did
not belong to him, under the circumstances of the case, to advise
the House, he could take no objection to the advice thus given.

The Speaker, it may be said, thought this view of (M7) Mr. Gladstone's a
mistake, and that when Bradlaugh refused to withdraw, the leader of the
House ought, as a matter of policy, to have been the person to move first
the order to withdraw, next the committal to the custody of the
serjeant-at-arms. "I was placed in a false position," says the Speaker,
"and so was the House, in having to follow the lead of the leader of the
opposition, while the leader of the House and the great majority were
passive spectators."(6) As Mr. Gladstone and other members of the
government voted for Bradlaugh's committal, on the ground that his
resistance to the serjeant had nothing to do with the establishment of his
rights before either a court or his constituency, it would seem that the
Speaker's complaint is not unjust. To this position, however, Mr.
Gladstone adhered, in entire conformity apparently to the wishes of the
keenest members of his cabinet and the leading men of his party.

The Speaker wrote to Sir Stafford Northcote urging on him the propriety of
allowing Bradlaugh to take the oath without question. But Northcote was
forced on against his better judgment by his more ardent supporters. It
was a strange and painful situation, and the party system assuredly did
not work at its best--one leading man forced on to mischief by the least
responsible of his sections, the other held back from providing a cure by
the narrowest of the other sections. In the April of 1881 Mr. Gladstone
gave notice of a bill providing for affirmation, but it was immediately
apparent that the opposition would make the most of every obstacle to a
settlement, and the proposal fell through. In August of this year the
Speaker notes, "The difficulties in the way of settling this question
satisfactorily are great, and in the present temper of the House almost
insuperable."

II

It is not necessary to recount all the stages of this protracted struggle:
what devices and expedients and motions, how many odious scenes of
physical violence, how many hard-fought actions in the lawcourts, how many
conflicts between the House of Commons and the constituency, what glee and
rubbing of hands in the camp of the opposition at having thrust their
rivals deep into a quagmire so unpleasant. The scandal was intolerable,
but mi