The Press.
London, England, 1854-02-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

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millions represented by a hundred and forty-
four seats, while the urban population of eight
millions is represented by three hundred and
nineteen. And this is the Constitution which
Lord JOHN RUSSELL seeks to alter as being too
favourable to the land ! Hitherto the small
boroughs have preserved the balance with
tolerable fairness. The expedient of main-
taining them for that purpose might not be
abstractedly the best, but it answered its
object. They are to be disfranchised ; and,
whatever artifice may be used to throw dust
into the eyes of willing or careless dupes, the
towns, large and small, will be the sole gainers
by their disfranchisement.
Not less iniquitous is the proposal to do
away with one of the best of our old constitu-
tional safeguards against Ministerial ascen
dancy. It were sheer irony to assume that no
member of the House of Commons can be
found of more talent than principle—that
there are none who, having obtained their
seats by professions of independence, are
willing to turn them to account by the accept-
ance of office. At present such iniquitous
traffic is rendered impossible by the necessity
of re-election. This necessity Lord JOHN Rus-
sum. removes by a piece of legislation which
ought to be entitled " An Act to Facilitate the
Corruption of Members.'
In these remarks we have but repeated a
few of the innumerable objections to the mea-
sure which reach us from all quarters, Whig
as well as Tory. We grant that no alternative
was left to the Cabinet except that of revolu-
tion or resignation. That they should prefer
the first was natural ; but their choice is not
the choice of England : the verdict of Parlia-
ment has yet to be pronounced ; and, with
divided councils, discontented followers, em-
barrassment abroad, and apathy at home, the
Cabinet will have to face an Opposition nu-
merically strong, augmented by numerous
recruits from the opposite side, confident in
the justice of their cause, and ready, if need be,
to appeal to the English people in defence of
the English Constitution.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC OATH.

- -- -
THE more we consider the course pursued by I
Lord JOHN RUSSELL with regard to the oaths
at present taken by members of Parliament,
the more inexplicable does it appear. At first
a parallel seems to present itself in the con-
duct of JAMES IL, who, when his object was to
remove restrictions from Roman Catholics,
proposed to grant concessions to Protestant
Nonconformists. But the Leader of the
House of Commons can scarcely design to
render her Majesty's Jewish subjects eligible
to serve in Parliament under the pretence of
remodelling the oaths, because many who
would readily vote for the former would
strenuously and justly oppose the latter. For,
whatever may be thought of the oaths in the
abstract, few will deny that both the mover of
the resolution to reconsider them and the
moment selected for it were unhappily chosen.
Although Lord JOHN RUSSELL proposes to
refer all the oaths to the committee, it is but
one, the Roman Catholic oath, we need con-
sider. Framed originally to secure the Church
as established by law from any attempt on the
part of Roman Catholic members of Parlia-
ment to endanger its safety, if it has in any
degree answered that end, it is not the author
of the Durham letter who should propose to re-
move the safeguard. Previously to the passing
of the Emancipation Act one of the questions
chiefly discussed was whether any oath could
bind a Roman Catholic ; whether, in fact, ono of
the tenets of that faith was not that the interests
of the Church are paramount to all obligations,
and that no oath is valid which does not
include a mental reservation in favour of the
claims of the Church. The speech from the
throne in 1829 was directed to this point :
the King recommended Parliament to " take
" into deliberate consideration the whole con-
" dition of Ireland, review the laws which
" impose civil disabilities on his Majesty's
" Roman Catholic subjects, and consider
" whether the removal of those disabilities
" can be effected consistently with the full

SATURDAY,

" and permanent security of the establishments in
" Church and State, with the maintenance of the
" reformed religion established by law, and of the
" rights and privileges of the bishops and clergy of
" the realm, and of the churches committed to their
" charge."
The royal recommendation was answered by
the imposition of the present oath, and,
although the opinions entertained as to its
efficacy were diametrically opposed to each
other, both were in some measure justified by
the result. Some Roman Catholic members
have—withheld by the oath—voluntarily and
conscientiously abstained from voting on
questions affecting the Church of England,
whilst one peer refrained from taking his seat
rather than subject himself to a restriction
which he must either violate his honour as a
man by breaking, or his duty as a Roman
Catholic by obeying. Therefore, as the safe-
guard has to a certain extent been a security,
we are at a loss to know what Lord JOHN
RUSSELL means when he proposes to exempt
Roman Catholics from the oath on the ground
that an attempt on their part to abolish the
Church in Ireland would not violate their ab-
juration of " any intention to subvert the pre-
" sent church establishment as settled by law
" within the realm." As Lord Jolt); told the
House, he had been studying " Mariana the
Jesuit," before he moved for the committee, he
may have found some authority for his logic
there, or perhaps in tho despatches by which
Count NESSELRODE explained that the occupa-
tion of the Danubian provinces by Russia was
not an act of aggression on Turkey.
" There is a time for all things," and when it
arrives for the reconsideration of these oaths
it may be very fit and proper to omit certain
parts of them, that, for instance, which relates
to the descendants of Jamas IL ; and our ob-
jection to the motion by no means arises from
any superstitious desire to retain every word
of them eternally. But the substance of them
we would retain; and when Lord Jous Ras-
SELL asserts that " Roman Catholics no longer
" profess that kings excommunicated by the
" Pope may be deposed and killed by their
" subjects," and proposes the abrogation of
that part of the oath, we think he has been
betrayed into an error by his natural failing—
over-confidence. It is not long since a fana-
tical monk made an attempt on the life of the
Queen of SPAIN, because he conceived she had
sacrilegiously appropriated certain ecclesiasti-
cal revenues. And if we look around we see
enough of the spirit of HILDEBRAND abroad to
prevent us joining unhesitatingly in the asser-
tion that the dagger of CLEMENT is sheathed
for ever.
Not in England alone, where the disciple of
Dr. CUMMING, scared by the sudden apparition
of the Cardinal, was startled into the Durham
manifesto, but wherever the eye is turned it
falls on the insatiable ambition and the in-
defatigable aggressions of Rome. The dun-
geons of Tuscany receive her victims ; the
constitutional King of SARDINIA she has
incessantly attacked; in Holland she has
confronted the Government ; in the Grand
Duchy of Baden almost overcome it. A
tyrant, where she has the power, she dic-
tates to the minor States of Europe ; astute and
unscrupulous, where she has none, she crouches
to obtain it. Frowning and arrogant in Italy
and Germany, in the United States, where her
Nuncio is exchanging amenities with the offi-
cials of Government, her aspect is one of
smiling humility. And in these islands, as
if to mark emphatically how centuries in their
flight effect no change in her, she sends as her
representative to England a second a Beckett,
and to Ireland an incarnation of the astrono-
mical science that imprisoned GALILEO. Un-
changed, unchangeable, the patron of igno-
rance, the eternal enemy of freedom of
thought and action, this is the Church in
whose favour the author of the Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill proposes to abrogate a security for
the safety of our own. Too much confidence
is the predominant characteristic of Lord Jolts
RUSSELL; it is thus that he brings in a mea-
sure of reform which may engender intestine
commotion when we are on the brink of foreign.
war, to show that he despises danger, that his
soul is superior to apprehensions ; and it is
thus, perhaps, when the power of Rome is
more visibly displayed than it has ever been
the
since the Reformation, that he proposes

FEBRUARY 18, 1854.

relaxation or abrogation of these securities to
show that he entertains the same lofty
contempt for spiritual enemies. But Lord
JOHN RUSSELL should know that as the
greatest fault a general in the field can com-
mit is to omit precautions because he con-
temns the enemy he has to encounter, so it is
with the statesman in the Cabinet when it in-
duces him to abrogate securities provided for
the safety of the commonwealth.