reports be accurate, were in many instances based upon absolute misapprehension or misquotation of my publications, and in one instance at any rate, based upon the most extreme misrepresentation of my conduct. I thank the Committee for listening to me, and I regret if my want of knowledge of the forms of the House has involved my saying anything in a manner in which the Committee would prefer that I should not have said it.