MR BRADLAUGH AND SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1131, 4 January 1884, Page 3

MR BRADLAUGH AND SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE.

_Mr Brndlaugh has sent a letter to Sir Stafford IN orthcote on the question of his exclusion from the House of Commons. Alter tracing the history of the question up to the present time, Mr Bradlaugh proceeds; “In 1884, if life lasts, we shall come face to f tee in the House. What will you do 1 Do not pretend that if you hinder me you are trying to prevent a profanation of the oath. If this had been true ■ vou would not, by rejecting the Affirmation Bill, have still kept it compulsory for me to take and subscribe the oath. It is clear now that you desire to keep me from my seat, oath or no oath. The seat is mine; this you admit. By the majority you lead you can legally take it from me I challenged you to do this in my last, speech at the bar. While the legal right to the seat is mine, it is my clear duty to try to enforce the right. If you take the seat from me, then my duty ceases, unless my constituents re-elect me. By the majority you have in both Houses, you might even pass a Bill declaring me disqualified for re-e'ec-tion. But you dare not do this ; you do not even dare to vacate the seat. You are content to gag my voice and steal my vote; and you rely on big policemen arrayed on behalf of lawbreakers on the door-mat of the House. You use brute force and privilege against ihe law. If I reply by force I may waste many Jives, injure many innocent folk, and destroy much property. Oh 1 how cowardly of you to force on me this grave responsibility. If I succeeded by physical force in overcoming the unlawful force you are weak enough now to reply on, I should still further, and pei haps irreparably damage the reputation of that Parliament, respect to which 1 have always, long ere I was a member of it, sought to inculate. If I remain quiet, if I tamely submit to the great wiong you have prompted, then I should be unworthy the return three times endorsed from the polling-booths at Northampton. 1 cannot tamely submit; my constituents have by full and free vote renewed their trust, and I must, for good or ill, present their return as the law requires. You have hitherto chosen to ti ample on the right of the electors. You have declared that the people’s choice,lawfu ly made, does not give me right to sit in their Commons House save by the goodwill and pleasure of yourself and those who vote with vou. lam bound to resist, and call upon all law abiding citizens to resist, this monstrously illegal declaration. 1 am bound to maintain, as fir as one man can, the trust the electors have thrice reposed in me, and in presenting once more at the table the certificate of my unimpreached return, 1 charge aeainst you, law breaker, all the mischief that may grow by your continued violation of the people’s suffra.e rights.”