The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-16 00:00:00

tleman contended from their antecedents that nocon-
fidence could be placed in Lord John Russell, Sir William
Molesworth, or Mr. Gladstone as respected the prestrva-
tion of the religious establishments of the country, and the
house should therefore receive with great
.caution a bill
emanating from such a Government. For his own part he
was decidedly opposed to the bill, which would unchris-
tianise the Legislature. He had no ill-feeling towards the
Jews. They were God's chosen people, and in proper
time they would be restored to his favour, but a Christian
Legislature was not called upon to accelerate by its puny
efforts the intentions of the King of Kings.
Mr. KIRK adduced Scriptural and other history to
show that no nation which had persecuted the Jews had
prospered.
Mr. WHITESIDE had no prejudice ainst the Jews,
whom he considered a living miracle, but he believed the
principles of the constitution, as established for centuries,
opposed to their admission into the house. lie respected
those who advocated the Jew claims from a love of reli-
gious toleration, but he conceived this principle misap-
plied. In the course of a prolonged argument, he urged
that the Christian religion had always been part and par-
cel of the law, and that those who impugned it were out
of the law's pale. He dwelt especially upon the objections
. to placing a Jew on the bench of justice, where he might
have to sentence a man for that which he deemed no of-
fence, and where, having sentenced a criminal to death,
he could not conscientiously recommend him to seek the
mercy of hie Redeemer.
Mr. Sergeant MURPHY, in answer to this latter part
of the argument, said that a judge was not placed on the
bench to expound his own convictions, and that a judge
failing in his duty in such a respect would be open to the
censure of Parliament. The learned sergeant proceeded to
reply to the legal argument of Mr. Whiteside, and likened
Mr. C. Bruce's to the spider thread in the story of his
great ancestor.
Mr. CHILD, in opposing the bill, said that the agencies
which the great money lenders of Europe were able to bring
to bear might, if the Jews were admitted, operate most
hostilely to our Church and our institutions. He denied
that it was bigotry to wish to maintain the coronation
oath, and mu. Christian constitution.
Mr. BETHELL remarked upon the well-worn character
ofthe discussion, but excepted Mr. Whiteside's arguments,
as characterised by novelty. IHany such arguments as those
of Mr. Whiteside were easily deducible from the time when
the Roman Catholic Church was predominant, and when
heretics were burned under writ. Christianity was part of
the law of the land, but only in the sense in which the
duties of religion were obligatory on every man. He con-
tended that it was necessary to show some stronger reason
why a natural born Englishman, who happened to be a
Jew, should be excluded NM. an Englishman's right ; for
since the Reformation religious grounds had been no such
obstacle, and where religionists had been excluded, it had
been as the representatives of certain alleged political prin-
ciples supposed to be dangerous. There was no such prin-
ciple involved in the case of the Jew. He denied that the
common law, if expounded as it should be by the rules of
justice, tended to shut out the Jew, and he knew of no
obstacle but the accidental words in a certain oath passed
to exclude another description of persons—and an oath
now a profanation, because the parties it referred to were
extinct. If you wished to exclude the Jew, do it openly,.
and not by a subterfuge of which, in the ordinary transac7
tions of life, you would be ashamed. He asked those who
rested their objections to the bill on the ground of reli-
gion to • consider the great responsibility they were
thereby incurring, and asked if there was one word in
the New Testament to justify the punishment it
was sought to inflict, or to prevent the closest
union between the Jew and the Christian. (Sir Robert
Peel exclaimed, " Yes?] He cited several passages in
which the Jew was affectionately spoken of by the Apostles,
and urged that, if the Jews had committed a crime at
which we ought to shudder, it was still for our benefit.
From Jewish records we learned our earliest lessons, and
it was to the Jew we owes our deepest debt of gratitude.
We ought to enlarge our minds, and to reject our preju-
dices against him. He regarded this measure as just to an
injured race, and entirely accordant with the principles of
our constitution and of our religion.
Mr. GOULBURN said that although it had been his for-
tune on previous occasions to express his opinion upon this
question, he could not refrain from again making a few ob-
servations with regard to it. He considered the subject a
most important one, as it affected the character of that house
in the opinion of the country, and as regarded the exercise
of its highest finctions. If he could view the exclusion of
the Jews from Parliament as an act of oppression against
which the denunciations of both the Old and New Testament
to which the honourable and learned gentleman had referred
were directed, he would be the last man in the world to
oppose this measure. He believed that the denuncatiens
in question did not relate to the exclusion of the Jews from
political power, but rather to the subjection of them to
various oppressive restrictions of a personal nature with
regard to their property and other matters of a like cha-
racter. The learned gentleman said that the heathen
nations who took the Jews into their councils, derived
the greatest benefit from doing so, because the Jews
were animated by a higher spirit than the heathens ;
but the analogy had not been put fairly, because the
learned gentleman ought to have shown that the Jews,
when they were a nation, admitted heathens into their
councils, and derived great advantage from their wisdom
and powers of eloquence, before he could urge it as an
argument in favour of this bill. That was not precisely
the place for religious discussion—(hear)—but he must
say he differed materially from the hon. and learned
gentleman's reading of the New Testament. The example
and precepts of the apostles and early propagators of the
Gospel required them to make every sacrifice to bring the
Jews to the knowledge of the truth • but he defied the
learned gentleman to show that the day of placing them
in the seat of legislation and government was anywhere
inculcated in the Scriptures. The scriptural injunctions
given to all placed in authority, not only to consider the
temporal wants and necessities of those over whom they I
ruled, but to provide for their splrK,ual and religious wel-
fare, precluded any such inference as that of the hon. and
learned gentleman. The hon. and learned gentleman said
it was the right of every free-born Englishman to enjoy
every privilege which the State could confer so long as he
paid obedience to the Crows and fulfilled the obligations
imposed upon him as a citizen; but if that was the view
of the hon. and learned gentleman, it was certainly not
conformity with this bill, because this bill proposed to
leave certain exclusions still standing against the Jew,
and it could not be said that from want either of obedience
or capacity a Jew ought to be excluded from holding the
office of advising the Crown. So that the bill itself, by
retaining this exclusion, actually violated the very princi-
ple upon which the hon. and learned gentleman based his
support of it. But the hon. and learned gentleman argued
that those who had admitted the Jews to various civil
offices by law were bound to go the full length which this
bill invited them. To that doctrine he demurred, because
it would form a perfect bar to any moderate reform or the
granting of any indulgence not now possessed by any par-
ticular class of the community; and if they were to assent
to that principle, it would be conceding beforehand the
right to a future demand for the removal of the re-
ribriCtians which this, bill itself proposed to retain with
regard to the offices to which he had referred. Nor
was that all. In 1851 the noble lord the member
for London brought forward a bill like the present, but
without any exceptions at all analagous to those which
existed in his bill of 1853. And therefore, when the noble
lord pledged himself in 1851 that the Jews ought to be ad-
mitted to every office in the State without any of the ex-
ceptions which he now introduced, he (Mr. Goulburn)
thought this an additional reason why the house should not
make the concession now asked from it, for it would at a
future period be made the ground for calling the house to
go still further, and wipe away all restrictions whatsoever.
The immediate object of this bill was to admit Baron Roth-
schild to that house, and he must say that, for the attain-
ment of a very small object they were asked to make a very
large sacrifice. He did not undervalue the weight and in-
fluence which Baron Rothschild derived from his wealth
and station ; but he was not prepared, for the sake of such
an accession to the members of the house, to depart from
those principles with which he believed were bound up the
prosperity and stability of this empire. (Hear.) But if
we were to look uree this as the first step towards intro-
ducing into the Legislature of a Christian country various
classes of persons either holding no belief at all, or holding
a belief antagonistic to their common Christianity, then he
said the house *otild endanger its character and diminish
its own weight with the country, and destroy the main
foundation upon which all their legislatiors ought to rest.
He believed it to be necessary that the person who aspired
to be a legislator in a Christian country should himself hold
or profess the Christian faith. The chances were that a man
endued with Christian belief would act, in civil affairs, on
principles of a higher character and a more elevated nature
than a men without such a belief. But they were not con-
fined in that house to civil affairs only, they dealt with religi-
ous matters, also, and were therefore called upon not to en-
trust power to others who could have no sympathy with them
on those matters. It had been the glory of this country from
the earliest period, that every political act had been conjoined
with a religious service ; and they were called upon not
merely to profess themselves Christians, but to accompany
every political act with a religious service, according to the
Christian forms. (Hear.) When they assembled in that
house they united in common prayer for the success of their
deliberations. Whenever any calamity afflicted the coun-
try, they, as a Legislature, went in a body to implore the
assistance of Providence; they acknowledged their offences
and prayed that the calamity might be averted. And on
the occasion of a victory, they in like manner expressed
their thankfulness for the benefits received. (Hear, hear.)
But how were they to act if they admitted amongst them
persons who not only disbelieved the faith which they pro-
fessed, but who were utterly unable to join in those ser-
vices which were connected with their political acts ?
(Hear.) The hon. member for Middlesex had once told
them that it was a solemn farce to see persons taking the
oath of abjuration ; but what would he say when he saw
Jews kneeling down with Christians to pray in the namo
of a Saviour whom the one adored but whom the other
despised ? (Hear, hear.) It would be no longer a solemn
farce—it would be profanation. Believing as he (Mr.
Goulburn) did that a national profession of Christianity
was essential to the nation's prosperity, he could. not be a
party to a measure which prevented that profession acting
upon individuals so as to enable them as members of a
Legislature to join in offering up prayers and thanksgivings
acceptable to God. (Hear, hear.) He would not further
trouble the house, but he had been anxious to expriss his
opinions on this most important bill, which he believed
would exercise a very prejudicial effect upon the character
and fre.eßlin. gl R
feelings the country. country. (Hear, hear.)
opposed the measure, and observed that
the Jew was not satisfied with living under the protection
of the law, but wanted the law altered to suit himself.
Mr. BRIGHT referred tht. opposition to this bill to the
same persecuting spirit
had formerly set itself against
the Unitarians and other dissenters, and which had origi-
nated in a love of dominatgitione;t.lle urged that there could
really be no difference in
of public morality be-
tween Sir R. Inglis and Baron questions of
seeing that they
both derived their doctrines f Old Testament,
of the New, the
-whence, to the exclusion of the r(t'enaseiVie
capital punish_
former drew his authority on the subjelcntgo
ments, priests, marriages, oaths, and war. Why, then,
should Sir R. Inglis wish to exclude Baronaßothschild
He asked whether it was constitutional that
which the house had decided fourteen times sboul question
on
unsettled? It was said that there was an awful cporwenrin
another place (he especially referred to the bishops) ;ehni I
there were means by which the Government could compel ,
the passing of this bill there. Were they to go on yearafter
year b mebarding the Lords with a Jo N bill with no result ?
One remedy offered by the constitution was the making
new peers, which he did not recommend ; and the other,
the determination by Government to act on a defeat in the
Lords as they would on an imi o •tant defeat in that house,
and thus to throw the responsibility of forming a Govern-
ment on those who might reject the measure.
Mr. WALPOLE hoped that Lord J. Russell was not
likely to follow the ai:Tce of the hon. member for Manches-
ter. But whether he followed it or not, he (Mr. Walpole)
thought it would ill-become the House of Commons to
pass over in entire silence his strange constitutional dec.
trines upon the subject. (Hear hear.) According to those