At this ominous silence the Government grew frightened, and towards the end of the debate, to the astonishment of the House and of the country, the First Lord of the Treasury rose and offered to insert a clause by virtue of which any parent or other person who under the Bill would be liable to penalties for the non-vaccination of a child, should be entirely freed from such penalties if within four months of its birth he satisfied two justices of the peace that he conscientiously believed that the operation would be prejudicial to that child’s health.  The Bill passed with the clause, which a few days later was rejected by the House of Lords.  Government pressure was put upon the Lords, who thereon reversed their decision, and the Bill became an Act of Parliament.

Thus the whole policy of compulsory vaccination, which for many years had been in force in England, was destroyed at a single blow by a Government with a great majority, and a House of Commons composed of members who, for the most part, were absolute believers in its virtues.  Never before did agitators meet with so vast and complete a success, and seldom perhaps did a Government undertake so great a responsibility for the sake of peace, and in order to shelve a troublesome and dangerous dispute.  It was a very triumph of opportunism, for the Government, aided and abetted by their supporters, threw over their beliefs to appease a small but persistent section of the electors.  Convinced that compulsory vaccination was for the benefit of the community, they yet stretched the theory of the authority of the parent over the child to such an unprecedented extent that, in order to satisfy his individual prejudices, that parent was henceforth to be allowed to expose his helpless infant to the risk of terrible disease and of death.

It is not for me to judge their motives, which may have been pure and excellent; my own are enough for me to deal with.  But the fact remains that, having power in their hands to impose the conclusions of a committee of experts on the nation, and being as a body satisfied as to the soundness of those conclusions, they still took the risk of disregarding them.  Now the result of their action is evident; now we have reaped the seed which they sowed, nor did they win a vote or a “thank you” by their amiable and philosophic concessions, which earned them no gratitude but indignation mingled with something not unlike contempt.

So much for the anti-vaccination agitation, on the crest of whose wave I was carried to fortune and success.  Thenceforward for many long years my career was one of strange and startling prosperity.  Dunchester became my pocket borough, so much so, indeed, that at the three elections which occurred before the last of which I have to tell no one even ventured to contest the seat against me.  Although I was never recognised as a leader of men, chiefly, I believe, because of a secret distrust which was entertained as to my character