The Sun. — London, England, 1851-03-18 00:00:00

~.--= - . ~, . , I ' I ,^ ~ 1 Any Inea he ecu l ‘c tend equal '0 ay that h eed ea I power is h e WO' ; perfectly s, in d on s the only a , e r the following ull consti - L would b$ 3 Special e real and tended witth o i K tible nal. But, expedient holic niust 'We unier i , might lead to results which they might have to deplore. The Bill was nothing but a decoction of the existing Pro testant intolerance in this country, and if they persisted in Passing it, it would be looked upon as a declaration of war by the people of Ireland.—(Hear.) Mr. SEYMOUR wished to state why he had come to the determination of voting against the Government on this question. He was aware of the almost superhuman efforts Of the Roman Ca holies to sp tad their religion, not only in this country but throughout Europe. He drew some conso lation from that fact, because he did not think any adequate means had yet been taken to resist them. The present crisis bad not come upon him unexpectedly, for he had been told by some Roman Catholic friends ten years ago that meetings had been held in the pri- cipal cities of Europe for the con version of this country, and for the establishment of some such system as that which it was now attempted to begin in this country. He was aware that in many quarters in Eu rope there had been a regular crusade of one class of Roman Catholics against Protestants. That class, he believed. con sisted of those Roman Catholics who were in favour of civil and religious tyranny, end he believed, if they were victori ous, they mould turn their arms against the Whig party in the English Church. He should admi , inde e d, that having seen a good, deal of that party in various portions of Europe, there were amongst them many who would be as unscrupulous in their means— sitnd as despotic in the exercise of their spiritual power, as /bey were in the reign of Philip 11., the time of the Jesuits, or when the latter established themselves in Paraguay. — (,Hear, hear.) But what was it the House now proposal to do? What was the course it intended pursuing, or what _ was the exigency to be met ? He did not agree with the Act before them, because it did that which it ought not to do, and it left other matters untouched to which it ought to have attended.—(" Hear, hear," from the Roman Catholic Members.) He maintained that a bishop was not a terri torial title ; it was merely an oflice, as old as the Roman Catholic religion itself. The present question was one totally distinct and different from monastic establishments. (Hear, hear.) He therefore thought it would be a 'violation of civil and religious liberty to interfere with those bishops, but at the same time considered that measures ought to be taken to inquire into the management of those • monastic establishments. Everybody should deplore that system which for the last 200 years existed on the continent, under which a young female was either compelled to marry or take the veil, and through the means of which the higher ranks of seciety had become so debased and disorganised. Re would not have trespassed at all on the House, but he Was anxious briefly to state the reasons which induced him to vote against those with whom he generally acted, and in a manner which might endanger his seat for the borough he epresented.—(Hear, hear.) Mr. GOULBURN said he was glad he had given way to • the Hon. Gentleman who had just addressed them, as he was sure that Hon. Member had shown that in any future vote which he might give he would be influenced by the best and most honourable motives. In much of what had fallen ~' . from the Hon. Gentleman he (Mr. Goulburn) concurred; • • '" " but he should differ from him in the vote which he gave t • . upon that occasion.—(Hear.) He thought the statement • that there was a general crusade gotten up to advance the I: , e interests of the Roman Catholic religion w a s not a ver y ,•,' • • strong argument in favour of not passing a mea sure to arrest ~ ' s and put some restraint upon the temporal power claimed 1 u "by the Pope in this country.- (Hear, hear.) The Hon. ' - ‘Zolielier for Cork (Mr. Roche) had talked a good deal about ~ ' nenewing the university privilege of printing the Book of t•onainon Prayer; but as it was, he (Mr Goulburn) found it •p s `rfectly impossible to connect the greater part of the Hon. Me e aber's speech with the subject immediately under discus ; • airan_(Hear, hear.) He would not therefore endeavour to f• oll ow that Yon. Member, but would merely briefly state •• the grown.% why he could not agree with the Hon. Member .'" 111 opposing the Bill then before the House. It was said the . Prop ose d Bill ,arcs an invasion of the Act of 1829 . With i t that allegation he' could not concur. If he regarded the pre '• . -Bent Bill as an inva ,ion of that Act he would not give it his t ' Upport.—(Hear, hea.r.) He had been a party to the form ':: sag of that compact ;ietween the Roman Catholic body 11 and the people of this Caintry, and he would neither de ',, 'Part from its provisions, ntir consent to its spirit being vio • lated --(Hear, hear)—but he contended for it that• that was ' ' tao violation of that compact on the p art of those who sup 'i,, -. Parted the provisions of that Bill.- (Hear, hear.) The threats of the Hon. Member for Cork, he conceived, were alal , justified, for it was not pretended now to increase the ' . '' number of Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland, nor were there any titles there prohibited which were not so under the Act of 1829. The Honourable Gentleman, therefore, .` ••• was not acting fairly towards his Roman Catholic fellow '', ,'' countrymen if he assumed that they would not su pp ort Is, . their compact of 1819.—(Hear, hear.) T he act of the ci . ''Pope, he contended for it, was an agg ressive act. The 'tt - 4 0inan Catholic Church endeavoured to extend its doc • trines by teaching; the Church of England did the same. Vor his own part he had no objection to the contest, and no a., feare - for the result—no dread of any aggression, as long as ss I:,i' they had a sufficiency of such teachers as they had for their s - 49p10,-,(Hear„ hear.) But he held the apt of the Pope to t'i''' the°o,;iin act of civil aggression.. It- invAded the authority of ':! -.. Cr - oWtihy the appointment c f civil, itles, and it was an ," ""bteinpt to invade the Protestant privileges of the country at k ' the same time. It was on these grounds - that he objected t,..' 1 4) the act ot the Pope.—(Hear, hear.) If it had been found . that the ecclesiastical arrangements made in this countr y ' Were insufficient for the management of their affairs, a t imely might have bee a found without intrsducing a civil Power to disturb the peace of the country and interfere with Its civil government.—(Hear, hear.) When was there a Period during which :a greater disposition had been shown ,t han during the past year, on the part of that House and t • the country, to give the Roman Catholics every possible ,-: privilege, and withdraw all disabilities inflicted by f ormer • ittvel—and the only reward which they received for all that !eoasideration was an invasion of the authority of the Crown, ' a nd an infringement of the Constitution. The appointment ' ' ltt those bishops was not necessary to the exercise of the re ligion of the Roman Catholics. If it were so, he for one r i euld be ready to make great sacrifices t o give them the full ! S tiered of episcopal superintendence. — ( Hear.) He remem i' for 20 years hearing every possible narrative of Roman L. Catholic grievances laid before that House up to the year '' 1 829 ; but though every possible grievance which could be 's.mated as existing in this or any other country had been '•. *gated, not a syllable had ever been uttered alleging that the " ‘ . Nicars-apostolic of England were not amply sufficient for 1., Avery religious . want which they then had.—(Hear.) He .„ t , remembered even a rescript from the Pope at the time they ::' :were discussing, about the year 1812 or 1813, how emanci -4 . ilkation might be safely granted, having issued. in which, t", ...though affirming the s stem of bishops in Ireland, there was t., !- Previoion made only for the appointment of vicars-apostolic ',' la this country. If therefore that measure had been unpro volced..-jf it bad been unnecessary for the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, why had it bee n introduced? t Was as ked, where was the evil in exchanging vicariates , 4 Postolic for dioceses? It might be quite immater ial indeed , '.th the R oman C a th o li cs , but it was most material indeed to the Protestant community.—(Hear, hear.) The vicars-apos 'he; indeed, had jurisdiction, as his Hon. and Learned Friend t he • Member for Plvmoth had told them, over personas omnes '---;‘ that was all pergolas of their own persuasion. But would ''' be contended that the regular bishops would not exercise tower over those who were not Roman Catholics? The , • I °Pe, indeed, had told them in his bull that he had proceeded ' ° appoint - non sine magna viscerum commotione, indeed— , , ‘ltilirs of the Church; but they would be found interfering in Viewer matters also. It had been said that the Pope ha d n o v°wer to enforce the canon law in this country; but the • '' ,7 0 1,c0n law might still have its effect without the interference the civil power, as in the case, for instance, of excommu ,bleation. Was it not possible to make such a sentence a • means of annoyance, and i nconven ience, and injury to those Whom it had been applied ?- (Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member for Plymouth said if it was proposed to excommu • . ,„"teate the Queen, that he would at once interfere ; but the l . ftioiple of the case was the same if the lowest sub j ect in a..' ~, c! realm were subjected to such a proceeding . This ap rintment of bishops, therefore, gave them a province over • - i l ither rsons in their diocese than Roman Catholics ; and as '.. e ' was,not prepared to submit to the consequences of such ;•, 41 aitercise. The Gentleman who preceded him stated ob . tetions to some parts of the Bill; these objections, however, raid be better discussed in Committee. But with respect to manner in which that aggression had been met, he • 2 1 r. Goulburn) confessed he did not approve of the whole 4 s 7lrse of proceeding which had taken place. He thought that • Tore moderation on the part of the Government, and a less ' . i l ePosition to aggravate the feelings of the country, would , t i tya led to a more calm and deliberate discussion than • i'itll been the consequence of the course pursued - (Hear, 4 : 1 1 1 ' 4 0 —and he could not help considering t hat t. ._e discrepancy between the Act introduced , and the , • iLaeiteinent caused by the Government would I e likely to prejudicial results.—(Hear, hear.) What was the course left for them to pursue? Were they to reject Zat Bill or to adopt it? If they rejected it, what better . -1 ; eacs had they a prospect of of resisting the aggression , or ~, Making a specific declaration that the act of the Pope was _. . , 7 . which they should remonstrate against? --(Hear, hear.) he y sh ou ld persevere. But he might if he pleased recall the 1 I 4 : 1 1 1 t ; . and he trusted, when the Roman Cath o l ic feeling of e country was consulted, it would be found advisable to do l l° . There was no necessity to look fur precedents for such a I nceeding. He recollected an instance of a bisho p to v., hem . s _ l ' 4lll Monarch objected being charged b y the Po p e. And it is Zao only the other day that they saw th e bisho p a p pointed ' Goa withdrawn and the vicar - aposto lic re-a pp ointed. t ,. , , Ite therefore. again f 9 said, "Withdraw your bu ll ; restore , • le . vicars-apostoli c , and then all the restriction of '‘,l . 1 is Bill become unnecessary,"- (Hear,_ hear.) They :"I,Nvers told the proposed measure was a d v erse to civil :herty, and that it was a persecution of the Roman • - ,Vatholies. The Honourable Member for Cork had told them :, .. tot to sanction the appoint m e n t o f vicars-apostolic in stead of • Jahops. He had talked a great deal about tolera tion and - rarity, and yet he would sweep away the entire Iris h Church b ishops, and all as a proof of his moderate and liberal opi- NOns.- (Hear, hear.) A distinguished lady had said, " Oh, ' • l i t u erty I under thy name many crimes are committed?" And . , ' • 'was much the same way, he believed, with what was tatt e d religious as with civil liberty. In Ireland certain sees p are established in different districts, and bishops app ointed ; . • ti lit the law told them they should not assume the titles of )Tensions, and the present Bill was no more an act of op . than the Act of 1829. But there was a sort of audacious besides that of legislation. It was that which an , ...s.`.' , acious insolent priest inflicted upon a man of pious and 7.taltset demeanour, and who would submit to any injury and 'lett rather than make any complaint which would lead to tposure. Against such a man they often saw, in private j ia l. injuries inflicted which would bear the name of tyranny re& We should not, however, allow the Pope to go on b ro/tching on our kind feelings towards the Roman Catho lic ljtion: He held the act of the Pope to be an encroachment s ri the sovereign power of the Queen, the Protestant , feel aaf the cuntry, and the Established Church and tre " 4 7 ° he would vote in favour of the present Bill, which went • eet it.—(Hear, hear.) - t ,fir 11. W. 13ARRON expressed his appreheusion - that all 11 4 _4_,t six weeks' distracting discussion on the Papal bul l 14 q q.itist as little tended to useful legislation on the question Bliss Edgworth's Essay on Irish Bulls" had tended to ( i mprovee the breed of cattle in the c ount y of Galwa y .— ' of "Miter.) On the contrary, it had done an immense deal to lciachief. It had raised up all the dormant embers of Am i gions discord in this country and in Ireland; it had torn , under ties, and ripped up old sores ; it had set man against 1 1 7, where religious fuds had been settled down, though i t it quite extinguished,e w hen men were beginning to think • ea e„ , !natters laid on the tomb for ev er, and that never eh 0 t ," 4 11 ,Ld be Beet: in our days a revival of the old disputes ak e ' " Catholic question, or that that House should be made ~....f arena of ecclesiastical censures or i n t o lerant accusations. (Rear, hear.) What kind of a church was it they had, if ii _tY feared the appointment of a single archbishop would . b illet it? Oh 1 but the effect of the Pope's act would ato dethrone the Queen, to annihilate the Established • ti e , tir°l, and take possession of all ecclesiastical temporali tri h it. was truly absurd to send forth Ouch stories for the , e telling of old women as the renewal of Smithfield and zia Bartholomew as the consequences of Dr. Petutment in this country. Now, when they talked of tee thin ViriSeMan's Die Inge, did they think that all the horrors were oil the bid ,„ sid e?—(" Hear," from the Roman Catholic Members.) . test head wish to rake up the horrors of Henry VIII., the ll.teact of their Church ?—( Hear. ) Did they wish to rake he horrors perpetrated by John Knox in Scotland, or Is murders and buntings of Cromwell in Ireland? THE —(Hear, hear.) Did they wish their representatives to tell the Irish people that such were the Protestants of the pre sent day, and that they were fit prototypes of Henry VIII., John Knox, and Cromwell?—(Hear.) There were two sides to all those cases of persecution—put them down not to the score of Catholic or Protestant, but to that of corrupt human nature. But it had been said that the appointment o a Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country was an insult to the British people. For his part, however, he could nottm derstand how thot act could be regarded as an insult oe 7 an aggression ; and he certainly felt convinced that it had never been meant for such a purpose. Within the last few years a Roman Catholic bishop had been appointed in Ireland with- out any offence to the Protestant party throughout the emeire ; and surely an act which was perfectly harmless in Ireland afforded no just ground for public indignation in England. Why, the Protestant party in this country ought, consistently with their own 11:tred of Papal ascendancy, to approve of an act which raised the Roman Catholic vicars apostolic into bishops, and by that means reticle ed them less dependent on the Pope. The Honourable Gentleman the Member for the Univesity of Cambridge (Mr. Goulburn), had talked that evening of the debasement and misery which the profession of the Roman Catholic religion produced amome nations. Now, in reply to that aspersion, he (Sir W. Barron) would confidently point' to the history of the glories of Italy and the imperishable monuments of the genius of her childre ~ lie would point to the great men who had contri buted to raise France to her high pitch of prosperity and civilization. lie would point, to , to the distinguished men who had illustrated the annals of England herself in former ages. The Act then under their consideration was a paltry, contemptible measure, good for nothing but insul . If it were passed into law its effects in Ireland would be peculiarly disastrous. There would be. no civil war in con sequence in that country, but there would be distrust and hatred of English legislation. He would tell them that it would be an impotent law, and worse than impotent- it would be a disgrace to their statute•book. It would be an insult to the Church of the Irish people, and upon that point they were far more tenacious tha❑ they were of their lives or properties. It would do her Majesty's Ministers no good, but would inflict a stain on their name and throw difficulties in the way of their party which centuries would not re move. He implored of them, therefore, to pause before they determined on persevering with so pernicious and insulting a measure. Mr. CALVERT (the new Member for Aylesbury) said that he had never entered upon the consideration of any sub- ject which was, to his view, more pregnant with the most important consequences to all the great interests of the country than the measure now under discussion. The sup porters of the Bill were told that they were guilty of perse cution and of retrograde conduct with reference to the Emancipation Act of 1829. Now, so far as persecution was concerned, no man could feel a deeper interest than he did in the welfare and progress of Ireland, and his feeling with regard to the Roman Catholics of England was that no body of persons were more loyal, or more deserved the attention and consideration of the Legislature. It was with a sincere anxiety, therefore, to do justice to the Roman Catholics on both sides of the channel that he n:w approached this subject. The Act of 1829 was simply for the purpose of establishing civil privileges. It was t - tally unconnected with the subject under discussion; and, with the exception of one particular clause, there was not, from the commencement to the conclusion of it, any refer ence to matters of a spiritual character, and by that clause a penalty was laid upon those Roman Catholic bishops who took the titles of then existing sees. It was said, however, that this did not prevent the assumption of titles of sees de rived from other places; but, up to the last four yeare, the parties who took such titles under a Papal brief were guilty of treason. Since that period the penalty had been taken away, but the offence remained. When the opponents of the Bill spoke of persecution, let him ask who were the parties who had compelled the Government to enter upon this course of legislation? In the first place, he found a person comiug to this country with authority from a foreign power, assert ing a spiritual jurisdiction over him (Mr. Calvert.)—(Cries of " Hear," and " No," from several Irish 'Members). He could prove to them " yes"— a spiritual jurisdiction over him. —(Cheers.) There was a man setting up a cardinal's throne in the neighbourhood of Lambeth, under the authority of a foreign potentate, and because he (Mr. Calvert) resisted the act, was he to be told that he was guilty of persecution ? Why, the charge was absurd, and inconsistent with the meaning of the language— and he contended that hs was then standing in a position of self-defence, and was not amenable to any such charge. The question before the House was, whether or not it was exped ent that the present Bill should be read a second time? For 150 years, from 1710 to this time, the question had been decided in one uniform manner by the Legislature, every Act, beginning with the Fth of Anne, chap. 8, sec. 10, having uniformly adopted a phrase which drew a distinction between the authority Gf a Ro man Catholic over a congregation, and his authority over a place. The questson might also be viewed with reference to the general law of Europe; for, throughout the whole of Europe, wherever Roman Catholic bishops had been admitted at all , they had always been subject to some contr A—by placet or e.zequatur —which p-erented them from exercising the same authority that they hid Rome. The most important effect of the recent act of ng gression by the Pope would be the introduction of the canon law. T, introduce that, they were told there must be a regular series of archbishops and bishops in the country, the 'act being that unless there were arch bishops and bishops to introduce and give effect to it, that law could not take practical effect. Let the House see the result ( f that. Take the establishment of the new col leges in Ireland as an example. Suppose the Pope issued a brief condemning these colleges, and no episcopate existed in Ireland, it would then be a mere matter of conscience with every Roman Catholic to decide whether he would obey the brief or not; but if an episcopate were established, then, by virtue of the canon law, every individual Roman Catholic in the country must bend before the brief. Not a man could resist it. Liberty would be put an end to, and all must bow to the decision of the Pope. There had been much debating upon the subject of the Bill ; but had any Roman Catholic Member yet pointed out a single spiritual want of the Raman Catholics which was not satisfied under the institution of vicars apostolic? He (Mr. Calvert) did not want to deprive the Roman Catholics of a single spiritual benefit; but he must say he believed the vicars apostolic wore able to supply all the spiritual wants of that community in this country. The Hon. Member then remarked upon the insulting charac ter of the act el' the Pope in issuing his brief without first consulting the wishes of the country and the Government, and in using the term " Catholic England" in his brief; when he knew that it was not " Catholic" but " Protestant' England ; for if it were "Catholic England," why were not the S taarts upon the throne ? (Cheers.) In point of fact the Pope in using that phrase was conveying an intimation that the present Sovereign ought not to be upon the throne. Anot` er reason why the present Bill was necessary was, the constant tendency of Rome to encroach up in the authority of the Crown, as might be seen on reference to Belgian', Sardinia, and other continental states. In the course of this debate it had been asserted that the Roman Cath .lie bishops were appointed in this country because they had been appointed in Ireland. Thus encroachment followed encroachment, and the only thing they gained by making a concession was that that concession was deelared to be a right, and the right was then taken as the groundwork for further encroachment. His Honourable and Learned Friend (Mr. Roundell Palmer) had referred to the Protestant Dissenting communities, and said that if they were allowed free action it must also be ailowad to the Roman Catholics. But let the House observe the difference. In the first place, there was no persuasion or body of persons in this country who, by any religious arrangement, questioned in any way the order or establishment of bishops, and no one in which the temporal power had not great weight over the spiritual. (Cheers.) That was a most material matter. Let the conferences or assemblies of any of them be examined, and it would always be found that the temporal was above the spiritual ; whereas the essence of the system of the Roman Catholic Church was, that the temporal should not exist except in obedience to the spiritual ; and in his (Mr. Cal yen's) opinion nothing should induce us to consent that the temporal power should be subject altogether to the spiritual. —(Hear, hear.) In point of fact, the Pope of Rome was the supreme head of a vast army of bishops and priests scattered all over Europe, who must therefore be regarded with jealousy, and it should be remembered that every mem ber of the Methodist Conference, or of an assembly of Non conformist divinea was an Englishman, and that whatever else ea. that object could not be for the ad vantagerailger.—(Hear, h ear ,) H ow w as it w i th migh a t f b t e he his st(ib regard to the Pope ? He was no: only Pepe of Rome, but there might be other foreign powers who him.— (Hear, h ear .) At this me n French v o ha e d r possession of Rome, and he (Mr. Calvert) did not believe that th ey entertained sinister feel ings towards thi s countr y; but he coul d easily imagine ano e hadt t the influence the , great continental power, which having possession of the Popedom, and with a bold and scrupulous minister, who en tertained hostile views towards the Constitution and the power of England, might use that influence for the purpose of inflicting immense damage upon us, and embarrassing an authority which it knew would be ever used for the purpose of promoting constitutional government. It had been stated that the present Bill was, after all, a small measure, and he thought it was so; but he did not think that, therefore, it was a measure whiab. ought not to be passed. It might be necessary, however, to naa.; recourse to further legislation: but even if that were so, he should not he sorry that they had thus afforded a locus penittntice, and given Vat: Vope an op portunity to withdraw his brief, retrace his steps, and avoid the enormous evils which his conduct was calculated to pro duce.—(Cheers.) Mr. CHARTER'S said he had been much struck with the strange logic of the supporters of the Bill, and the inconsis tency between their arguments and their votes. They said , " We give ou r votes upon the ground of civil and religious liberty. We vote for complete toleration; and because we dread the establishment of a hierarchy in this country, and the ntroduction of the canon law, we vote for a Bill which touches not one of these points." Therefore, he was at a loss to understand how they could reconcile their speeches with their votes. From all that had occurred, both within and without the walls of Parliament, it appeared that the act of the Popo had been re garded solely in the light of a temporal aggression It was considered to be not an act for tha better internal government of the Roman Catholic communion in this country, but an assumption of temporal power by the Sove reign of the Roman States. Th a t was the view taken by her Majesty in the Speech from the Throne. by the Noble Lord in introducing the Bill, and by the Right Hon. Baronet in proposing the amended Bill, and they stated that there being no redress afforded by the statute law, they had come to Parliament for further powers. But if it were true that an insult had been offered to the Sovereign of the realist, it was not to Parliament th at they should have h a d recour se for "ear_iress, but to the public law of Europe. The Hon. and Learneal Member for Oxford (Mr. P. Wood) had maintained that the sovereignty of the realm had been violated by this so-called Papal aggTssion. The Hon. and L ear ned Member for Plymouth (Fr. R. palmer), in every word of whose able speech he (Mr. Charteris) fag reed, was y was of opinion that the right in the matter was dependent not upon the Sovereign of the State, but on certain condi- Ow previously agreed upon—upon a concordat, for the es tablishment or partial establishment m f the Roman Ca tholic Church in the State. Thus it appeared doctors dif fered. Dr. Twiss stated there was no position in law so completely established with reference to the relations be tween-the Pope and the Sovereigns of other States, as that the Jioyal placet or excquatur of the Crown was previously necessary to the appointment of bishoprics in a country. That opinion was corroborated by the proceedings before the Committee of lsls, where it was stated, by a German jurist, that the Royal placti was previously necessary. pi e (Mr. Charteris) was inclined to concur in that opinion. He thought it would be found that that right had teen exarcised by Sovereign Princes before and since the Re_ formation, and, if that were so, it was not to the 'louse of Commons, but to the Foreign-office, they should look for redress. But it was bar them to consider whether it was not their own fault that they were now discussing this question—whether that spirit Of intolerance which at tributed the famine in Ireland and the. cholera to their ti.aving whitewashed the walls of Maynootil, was not at the hOttossa : for he felt confident that had there been an English Minister at ' , tome they would not now be discussing this que , t' not, however, bring 15 ma. himself to view the matter in the light of flo ral aggres- The sion, He considered it purely a ministerial question. . episcopal appointments by the Pope ho regarded MarelY SUN, an arrangement for the better organization of the Roman I Catholic Church in this country, anal as such they should not deal with it, if they meant to preserve religious liberty and toleration. What right had they to deny to the Roman Catholics that organization for their Church government ac cording to laws of their own communion, which they granted to every other religious community ? Was not epis copacy a part of ecclesiastical government ? Nay, was not the episcopacy of the Church of England derived from them ? The reason assigned was, the danger that might ensue from the establishment of a Ro man Catholic hierarchy. Re saw no danger on the subject. If the canon law came into collision with the law of the laud, the canon law must bow before it. If they found the canon law made superior to the civil and statute law, then let them interfere by legislation and vindicate the supremacy of the law, and he would give them his support. The Roman Catholics of this country themselves denied the temporal supremacy of the Pope, an I they swore in their oath at that table that the Pope neither had nor ought to have any civil jurisdiction within these realms, and further, that they would not disturb the settlement of property as established by law within the realm, and that they swore in the terms of the oath, without mental reservation or equi vocation. Why then should they impugn the loyalty of the Roman Catholics? He was indignant when he heard their loyalty questioned. They had proved' their loyalty in a hundred fights by flood and field, and in every clime. To whom was the suppression of the Irish rebellion 'tie but to the priests and to the police. The Roman Catholics were as loyal to the Constitution and the Crown as the Pro testants, and he believed there Was in the Roman Catho- lic Anglo-Saxons, as wall as in the Protestants, the same spirit of independence which would not suffer them to bow down to any foreign potentate. He was opposed to all legislation, because he believed their civil rights and -liberties were in no danger. He looked not to penal enact ments, but, to the spread of education and enlighten ment and the exertions of their clergy for the pre servation of their faith. A distinguished statesman (Mr. Wyndham) had said that if conversion to Popery was au evil, the law was not the proper remedy, and that prosely tism was a disgrace only to the clergymen in whose parish it occurred. When lion. Gentlemen threatened them with the chance of another Spanish Armada or French invasion, he asked was not the period of the Armada one when the bloody penal code disgraced the statute-book, when the scaffold reeked with blood; And when the French invader last trod the soil of this realm, was not the same penal code still in force? They had little encouragement, then, in the past to have recourse to penal enactments. They ought not, however, to pass by the arrogant tone of the Popish brief; they should pass a resolution marking their disapprobation of it, but they ought at the same time to do away with the absurdity of ignoring the Pope as a temporal Sovereign; they should establish diplomatic relations with his court; they should reverse the statutes of mortmain, and guard against abuses by passing measures for the inspection of monasteries. This would be better than passing an Act which would be a dead letter in operation. Although the feeling of the country was aroused on the subject he was certain the people would soon be convinced of the impolicy of encumbering the statute-book with inoperative laws. For if they would make their legislation effective, they must re enact the penal laws, but in that case they must interfere with the free exercise of their religion by the Roman Ca tholics, and thus violate the sound principles of religious toleration. The SOLICITOR-GENERAL said, the pith and substance of the arguments advanced by those who took what he would ca'l the Roman Catholic view of the question was this :—that the establishment of a hierarchy was essential to eir religion— that therefore they wore entitled to have it —that they could obtain it only from the Roman Pontiff — that therefore they were justified in having recourse to the Pope to obtain it—and that the Pope was entitled to grant it, and do all that was necessary for the purpose of establish ing it. From those premises the Roman Catholics drew an egregious fallacy ; but before proceeding to deal with that he would state the substance of the arguments used by mem bers of the Protestant communion, who were opposed to legislation on this subject. The substance of their argu ment was this :—that the Legislature had conceded to the Roman Catholics the free and unfettered exercise of their re-. ligion—that the establishment of a hierarchy was essentia to the free and unlettered exercise of their religion—and that therefore we were bound to permit the establishment of their hierarchy. Was it passible for any one to reflect for a moment, and not see the fallacy which pervaded that ar gument? It did not follow that, because the thing desired might be reasonable and just, the means taken to accomplish it must necessarily be valid. He would assume, for the pur pose of argument (and he pledged himself to give battle to all the arguments which had been advanced by the opponents of the Bill, and he believed he would be able to defeat them), that an organized hierarchy was essential to the interests of the Roman Catholic religion, and that the see of Rome was the only quarter whence it could be obtained ; but if the means adopted to establish the hierarchy were illegal and unconstitutional if they ; involved a yiolatiorf of eour :municipal and constitutional ...laws if they were a violation , of the nubile law of Europe —if they were an invasion of the sovereignty of the state—if they were an outrage of the national independence—was it to be said that the Government and Parliament of the country, whose bounden duty it was to preserve the sovereignty of these realms inviolate, to protect the national independence and maintain the national honour untarnished, were to sub mit to the adoption of those means because some persons thought the Roman Catholic Church would be better go verned by archbishops and b shops than by vicars-apostolic? He for ene would never concede so monstrous and intenable a proposition.—(Hear, hear.) He wanted an answer to this question, had the Roman Pontiff, in partitioning the realm of England into provinces and dioceses, and establishing therein archbishops and bishops, and an organized hierarchy for the government thereof, invaded the prerogative of the Crown and outraged the independence of the country, and had those subjects of her Majesty who had lent them elves to carrying out this scheme, stood by it, and abetted it, departed from the undivided allegiance which they owed their Sovereign, violated the law of the land, and infringed the spirit of the Constitution ?—(No, no, and hear, hear.) He hoped that' Honourable Members would be kind enough to listen to his arguments instead of interrupting him with unseemly jeers. There had been abundance of de clamation and invective, the promoters of the Bill had been reproached with intolerance and persecution, and, indeed, if it had been the object of the measure to re-enact the penal laws, and suppress the Roman Catholic religion altogether, it could not have been more vehemently condemned ; but he now called upon the opponents of the Bill to meet him fairly in argument, and he respectfully though fearlessly challenged an answer to the question —were' the proceedings of the iiee of Rome, and of those who abetted him, consistent with the law of this country, and with the law of nations? There was another question he would ask—when the Roman Catholic religion was the established religi n of this country, and when, therefore, the people owed, and paid obedience to the Pope of Rome, in spiritual matters, as the head of their hurch,would the Pope then have taken on himself to do as he had now done? To that question he would himself answer in the most unhesitating and unqualified manner " no ;" and no man would be bold enough to stand up in the House or else where, and assert the affirmative. From the earliest periods of our his ory the Pope had never exercised jurisdiction in this country with respect to the appointment of bishops. In the time of the Saxons the power of dividing the country into dioceses was vested exclusively in the King. Edward the Confessor, finding the two bishops existing in his reign in sufficient' for the spiritual wants of :he people, created three more, without the authority of the Pope. This was the course always pursued in the earlier part of our history, nor was it until the time of Henry I. that the slightest attempt was made on the part of the see of Rome to encroach on the power of the English Crown with respect to the appoint ment of Bishops. They were elected by the clergy and con firmed by the Crown. An able pamphlet, written by Mr. Edward James, of the Chancery bar, pointed out very clearly the course of legislation which had been adopted for the ex press purpose of resisting the pretensions - advanced by the Pope, from time to time. to interfere with the prerogative of the Crown in this country. LHere the Hon. and Learned Gentleman read an extract from the pamphlet in question.] The state of things to which he had referred was not peculiar to England alone. On the contrary, the practice in ever y Roman Catholic country in Europe before the Re formation, and it had continued almost down to the pre sent moment, was that no bishop could be appointed except by the Sovereign or by the Pope with the assent and concurrence of the Sovereign.—(Hear, hear.) It was incontestably established by the evidence given before the Committee which sat in 1816 that the most pre eminently Roman Catholic countries in Europe, Austria, Spain, and France, would not permit the hulls of the Pope to circulate until they had received the sanction of the Go vernments of those countries. It was the same in England when the Roman Catholic religion was established here, and in the reign of Edward I. a man was sentenced to death for introducing a Papal bull into England, and the sentence was remitted only at the entreaty of the Chancellor and e T s r t e a a u s l u i s r h e e n d I t t h e a p p p o e i a h r e t d t h t a o t h the m , s t h e e e t t R h t m h e e h h a d a d h o clearly estaclished the point, that the see of Rome had no right to create dioceses in England without the consent of the State; and if the Pope had not that power, when the Ro man Catholic religion was the religion of the country, whence did he derive the power of doing so now? The argument of the Roman Catholics respecting the inter ference of temporal sovereigns in the appointment of arch bishops and bishops was that the only reason why the rati fication of the Sovereign could be thought necessary was this, that in Roman Catholic times and In Roman Catho lic countries bishops and archbishops possessed great tem poralities, and exercised power, authority, and jurisdic tion. He clearly saw the distinction, and he agreed with those who held that a bishop might be appointed for purely spiritual purposes, for consecration, for ordination, for con firmation, for administering the sacraments of the church; and, if the Papal rescript had been confined to objects of purely spiritual jurisdiction, he should be obliged to admit that there was something in the argument; but there was nothing whatever in it, there was nothing which male the proceeding of the Pope in this case at all analogous to what had been done with regard to sending a Protestant bishop to Jerusalem, there to exercise spiritual jurisdiction over the subjects of her Majesty, or other Pro testants resi ling in that city. The Protestant bishop at Jerusalem was there without a see, without a diocese, and would any one tell him that the Pope and the Roman Ca tholic clergy and laity meant no more than that with refe rence to this country ? Did they not, on the contrary, find that the Roman Catholics sought to establish a hierarchy in this realm of England with a view to temporal sovereignty? —(No, no.) When he turned to the rescript of the Pope on this point he found, from the authorized translation of that document issued by Cardinal Wiseman himself that the Pope directed the erection of two sees to be presided over by Dr. Wiseman, and those were Westminster and Southwark ; that of the northern district, there was to be one see at Hex ham ; that for the see of York, he provided that the seat of the bishop should be at the city of Beverley; that of two others, one should be at the city of Salford, arid the other at the city of Northampton. By what authority did the Pope erect cities within the United Kingdom ? Was not that an act of territorial sovereignty ? If any town or place was appointed to be an episcopal see it became ipso facto a city, All towns were raised to the rank of cities by becoming the seats of bishops—did any one deny that ?—(Hear, hear.) They would find that every city derived its rank from being now or having been in times past the seat of a bishop, and so in herent was this privilece or distinction that, though the consequencesow ns t o the bishoeric might be d issolved, the title of the city remained; for instance, Westminster—there the bishopric was dissolved, but the title of city rema ined. Surel y , then, when the Pope meant tEhantglciisshril t rank of forcirtaietlsr,ehreatmteumstptehdavtoe raise were to ensue; civil conseq uences necessaril y attached to such acts, and he did not see how any one co uld successfully contend that such steps did not involve territorial jurisdic tion and sovereignty. It was said that the Pope did not in tend to assume territorial jurisdiction; that he merely in tended to invest his bishops and clergy with a purely spi ritual character; but what did he find to be the words of the rescript? They were these--" And in the spiritual govern ment of the clergy and people, and in all matters appertain ing to the pastoral office, the archbishops and bishops of England shall henceforward enjoy all the rights and privileges which the Catholic arubishops and bishops in other states • have and use, according to the common ordinances of tho sacred canons and apostolic constitutions." He desired to i was ttiere, in_that respect, jwy,differenco between this LON DON, TUESDAY and any other country? In Roman Catholic countries, where Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops exercised powers not merely spiritual, their appointment proceeded from, or at; least wis ratified by, the temporal Savem4.,rn of the State. But, again, be found in the rescript this passage:— " But in the sacred government of clergy and laity, aria in all other things appertaining unto the pastoral office, the archbishops and bishops of England will henceforward en joy all the rights and faculties which the other Catholic archbishops and bishops of other nations, according to the common ordinances of the sacred canons and apostolic con stitutions, use, endmay use; and are equally bound by the obligations which bind the other archbishops and bishops according to the same common discipline of the Catholic Church. And whatever regulations, either in the ancient system of the Anglican churches or in the subsequent mis sionary state, may have beett in force either by special co st i tut ions or. privileges or peculiar customs, will now henceo forth - carry no right nor obligation ; and in order that nr doubt may remain on this point, we, by the plenitude of on apostolic authority, repeal and abrogate all power whatso ever of imposing obligation or conferring right in those peculiar constitutions and privileges of whatever kind they may be, a-A in all customs, by whomsoever, or at whatever more ancient or immemorial time brought in. hence it will for the future b. 3 solely c , mpetent for the archbishop and bishops of England to distinguish what things belong to the executions of the comma ecclesiastical law, and what, according to the common discipline of the church, intrusted to the authority of the bishops." Was there not to Le Ken in that passage evidence of giving to the episcopacy power besides and beyond that which was purely spiritual? There might, for example, be a Roman Catholic priest holding a certain chapel, and having the spiritual care of the Roman Catholics in that district, and appointed to it More the new Roman Catholic bishops in this country had received their appointments Under the authority which the Pope gave such priests might be sus pended—they might be excommunicated ; but, supposing a priest merely suspended, even that power would be giving to the Roman Catholic hierarchy not only a spiritual, but an ecclesiastical and civil status with various rights and pri vileges of a temporal kind. If they attempted to deprive a priest of a care of souls and a chapel with temporal advan tages attached to it, he might appeal to the courts of law in this country to enable him to enforce his rights. And the rights which Lord Mansfield held to belong to.the Protestant Dissenters would then belong to Ronan Catholic priests;— thus a court of law would be brought into conflict with what was called the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church of Rome, for that qplritual jurisdiction was manifestly at variance with the law of England. Now, he used this argument for the purpose of showing that so far as a Roman Catholic bishop exercised a spiritual juris diction, it was a j quasi civil jurisdiction, and something be yond a spiritual urisdiction—a privilege which could not be given to any man but by the lawof the land; such powers and privileges could only come froze the authority of the law or from the favour of the Sovereign. Then they were told that this being a Protestant country, Roman Catholic eccle siastics would not submit to any authority excepting that of the Supreme . Pontiff; but supposing that were so conceded for the purpose of argument, and for that purpose only,— suppose that this country was bound to give them all that was desired, it did not follow ttat because the law of this country did not allow a case such a s he had been supposing, the law of Rome would not pertait it. He begged to refer the House for a moment to what o her Protestant States of Europe had done. In those the pope conceded the question of the appointment of a bishop to a very great extent ; and it appeared to him, that in the }ecently-altered state of the law of this country negotiations - might have been opened be tween England and the See•of Rome for the purpose of placing us on the same footing as other }rotestant States of Europe. As the law now now stood on our statute-book that might be done.—(Hear, hear.) He would ask was there anything to prevent the Sovereign of ;this country establishing diplomatic relations with the Popo, inasmuch as an Act had already been pass 'd for that puryose? If the Roman Catho lics wanted to have any important changes made, why did they not come to Parliament fur that purpose? If they sought legitimate objects, theythould pursue them by legal and constitutional means, and not by what was called an insult, though he would not apply to it that term, because he did not.think that any insultw a s intended; but what he maintained was that they had no right to any civil or tem poral jurisdiction; and he die not now inquire whether that was their object or not ; be rather regarded the tendency and probable effect oftheir proceedings. He did not care whether it was intended or not. He looked to the result, and he found that-whatever the intention, the result had been the evasion of th e privileges and prerogatives of the Sovereign, and an invasion of the liberties of a free and independent kingdom. The vicars-apostolic had no sees, no dioceses, and no authority to enforce the canon law. They had nothing but the simple jurisdiction over the members of their own faith. Itwas said that the Roman Catholic religion absolutely required the establishment of a regularly constituted hierarchy.; But no one had established this position. The Earl of Arundel -and Surrey . had indeed said that certain irregularities ',illicit had taken' place refl- dered the appointment of the netv bishops nee'essary Elov far the Noble Earl had stated tbla of his esird ienovrledge he did not know. But according to .the experience of us all, the life and conduct of the Roman Catholic clergy had been exemplary in the extreme—( . Cheers)—and no one had heard of irregularities on their part.-- , (Hear.) Dr. 'Wiseman let the truth out He said the Catholics required a regular hierarchy brcause they wanted to introduce the canon law, and thsy could not do that as loag as they had vicars-apos tolic. Dr. Wiseman said nothing of the discipline of the Church.—(Hear.) Now, had the Roman Catholic religion declined under the government of vicars-apostolic? The Papal brief recited, on the contrary, that the members of the faithful were daily increasing, and that the Church in England was in a most prosperous condition. It was clear that what was wanted was the canon law and synodical action.—(Cheers.) Did any °be desire to see archbishops and bishops looking to R me as the fountain of jurisdiction, a' d, sitting side by side with the Imperial Parliament, provincial synods appointed by the see of Rome? He did ..ot. We had seen enough of that in the sister country. He could not forget the Synod of Thurles—(Cheers)—or the way in which that synod of ecclesiastics had set itself in opposition to the enactments of this and the other Hous3 of I. i rliament. The large suns voted for the establishment of colleges in Ireland had been received with universal satin• faction by the gentlemen and laity of Ireland.—(No, no, and cheers) hut it happened that the see of Rome had sent to Ireland, and placed in do great archbishopric of Ar magh an ecclesiastic who, thDugh an Irishman by name, was really an Italian monk. hr. Cullen was sent to Ireland by the Pope to prevent the establishment of these colleges. Mr. MAURICE O'CONNELL—Dr. Crolly was arch bishop when the Act was pased for establishing these col- leges. The SOLICITOR-GENER4.I. 4 believed Dr. Crolly was an assenting party to the passing o f the Act.— (Ch eers. ) B ut 1 he unfortunately died, and vas succeeded by Dr. Cullen, who, though an Irishman hYrsame, was to all intents and purposes an I alien monk. I; defiance of the usages of the Irish Roman Catholic Church Dr. Cullen was elected. — (Oh, oh, and cheers.) The established usage was that the clergy should send three nanit s to Rome upon a vacancy for the election of the Pope. '- -ey were also in the habit of re writing against one name t e word dignus, against the other dignior, and against the third dignissimus, which last was usually appointed 1.). the Pope. The Irish clergy sent those three names, but the Pope passed by them all, and, violating the establishki usage and practice of the Church, sent Dr. Cullen to henna as Archbishop of Armagh. —(Cheers.) Dr. Cullen had sever exercised pastoral juris diction in Ireland before. IT e , summoned the synod of Thurles, and, by his casting i k n L to decided that the Roman Catholics should not adopt le -se colleges which were being established under the provisio ns of the Act of Parliament. Now, was that interference s Ilritual or ecclesiastical? Did the people of this country desire to see a synod of this de- scription sitting in England? Let the House observe that in our Church we did not pertait the action of convocation, although it was subject to the control of the Crown. It was summoned and presided over by an authority on the part of the Crown, who had the power to prorogue or to dissolve it, and in so far as it was composed of bishops and other digni taries, appointed by the Crows, a considerable control was exercised by the Crown over its proceedings. But a synod of Roman Catholic bishops in th is country would be com posed of persons over whom t h e Crown would have no control, and it would exercise Power, jurisdiction, and au thority in competition, and Perhaps in, conflict with the Imperial Legislature.—(Cries e f• " Hear, hear.") If we looked abroad did we find thee l , owers and prerogatives ercised with forbearance ? Losk at Belgium, where the ex clergy and the Sta e were in conflict upon more subjects than one—on education amonz te ——e rest. It was complained in Belgium that education had been I ustrated by the oppo sitio i of the clergy, emanating 1, -( ma the Court of Rome. In Sardinia the clergy had made the most immoderate and pre posterous pretensions. They h ad claimed immunity from the operation of the civil laws, a nd the Archbishop of Turin had refused one of the Ministers the sacraments until he bad expressed his deep repentance for the attempt to make eccle siastics amenable to the civil lane. Roman Catholics could not deny, and ecclesiastical .histo ry proved the truth of the assertion, that the priesthood sot of the working clergy, but of the higher order of the h ierarchy— s was one of en croachment and aggression. What was the intention of this Bill? If he turned to the Papal rescript, he found the fol lowing passage Wherefore, after diligently weioing the state of Catho lic;ty in England at the time that now is, and after reflect ing upon the increase which, in various places, is manifest in the already large number of Catholics, and after considering how the hindrances which stood in the way of the spreading of the Catholic faith are daily bein g re moved, we have judged that the time has come in which the form of eccle siastical government may be restor e d in England, which freely prevails in other countries where no special cause requires the extraordinary ministry of the vicars -al ostolic. In forming this judgment we felt that the circumstances of times and things had rendered the government longer rnment of the no neces- Catholics of England b y sary, and, indeed , tha t such a vicars -apostolic change had t a k en p l ace t h at called for the establishment of the ordinary form of episcopal rule in that kingdom." These were to him ominous words, The ti. There wasmes and 'alcir cumstances chosen for this act were remarka a schism in the Established Church of this country.— ( Hear, hear.) Multitudes, deluded I).y mediwval tendencies, and by a fondness for the picturesque in religion—(A laugh) were passing over to that which, if not the Roman Catholic • religion, was something un commonl y like it. It was thought the time had come when a great blow might be struck —. when the contest might be renewed for the prerogatives, power, advantages, a nd emolumentstr__ of the Ch urc h. It was , therefore, incumbent on the House to be watchful and wary. Whatever was essential to the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, let it be g ranted, not as a ma tt er o f f avour , but of right. But, on the other hand, l et th em b e care f u l to allow of no evasion or encroachment upon the law or the Constitution. He could not agree with the Hon. and Learned Member opposite that l'ar iament ought to wait, and not to act until the evil became intolerable._ (Hear, hear.) He said let them take their stand upon the law and Constitu tion in the first instance. For in every instance where an invasion or infraction had once been admitted, it was set up Legislature had, per as a precedent. It was said that the mitted the evasion and infraction of the l exceptional case. law in Ireland.— an (Hear, hear.) Ireland was und oub tedly —, Hear, hear, from the Irish Members.) It bad a Roman Catholic population and an estab lishe d Church which would not minister to that population.—(Cheers.) It had Raman Catholic bishops there, by whom the law had been tacitly evaded. But was there no difference between the manner in which the law had been evaded in Ireland and evaded in England? Had there been a cardinal sent to Ireland in flam ing attire and wearing the cardiraalitial hat to proclaim the bulls of the Pope? Yet, b cause the Government had al lowed the law to be evaded ill Ireland, this was put forward as a reason why no notice should betaken of the evasion of the law in England. Ho deeply regretted the necess i ty of includ ing Ireland in this measure. But the state of things had changed there since the Pope had sent over an ecclesiastic to govern the country who had not been nominated by the clergy. What was to binder him sending over foreign ec clesiastics to this country who did not profess to be bound by our laws, but by the canon law? He had heard it said that this question ought to have been settled through the inter vent on of the Foreign-office, and that the Noble Lord (Palmerston) ought to have sent a fleet and an armed farce to Civita Vecchia. Suppose the question had been treated in this manner, and that a geet had bombarded that EVENING, MARCH port. Why, what an outcry would not then have bean made ! Hon. Gentlemen would have said, " Look at this monstrous tyranny of the strong against the weak !" They would have been told that it was unworthy of a great kingdom to crush an old man whose temporal power as a prince was of the lowest possible order. Such a course would have covered the country with ridicule beyond any thing that could be conceived. Why, it was not worth while for a great country like this to enter into hostilities with the Pontiff for acts like these, or for anything he could do. We had the remedy against his attacks in our own hands. We could deal with our own subjects, Protestant or Roman Catholic, without recourse to any measure beyond our shores.—(dear, hear.) And if those subjects assumed territorial titles which by law they were not competent to take, it was for the State to prevent the perpetration of offences it never entered into the contemplation of the Le gislature that they would have committed.—(Cheers.) It was nothing to say the measure was small to meet evils of such magnitude. It would, at all events, be sufficient to prevent the realization of Pontifi c al and hierarchical en croachments. They could not have episcopal jurisdiction, they could not introduce canon law, they could not assemble in synod tl frustrate, perchance, the decrees of the Imperial Parliament, unless there were bishop) with territorial titles and that the Bill effectually prohibited. In a word, it would meet the aggressions which hail been made upon us, and would protect the rights and vindicate the liberties of this country so tar as they had been asitaile,i, and would provide for the independenc3 of this free and ancient kingdom.—(Cheers.) Mr CARD W r.LL said he had witnessed the rising of the Hon. and Learned Gentleman (the Solicitor-General) with great pleasure, as he expected from one of the law-officers of the Crown a clear and full explanation of th - measure under discussion. In that hope he had been disappointed. The Hon. and Learned Gentleman had told the House that the municipal and the national law had been alike violated, that the honour of the country had been attacked, and the rights of our Sovereign aggrieved. He askei the Honour able and Lamed Gentleman where had her Majesty's Go vernment been all the time?—Cheers.) Did the Honour able and Learned Gentleman mean to say the municipal law had been disregarded, the interne ions) law scandalously in fringed, a territorial invasion perpetrated, that a foreign Prince, and the representatives of a foreign Court, were governing her Majesty's subjects with temporal jurisdiction, and that the Executive Government had all the time made no sign, and had not even remonstrated with that foreign Power 2—(Hear, hear.) Did he affirm that acts of treason had been committed within this realm, and the law officers of the Crown took no steps for the vindication of the Sovereign? But, above all, did he mean to say Government now relied on the Bill before them for the vindication of the wrongs that had been done?—(Hear, hear.) He would now invite the House to the consideration of the Bill, which the House had, no doubt, observed the Hon. and Learned Gentleman had entirely omitted to speak about. He said there were two classes who opposed the :Bill—the Roman Catholic party, who demanded, and thought they had a right to the hierarchy, and those Protestants who treated the menaces of the Papal power with indifference. But he for got there might be Protestants who regarded the act of the Pope with feelings akin to his own, but who, nevertheless, could not give their sanction to the proposed measure. In the course of his speech he had ingeniously endeavoured to show that the bishops nominated by the Pope had not only spiritual but temporal power, that they were about to introduce canon law, which should stand side by side with Acts of the Imperial Parliament, and that they had in vaded the prerogative of the Crown ; but he would ask the Hon. and Learned Gedtleman if the Bill was a measure by which he proposed to prevent all that? To his Roman Catholic fellow-subjects he (Mr. Cardwell) declared that he regarded what had been done as an aggression on the rights of his country, the more serious because unpro voked. In the course of that debate he had heard doc trinces laid down respecting the nature of civil and reli gious liberty which were not consonant with those the people of England had been accustomed to regard as their true meaning or as sanctioned by the law, and he could not for get that such doctrines were not those of Locke, and of Blackstone, and of Lord Somers, and could not but regard them as fatal to all duties and obligations of the social state. It was surely the right of every man to worship his Creator according to the dictates of his conscience, but the rights of a Church, as an ecclesiastical body, must be bound by the law of the civil government of the State, and the exercise of its power must be confined by the safety and convenience of the State. Why did they close the con vocation of the Established Church and carry her appeals to the Privy Council? Why did they maintain the supremacy of the Queen, and the control of Parliament, but that no danger might arise to the State?—(Hear, hear.) An allusion had been made to the United States in the course of the debate, but he would ask was there any throne there to which the successor had been changed on account of his religion—bad they a Bill of Rights, an Act of Settlement, a coronation oath, or an oath by which Roman Catholic Members took their seats ?—(Hear ) He would fiirther ask the Roman Catholics if they, living under the shelter of Protestant institutions, chose to make a change, with it not necessary fite Jconsult 'the! ecineenikece and the wishes of the country in which they lived ? (Cheers.) They ' had not consulted the convenience of the country, the wishes of the people, nor the safety of the Sovereign, and in doi ng as they had done they had committed a substantial aggres sion. —(Cheers. ) He was not dwelling on mere words, phrase logy, or shadow, but was dealing with a substance. The Roman Catholici had changed a missionary Church into a normal Church, and had done so under circumstances, as it proved, hazardous to the general tranquillity and content of this Protes ant realm. But what remedy had the Go vernment provided in their Bill ? When it was incor porated with the statute-book the red-stockinged Car dinal would still remain, and bulls, the introduction of which the Hon. and Learned Gentleman so much dreaded, would still be admitted. Of all things the Honourable and Learned Gentleman had the greatest objection to the introduction or the canon law. Whether he Fad been consulted in the drawing up of the Bill he (Mr. Cardwell) could not say ; but he knew that in the one clause to which it was now reduced there was noth'ng whatever to prevent the introduction of canon law and the assembling of synods. Would it prevent the conversion of the money of young ladies to superstitious uses, to which the Hon. and Learned Gentleman alluded when he rpoke of the pleasure with which he had heard the petition presented by the Ho nourable Baronet (Sir R. Inglis) ? He had endeavoured to prove the bi hops of a voluntary Church exercised tem poral authority because the courts of law would take cog nizance of their by-laws made by the authority of the Church, and seemed to think the Bill defeated that power by preventing bequests and endowmen's. The Honourable and Learned Gentleman did not know that the three clauses designed to have that operation had been withdrawn, and therefore the only foundation on which he rested his argu ment as to temporal powers had fallen to the ground.— (Hear.) What was the foundation laid when the Bill was introduced ? They were told that when Dr. Cullen came from Home and went to Ireland he violated the law by taking the title of Archbishop of Armagh; that Lord Clarendon consulted the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General for Ireland, and received this answer:—" Dr. Cullen appears to have violated the law ; but we have only seen newspapers; we cannot get access to the fact in any other way than the newspapers; but they are not evidence; and we shall not obtain possession of the letter, and therefore Dr. Cullen can not be prosecuted with success by the Irish Government." Now, would it be gravely believed that that was introduced as an argoment for bringing in a Bill which would leave the law in England precisely as it was in Ireland, and that the day after the Bill was passed the Government of England would consult the H ,n. and Learned Gentlemaa the Attor ney-General and Solicitor-General for England, who would say to them," Vr. Wiseman has violated the law —we have only seen it in a newspaper; we cannot get access to the original letter, and therefore we cannot advise a prosecution of Dr. Wiseman ?" (Hear, hear.) The Hon. and Learned Gentleman had told them some remarkable cases in which foreign powers did vindicate their authority against the Pope. He referred to the case of Henry I , but he had forgotten to tell them that Henry 1., not content with that internal part of his proceedings, to which the Hon. and Learned Gentleman referred, addressed the Pope in these words:— "Be it known unto you that by God's help the dignities and usages of the kingdom of England shall not, during my lifetime, suffer any diminution. And even where I, which God forbil, so far to suffer myself to be abased, my nobles, nay the whole people of the land, would not in anywise per mit it." The Hon. and Learned Gentleman said they had passed a Bill by which they could negotiate with Rome. Then, he asked the lion. and Learned Gentleman if all those great calamities had happened which he spoke of, if the dig nity of the Crown was insulted, if territorial rights were in vaded, if a power to interfere in temporal matters had been assumed, why had they made to remonstrance—why was there noth i ng external done to relieve the country from the indignity which it had suffered? He asked that question for this reason, that he had been exceedingly struck by an observation made by the Hon. and Learned Gentleman. Appealing to the Roman Catholic Members, h e use d th ese words, What is the meaning of all this ferment you have excited against us ? You have spoken of us as if we were going to repeal the Emancipation Act." The SOLICITOR-GENERAL—What I said was, that they spoke as if we were going to re-enact the penal Acts. Mr. CARDWELL continued,—That made good his argu ment. The Bill appeared to him to be just enough to irri tate, but not enough to satisfy. It appeared to him as if they had suffered a great external grievance from the Pope, but had visited it on the loyal Catholic subjects of this country—(Hear, hear)—and that they were doing it in this manner not so as to vindicate the honour of the Crown, or repel the insult they had received, or add one iota to the se curity of Protestant institutions; but they were creating in the vitals of this country a little wound, a festering wound, the end of which they could not foresee, and the cure f which they could not undertake to perform. It appeared to him they were called on to assent to a measure which contained within itself no possibility of remedying the evil; because they should bear in mind that, restrain the assumption of ecclesiastical titles as they would, they would leave the thing just were they found it. There would be their archbishops, bishops, and synods ; and there would be the canon law.— (Hear, heir.) There would be the whole usurpation entire and complete. They would have prohibited the usurpation of particular names under a penalty imposed by a clause which they knew they could not help being evaded, because they had seen it evaded in Ireland.—(blear, hear.) He looked with as much jealousy as anybody upon the per petual aggression of the Church of Rome. He feared there would be in this country a great public calamity, be cause he looked on religious discard and the perpetual dissent of one class of the community from another, as about the greatest calamity that could happen. - (Hear, hear.) He had uniformly endeavoured, adhering to the settlement of 1829, ,o remove all those obsolete enactments which had no force except that they were offensive to the feelings and irritating to the tranquillity of large bodies of his countrymen. He had done that in the earnest hope and expectation that by mutual moderation on both sides they might live together calmly and peacefully, believing as he did that truth was on his side, and that truth must prevail. But he must ask the forgiveness of his Roman Catholic friends if he said that that desire had not been without misgiving. He begged to remind the House of that remarkable passage in which the illustrious author of the emancipation closed his speech in proposing it to that House. He told the House of Com mons then, ai he (Mr. Cardwell) would repeat now, that it was very possible they might have a straggle, but it would be no longer a struggle for civil liberty ; it would be a struggle against the intolerance of an aspiring Church. But, said. he,— _ 46 W e shall range on our side the illustrious authorities which have heretofore been enlisted on theirs ; the rallying cry of civil liberty will then be all our own. We shall enter the field with the full assurance of victory, armed with the consciousness of having done justice, and of being in the right; backed by the unanimous feeling of England, by the firm union of o r thodoxy and dissent, by th e a pp laudin g voice of Scotland ; and, if other aid be requ isite, cheered b y the sympathies of every free state in either hemisphere, and by the wishes and the prayers of every free man, in whatever clime, or under whatever form of Government his lot may have been cast." It might be that the spirit of the Roman Catholic religion and the Protestant religion could not harmoniously coalesce; but he earnestly hoped that the day of that struggle might be Averted. Da of all wars the worst was a little war; and of all wars the worst was a little civil war about re- 18, 1851. ligious matters. He was persuaded that by assenting to this Bill they would not vindicate the honour of the Crown ; that they would not protect the soveriegnty of Great Britain ; that they would not repel this territorial in vasion ; that they would not accomplish any object by a solitary clause which it was known would be evaded, and could not be carried into effect. He believed that if the other clauses had remained in the Bill he could have demon strated that there was not one of them that could not be evaded. He therefore considered that by supporting this Bill he should rather offer an affront than comply with the desire of Protestant England; that he would be doing too much to render Ireland ungovernable, and that upon him would rest a share of the responsibility of that social strife which might arise on a subject in which they were now in the right, and which he agreed with the Hon. and Learned Attorney-General they must ever be watchful and cautious in their beginn'ng, because if they put themselves in a wrong position the retribution would recoile on them selves. Believing that that would be the effect of giving his support to the second reading of this Bill in regard to the safety of the country and the honour of the Crown, and those justly-excited feelings which Protestant England had displayed, he should refuse his concurrence to the second reading of this Bill. The debate was then adjourned to this day, on the motion (we believe) of *dr. M MILNES. Mr. DISRAELI said it woul;i be desirable if the House could know whether the debate would certainly be proceeded with this evening? Sir G. GREY said, the Hon. Member for Bridport, who had a motion on the paper, had consented to postpone it, and lie hoped other Hon. Members would do the same. Mr. SADLIEII said he had a notice of motion on the paper; it was a matter of great importance, and under oil the circumstances, he felt himself bound to proceed with it. THE BUDGET. Mr. DISRAELI wished to ask the Right lion. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Budget would come on on Fridaly The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER—Not ou Fri. day. It is impossible to say how long this debate will take; it will come on the firt night after the debate. JEWS DISABILITIES. Mr. GOULBURN inquired whether, under all circum stances, the motion which stood in the name of the Noble Lord at the head of the Government for the alteration of the oaths of abjuration would come en this evening? The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHILQUER said it would not come on. RELIGIOUS HOUSES BILL. At the request of Mr. J. O'CONNELL the second reading of this Bill was postponed until Thursday. Mr. REYNOLDS considered this to be a favourable op -1 portunity of mentioning a fact which had come to his know ledge that day. The Hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford (Sir R. Inglis) presented a petition the other day from a gentleman, late a Member of the House, with reference to a Miss Talbot, who was said to have been sent to a nunnery at Taunton. The affidavit alleged one very material fact, which was at variance with the truth. It was stated that the young lady was sent to the nunnery as a postulant. That he believed was not the I I truth. The other business on the paper was then dispose.' of, and ,he House adjourned at Half-past Twelve o'clock. HOUSE OF LORDS, March 17. The LORD CHANCELLOR took his seat upon the Woolsack at Five o'clock. PETITIONS. Lord CAMPBELL presented a petition in favour of the Copy hold Enfranchisement Bill. The Earl of CAWDOR presented a petition from Pembrokeshire complaining of agricultural distress. SALE OF ARSENIC BILL. The Earl of CARLISLE postponed the further consi deration of this Bill for a week, in order to enable him to consider several suggestions which had been made to him for its improvement. DESIGNS ACT EXTENSION BILL. The Earl of GRANVILLE said that a Bill on this subject had been introduced into the other House of Parliament under the auspices of the Government. When that Bill should come up, he would move to refer it to a Select Committee, on which his Noble and Learned Friend (Lord Brougham) might serve, and he hoped that the Bill now before their Lordships on the same subject would be referred to a Select Committee, instead of being proceeded with forthwith. Lord BROUGHAM would consent to postpone the measure of which he had given notice on the subject of the patent law, and to have the whole subject referred to a Select Committee. He believed that the adoption of such a course would be most advisable for the interest of those ingenious persons who devoted th, it attention to chemical discoveries and mechanical inventions. PASSENGERS ACT AMENDMENT BILL. On the motion of Earl GREY this Bill was read a third time and passed. • - REGISTRATION ASSURANCES BILL. Lord CAMPBELL, in moving the second reading of the above-named Bill, was very indistinctly heard at the com mencement of his observations. The Bill had been brought forward by the Government in pursuance of a recommenda tion contained in the Speech from the Throne. His Noble Friends in the Government had asked him to take charge of the measure in its passage through that House; and, as it was a Bill wholly unconnected with politics, he trusted their Lordships would be of opinion that he was fully justified in complying with that request.— (Hear, hear.) The subject was one to which he had long attended, and in which he took the deepest interest. With respect to the measure to which he now invited their Lordships' attention, he thought it calculated to produce the happiest results, and he should be highly gratiled if he could in any degree contribute to its success. Perhaps he should best discharge his duty by re minding their Lordships of the history of this question. Here the Noble and Learned Lord was not audible, but the general scope of his argument appeared to be, that at the earlier periods of our history the law required that publicity should be given to deeds connected with the conveyance of land. Subsequently and chiefly as was supposed by the eflbrts of ecclesiastics to avoid the statutes against mortmain, secret conveyances became very common. The Statute of Uses was passed for the purpose of preventing such ,ecret conveyances; but it had been thought that, in effect, it favoured them. The evil was found to be very great about the time of the Stuarts reigns. Lord Bacon bringing his comprehensive knoledge and great sagacity to bear on the subject, made an attempt to remedy the evils while he was Chancellor, without having recourse to an Ac. of Parliament, for in those times the distinction between what might be done by Act of Parliament and what by the authority of the Crown was not as clearly established as at the present day. By his own aathoritv, acting under the Crown, he issued a sort of edict, whereby it was required that all deeds should be registered in a par ticular office; but at his fall this arrangement fell with him, and that great man's destiny was supposed to have been in some degree influenced by the secret enmity of those whose interests were injured by the regulation which compelled them to publish their deeds. Things continued in this unsatisfactory state until the time of the Com monwealth. Then flourished some of the greatest lawyers and jurists this country could boast of. Dur ing the Commonwealth a Bill was actually brought into Parliament—framed by Sir Matthew Hale, and strongly supported by him—for the establishment of a general re gister for all deeds. That Bill was opposed by all these who thought th it their interests might be prejudiced by it; and, perhaps, there was the less reason to regret that that mea sure did not pass, and that the work of registration had been delayed to the p esent time, because it could now be effected in a more beneficial manner than it would have been then ; for that Bill proposed to establish a register-office in every county, and at that time it would have been utterly impossi ble to have one metropolitan registration-office, because it took weeks, and sometimes months, for a person to travel from a remote part of the country to London. That measure having failed - although strongly recommended by Sir M. lisle and the other great men of the time—nothing was done unt 1 the reign of Charles 11., and then it so happened that there was great agricultural distress, as there was now. The value of landed property became depreciated, and a Committee of their Lordship's House was appointed to consider the nature of tee distress and devise a remedy for it. The Committee reported that one cause of the depreciation of the value of land was the uncertainty of titles to estates, and suggested that the remedy would be the establishment of a system of general registration of deeds. Unfortunately their Lordships, instead of passing a measure in conformity with the recom mendation of the Committee's report, passed one of a more questionable character, namely, a Bill to prevent the im portation into this country of cattle and corn from Ireland. P. happened, however, that in the same year a Registration Bill was passed for the Bedford Level, which had continued in force dawn to the present day ; and it was a well-known fact that property in that district was distinguished for greater security of title and facility of transfer then attached to estates in any other part of the kingdom. Nothing more was done on the subject until the reign of Queen Anne, when Bills were passed for establishing a register-office in each of the three Ridings of Yorkshire, and in the county of Middle see. The system of registration thus established was not on tF e most approved principle, but nevertheless, with all its defects, it had proved beneficial. Other attempts were sub sequently made to establish a general registration, and in 1740 a Bill for that purpose actually passed through that House, but was lost in the other House. Nothing more was attempted for a long space of time, but in the time of Justice Blackstone he called the attention of the public to the sub ject. At present there were many persons who thought that everything connected with the law was in the worst pos sible state; but in Blackstone's time it was the general opinion that the system of English law was absolute perfection, and no attempt, therefore, was made to improve it. In 1815 Mr. Sergeant Onslow brought in a Bill to este bl,sh a general registration of deeds, which wss supported by the illustrious Romilly, who afterwards distinguished himself by his attempts to improve the law, both civil and criminal, Sergeant Onslow's Bill failed, and nothing more was done until the memorable speech of the Noble and Learned Lord opposite (Brougham), which opened an era of law reform in this country. In consequence of that speech, which pointed out gross defects in the law, the Duke of Wellington, who was Prime Minister, and had Lord Lyndhurst for his Chan cellor, issued a Commission for considering the state of tt? law. Over that Commission he (Lord Campbell) h a d the honour to preside a distinction of whicha from he should always be proud—and he must say this, men, that time to the present the most eminent p ublic without distinction of party, had been actuated by ? sincere desire to improve the law. The members oafnet:rae: took the Commis sion, consisting of the most eminent conveyancers, them, and in 1829 opinion of persona best qualified to advice they recommended presented a report to the King, in whichation of deeds. Soon the establishment of a general registr ation of a seat in the other after that time, having the honou r e dfor and obtained leave to House of Parliament, he n r o bj e et, and the Bill was intro bring in a Bill to effect that Was not, properly speaking, a duced in December, 1830. It Government measure, but it had the sanction and aid of Lord ion Chancellor. Their ps would Brougham, who wss srwas not favourable to Lor the dshi consider recollect that the p alien of subjects so e little exciting as reforms of the laws, a n d of the 1.111 P d move the second reading before he could in April, 1831. When the new Parlia ment 3 dissolved,ment wa was assembled he again brought in the Bill; but still it wa s no time for attending to such matters, for, O c t o b er Having arrived, their Lordships rejected th e R e f orm Bill on it s second reading and the session closed. A new session began on the 6th of November, and he again brought in a Bill for the establishment of a general registration of deeds, which was referred to a Select Committee. The majority of the Committee were against the Bill; but, a f ter sitting' 29 days, they reported unanimously that a general registration wou d be of decided advantage to large purchasers ; that its adoption, as to small purchases, might lead to ex penses counterbalancing the advantages ; but that, on the whole, they were of opinion the system should be made ap plicable to all lands whatever. It happened, however, that unfortunately the most powerful and influential body in the kingdom, consisting of men, no doubt, most honourable, most intelligent, and respectable, who, as a class, Fosge ssei greater influence in and out of Parliament than any other body—he mealt the country solicitors—were unfavourable to the Bill ; and the notion got among them that the effect of it would be . to bring all business from the country to London. Petitions were poured is again.st it from every side ad lamong other representations it was stated Government in to lay on a further land-tax by means Of that mea sure; in fact, since Pelham's Jew Bill, he believed there never was such excitement against any public measure, and the consequence was, that though the hill was read a second time, and was reported, it was as much as any llon. Mem ber's seat was worth to support it, and the opposition was so strong he was obliged to abandon the Bill at a further stage. That was in 1832, and when Lord Grey formed his Government, and did him the honour to appoint tit Solicitor-Genera', he made one, and but one, condition with him, and that was that he should not again bring in his Registration Bill.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) In that instance the Noble Earl, to have com menced his public career under whom had been the greatest pride of his (Lord Campbell's) lice, showed his statemanship, for it public opinion was against the measure it would have been only acquiring unpopularity without any sufficient cause to have persisted in it. But the Bill in principle was still supported by an able friend of his, and was again intro duced in 1833. It was, however, rejected b y a still larger majority on that occasion than in 1532, and was again rejected on the second reading by a majority more numerous than either of the preceding in 1834. ( Hear, and a laugh.) It was a mortifying thing to eirn that the first act of the lie font' Parliament was to throw out his proineetion. Nothing more aas done in the case ti 1 1846, when the tide turned. A Committee was appointed in that year to consider the burdens on land, and they reported that the market value of land was seriously diminished by the expenses attendant on sale and transfer, and that a registry of title to all reel property was essential to the suc cess of rny attempt to simplity the law and the existing system. Government, however, did not take any steps till July last, IT hal a commission was appointed, which took in finite pains in ascertaining what peculiar burdens affected the land, and finally reported to her Majesty that the whole sub ject had been so fully considered by the former commission, they could only repeat the words of their report, and con clude by expressing an opinion that the establishment of a general registry was expedient. At the opening of the pre sent session of Parliament, therefore, her Majesty, in the speech from the Throne stated a measure would lee laid be fore Parliament "providing for the establishment of a sys tem of registration of deeds and instruments relating to the transfer of property. This measure is the result of inquiries which I have caused to be made into the practicability of adopting a system of registration calculated to give security to titles, to diminish the causes of litigation to which they have hitherto been liable, and to reduce the cost of transfers." In consequence of that intimation from the Crown the pre. sent Bill had been prepared and laid before their Lordships, and he trusted he had said enough as to the authority for the measure to induce them to give a favourable considera tion to the Bill now upon the table. The practical evils the Bill was calculated to prevent were these : First, there was insecurity of title, next, expense and delay in alienation and mortgage, and next inconveniences arising from the want or a place where deeds might be deposited, so as to be accessible to those who had need to consult them. In security of title was an evil of the greatest magnitude. la every civilized country the title to real property must be proved by written documents, and mere possession gave no indication of the amount of the possessor's interest in land, such as it gave of the p ossessor ' s ownership of chattala. The estate might be held in fee simple, or might be en tailed, or with life limitations; it might be encumbered with charges for mothers, or sisters, or might be encum bered by the owner in fee to the last farthing of its value, and no person could ascertain the exact nature of the interest of the proprietor unless he saw all the deeds affecting the land. No matter what claims might be made against the land, any person producing a deed showing title would pre vail according to the priority of date of deed; and, let a purchaser take what precautions he might, the sup pression of one deed might cause him the loss of the estate after he had paid his money. The mere production f deeds, therefore, afforded no security whatever to the purchaser, because no one could tell whether they were all the deeds or not ; and they had seen instances of purchasers who had been deprived of large estates by this want of security, after they had paid the full amount of the purchase money., The evil of this state of things was still greater as it affected mortgagees. There was now no record of mortgages, and a person who imagined himself the first encumbrancer might probably find there had been prior mortgages, and he not only ran a risk of losing his money from prior but from subsequent mortgages, by a process well known as " tacking and squeezing." By this process the third mortgagee might be preferred to the second ; be cause, if after the second mortgage was effected the owner executed a third without notice, and the third mortgagee bought up the first, he had an assignment of the legal estate, and the second mortgagee was squeezed out of his interest ; bat the delays and expenses of sale and transfer were also very great at present. First, after bargain completed, the solicitor of the vendor gave an abstract of title, as it was called, to the solicitor of the purchaser, which was some times half a mile long, containing a history, not only of one title, but perhaps of several titles. .Next, the soli c it or must make sure the deeds referred to in the abstract applied to the estate, and he must examine the boundaries, look over th e county histories, and send hie clerks to make inquiries —an at great expense—before the identity of the premises could be ascertained. It was not enough that a title should be safe —it should be marketable also, and a title which was quite safe might not be marketable, and vice versa. The practice of creating terms of years for the purpose of charging estates had led to still further embarrassment and difficulty; for it was necessary to trace each of the terms established to its source, and to take its full effect in respect to the value and encumbrances on the property. As " terms " were of the nature of chattels, they went to the executor, and therefore the solicitor must get probate of the will, which was another enormous expense. There were 370 courts in which probate might be entered ; but if, as was as likely as not, it was not taken out in the proper court, it was void, and of no avail. If there were Lena notabilie in a diocese where there was a prerogative administration, probate would be of no good as conveying title to them unless properly taken out in that diocese. These terms for years had been found so mischie vous, however, that about seven years ago Parliament passed a Bill by which those terms had been, generally speaking, annihilated. But when the protection of those terms, which secured the leg n estate and barred equitable claims, was re • moved it became only the more necessary to establish some protection in its place, and none appeared likely to be so efficient as that of registration. Again, the same evils affected the owner In raising money by insurance. The ex.. penses augmented the interest from 4to tl or 7 per cent., and the landowners were still at the mercy of the insurance offices, for, though money might be got at a lower rate else where, it was better to be subject to a higher interest than to belr the expense of investigating title again. There was another evil where the same set of deeds repre sented lends in which a great variety of persons had different interests. The vendor was bound by covenant to give at tested copies of the deeds, and pn duce the originals ; but the registration would prevent the necessity of such an expen sive and troublesome course When he was at the head of the Lauded Property Commission he heard cf a case where a gentleman sold a small property, and entered into the usual covenant to give attested copies, and produce the ori ginals of the deeds. This he found to he a most alarming burden, and, having a sharp attorney to deal with, the latter filed a bill in Chancery against him, and it was found the attested copies would cost more than the amount of the purchase-money.—(A laugh.) The attorney accordingly said, " he would wave his right to the attested copies if the owner would wave his right to the purchase -money," and the vendor was delighted with the offer —(Laughter.) If the deeds were deposited at a certain place, and it was pro vided no person should be affected by any deed not thus de posited, these evils would be obviated. He would state now the machinery of the Bill, for he was aware the value of such a measure depended on the mode of its being carried into effect. The Bill, in the first place, provided there should be one register-office is the metropolis for the whole kingdom ; and he had no doubt that such a determination was wise, and that one great central office would be infinitely preferable to a multiplicity of local offices. When he was in the other House of Parliament an offer was made to him to 'withdraw all opposition to his Registration Bill if he would allow it to be changed by establishing registration-offices in every county in England, but he had refused. He believed not only would the expense be greater in small local offices than in one metropolitan office, but that there would be no unifor mity of system and satisfaction to the public. In York, Middlesex, and Ireland, where registration of deeds existed, it was sometimes usual to register only a memorial of the deed, which gave a sort of abstract, stating the names of the parties, and, occasionally, but not always, the opera tive part of the deed ; but that system had been found very ineffective, and it did not answer the purpose of persons in terested to see the deed itself, and it did not afford the infor mation required in its absence. The most effectual mode of obtaining the real objects in view was to require every deed, or a duplicate copy of it, to be deposited in the register office. It would be found the expense of making a copy was less than the expense of preparing an abstract. The Bill having, therefore, provided for the deposit of the deed or du e p.ica te the next consideration was to fix the distri c t s; and. though there was to be but one office, it was proposed to divide the country into districts, and it had been suggested that it would be convenient to adopt the divisions of the poor-law unions. Then came the important question respecting which the Commissioners were not agreed, and that was the modeof registration. One of the most accomplished lawyers ever known, the late Mr. Duval, had invented a mode of indexing which did away to a great extent with the evils and incon veniences arising out of tha original mode suggested, was an alphabetical list of grantors. And here be could not but relate an anecdote of that eminent friend ship he was glad to have enjoyed, patience "am p i; lawyer, whose exemplifyingwdcthe..m earnestness and simplicity of his nature. at e his mode e for all o f bell remarked to him once he wondered ith • such unabated per poring over papers day after it is tedious, to be severance. " Oh," said -Mr."' a brilliant deed—the work sure, but sometimes I comf: t upon_ the tedium of the others."—( arrangementgrantors, A Ot. l t a h u a g t hj ew A m s Pe t n o ses the m of a great master--and w as they would just think the hun dreds how inconvenient indexing by d Joneses who executed deeds ev e year of Smiths an and that the only way of fi e . er9 in Middlesex, Teeing out ty all the facts about any one deed was b alphabetical show n gli all the deeds of all the Jonesea or of all the . o e l a i i i ir g e t 7 e. r t- e sm i t h s in the register. Mr. Duval suggested the arrange t of deeds by " classification," whi c h was to be I n n :n e d in each class by a particular For merly there was a difficulty Symbol. of ide ntifying the land with the symbol employed, on account of the deficiency in our system of maps. That defect, however, had now been sup plied. There had been an Ordnance survey, and a survey and maps ander the Act for the Commutation of Tithes and the Poor-law Amendment Act; so that now there existed public maps extending over a large proportion of England. He therefore had no difficulty in propesiag that maps should be employed to carry out the purposes of this Act. For each district these maps would be provided, divided into two com partments, one containing marks representing the land, and the other an index of the land so delineated. -Taking up, for example, the map of a district, a person would see a mark denoting the land he was interested in. He would there find a reference to the index, and on going to the index it would tell him whether there had been anything registered affecting that land • an d i t wou ld , moreover he , indi c ate where e would find all the d ee d s t h at ex i ste d w ith re f erenc e plan to it.ar Th without de fectthe th a t most strong l y app li e d to any were to be employ e d ag y he maps was, that there would be nothingwtoas-to be conveyed connect the deed that, was symbolized with the land that ' but, if the maps and indices o w eld re be greatly a i mpii proposed, that difficulty ° doctrine i tied.— ( Hear, hear.) Thew deeds. T 1 next question referred t - the effect of unregistered England was, that the person who cl a i me d on a registered deed was to be prejudiced and postponed, if it could be shown that he had notice of the existence of a, deed that was unregistered. The uncertainty and litigation which this state of the law created was very great, and therefore the Bill proposed that no person should b e affected by any deed that was not registered, th us completely exploding the doctrine of notice. With respect to the objections urged against the measure, it was said in the first place that this was a great innovation ; but he must say it was rather a return than otherwise to the ancient simplicity of the law. Besides, the system had been practised in some counties in England, for some centuries in Scotland, where it had operated most advantageously, and had also been found beneficial in Ireland. In considering this question the important fact was ever to be borne in mind, that. in almost every country in Europe they had registration of souse character or another, and that in none of those contr. I