i commence with judge hughes' first candidature. there are cases in which gratitude is submerged by prejudice, even among the cultivated classes. there was thomas hughes, whose statue has been deservedly erected in rugby. three years before he became a member of parliament i told him he might enter the house were he so minded. and when opportunity arose i was able to confirm my assurance.
one friday afternoon in 1865 some lambeth politicians of the middle and working classes, whom bernal osborne had disappointed of being their candidate (a vacancy having attracted him elsewhere), came to me at the house of commons to inquire if i could suggest one to them. i named mr. hughes as a good fighting candidate, who had sympathy with working people, and who, being honest, could be trusted in what he promised, and being an athlete, could, like feargus o'connor, be depended upon on a turbulent platform. i was to see mr. hughes at once, which i did, and after much argument satisfied him that if he took the "occasion by the hand" he might succeed. he said, "he must first consult sally"—meaning mrs. hughes. i had heard him sing "sally in our alley," and took his remark as a playful allusion to his wife as the heroine of the song. that he might be under no illusion, i suggested that he should not enter upon the contest unless he was prepared to lose ￡1,000.
the next morning he consented. i took him to my friends of the electoral committee, by whom he was accepted. when he entered the vestibule of the hall of meeting i left him, lest my known opinions on other subjects should compromise him in the minds of some electors. this was on the saturday afternoon. i saw that by issuing an address in the monday morning papers he would be first in the field. on sunday morning, therefore, i waited for him at the vere street church door, where the rev. f. d. maurice preached, to ask him to write at once his address to the electors. he thought more of his soul than of his success, and reluctantly complied with my request. his candidature might prevent a tory member being elected, and the labours of the liberal electors for years being rendered futile, education put back, the liberal association discouraged, taxation of the people increased, and the moral and political deterioration of the borough ensue. to avert all such evils the candidate was loath to peril his salvation for an hour. yet would it not have been a work of human holiness to do it, which would make his soul better worth saving? that day i had lunch at his table in park lane, while he thought the matter over. that was the first and last time i was asked to his house. that afternoon he brought the address to my home, then known as dymoke lodge, oval road, regent's park, and had tea with my family. i had collected several persons in another room ready to make copies of the address.
i wrote letters to various editors, took a cab, and left a copy of the address myself, before ten o'clock, at the offices of all the chief newspapers published on monday morning. the editor of the daily news and one or two others i saw personally. all printed the address as news, free of expense. next morning the liberal electors were amazed to see their candidate "first in the field" before any other had time to appear. all the while i knew mr. hughes would vote against three things which i valued, and in favour of which i had written and spoken. he would vote against the ballot, against opening picture galleries and museums on sunday, and against the separation of the church from the state. but on the whole he was calculated to promote the interests of the country, and therefore i did what i could to promote his election.
i wrote for the election two or three bills. the following is one:—
hughes for lambeth.
vote for "tom brown."
vote for a gentleman who is a friend of the people.
vote for a churchman who will do justice to
dissenters.
vote for a tried politician who will support just measures
and can give sensible reasons for them.
vote for a distinguished writer and raise the
character of metropolitan constituencies.
vote for a candidate who can defend your cause in the press
as well as in parliament
vote for a man known to be honest and who has long worked
for the industrious classes.
electors of lambeth,
vote for thomas hughes.
mr. hughes would have had no address out but for me. had he spent ￡100 in advertisements a day or two later he could not have purchased the advantage this promptitude gave him. i worked very hard all that sunday, a son and daughter helping—but our souls did not count two weeks went by—during which i ceaselessly promulgated his candidature—and i heard nothing from the candidate. as i had paid the emergency expenses of the sunday copyists, found them refreshments while they wrote, and paid for the cab on its round to the offices, i found myself ￡2 "out of pocket," as lawyers put it, and i sent a note to mr. hughes to say that amount would cover costs incurred. he replied in a curt note saying i should "find a cheque for ￡2 within"—giving me the impression that he regarded it as an extortion, which he thought it better to submit to than resent. he never thanked me, then or at any time, for what i did. never in all his life did he refer to the service i had rendered him.
a number of friends were invited to great ormond street college to celebrate his election, but i was not one. this was not handsome treatment, but i thought little of it. it was not mr. hughes's natural, but his ecclesiastical self. i withstood him and his friends, the christian socialists, who sought to colour co-operation with church tenets, which would put distraction into it. association with me was at that time repugnant to mr. hughes. nevertheless, i continued to serve him whenever i could. he was a friend of co-operation, to his cost, and was true to the liberal interests of the people. my daughter, mrs. praill, and her husband gave their house as a committee-room when mr. hughes was subsequently a candidate in marylebone, and she canvassed for him so assiduously that he paid her a special visit of acknowledgment.
the christian socialist propaganda is another instance of the wilfulness of things which went as you did not want them to go. in those days not only did i fail to find favour in the eyes of mr. hughes—even mr. vansittart neale, the most liberal of christian socialists, thought me, for some years, an unengaging colleague. general maurice, in the life of his eminent father (professor denison maurice), relates that mr. maurice regarded me as an antagonist. this was never so. i had always respect for professor maurice because of his theological liberality. he believed that perdition was limited to aeons. the duration of an aeon he was not clear upon; but whatever its length, it was then an unusual and merciful limitation of eternal torture. this cost him his professorship at king's college, through the enmity, it was said, of professor jelf. i endeavoured to avenge professor maurice by dedicating to dr. jelf my "limits of atheism." elsewhere i assailed him because i had honour for professor maurice, for his powerful friendship to co-operation. when the news of his death came to the bolton congress it was i who drew up and proposed the resolution of honour and sorrow which we passed.
it was always the complaint against the early "socialists"—as the co-operators were then called—that they mixed up polemical controversy with social advocacy. the christian socialists strenuously made this objection, yet all the while they were seeking to do the same thing. what they rightly objected to was that the chief co-operators gave irrelevant prominence to the alien question of theology, and repelled all persons who differed from them.
all the while, what they objected to was not theology, but to a kind of theology not their own, and this kind, as soon as they acquired authority, they proceeded to introduce. they proceeded to compile a handbook intended to pledge the co-operators to the church of england, and i received proofs, which i still have, in which mr. hughes made an attack on all persons of freethinking views. i objected to this as violating the principle on which we had long agreed, namely, of co-operative neutrality in religion* and politics, as their introduction was the signal of disputation which diverted the attention of members from the advancement of co-operation in life, trade, and labour. at the leeds congress i maintained that the congress was like parliament, where, as canning said, no question is introduced which cannot be discussed. if church views were imported into the societies, heretics and nonconformists, who were the originators of the movement, would have the right of introducing. personally, i preferred controversy outside co-operation. their tenets. mr. hughes was so indignant at my protest that he, being in the chair, refused to call upon me to move a resolution officially assigned to me upon another subject. at the meeting of the united board for revising motions to be brought before congress, i gave notice that if the church question should be raised i should object to it, as it would then be in order (should the introduction of theology be sanctioned) for an atheist (agnostic was not a current word then) to propose the adoption of his views, and an atheist, as such, might be a president. whereupon mr. vansittart neale, our general secretary, declared with impassioned vehemence that he hoped the day would never come when an atheist would be elected president. yet when, some years later, i was appointed president of the carlisle congress (1887)—though i was still considered entirely deficient in proper theological convictions—mr. hughes and mr. neale, who were both present, were most genial, and with their concurrence 100,000 copies of my address were printed—a distinction which befel no other president.
in another instance i had to withstand church ascendancy.
i was the earliest and foremost advocate of the neutrality of pious opinion in co-operation; when others who knew its value were silent—afraid or unwilling to give pain to the christian socialists, whom we all respected, and to whom we were all indebted for legal and friendly assistance.
but integrity of principle is higher than friendship. some northumbrian societies, whose members were largely nonconformists, were greatly indignant at the attempt to give ascendancy to church opinions, and volunteered to support my protest against it but when the day of protest came at the leeds congress they all deserted me—not one raised a voice on my side; though they saw me browbeaten in their interest my argument was, that if we assented to become a church party we might come to have our proceedings opened with a collect, or by prayer, to which it would be hypocrisy in many to pretend to assent. at the following derby congress this came to pass: bishop southwell, who opened the industrial exhibition, made a prayer and members of the united board knelt round him. i was the only one who stood up, it being the only seemly form of protest there. this scene was never afterwards repeated. bishop southwell was a devout, kindly, and intellectually liberal prelate, but he did not know, or did not respect, as other bishops did, the neutrality of congress.
for myself, i was always in favour of the individuality of the religious conscience in its proper place. i love the picturesqueness of personal conviction. it was i who first proposed that we should accept offers of sermons on congress sunday by ministers of every denomination. co-operators included members of all religious persuasions, and i was for their opportunity of hearing favourite preachers apart from co-operative proceedings.
it is only necessary for the moral of these instances to pursue them. there is education in them and public suggestiveness which may justify the continuance of the subject.
when the co-operative news was begun in manchester (1871), i wrote its early leaders, and as its prospects were not hopeful, it was agreed that the social economist, which i and mr. e. o. greening had established in london in 1868, should cease in favour of the co-operative news, as we wished to see one paper, one interest, and one party. as the manchester office was too poor to purchase our journal, we agreed that it should be paid for when the manchester paper succeeded, and the price should be what the cessation of the social economist should be thought to be worth to the new paper. it was sixteen years before the fulfilment of their side of the bargain. the award, if i remember rightly, was ￡15, but i know the period was as long and the amount as small. the co-operative news had then been established many years. it was worth much more than ￡100 to the manchester paper to have a london rival out of the way. it was not an encouraging transaction, and but for mr. neale, abraham greenwood and mr. crabtree it would not have ended as it did. but the committee were workmen without knowledge of literary matters. so i made no complaint, and worked with them and for their paper all the same. it was a mistake to discontinue the social economist, which had some powerful friends. co-operation was soon narrowed in manchester. co-operative workshops were excluded from participation in profit. we should have kept co-operation on a higher level in london.
the rochdale jubilee is the last instance i shall cite. in 1892 was celebrated the jubilee of the rochdale society. i received no invitation and no official notice. the handbook published by the society, in commemoration of its fifty years' success, made no reference to me nor to the services i had rendered the society. i had written its history, which had been printed in america, and translated into the chief languages of europe—in spain, in hungary, several times in france and italy. i had put the name of the pioneers into the mouth of the world, yet my name was never mentioned by any one. speaking on the part of the rochdale co-operators, the president of jubilee congress, who knew the facts of my devotion to the reputation of rochdale, was silent. archdeacon wilson was the only one who showed me public regard. the local press said some gracious things, but they were not co-operators. i had spoken at the graves of the men who had made the fortunes of the store, and had written words of honour of all the political leaders of the town, and of those best remembered in connection with the famous society, which i had vindicated, without ceasing, during half a century.
in the earlier struggles of the pioneers i had looked forward to the day of their jubilee, when i should stand in their regard as i had done in their day of need. of course, this gave me a little concern to find myself treated as one unknown to them. but in truth they had not forgotten me, though they ignored me. the new generation of co-operators had abandoned, to mr. bright's regret, participation of profit with labour, the noblest aspiration of the pioneers. i had addressed them in remonstrance, in the language of lord byron, who was lord of the manor of rochdale:—
"you have the rochdale store as yet,
where has the rochdale workshop gone?
of two such lessons why forget
the nobler and the manlier one?"
saying this cost me their cordiality and their gratitude; but i cared for the principle and for the future, and was consoled.
in every party, the men who made it great die, and leave no immediate successors. but in time their example recreates them. but at the jubilee of 1892, they had not re-appeared, and those who had memories and gratitude were dead. i spoke over the grave of cooper, of smithies, of thomas livesey—john bright's schoolfellow—the great friend of the dead pioneers saying:—
"they are gone, the holy ones,
who trod with me this lovely vale;
my old star-bright companions
are silent, low and pale."*
the question arises, does this kind of experience justify a person in deserting his party?
the last incident and others preceding it are given as instances of outrage or neglect, which in public life explain ignominious desertion of principle. i have known men change sides in parliament because the premier, who had defect of sight, passed them by in the lobby without recognition. i have seen others desert a party, which they had brilliantly served, because their personal ambition had not been recognised. because of this i have seen a man turn heels over head in the presence of parliament, and land himself in the laps of adversaries who had been kicking him all his life.
if i did not do so, it was because i remembered that parties are like persons, who at one time do mean things, but at other times generous things.
* "history of rochdale pioneers, 1844-1892" (sonnenschein).
besides, a democratic party is continually changing in its component members, and many come to act in the name of the movement who are ignorant of its earlier history and of the obligation it may be under to those who have served it in its struggling days. but whether affronts are consciously given or not, they do not count where allegiance to a cause is concerned. ingratitude does not invalidate a true principle. when contrary winds blow, a fair-weather partisan tacks about, and will even sail into a different sea where the breezes are more complacent. i remained the friend of the cause alike in summer and winter, not because i was insensible to vicissitudes, but because it was a simple duty to remain true to a principle whose integrity was not and could not be affected by the caprice, the meanness, the obliviousness, or the malignity of its followers.
such are some of the incidents—of which others of more public interest may be given—of the nature of bygones which have instruction in them. they are not peculiar to any party. they occur continually in parliament and in the church. i have seen persons who had rendered costly service of long duration who, by some act of ingratitude on the part of the few, have turned against the whole class, which shows that, consciously or unconsciously, it was self-recognition they sought, or most cared for, rather than the service of the principle they had espoused.
there is no security for the permanence of public effort, save in the clear conviction of its intrinsic rightfulness and conduciveness to the public good. the rest must be left to time and posterity. true, the debt is sometimes paid after the creditor is dead. but if reparation never comes to the living, unknown persons whose condition needs betterment receive it, and that is the proud and consoling thought of those who—unrequited—effected it. the wholesome policy of persistence is expressed in the noble maxim of helvetius to which john morley has given new currency: "love men, but do not expect too much from them."
fewer persons would fall into despair if their anticipations were, like a commercial company, "limited." many men expect in others perfection, who make no conspicuous contribution themselves to the sum of that excellent attribute.
"giving too little and asking too much is not alone a fault of the dutch."
i do not disguise that standing by rightness is an onerous duty. it is as much a merit as it is a distinction to have been, at any time, in the employ of truth. but truth, though an illustrious, is an exacting mistress, and that is why so many people who enter her service soon give notice to leave.
[with respect to this chapter, mr. ludlow wrote supplying
some particulars regarding the christian socialists, to
which it is due to him that equal publicity be given. he
states "that the first council of promoters included two
members, neither of whom professed to be a christian; that
the first secretary of the society for promoting working
men's associations was not one, during the whole of his
faithful service (he became one twenty years later), and
that his successors were, at the time we took them on, one
an agnostic, the other a strong congregationalist." this is
the first time these facts have been made known. but none of
the persons thus described had anything to do with the
production of the handbook referred to and discussed at the
leeds congress of 1881. quite apart from the theological
tendencies of the "christian socialists," the co-operative
movement has been indebted to them for organisation and
invaluable counsel, as i have never ceased to say. they were
all for the participation of profits in workshops, which is
the essential part of higher co-operation. there was always
light in their speeches, and it was the light of principle.
in this respect mr. ludlow was the first, as he is the last
to display it, as he alone survives that distinguished band.
of mr. edward vansittart neale i have unmeasured admiration
and regard. to use the fine saying of abd-el-kader,
"benefits conferred are golden fetters which bind men
of noble mind to the giver." this is the lasting sentiment
of the most experienced co-operators towards the christian
socialists.]
