sted--a Liberal Government being in power all the time--and three times
during that period the electors of Northampton triumphantly returned
Charles Bradlaugh as their member, only to be answered by resolutions of
refusal and expulsion passed by the House of Commons against their
representative. It was a repetition of the battle Wilkes had fought one
hundred and twenty years earlier, and it ended in the same way. A new
Parliament assembled in January, 1886 (after a general election in
November), the new Speaker (Mr. Peel) permitted Bradlaugh to take the oath
in the usual way, declined to allow any interference, and the battle was
over. Two years later a general Affirmation Bill was carried on the motion
of Bradlaugh, and became law. When Charles Bradlaugh lay dying in January,
1891, the House of Commons passed, without dissent, a resolution expunging
from the journals of the House the old resolutions of exclusion.

THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF WOMEN

The nineteenth century then will always be noted as the era of steady
advance towards democracy, especially in England. Enfranchisement of the
workman, and his representation in Parliament, have transferred the
government of the country from an aristocracy to the middle class and the
working class, for to-day, alike in Parliament and in the permanent Civil
Service, men of the middle class predominate, assisted by those who served
apprenticeship in mine or workshop. The removal of religious disabilities
has ended the old rule that confined the business of the legislature and
the administration of justice to members of the Established Church of
England, and Roman Catholics, Jews, Nonconformists, and Freethinkers now
take their share in all public work.

One disability only remains--the sex disability that denies the
parliamentary franchise to women. In the middle ages women were excused
from parliamentary attendance, but there was no notion that their powers
and privileges as landowners were shortened because, on account of their
sex, they were granted exemption from Parliament and from juries. In 1868 a
test case--Chorlton _v._ Lings--was brought, and the judges decided that
women householders were not to be registered as electors, and it was left
to Parliament to pass a Women's Enfranchisement Bill. From the time of John
Stuart Mill's advocacy in 1867 there have always been supporters of Women's
Suffrage in the House of Commons, and in the last five years these
supporters have b