On Thursday, April 15th, Lord Chief Baron Kelly, Baron Bramwell, and Baron Cleasby, sitting in the Exchequer Court, heard the motion for a new rule. The three judges listened to Mr. Bradlaugh with the greatest attention, and took the utmost care to fully comprehend the bearing of every argument he put forward, although their continuous interruptions were rather embarrassing to him. Having heard what he had to urge, a rule nisi was granted him on three points; if he succeeded in maintaining his rule on either of two points, the prosecution was at an end; if he failed in these, but succeeded in the third, then there would have to be a new trial. It is hardly wonderful that, having gained so much, he began to feel fairly sanguine of success; nor is it less wonderful that, with all the worry and all the work, he should be feeling rather bitter against the Government, which had actually brought in a Bill on April 8th to repeal those enactments which they were at that very moment trying to enforce against him.
"If the Gladstone Cabinet had been a generous one," he wrote, "it would have abandoned a prosecution which, when carried on by the late Government, some of the members of the present Cabinet had already emphatically condemned. If the Gladstone Government had been just and consistent, it should at least, when bringing in a Bill to repeal the very laws under which we are prosecuted, have delayed the legal proceedings in this case until after the debate in the House upon this Bill, which has now actually passed its second reading."
The rule of court granted by the judges was served upon the solicitor to the Inland Revenue on the 16th of April. Upon the 23rd that gentleman wrote Mr. Bradlaugh that as it was proposed to repeal the enactments under which the proceedings had been instituted, "the Law Officers of the Crown will agree to a stet processus being entered," and asked if he would consent to this course. To this Mr. Bradlaugh made answer:—
"Sir—I will consent to a stet processus being entered, not because of the Bill now before the House of Commons, but because I am sick of a litigation involving loss of time, anxiety, and expense; and I consent only with the distinct declaration on my part, that I am not liable under the statutes under which I am prosecuted, and protesting that a Liberal Government ought never to have carried on such a prosecution. If the Law Officers of the Crown had proposed a stet processus when the new Government came into office, the act would have been graceful; now, after twelve months of harassing litigation, the staying further proceedings, when a rule has been granted in my favour, is a matter for which I owe no thanks.
"If any more formal consent is necessary, I will give it. I never courted the contest, nor have I ever shrunk from it; but I have no inclination to carry it on; fighting the Crown is a luxury only to be indulged in by the rich as a voluntary occupation. I have fought from necessity, and have the sad consciousness that I retire victor at a loss I am ill able to bear."
In the National Reformer for the following week my father announced the total monies subscribed for the defence of the National Reformer at £236, 10s.; these were mainly from the hard earnings of poor friends, although a few had helped out of their fuller purses. He gave also a detailed account of the money he had actually paid away during this litigation; it amounted to £300, but of course this did not include the value of the time lost both directly and indirectly[43] in the course of these proceedings. To be £50 out of pocket is but a trifle to a rich man, but when it forms one item amongst many to a poor man it is a very serious matter. John Stuart Mill wrote him from Avignon: "You have gained a very honourable success in obtaining a repeal of the mischievous Act by your persevering resistance." But he did not think there was any hope of getting the Government to refund my father's expenses, although, as he said, a "really important victory" had been obtained. The "poor friends," however, continued to subscribe their pence and their shillings until the deficiency was in great part, if not wholly, made up.
The repealing Bill introduced into the House by Mr. Ayrton and the Chancellor of the Exchequer passed through its three stages without debate, and was then sent up to the House of Lords in charge of the Marquis of Lansdowne, who introduced it to his brother peers on Monday, May 31st. Lord Lansdowne explained that the Act of Geo. III. was passed at a time of much agitation,
"when it was thought necessary to subject the Press to every conceivable restriction and coercion. In repealing these Acts their lordships need not apprehend that there would be no security against an abuse by the Press of the power which it enjoyed, for it would remain amenable to the Libel and other Acts, and the distinction between newspapers and books being one not of kind but of degree, there was no reason why the former should be treated in an exceptional way. Generally speaking, moreover, these Acts had not of late years been enforced, though their retention on the Statute Book enabled persons to take advantage of them with the view of gratifying personal feeling."
Lord Cairns, the Lord Chancellor, and the Duke of Somerset, spoke, but upon points of the Bill other than that referring to newspapers. That the "debate" was not lengthy will be fully realised from the fact that upon this occasion the Lord Chancellor took his seat on the woolsack at five o'clock, and "their lordships adjourned at five minutes before six." The Bill passed its second and third reading (this last on June 21st) without a further word of discussion. Thus, almost in complete silence, were the Security Laws swept from the Statute Book, and cheap prints and dear prints made to stand technically equal in the eye of the law.
What were the comments of the Press on this great triumph so hardly won for them? After the trial of February 2nd, the Morning Star printed a splendid article against the prosecution, but all the other daily papers of the metropolis persevered in their silence. "To struggle with the Treasury officials would be no mean task," said my father, "even if we had words of encouragement and more efficient aid from those, many of whom stand like ourselves, liable to be attacked as infringers of an oppressive law. As it is, we fight alone, and only one of the London journals has spoken out on our behalf." The Manchester Courier wondered why the law had not been put in force against the National Reformer before. The Blue Budget reviled Lord Enfield for merely presenting a petition. The Times report of the lengthy proceedings before the three judges on April 15th occupies only twenty-five lines. The only London papers which printed Mr. Melvill's offer of a stet processus and Mr. Bradlaugh's rejoinder were the Times, Star, Reynolds' Newspaper, and Queen's Messenger. "Not one paper said a word in our favour or congratulated us on the battle we have had to fight." Finally, the repealing Bill passed through all its stages and became law without notice or remark. The bigotry of the leading journals of the day was so great that although they themselves reaped an easy harvest from the toil and suffering of their Freethought contemporary, they had not the grace to utter a word of good fellowship or rejoicing.
But the Government had not even yet done with Mr. Bradlaugh and the National Reformer. After allowing him some years' respite, an attack was directed against him from another quarter. In the autumn of 1872 the Postmaster-General, Mr. Monsell, gave my father notice that the National Reformer was to be deprived of the privilege of registration, notwithstanding that for the past nine years it had been registered for foreign transmission as a newspaper, and had been within the last five years prosecuted by both Tory and Whig Attorney-General as a newspaper.
This notice was quite unexpected, and, as might be imagined, my father did not take it very kindly.
Quite an unusual number of papers took up the cudgels in his defence. Most, of course, professed either a profound dislike of his personality, or ignorance of the contents of his journal, but they were thoroughly alarmed at the prospects opened up by this novel method of press censorship.
By the end of October, however, Mr. Bradlaugh received an intimation that the Postmaster-General had withdrawn his objection. The Government seemed determined to advertise the paper, and although they did not gain anything themselves, the processes they employed were very worrying to its poor proprietor. He wrote a special word of thanks to the numerous journals who had asked for fair play towards him, and in doing so also