The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-20 00:00:00

Amu 20,1857. Vott6ings in Varliament. HOUSE OF LORDS—MoNDAY. Lord CAMPBELL moved the first reading of a bill to check the sale of obscene books and prints : The bill was framed upon the principle of the measure which had been passed for putting down betting.houdes. The search of houses would be allowed upon an affidavit that the law was violated, and abominable publications might be seized and carried away, whereas at present, after conviction of an offender, the sale went on more mis chievously than ever it did before. The bill was read a first time. The Princess Royal's Annuity Bill was read a third time without discussion, and passed. INDIA. The Marquis of CLANRICARDE moved for a copy of a minute, dated April, 1858, of Mr. Halliday, Lieu enant-Goveruor of Bengal, upon the state and administration of criminal justice in that presidency; also for copies of the correspondence between the East India Company's Directors and the Governor • General of India respecting the introduction to the Legislative Council of the bills for the improvement of the law in India now under consideration. The noble marquis, in moving for these returns, asserted that the judicial reform said to be taking place in India was a mere mockery, and declared that something ought to be done to promote real reforms in thatcountry. The natives and Europeans of all classes were dis gusted with the courts and with the administration of justice. He considered that they had commenced the reform of the law in India at the wrong end, and urged the necessity for the appointment of competent judges. The salaries of some of the judges were so low as 180/. a year, and how could they expect the judges to study the law, or practise it with honesty, when they were not better rewarded ? The Duke of ARGYLL submitted that whatever grounds of complaint there might be regarding judi cial establishments, or the state of the police, the noble marquis had not made out any case bearing on the organic constitution of the Govern• ment or the conduct of the Directors at home ; and he asked the house not to pass any condemnation on the authorities until they ascertained the nature of the measures in contemplation for the improvement of the judicial system in that country. Lord MONTEAGLE said they were asked to " wait," but what had they been doing for a considerable time but waiting, and all their waiting had ended in dis appointment. He warned the house that the system of procrastination which they carried on with regard to India would lead to the worst results. The condi tion of that country required the interposition of the Home Government, and he thought they should hear no more of the cry "Wait, wait." The papers were then ordered. INDIA CRIMINAL CODE. The Earl of ALBEMAItLE presented three petitions from the merchants, planters, and other inhabitants of Lower Bengal, against the India Criminal Code recommended by the Legislative Council. The Transportation and Penal Servitude Bill report of amendments was brought up and agreed to. Their lordships adjourned at eight o'clock. HOUSE OF COMMONS—filo:inky. NEW MEMBERS. Mr. H. HERDERT took the oaths and his seat on his re election for Kerry. ➢lr. ALEXANDER and Sir C. W. CODRINGTON took the oaths and their seats for Carlow and Gloucester shire respectively. SLIGO ELECTION PETITION. The SPEAKER announced that the recognisances of the petition relating to the borough of Sligo were unobjectionable. THE OATHS BILL. The house having resolved itself into a committee upon this bill, to substitute one oath for the Oaths of Allegiance, Supremacy, and Abjuration, Mr. DEASY, upon the first clause—which included a declaration " that no foreign prince, person, pre late, State, or potentate bath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, directly or indi rectly, within this realm,"—moved to substitute for " ecclesiastical or spiritual" the words " temporal or civil." His object, he said, as the principle of the bill was to abolish all distinctions founded .upon re ligions opinions, was that the oath to be taken by the Roman Catholic subjects of her Majesty should be the same as that taken by other subjects ; in short, that all members of the Legislature should be placed upon the same footing, and that their allegiance should be tried by one uniform test. Lord PALMERSTON agreed with Mr. Deasy that it would be desirable, if it were practicable, that there should be but one oath (though he thought there was nothing in the Roman Catholic oath which could do violence to the feelings of any man), but the house was called upon to determine whether it should free this oath from words that were super fluous and repugnant to the common sense of Pro- THE PIIESS. testants; and he submitted to Mr. Deasy that a perseverance in his attempt would fail to accomplish the purpose he had in view, for if he succeeded in altering the oath as he proposed the change would entail the ultimate failure of the measure under discussion. Mr. Rom:ureic, adverting to the terms of the amend ment, preferred the suggested words to the original adjectives, observing that if members were obliged to swear that no foreign power had " ecclesiastical or spiritual authority " in these realms, in the face of the authority exercised by the I'ope, they denied the most evident facts, and simply pledged themselves to a lie. Sir F. THESIGER contended that the oath did not state a fact, but asserted a right. It was not sworn that the Pope exercised no authority over any class of British subjects, but that, in accordance with the constitutional system of the country, all such autho- rity was unrecognised and illegal. The present oath appointed for Roman Catholics formed a part of the settlement concluded in 18 . 29, which he trusted the house would not consent to disturb. Upon a division, the amendment was negatived by 373 to 83. The committee again divided upon an amendment moved by Mr. ROEBUCK, to insert after the word " spiritual " the words " by law," which was nega tived by 243 to 68. Sir P. TimmEa then moved the amendment of which he had given notice,—Jto add at the end of the oath, after the word " realm," the words " and I do make this promise, renunciation, abjuration, and declaration, heartily, willingly, and truly, on the true faith of a Christian." He argued that these words were essential ; that they preserved the Christian character of Parliament, which had subsisted to the present time; that the onus way upon the advocates of the right of Jews to a seat in that house to show that right, whereas they bad never, he said, ap proached the vital part of the question. They must, he contended, maintain either that it was a mistake t 9 suppose that the house had a Christian character, or that the time had arrived when it was no longer necessary to retain that character. He maintained, on the contrary, that it was impossible to abandon that bulwark of our Constitution—the Christian cha racter of the Legislature of this country. The amendment was supported by Mr. STANHOPE, Mr. Wiohxsf, and Mr. WARREN, and opposed by Mr. KINGLAKE and Mr. EVANS. _ _ Sir J. PARENOTON said that hitherto ho had given a silent vote in favour of the principle embodied in the amendment ; but having reflected more anxiously upon the subject, the result, he was bound to say, was that he could not conscientiously continue to vote for the exclusion of the Jews. Ile thought it would be desit able, however, to retain in the oath the words "on the true faith of a Christian," and lie was sorry that the Government had decided to change the shape of the oath in that respect. It would have been a better course, in his opinion, to allow Chris tians to take the oath with the solemn conclusion to which they had been so long accustomed, and to effect the emancipation of the Jews by a bill similar to that by which Roman Catholics were emancipated, going directly to the object. But the Government having decided upon another course, as he had made up his mind that lie was no longer at liberty con scientiously to resist the admission of Jews to Par liament, it only remained for him to support that course. Sir John then argued that, from the posi tion of the Jew in this country, his admission into Parliament could not affect the Christianity of the house. 11 no man were to be admitted to Parlia ment unless he acknowledged the divinity of our Saviour, how many sitting members would be ex cluded! What was the position of the Jew in this country P Was not the Jew a recognised subject of the Queen? Was not the Jew a loyal subject of the Queen ? Did not the Jew pay taxes ? Did not the Jew hold property? Was not the Jew permitted to hold every office in the State except those which conferred political power ? Was not the Jew allowed to be a magistrate, an alderman, and had not one of the most respectable members of that body recently and in the most efficient manner filled the high office of Lord Mayor of the City of London? Then was there anything in the argument with respect to the na• tionality of the Jew which could justify the house in saying to him, you shall have no voice in imposing the taxes you are called upon to pay—you shall have no voice in consti tuting those laws which regulate your property, and which we trust to your administration. It had been said that the Jew had no real right to political power from the fact of his being called a citizen of this country. But although there was no legal right, he held that every Englishman had a moral right to those privileges which were enjoyed by others similarly qualified, unless t here was some statute to the contrary ; and that if he was to be debarred from the exer• cise of these purely on account of his religion, it ought to be shown that there was something in the nature of that religion to operate as a disqualification. He had studied the question to the best of his ability—he had looked at it as a member of Parliament, and as a I'rotestant—and the result was that whilst as a matter of feeling and sentiment he should prefer not to have the Jews in Parliament, be had arrived at the conclusion that he was not justified in depriving a considerable, a loyal, and a respectable portion 597 of his fellow•citizons of the privileges of the constitution under which they lived. Mr. NAPIER said the house began its proceedings with prayer; but if they admitted the Jews they could not pray with them, neither could they keep Christian festivals with them. Every day public questions were becoming more charged with Christian principles; and how could a Jew aid in legislation which recognised these principles? Mr. HORSHAN remarked that the oath was not in tended to prove the orthodoxy but the loyalty of those who took it. It was the intention of the Legislature to have a declaration of political alle giance, and not of religious faith. The supporters of the amendment, however, contended for its adop tion, on religious and not on political grounds, and he submitted, under the circurnstano3s, that the proposition should be rejected. Mr. WHITESIDE said that judging from the language used that night he began to think that the Constitution of England was founded not for Christians but for Jews. One would almost sup pose that the founders of our laws and monarchy hail asserted principles favourable to Judaism, and not to an exclusive Christianity. Now, he admitted that hon. members ought to vote against the amend ment of his hon. and learned friend if they came to the conclusion that the Jew was only excluded from Parliament by the accidental words of the oath, and not by the jurisprudence of this country from the earliest times and by the practice of the Constita• tion for 1,000 years. But his argument against the Jew was that Christianity was ,intertwined with all the institutions of England from the very beginning ; that it was connected with the landed property of the country, with the composition of Parliament, with the monarchy itself ; and he defied a micro scopic eye, surveying fairly the edifice of the Consti tution, to detect one place] left open for the Jew to enter in. The hon. and learned gentleman then quoted several authorities, including Hale, Erskine, Coke, and Justice Barrington, to show that the law of the country from time immemorial had rested upon Christianity, and that whoever disputed the mission of Christ to gaol, by law, must go. Mr. Whiteside enforced his legal arguments by cases in point, and maintained that the Christianity of this country was its great principle and its great bulwark. " It was not now to be remembered, and then to be forgotten, to be here acted upon and there laid aside ; it was not to be taken up and laid down at the pleasure or the caprice of an individual, for it pervaded every branch of the :law and every prin ciple of the Constitution ; and it was that which had invested our law with a grandeur, a simplicity, and a splendour which no other human jurisprudence but our own possessed." But what was it, he asked, iu conclusion, they were now debating ? It was the great question whether Christianity should continue to be exclusively the religion of the Senate. It was the same question taut had been debated in the Roman Senate 1,500 years ago. What a debate was that I On one side argued Symmachus, the eloquent leader of the Paganists, urging the subtle dogmas of his creed ; on the other reasoned Ambrose, animated with the sublime arguments of truth. " Look back," said Symmachus, in effect—" look back upon the wonderful and glorious history of Rome; see what the old faith has done for this country in the battles she has gained, the conquests she has made, the kingdoms she has won, in the splendour of her literature, the pathos of her orators, the inspiration of her poets, and the felicity of her fortunes ; can that religion be so bail which has produced such magnificent results ? We can't understand your novelties ; why are you so inveterate and so exclusive ? Must every senator be a Christian? We will divide with you the power and the worship, and we will place the statue of your Christ beside the statue of our Jupiter." Ambrose answered, " It is not what you admire, but what is true, that we contend for; if our religion be sublime, and if it come from above, it must prevail, and it can endure no rival— you cannot have two antagonistic religions in the same senate, and therefore you must choose between Christ and Jupiter." What was the result ? They voted that Christianity should be exclusively the religion of the Senate, the temples of voluptuous heathenism were overthrown, the statues of the false gods were shivered, the idols and the groves were desecrated, and Chris tianity became the religion of the Senate and of the empire. In its course since that day Christianity had been triumphant. No doubt, sometimes it had been marred, perverted, and abused, but still the world showed that its mission was to civilise, to humanise, to exalt, and to redeem mankind. And yet they heard the matter treated with a kind of indifference in that house, as if it were a matter of email consequence whether Christianity were to be the exclusive religion of the Senate of England ! From the date when the light of the Reformation irradiated the world what hail been the career of this country? We found the arts and sciences of life, and everything that could adorn or humanise man and elevate him in the social scale, each day improving ; and the intellect of man, having burst the fetters that enchained it, had exhibited the splendour and the power with which the Almighty had invested it. The argument against the Jew was that he resisted the lessons which the wisdom of Newton, of Pascal, and of Locke in culcated; that he was untaught by the divine song that Milton sang, and that though the sun were darkened, though the earth quaked, and the graves gave ba c k their dead to testify to the Creator's triumph, yet, unlike the