Bygones Worth Remembering Volume I Part 10

I.

Without noticing unexpected qualities now and then, and remembering them, many are needlessly discouraged in purposes of improvement. The two Bramwells, the judge and his brother Frederick, were both men of great parts. This narrative relates to the Judge, who could do mischief at will--and did it. It was Baron Bramwell who protected the bribers of Berwick. It is to judges of his political proclivities, to whom bribers look still for countenance. Young men of to-day enjoy advantages unknown to their forefathers, and the new generation are mostly ignorant how their good fortune, which Liberalism brought them, came to them--and they make no inquiry. Not only have they no pride in sustaining the political traditions of their family, but their base ambition is to give the influence of the position they have attained to that party who put every impediment in the way of their ever emerging from social and industrial obscurity--a condition from which they did not deserve to be rescued.

Political reformers used to complain of bribery at elections, by which a few wealthy political adventurers tempted the baser sort of citizens to sell the liberties of the nation to them. Tories, by the law of their being, seek authority by which the majority of them intend the control of public affairs for their own advantage. They supply money for corruption, intending to refund themselves by place and profit when the resources of the State come under their manipulation. Even judges of their party accord them legal security in their political nefariousness.

When the Liberals of Newcastle-on-Tyne claimed that Parliament should terminate electoral bribery, Lord John Russell said the law was already against it, and that the Newcastle applicants to the House of Commons should put bribery down at their own door, meaning in Berwick-on-Tweed, notorious for it Lord John had never tried to do this, or he would not have advised the attempt His counsel at the time seemed reasonable, and what came of it was shown in a pet.i.tion from the Northern Reform Union, sent to Parliament (1859), which set forth as follows:--

That the pet.i.tioners were members of a society named "The Northern Reform Union," which was inst.i.tuted for the purpose of obtaining a further Reform of the Representation of the People of these Realms in Parliament, and for the purpose of vindicating that purity and freedom of election which is essential to a true representative system. Amongst other steps with a view to these purposes, the said pet.i.tioners were induced to inst.i.tute inquiries into certain corrupt practices, alleged to have taken place in the election of a member for the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The result of these inquiries was, that the pet.i.tioners were induced, as a matter of public duty, to prosecute certain electors of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed for the offence of offering bribes at the election aforesaid. The prosecution was inst.i.tuted under the provision of the Act of 1854, known as "The Corrupt Practices Prevention Act," when one or more of the persons upon whom writs were served in accordance with the provisions of the Act, made affidavit that to the best of their belief, Mr. Richard Bagnall Reed, the secretary of the Northern Reform Union and the nominal prosecutor in these cases, was not of ability to pay the costs of suit in case of nonsuit, and applied through their counsel to Sir G. W. Bramwell, one of the Barons of Her Majesty's Court of Exchequer, to make order that security should be lodged for payment of the costs in these actions if proceeded with. A report of the particulars of this application was published in a newspaper printed at Newcasde under the t.i.tle of the _Northern Daily Express_, which report is verbatim, as follows:--

"London, _December_ 16, 1859.

"Actions have been commenced, at the suit of Mr. R. B. Reed, the secretary of the Northern Reform Union, against several persons suspected of bribery at the last Berwick election. The actions are founded on the 5th Section of 'The Corrupt Practices Prevention Act, 1854,' which provides that 'any one who shall be guilty of using any undue influence at any Parliamentary election shall not only be guilty of a misdemeanour, but shall also be liable to forfeit the sum of fifty pounds to any person who shall sue for the same, together with full costs of suit.'

"An application was made at chambers before the Hon. Mr. Baron B ram well, on the part of the defendants in the above actions, for an order that the plaintiff should give security for costs.

"Mr. Chitty appeared in support of the application.

"Mr. Rutherford appeared on behalf of the secretary of the Northern Reform Union to oppose the granting of the order.

"Mr. Chitty founded his application on an affidavit, which stated that Mr. Reed was not the real plaintiff in the action; he was only instigated by the Northern Reform Union, who were the real plaintiffs.

A copy of the _Northern Daily Express_ was annexed as an exhibit to the affidavit, and a pa.s.sage was read from it relating to the proceedings of the Northern Reform Union. Mr. Chitty cited cases to prove that where a plaintiff in an action was for the benefit of third parties, he is bound to give security for costs; and he endeavoured to show that in the event of the action being decided in the defendant's favour, it would be in vain to look to the plaintiff for costs.

"Mr. Baron Bramwell hereupon made the following extraordinary remark: 'This Northern Reform Union is a purity society. It consists of patriots, and surely these gentlemen will only be too eager to give any security that may be desired, if it were merely to show their high-mindedness and integrity.'

"Mr. Rutherford said that his Lordship, on looking into the case, would find that the application now made was a vexatious proceeding to throw obstacles in the way of the plaintiff. Mr. Reed was the secretary of the Union, and the proper person to sue. The Union must sue in the name of some one, and who so proper as their secretary? The authorities that had been cited on the other side did not touch the case, because the plaintiff was suing for penalties, which, if recovered, would be for his own benefit. It mattered not at whose instigation he was suing. He was suing for a penalty, which the Act of Parliament gave him the right to sue for.

"Mr. Baron Bramwell: 'What is the plaintiffs position? Is he a man of substance?'

"Mr. Rutherford: 'He is, I am told, a gentleman of a respectable position. But that is not the question; it appears clearly from the authorities that in penal actions the courts have refused to order security, even in cases where the common informer was a person of great poverty. In one case Mr. Justice Bayley says, "Many _qui tam_ actions have been brought by men who were worth nothing, but there is no instance of their being compelled to give security for costs. It might happen that the penalties had been incurred, but their recovery would be defeated by requiring such a security."'

"Mr. Baron Bramwell here observed: 'There is great force in that Men of property are not likely to trouble themselves about such things. I think I cannot make the order. Cannot some agreement be come to between the parties? Mr. Chitty, will you name any other member of the Union to be subst.i.tuted as plaintiff instead of Mr. Reed? Some one must be plaintiff; and the same argument you have used against Mr. Reed would apply to any one else.'

"A long discussion here ensued.

"Mr. Rutherford said he could not, without the consent of his clients, agree to subst.i.tute another person as plaintiff. The Act would become a dead letter if the judges allowed obstacles to be thrown in the way of carrying it out. There was no ground at all for this application, and if his Lordship granted it, it was impossible to conceive under what circ.u.mstances a similar application would be refused.

"Mr. Chitty insisted that his clients would not be able to recover their costs if the action were decided in their favour. It was a very hard thing to be compelled to defend an action at the suit of invisible personages. His Lordship had said that 'purity principles were all very fine.'

"Mr. Baron Bramwell: 'No doubt they are. It is very easy to go about professing integrity. To commence actions against people for penalties when the plaintiff cannot pay the costs, is a cheap way of becoming a patriot--cheap and, I think, nasty. I find that the Act gives me a discretion. The affidavits made by the defendants have not been answered. I shall make the order.'

"The order was made accordingly.

"The pet.i.tioners were informed and believed that the report quoted was substantially and literally correct. It was reprinted and commented upon by various other journals, and no attempt to question its accuracy was made, either on the part of the learned judge or of any other person.

"The pet.i.tioners were persuaded that the language a.s.serted to have been used by the learned judge on this occasion cannot be deemed by, nor appear to Parliament either befitting the station of him who used it, or just towards the suitors in this prosecution, who were taking legal steps, under a sense of public duty, to put a stop to practices which tend to corrupt the source of all law.

"The pet.i.tioners submitted that the order made on this occasion is contrary to all precedent, and inconsistent with the intention and enactments of the said Corrupt Practices Act, which by Section 13 expressly limits the obligation on the plaintiff to find security for costs to those cases only where he may seek to recover, by order of the judge, the costs of prosecution for offences against the Act.

"The pet.i.tioners urged that they did not deserve to have their motives and characters thus questioned and sneered away, nor did they think that such language as that imputed to Baron Bramwell can tend to add to that respect for the law and those who administer it which the pet.i.tioners trusted may never be lost amongst Englishmen.

"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 partisanship 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.