The Express.
London, England, 1848-02-08 00:00:00

RIOR WATER AT 1.01091111511.02.

Tit D..
io-Mossove—

• Mfbnoa& U S. own 4 ittenwooa. 34 al. paa, e.
-Morelos. so ma. 100 4 t Lam. II as. Net I.

LONDON, TUESDAY, FEB. 8.
IN the HOI:SE of LORDS yesterday the Marquis of
LANsnowxt: introduced a bill for the purpose of
enabling her Majesty to establish diplomatic relations
with the court of Rome, which was read a first time.
On the question of fixing the day for the second read-
ing, Lord STANLEY said that although it might be
desirable that diplomatic relations should be esta-
blished, as between temporal princes, the principle
must be subject to such restrictions as might be
necessary for satisfying the scruples of the
people of this country. lie therefore trusted
ample time would be afforded for delibera-
tion. The Duke of RICHMOND objected that
the intention of introducing suck a measure ought to
have been intimated in the royal speech ; it was one
that a great portion of the people of England would
consider as violating their religious feelings. Earl
Firzwit.xtvvi supported the bill, which only went to
remove a doubt as to whether her Majesty's ministers
would not be liable to persecution and penalties, if
they entered into diplomatic relations with the Pope
as a temporal prince. The Earl of EGLINTON claimed
delay on behalf of the people of Scotland. The
Marquis of LANSDOWNE estimated that when
their lordships had, had an opportunity of
perusing the bill he would fix the day for
the second reading. Lord STANLEY, on present-
ing various petitions from Wcst India bodies,
brought the state of the sugar colonies under the no-
tice of their lordships in a speech detailing the exist-
ing state of distress, the petitioners praying for the
repeal of the act of 11516. The noble lord concluded
by asking what measures of relief the govern-
ment contemplated in the state of things
he had brought in the notice of their lord-
ships. Earl GREY, in a powerful speech, traced
the gradual declension of colouial property and
trade since the passing of the Emancipation
Act, expressed the intention of the government to ad-
here to the act of 1846, reiterated the course proposed
to be taken by them as intimated by the Chancellor
of the Exchequer in the House of Commons on Friday
last, and concluded by appealing to their lordships as
to whether he had not proved that the distress of the
West India colonies wart not attributable to legisla-
tion on the part of her Majesty's government. The
Bishop of Oxford, in presenting a petition to the
same effect from the council and assembly of Barba-
does, urged that the people of England could not pos-
sibly share in the profits of Cuba sugar
without incurring some share of the Cuba guilt, by
which that sugar was produced ; neither could they
participate in the guilt without incurring the chastise-
ment which awaited it. If the principles of the go-
vernment measure were successful the abolition
struggle would become a disgrace instead of an honour
to this country, and the measures taken for the sup-
pression of the slave trade, while they would add to
its horrors, would be neither more nor less than an
insulting and degrading hypocrisy. Lord AsH-
BURTON considered that unless protection were con-
tinued to the West India colonies, as against slave
labour, they would be consigned to utter and irrepara-
ble ruin.
In the Horst of COMMONS various election peti-
tions on the subject of irregularities as to the taking
of reoojtaisances before the Examiner, were referred
to the Cheltenham committee, in which case the ques-
tion was first raised.—The presentation of petitions
for 11,'_d_Nelogt the Jewish Disabilities Bill, the for-
mer preponderating, occupied the house for a
couple of hours. On the question of the second read-

ins being put, Mr. STAFFORD moved, and Lord
BURGHLEY seconded the amendment that the bill be
read a second time that day six months, the supporters
of the latter proposition being Mr. B. Cala HANE,
Lord MAHON, Mr. S. WALPOLE, and Mr. NEWDE-
GATE. The speakers in favour of the original motion
were Mr. W. P. WOOO, Mr. M. NinvEs, Sir W.
MOLESWORTH. and Mr. SHELL. At length the debate
was adjourned until this day.

THE division which took place before the recess on
the Jewish Disabilities Bill was so decisive, that the
revival of the discussion in the House of Commons
can excite little anxiety among either the friends or
the enemies of the measure. It is in the Upper House
that the real resistan:e will take place. There is
little ideatity of feeling or unity of action between
the leaders of the vanoas sections of the Commons
who sit on the left of the Speaker and their oaten-
sib's allies among the Lords. We presume, that
Lord STANLEY, like Lord GEORGE BENTINCii, will
vote for a measure which he supported many years
ago; but his name and his eloquence may fail to
secure the adherence of his followers, and proxies
have a fatal deafuess to the voice of reason, charm she
never so wisely. If there had been a successful agita-
tion against the bill—if it had even been actively and
generally opposed by any powerful religious body—
we should expect the Upper House to reject the mea-
sure; but the exhortations of the ultra•protestant
papers have been left so entirely without an echo,
that we hope the verdict of the Commons on a matter
peculiarly affecting the constitution of their own house
will be allowed to be final and conclusive.

It is not always safe to assume that weak argu-
ments indicate the weakness of the party to whom
they. are addressed: but we have sufficient respect for
all influential bodies in this country to believe that
their intellects are not adequately measured by the
foolometer which the Standard has thought proper to
provide for them. Our pious contemporary exhorts
parliament and the country in general to remember
what an awful curse is denounced against persons
who assist in correcting the accidental wording of the
anti-Jacobite oath of allegiance—" Cursed be he that
removes his neighbour's landmark." It is not easy to
see the bearing of the text without the commentary
of the Standard. It seems that by landmarks Moses
meant to indicate the distinction between Christians
and Jews established by the acts of WILLIAM 111.
and GEORGE 11., and that his object was not so much
to enforce the rights of property between adjacent
landowners, as to secure the perpetual exclusion of his
owu countrymen from a Gentile house of parliament.
We do not in any way exaggerate the absurdity of
this appeal to the reverence of Englishmen for the
Bible. The Standard anticipates that it will be an-
swered by a " fool-born jest." We at least shall not
so answer it. We are quite contented to allow the
same writer to act the twofold part of preaeher and
jester. The Scotch covenanters, according to CLAN' ER-
HOUSE, would have thought the text " Pitt FAS arose
and executed judgment" a sufficient warrant for kill-
ing HENRY MORTON; but the most bibliomaniac
puritan never acted on so monstrous a distortion as
that of boundary stones into acts of parliament. If
ono is a landmark all are landmarks; but
if we never remove any such landmark
there will be little land left unencumbered
by them. It would not be worth while to dwell upon
this fool-born scriptural jest, except for the pur-
pose of asking those who have honest prejudices
against the Jews whether even the habitual levity
and irreverence of political religionists would induce
them to use such reasons against the measure now
before parliament, if any sound and rational argu-
ments were readily to be met with ?
As leng as successive remissions of political disabi-
lities took place in favour of Christian sects there was
much more practical ground for opposition on the
part of those who resisted the change than any that
can be found in the case of the Jews. It is not with-
out reason that religious bodies have always felt most
jealousy of those opponents who most nearly
resembled them. Lutherans and Calvinists hated
each other more than they feared Catholicism ;
and the Jesuit party persecuted the Jansenists
with greater gusto than if they had been Huguenots.
In all such cases sectarian bodies feel that their in-
fluence is most likely to be shaken by rivals suffi-
ciently similar in character, position, and opinion, to
operate upon the same habits of religious thought
and feeling to which they have themselves appealed.
For a similar reason it was natural that the establish-
ment should be unwilling to share power with those
who differed from it chiefly in the circumstance of
their not being established; and it was intelligible
that protestants should seek, even by political in-
justice, to discourage popery, a powerful and aggres-
sive religious system which was constantly attacking
their own. In either case a fear of a rival power
strengthened the selfish desire for exclusive autho-
rity. But who fears Judaism? The Jews make no prose-
lytes and wish to make none, their religious motives
affect only their own narrow circle; and whatever as
independent politicians they may wish, they can have
no motive as Jews for forwarding the interests of any
religions sect that exists, or any anti-religious sects
that may exist hereafter. They endanger no insti-
tution ; their admission compromises no principle ;
they will be pre-eminently free from the propensity
which is so common among politicians, to govern or
attempt to govern all sects with a view to the exclu-
sive interests or objects of oce.
We are not certain that the argument which has
been drawn from the private worth and civic virtues
of the Jews, is the strongest that can be selected.
Those who urge it are open to the inconvenience of
statements which may seek to get rid of the conclu-
sion by traversing the fact. It is perfectly true that
there are excellent and respectable Jews as well as
Christians; it is unfortunately also true that there are
Jewish receivers of stolen goods. Both facts seem to
us partially irrelevant to the subject. It is not for
their virtues that we wish the Jews to be admitted,
nor for the vices of that portion of them which may
belong to the criminal population that Sir It. lectis
and those who think with him propose to exclude
them. It is urged on one side that they will " un-
christianise " the legislature, and on the other that as
English subjects they have a right to English fran-
chises. We may, however, observe that the respect-
able Jews are at present excluded from parliament,
while the disreputable :members of the body enjoy
that franchise which is alone suitable to their sta-
tion in life. The great Jewish capitalist cannot be
voted for, but the old clothesman has a full right
to vote.

Without wishing to defer generally to popular pre-
judice, we may admit that if a strong and general
feeling against the admission of the Jews existed, a
statesman might hesitate before he caused a public
agitation by a measure which, hswever just, is
scarcely of primary importance. But nothing can be
more evident than that the religious world, which
alone interests itself in the resistance to the measure,
is on the whole indifferent to it. A hundred years
ago a harmless measure for putting foreL:n on a level
with English Jews, by naturalisation, canned such a
ferment in the country that the Duke of Newc ISTLE
repealed the act almost immediately, in order, as
Lord lIA RDWICK the Chancellor, said, to It t the minds
of men cool down, and see how unreasonable they
had been. The country is quiet enough now. Par-
liament is fully at liberty to do an act of justice and
common sense ; and we can hardly snppcse that the
prejudices of its members will prove to be more blind
than those of the mass of the population. We might,
perhaps, have preferred a measure for the entire aboli-
tion of religious tests. There is something absurd in
the collection of tests by which care is taken that
every member shall renounce the errors which he is
known not to hold. The protestant abjures popery ;
the catholic abjures whatever he does not object
to ; and the Jew will have to swear hatred to
all possible heresies which have nothing to with
Judaism. It was only the other day that an ingenious
and scrupulous peer discovered that, as a protestant,
he could not conscientiously take the protestant oath,
while he did not object to the catholic formula : and
we believe that he could not be allowed to take any
oath whatever. As he did not recognise the autho-
rity of the Pope, the law made it necessary for him
to renounce it. It was only on the assumption that
no security was required that a security was exacted.
It is well known, moreover, that some Roman catho-
lics are even now excluded from office by the existing
formula. Now that religious exclusions are nearly
abolished, religious tests might as well follow. We
do not, however, by any means say that it
would have been prudent to substitute so
large a measure for the bill for removing Jewish
disabilities.. There is quite enough of nonsense talked
against the specific measure without opening unneces-
sarily the general question of religious tests.
We are terry indeed to And that Mr. 6r4rro3n