Autobiography
applause resounded through the whole meeting. It was evident that the
working people were so accustomed to expect equivocation and evasion
from those who sought their suffrages, that when they found, instead of
that, a direct avowal of what was likely to be disagreeable to them,
instead of being affronted, they concluded at once that this was a
person whom they could trust. A more striking instance never came under
my notice of what, I believe, is the experience of those who best know
the working classes, that the most essential of all recommendations to
their favour is that of complete straightforwardness; its presence
outweighs in their minds very strong objections, while no amount of
other qualities will make amends for its apparent absence. The first
working man who spoke after the incident I have mentioned (it was Mr.
Odger) said, that the working classes had no desire not to be told of
their faults; they wanted friends, not flatterers, and felt under
obligation to any one who told them anything in themselves which he
sincerely believed to require amendment. And to this the meeting
heartily responded.
Had I been defeated in the election, I should still have had no reason
to regret the contact it had brought me into with large bodies of my
countrymen; which not only gave me much new experience, but enabled me
to scatter my political opinions rather widely, and, by making me known
in many quarters where I had never before been heard of, increased the
number of my readers, and the presumable influence of my writings. These
latter effects were of course produced in a still greater degree, when,
as much to my surprise as to that of any one, I was returned to
Parliament by a majority of some hundreds over my Conservative
competitor.
I was a member of the House during the three sessions of the Parliament
which passed the Reform Bill; during which time Parliament was
necessarily my main occupation, except during the recess. I was a
tolerably frequent speaker, sometimes of prepared speeches, sometimes
extemporaneously. But my choice of occasions was not such as I should
have made if my leading object had been Parliamentary influence. When I
had gained the ear of the House, which I did by a successful speech on
Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill, the idea I proceeded on was that when
anything was likely to be as well done, or sufficiently well done, by
other people, there was no necessity for me to meddle with it. As I,
therefore, in general reserved myself for work which no others were
likely to do, a great proportion of my appearances were on points on
which the bulk of the Liberal party, even the advanced portion of it,
either were of a different opinion from mine, or were comparatively
indifferent. Several of my speeches, especially one against the motion
for the abolition of capital punishment, and another in favour of
resuming the right of seizing enemies' goods in neutral vessels, were
opposed to what then was, and probably still is, regarded as the
advanced liberal opinion. My advocacy of women's suffrage and of
Personal Representation, were at the time looked upon by many as whims
of my own; but the great progress since made by those opinions, and
especially the response made from almost all parts of the kingdom to the
demand for women's suffrage, fully justified the timeliness of those
movements, and have made what was undertaken as a moral and social duty,
a personal success. Another duty which was particularly incumbent on me
as one of the Metropolitan Members, was the attempt to obtain a
Municipal Government for the Metropolis: but on that subject the
indifference of the House of Commons was such that I found hardly any
help or support within its walls. On this subject, however, I was the
organ of an active and intelligent body of persons outside, with whom,
and not with me, the scheme originated, and who carried on all the
agitation on the subject and drew up the Bills. My part was to bring in
Bills already prepared, and to sustain the discussion of them during the
short time they were allowed to remain before the House; after having
taken an active part in the work of a Committee presided over by Mr.
Ayrton, which sat through the greater part of the Session of 1866, to
take evidence on the subject. The very different position in which the
question now stands (1870) may justly be attributed to the preparation
which went on during those years, and which produced but little visible
effect at the time; but all questions on which there are strong private
interests on one side, and only the public good on the other, have a
similar period of incubation to go through.
The same idea, that the use of my being in Parliament was to do work
which others were not able or not willing to do, made me think it my
duty to come to the front in defence of advanced Liberalism on occasions
when the obloquy to be encountered was such as most of the advanced
Liberals in the House, preferred not to incur. My first vote in the
House was in support of an amendment in favour of Ireland, moved by an
Irish member, and for which only five English and Scotch votes were
given, including my own: the other four were Mr. Bright, Mr. McLaren,
Mr. T.B. Potter, and Mr. Hadfield. And the second speech I delivered[9]
was on the bill to prolong the suspension of the Habeas Corpus in
Ireland. In denouncing, on this occasion, the English mode of governing
Ireland, I did no more than the general opinion of England now admits to
have been just; but the anger against Fenianism was then in all its
freshness; any attack on what Fenians attacked was looked upon as an
apology for them; and I was so unfavourably received by the House, that
more than one of my friends advised me (and my own judgment agreed with
the advice) to wait, before speaking again, for the favourable
opportunity that would be given by the first great debate on the Reform
Bill. During this silence, many flattered themselves that I had turned
out a failure, and that they should not be troubled with me any more.
Perhaps their uncomplimentary comments may, by the force of reaction,
have helped to make my speech on the Reform Bill the success it was. My
position in the House was further improved by a speech in which I
insisted on the duty of paying off the National Debt before our coal
supplies are exhausted, and by an ironical reply to some of the Tory
leaders who had quoted against me certain passages of my writings, and
called me to account for others, especially for one in my
_Considerations on Representative Government_, which said that the
Conservative party was, by the law of its composition, the stupidest
party. They gained nothing by drawing attention to the passage, which up
to that time had not excited any notice, but the _sobriquet_ of "the
stupid party" stuck to them for a considerable time afterwards. Having
now no longer any apprehension of not being listened to, I confined
myself, as I have since thought too much, to occasions on which my
services seemed specially needed, and abstained more than enough from
speaking on the great party questions. With the exception of Irish
questions, and those which concerned the working classes, a single
speech on Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill was nearly all that I contributed
to the great decisive debates of the last two of my three sessions.
I have, however, much satisfaction in looking back to the part I took on
the two classes of subjects just mentioned. With regard to the working
classes, the chief topic of my speech on Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill was
the assertion of their claims to the suffrage. A little later, after the
resignation of Lord Russell's Ministry and the succession of a Tory
Government, came the attempt of the working classes to hold a meeting in
Hyde Park, their exclusion by the police, and the breaking down of the
park railing by the crowd. Though Mr. Beales and the leaders of the
working men had retired under protest before this took place, a scuffle
ensued in which many innocent persons were maltreated by the police, and
the exasperation of the working men was extreme. They showed a
determination to make another attempt at a meeting in the Park, to which
many of them would probably have come armed; the Government made
military preparations to resist the attempt, and something very serious
seemed impending. At this crisis I really believe that I was the means
of preventing much mischief. I had in my place in Parliament taken the
side of the working men, and strongly censured the conduct of the
Government. I was invited, with several other Radical members, to a
conference with the leading members of the Council of the Reform League;
and the task fell chiefly upon myself, of persuading them to give up the
Hyde Park project, and hold their meeting elsewhere. It was not Mr.
Beales and Colonel Dickson who needed persuading; on the contrary, it
was evident that these gentlemen had already exerted their influence in
the same direction, thus far without success. It was the working men who
held out, and so bent were they on their original scheme, that I was
obliged to have recourse to _les grands moyens_. I told them that a
proceeding which would certainly produce a collision with the military,
could only be justifiable on two conditions: if the position of affairs
had become such that a revolution was desirable, and if they thought
themselves able to accomplish one. To this argument, after considerable
discussion, they at last yielded: and I was able to inform Mr. Walpole
that their intention was given up. I shall never forget the depth of his
relief or the warmth of his expressions of gratitude. After the working
men had conceded so much to me, I felt bound to comply with their
request that I would attend and speak at their meeting at the
Agricultural Hall; the only meeting called by the Reform League which I
ever attended. I had always declined being a member of the League, on
the avowed ground that I did not agree in its programme of manhood
suffrage and the ballot: from the ballot I dissented entirely; and I
could not consent to hoist the flag of manhood suffrage, even on the
assurance that the exclusion of women was not intended to be implied;
since if one goes beyond what can be immediately carried, and professes
to take one's stand on a principle, one should go the whole length of
the principle. I have entered thus particularly into this matter because
my conduct on this occasion gave great displeasure to the Tory and
Tory-Liberal press, who have charged me ever since with having shown
myself, in the trials of public life, intemperate and passionate. I do
not know what they expected from me; but they had reason to be thankful
to me if they knew from what I had, in all probability preserved them.
And I do not believe it could have been done, at that particular
juncture, by any one else. No other person, I believe, had at that
moment the necessary influence for restraining the working classes,
except Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, neither of whom was available: Mr.
Gladstone, for obvious reasons; Mr. Bright because he was out of town.
When, some time later, the Tory Government brought in a bill to prevent
public meetings in the Parks, I not only spoke strongly in opposition to
it, but formed one of a number of advanced Liberals, who, aided by the
very late period of the session, succeeded in defeating the Bill by what
is called talking it out. It has not since been renewed.
On Irish affairs also I felt bound to take a decided part. I was one of
the foremost in the deputation of Members of Parliament who prevailed on
Lord Derby to spare the life of the condemned Fenian insurgent, General
Burke. The Church question was so vigorously handled by the leaders of