Volume I Part 10 (2/2)

”On the contrary, such language appeared to the pet.i.tioners calculated to cause the people to believe that a complicity with such practices exists amongst the administrators of the law; subversive at once of justice and of the representative portion of the Legislature.

”The pet.i.tioners, therefore, prayed the honourable House of Commons to take such steps as might appear to it most fitting, to bring the matter under the notice of Her Majesty and her advisers in such a mode as may prevent a repet.i.tion of the same.”

This remarkable pet.i.tion, which may be read in the records of the House, bore the signatures of the following persons:--

Thomas Doubleday, James Eadie, James Watson, James Hay, Jos. Cowen, jun., Robert Sutherland, Thomas Gregson, Thomas Allen, Jos. Barlow, Thomas Spotswood, jun., John Emerson, Robert Ramsay, William Douglas, James Reed, and thirty-three others.

The character of Baron Bramwells remarks--the impediments he must well know he was putting in the way of any prosecution for bribery in Berwick; the words by which he sought to intimidate the prosecutors by holding them up to public ridicule--the language of the pet.i.tion appropriately characterised. Baron Bramwell could not be ignorant of the great expense which had been incurred in taking legal proceedings against the persons accused of bribery and in collecting evidence long after the time when the acts of bribery occurred. Such evidence is expensive to collect at the time, and much costlier at a later stage.

After obtaining witnesses it was necessary to protect them from being spirited away at the time of the trial--no uncommon occurrence in these cases. Many hundreds of pounds must have been spent before the case reached the stage when Baron Bramwell was appealed to by the accused to put obstacles in the way of the charges against them being tried. The penalties recoverable under the Act would not have covered a tenth part of these costs. Those who appealed to Baron Bramwell for protection knew perfectly well, as all Durham and Northumberland knew, that any costs they might be able to claim against Mr. Reed would be met. Baron Bramwell, by the remarks he uttered and the order he made, aided and abetted the bribery, and protected those who committed it. The Baron's observation that ”men of property would not be likely to trouble themselves” to put the Act in force against electoral corruption, was true and significant. The ”men of property” were they who profited by it; and if any man of property had justice and patriotic spirit sufficient to prosecute bribers, he was certain to incur annoyance and loss, and subject himself to offensive comments such as Baron Bramwell made. It was the duty of a judge, to whom the Act gave discretion, to use it in favour of public purity, and not to favour public corruption.

Though no other judge behaved so flagrantly ill as Baron Bramwell, there were few who could be trusted to render justice to Reformers.

The Tory judge, Baron Bramwell, sneered away all chance of a just verdict, and Mr. Joseph Cowens n.o.ble effort to vindicate electoral purity cost him 2,000 and whatever obloquy and derision the venomous tongue of the judge could heap upon him.

Let men beware of principles which render corruption congenial--and let them honour the memory of those who made heroic sacrifices for electoral integrity.

It is happily exceptional when political partisans.h.i.+p perverts the sense of justice in a judge. Sometimes the sense of truth, characteristic of Liberalism (for it is not worth while being a Liberal unless it implies the ascendency of truth) is perverted by political exigency or obscured by excitement. An instance of this occurred where it was little expected.

II.

Mr. J. Humffreys Parry drew up the legal part of my defence at Gloucester in 1842. He was then a young law student, living in lodgings at (what was then) No. 5, Gray's Inn Road, near Theobalds' Road. His grandfather was editor of the Cambro-Briton, and one of the founders, in 1820, of the Cymmrodorion Society. But we knew nothing of this. We only knew young Humffreys as a stalwart, energetic platform speaker. Radical, bold, and impetuous, but so manifestly sincere, that it atoned for his somewhat gaseous style of speaking. Like O'Connell, he acquired eventually two styles. Parry's legal style became Demosthenic in its terseness. For the research and care he took to prepare my legal defences, he ought, even at that stage of his career, to have received twenty guineas, but for it he received nothing, nor asked for anything.

When he became Mr. Serjeant Parry he abandoned his platform style altogether, for one of uncoloured vigour, which gave him ascendency at the Bar. Had he lived a few years longer than he did he would have become one of our judges. His son--known as Judge Parry--was shot by a suitor, while presiding at a Manchester court, but not shot fatally. He is still known with distinction as a judge, as an author, and dramatic critic. Thus three generations of Parrys have been notable.

Years ago propagandists of new opinion were often a.s.sisted by Mr. Robert Mackay, author of a powerful work on the ”Progress of the Intellect.” A silent, un.o.btrusive man, Mr. Mackay would be seen at times at meetings or lectures, but never taking any public part He seemed to shrink back when addressed, and was as reserved as an affrighted man. In his quiet way, of his own initiative, he took much trouble to promote the opening of the National Gallery on Sundays, and went personally to men of note in law, science, and art, to solicit their signatures to a memorial in favour of opening public treasures on Sundays for the refinement of the poor, that being the only day when they had a leisure hour to see them.

Among others, Mr. Mackay called on Mr. Serjeant Parry, who signed the memorial. Later the Serjeant was a Parliamentary candidate for Finsbury.

Some super-fervid free Sunday advocate went to electoral meetings, asking Mr. Parry whether he would vote for the opening of the National Gallery. There are always ”fool-friends” of progress, who are ever ready to ruin it by their Pauline zeal of doing things in season and out of season. It was well known to all concerned that he would vote for an ”Open Door” of art. But if the const.i.tuency knew it, it would cost him the votes of most of the Puritan portion of the electors. Forgetful, at the moment, of the incident that he had signed the memorial, the candidate denied that he had. One morning when due in court, he had hurriedly signed his name to some doc.u.ments brought before him, among them the memorial sent in by Mr. Mackay. Whereupon this modest, retiring, shrinking, impalpable gentleman went into turbulent meetings, vindictively parading the actual memorial to confront the candidate.

This proceeding cost Mr. Parry his election. It was a warning to public men against signing a liberal doc.u.ment which might be needlessly obtruded against them at a critical conjuncture. Thus the Sunday League lost a Parliamentary defender, who, from persuasion of the righteousness and rightfulness of its objects, would have stood by it The word of Mr.

Mackay would have been quite sufficient to vindicate the honour of the League, had he waited till the election was over. But the unexpected thing was to see Mr. Mackay--who had never spoken at a meeting before--appearing at crowded and tumultuous a.s.semblies, where a strong and resolute man might have hesitated to present himself.

The answer of Mr. Serjeant Parry in question was given without premeditation; it was evident to the audience that it was made under the inspiration of an after-dinner speech, when robust barristers, in those days, were liable to airiness or eccentricity of statement.

Being pursued vindictively, he became too indignant to give the obvious explanation of the inadvertency of his denial of his signature.

III.

There are saints of the Church and saints of humanity; Lord Shaftesbury was a saint of both churches. There are two kinds of Conservatives, as I have elsewhere said.* One cla.s.s seek power for personal aggrandis.e.m.e.nt; another, and better cla.s.s, covet it as a means of doing good. Lord Shaftesbury belonged to this cla.s.s. Through not making this distinction, the whole Conservative body are made answerable for the actions of a part Discrimination is as just in politics as in morals.

* ”Life of Joseph Rayner Stephens, Preacher and Political Orator.”

Lord Shaftesbury was a n.o.bleman of two natures. In politics he would withhold power from workmen. In humanity he would withhold nothing from them which could do them good. In theology he knew no measure. Of Professor Seeley's book, ”Ecce h.o.m.o,” he said it was ”vomited from the mouth of h.e.l.l.” Surely something ought to be pardoned to a writer who made Satan sick. At an earlier day such language had handed the luckless Professor over to Torquemada. Yet Lord Shaftesbury was so courteous, tender, and friendly to Nonconformists, that he laid more foundation stones of Dissenting chapels than any other peer or patron. Should England one day be counted among extinct civilisations, and some explorers arrive to excavate its ruins, they will come upon so many stones deposited by Lord Shaftesbury and bearing his name, that report will be made of the discovery of the king of the last dynasty. Whatever contradictions biographers may have to record of the character of Lord Shaftesbury, everything will be forgiven him in consideration of his n.o.ble exertions on behalf of factory children. He sought to improve the condition of women in mines and collieries. Public health, emigration, ragged-schools, penny banks, drinking-fountains, and model lodging-houses were subjects of his generous solicitude. Lord Shaftesbury was one of the earliest of slum visitors. He was essentially and exclusively a social reformer. He took no part in political amelioration. He believed that working people only clamoured for political enfranchis.e.m.e.nt because they were ill-used and uncomfortable.

He saw no further. Their desire for independence never occurred to him. His sympathy with co-operators was on moral grounds. It was quite unforeseen by any, and had little acceptance in his day, that he should advise, that the agencies for planting Christianity among heathen nations should include the secular missionary, who must precede the Christian teacher to prepare the soil of the soul by social amelioration before the seeds of Christianity could take root Like Faraday, Lord Shaftesbury had a dual mind. Faraday reasoned like a Sandemanian on questions of faith and like a philosopher on questions of science.

In like manner Lord Shaftesbury was a sectarian in piety and a lat.i.tudinarian in humanity.

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