fessors of natural philosophy and mathe- whether even five or six of them would matics. Is not that an application of a vote in favour of that or any measure test which prevents men holding very near- considered detrimental in any way to ly the same opinions from coming toge- the Established Church, and 'admitting ther? If there is any man of eminence as others to the privileges of wbich hitherto a mathematician, would you prevent his they have had exclusive enjoyment. As being professor of mathematics in the Uni- to any proof of the opinion of the people versity of Glasgow, because he did not hold of Scotland, that must be given by those with the present General Assembly of the whom they send to represent them in this Church of Scotland upon the question of House, to tell it to us by their votes; and Church patronage ? I am of opinion that it is not for you, the Ministers of the there can be no difficulty in men among Crown, to overbear that opinion, and to whom there are such differences as this tell us that we must not pass this law, attending the same instructors, and being because it is adverse to opioions which guided by their lessons, to the advantage you have ascertained by consulting the of all. It has occurred to me, in conse- General Assembly. But, then, it is against quence of late discussions, 10 recollect the Act of Union. Wby, have we not that when I was at Edinburgh, attending altered that in various instances ? In the University there, I heard the last bringing forward the Roman Catholic lectures that were given by an eminent Relief Bill, the present First Lord of man- Professor Dugald Stewart; we at- the Treasury stated, that by the Act of tended the lessons of that great professor, Union with Scotland, both the electors being of different persuasions as we were, and the elected (for Parliament) were and when he retired from the chair, we, bound to make declarations against the his pupils, formed a Committee to draw | Roman Catholic faith, and that in taking up an Address, and express our sense of away all those disabilities, it was not fit his high merits, and regret at his retire to leave that which was imposed by that ment; there was on that Committee a Act of Voion. In that instance, I believe, Presbyterian, there were members of the he did not very much consult the wishes Church of England, but it so happened and opinions of the people of Scotland. that the persons to whom we confided the He acted, however, according to all true task of drawing up the Address which was policy and wisdom. What is to prevent adopted was a Roman Catholic—the present us in this case from establishing a good Lord Fingall. I mention it as a proof that rule, and doing that for the benefit of the men who differ may meet and derive in- people of Scotland which I really believe struction from the same eminent men with will be approved by them? But, after all, out any compromise of their religious without arguing this question any further, faith. Then, if that is the case, what is I am disposed to ask the House to come there which should prevent you from ac to the establisbment of some principle or ceding to the abolition of these tests? other upon these questions. My hon. You say, there is an opinion in Scotland Friend the Member for Oxford University against it; and what is the proof given by says, that the Government have a general the two right hon. Gentlemen who bave policy, and that they have made an exspoken? Why, they tell us that in the ception to it in the case of the Irish ColGeneral Assembly of the Church of Scot- leges. My hon. Friend may be right; but land, a vast majority, I think, of 240 to the greater part of those on this side of 11, put a negative upon the proposition. the House, when they heard the right hon. No doubt it did. The members of the Gentleman opposite, thought that the General Assembly are the clergy of argument was upon general grounds, and the class who who are interested ; they that it was a very convincing proof that are the excluding body. Why, sup- the non-admission of religious tests would pose you asked the Primate of Ireland to be a benefit. It would be very shalcall the clergy of the Established Church low to say that it is useful to have no of Ireland together at Armagh, and put to religious tests as a general question; but them the question whether Maynooth that it is useful to have them with regard should be endowed, or even the new Cols to establishments already made. I do not leges erected? Why, in regard to May- couceive that such a distinction could be а nooth, I very much doubt whether there very long maintained. But let us adopt would be that minority of 11; I doubt one principle or the other. The country | Hallyburton, LordJ.F. Macaulay, rt.hon.T.B. really wants it. I believe they will be dis- its own The House divided on the Question that the word "now" stand part of the Question: Ayes 108; Noes 116: Majority 8. Oswald, J. Pulsford, R. Rawdon, Col. Somerville, Sir W. M. Troubridge, Sir E. T. TELLERS. Hill, Lord M. List of the NOES. A'Court, Capt. Curteis, II. B. Dalmeny, Lord Baillie, Col. Dalrymple, Capt. Denison, J. E. D'Eyncourt, rt,hn.C.T Ellice, rt. hon. E. Berkeley, hon. Capt. Bernal, R. Duncombe, T. Blake, M. J. Dundas, Adm. Dundas, F. Bouverie, hon. E. P. Dundas, D. Bright, J. Ebrington, Visct. Baring, rt. hon. W. B. Broadley, H. Holmes, hn. W. A'C. Peel, rt. hu, Sir R. Hope, Sir J. Hope, hon. C. Hope, G. W. Hussey, T. Hughes, W. B. Inglis, Sir R. H. Jermyn, Earl Jocelyn, Visct. Johnstone, Sir J. Knightley, Sir C. Lennox, Lord A. Lincoln, Earl of Lockhart, W. Lowther, hon. Col. Lygon, hon. Gen, Mackenzie, T. Mackenzie, W. F. M'Neill, D. Meynell, Capt. Mildmay, H. St. J. Neville, R. Newdegate, C. N. Nicholl, rt. hon. J. Northland, Visct. Packe, C. W. Palmer, G. Pringle, A. Rashleigh, W. Repton, G. W. J. Rolleston, Col. Sanderson, R. Seymour, Sir H. B. Shaw, rt. hon. F. Smith, rt. hn. T. B. C. Somerset, Lord G. Spooner, R. Sutton, hon. H. M. Taylor, E. Tennent, J. E. Trench, Sir F. W. Trollope, Sir J. Trotter, J. Vivian, J. E. Waddington, H. S. Wellesley, Lord C. Wortley, hon. J. S. Wortley, hon. J. S. Wynn, rt. hn. C.W.W. TELLERS. Young, J. Baring, H. Main question as amended put, and agreed to. Second reading of the Bill put off for three months. RELIEF OF ROMAN CATHOLICS.] The Order of the Day having been read for a Committee of the whole House on the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, Mr. Watson said, as the measure had advanced to its present stage without any discussion of its principle, he wished to state the grounds on which he asked for the assent of the House to it. Its object was to repeal the remaining penal laws affecting the Roman Catholics. He had no wish to touch the safeguards of the Church; but he proposed to abrogate a variety of penal enactments in various Statutes, passed in former times, when antipathy to the Roman Catholics was the prevailing sentiment. The present measure was introduced along with the Act of last Session in the House of Lords, and passed the Committee there; but the Session being so far advanced, it was considered that only those clauses should be left in the Bill which could pass without any objection whatever. Various Members of the Government, and among them the Lord Chancellor, expressed their approval of its provisions; the only objection being, that it did not go far enough, and that a more complete Bill should be brought in to repeal those penal laws affecting the Members of various religious persuasions, which were a disgrace to the Statute Book and to the present age. The right hon. Baronet appointed a Commission, which during the present Session made a most valuable Report on the laws affecting all classes of religionists. It might be said, that this Bill did not go far enough, because it did not apply to other Dissenters. He felt strongly this objection; but once affirm the principle that penal laws directed against a form of religion were unjust, and the rest was a mere question of time. The first class of measures which he proposed by the present Bill to repeal, were those affecting persons acknowledging the religious supremacy of the Pope. The Report stated, that they ought to be repealed; and none of the Relief Acts at all affected the penalties imposed by those measures; unless the parties should have taken the oath prescribed by the Relief Act, 10 Geo. IV. The Acts of 1 Elizabeth and 5 Elizabeth, imposed the penalties of premunire, forfeiture of goods and imprisonment in the first instance, and of high treason in the second; the offence still remained, and might be disposed of before a justice of the peace. Another class of Acts related to persons introducing bulls and rescripts of the See of Rome; the next comprised Acts relating to abnegation, which were recommended to be repealed by the Criminal Law Commissioners; the next were those relating to education, which, among other provisions, enacted that no Roman Catholic should be allowed to engage in the business of instruction without a license from an archbishop or bishop of the Established Church. He now came to the class of laws called the Relief Acts, and should propose to repeal the penal clauses contained therein. The first of them was the Act 1 George III., which required all persons wishing to avail themselves of its provisions, to take the oaths within six months, and excluded certain persons from any benefit under the Act. The 13 George III., also expressly excluded persons therein specified from the benefit of the Relief Acts. The repeal of those two Statutes was recommended by the Commissioners. He now came to another class of those laws, the only one to the repeal of which he expected that any objection would be made. The Relief Act of 10 George IV., contained three clauses which he proposed to repeal; the first forbidding ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church to take their episcopal designations from sees which gave the Protestant bishops their titles. This clause answered no good object whatsoever; and, in his opinion, ought to be repealed. The next clause he asked to repeal was that prohibiting them from wearing the sacerdotal garments out of their churches. On this subject the Criminal Law Commissioners had given no recommendation; they stated that, with regard to several other penalties and disabilities still remaining, as these underwent much deliberation by the Legislature at the time of passing the Act 10 George IV., they refrained from offering any opinion. As to the clauses respecting titles and garments, he thought they were merely vexatious enactments, and ought to be repealed. The truth was, that very little consideration was given to them; they were introduced into the Relief Bill, and passed without reflection. The last clause was one to which he attached very great importance, and was of an extremely penal nature, applying to the regular clergy. By this provision, those members of the regular clergy who were in this country at the time of the passing of that Act, might remain and exercise their functions, which, in the case of most of them, consisted partly in the education of youth. But the Act provided also, that no Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, of the Jesuit, or any other monastic order, should come into this country, except by license of the Secretary of State, and that only for a period of six months at a time. If they remained here afterwards, they were liable to transportation; and if any person were educated in this country as a Jesuit, or bound by any religious vow of any monastic order, the person who so educated him, was liable to transportation for life, and the person so educated to banishment for life. These clauses, he found, on examination, though inserted in the Bill, had received no discussion whatever; but they were offensive to a highly respectable class of clergymen. The regular clergy were equally good citizens with the secular clergy, and as fit to be under the protection of the law; they dedicated themselves to education. Yet we had a penal enactment subjecting these persons to banishment for life; and when the present race died off, no one would be permitted by law to reside in the country. If they became disturbers of the law, they would be justly liable to punishment; but so long as they conducted themselves peaceably, they had as much right to education as the youth of the Roman Catholic persuasion, or any other class of persons. He expected to receive for this Bill the support both of hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House, and of Her Majesty's Government, who had declared their assent to the principles on which it was founded by passing the Dissenters' Chapels Bill, and the Maynooth College Bill. He did not introduce this as a solitary measure, but as one of a class of measures which should be passed to carry out the principles asserted in the Act of last Session, that all penal laws, affecting persons with punishment for the exercise of their religion were bad, and contrary to the principles of the Constitution. He was aware that to this Motion he might expect some opposition from the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford; but he hoped that hon. Gentleman on consideration would see that there could be no real reason for objecting to the provisions of the Bill, as he had described them. If we asserted our religion and Constitution to be supported by penal laws, we should deny them to be founded on the rock of truth. It became us to rely, for the maintenance of the Protestant religion, upon its truth, and to extend to others the same toleration which the law secured for that form of Christianity. He hoped, therefore, to obtain the unanimous consent of the House to this Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving that the Speaker do now leave the Chair. Sir J. Graham complained of the lateness of the hour at which the hon. and learned Member brought on his Motion, and also that it had been introduced at a time when none of the Law Officers of the Crown were present. He had on a former occasion reminded the hon. and learned Member, that with reference to the principle of the remission of the penal laws there was no difference of opinion among Her Majesty's advisers in either House of Parliament that the principle of the necessity of repealing those laws was, he thought, distinctly admitted by the Bill which had been sent down from the other House last Session: Motion had been made was, therefore, not very well founded. He did not think his hon. and learned Friend would be doing justice to this Bill, if he did not persevere in pressing it upon the consideration of the House. It was a Bill which went to repeal some of the most odious disabilities that could possibly affect any human being, and which were, he considered, a disgrace to the Statute Book as long as they were suffered to remain upon it. He had heard of complaints being lately made in another place of certain persecutions that were said to have taken place under the laws of Scotland; and the Secretary of State reminded those who had brought it forward that they had only very lately repealed such bad laws themselves. Now, it would ap but that the consideration of those Statutes involved the utmost nicety of the law. The Government, feeling the force of this circumstance, referred the subject to certain learned Commissioners to report upon these Statutes in detail. To the Report of these Commissioners the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred; but when he had added that his Bill, in its present form, had received the support of Her Majesty's advisers in the other House of Parliament, he thought the hon. and learned Gentleman had gone a little too far. The most important part of the measure was the portion which went to repeal certain clauses of the Relief Act of 1829. He apprehended that he was right in saying that the Bill of last year contained no provision for the repeal of these clauses-[Mr. Watson: It contain-pear from that statement that everything ed the provision as it passed the Committee of the House of Lords.] If he was not much mistaken, the Lord Chancellor had distinctly stated, that no support might be expected from the Government in passing that portion of the Act. The Commissioners in this Report stated, that so far from these provisions against the regular clergy being penal, they were recent enactments, forming a part of the policy deliberately adopted by the Legislature as necessary safeguards when passing the Relief Bill; and he was not aware that either House of Parliament, had on any occasion, either directly or indirectly, expressed their assent to the repeal of these measures. Some of the Statutes referred to were repealed in toto, others were repealed in part, and on the whole he thought it would be highly inexpedient to take them into consideration in the absence of the Law Officers of the Crown. The Government had, as he had stated on a former occasion, called upon the Commissioners to prepare the draft of a Bill embodying the substance of their Report. He had reason to know that the Commissioners had attended to the recommendations of the Government on the matter, and that a Bill was now in an advanced state of preparation, which he trusted to see brought before Parliament next Session. Mr. Redington begged to remind the right hon. Baronet, that Wednesday was the only day of the week on which an Order of the Day could be brought forward by an individual Member, and that the complaint as to the hour at which the necessary had been done already to purge the Statute Book from penal enactments, though evidently such was not the fact. He thought that the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth ought not to have allowed fifteen years to pass since the passing of the Emancipation Act, without adopting measures to repeal these laws. Much had been said lately about the Jesuits. He was not ashamed to say that the Jesuits were a most worthy, most efficient, and most exemplary society of men; and he would venture a comparison between them and the most learned body in Europe, in every branch of literature and science. He also bore testimony to the efficiency and piety of the members of the other religious bodies, and asked if it was not a disgrace to their laws that a man who had effected so much public good as Father Mathew, should be proscribed, and should subject himself to the penalty of transportation every day that he carried on his misson? The Government had dared prejudices in small things, and he would call upon them to adopt the same course on the present occasion in respect to all penal enactments, no matter whether they had been 15 years or 500 years on the Statute Book. Sir R. Inglis said, he did not complain of the hon. and learned Gentleman bringing forward his measure; but he did complain that, having been allowed to pass through two stages without any discussion upon its merits, he had refused to inform him (Sir R. Inglis) on what day he intended proceeding with it, on being respectfully requested to do so. The hon. Gentleman |