The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-09 00:00:00

Tfi A ;II Ni . LONDO lit

the House Into instruments for defeating the wishes
of the great majority of its Members.

We have ever found that a refusal to accede to a
moderate demand in the first instance has led to
additional requirements, and that ultimately much
more has been carried than was originally asked for.
Such may be the case with the present measure ; and
it is possible that if the legislative sanction cannot
be obtained thereto previous to the recess, that
additional powers may be sought for on the re-assem-
bling of Parliament. The language of the Marquis
of LANSDOWNE on Monday evening, in the House of
Lords, was exceedingly ominous. His Lordship
said—" At this moment I am not prepared to say
that further powers would be asked for by her
MAJESTY'S Government ; but the moment that
it appears that the provisions of that I3ill—the power
of disarming the people and increasing the consta-
bulary, now confined to proclaimed districts, but
which might be extended to other parts of Ireland
should a similar spirit of disorder appear about to
arise, at the discretion of the Lord. Lieutenant—
were ineffectual, her MAJESTY'S Government would
lose no time in asking Parliament for more effectual
measures." If, therefore, more stringent enactments
should be grafted on the present Bill, if the trial by
jury should be suspended, and martial law in-
troduced into the disturbed districts —if the
innocent are to a certain extent confounded
with the guilty, a new Curfew Law enacted, and
a General Arms Bill introduced the people may
thank the Members who are now congratulating
themselves on their success in impeding the progress
of the measure now brought forward. We are no
friends to any species of coercion, or to any departure
from the constitutional law. We are, however,
compelled to acknowledge that some localities are in
such a state, that the ordinary powers of
the law are insufficient to afford protection
to the peaceable inhabitants, and that that protection
is perhaps more urgently required on behalf of the
humbler classes, the small farmers and labourers, than
of the gentry themselves. With this conviction we
yielded a hearty assent to the Government measure
because there was the least possible departure from
the spirit of the constitution, and we therefore depre-
cate the conduct of those who, by their imprudence,
may lead to a much greater violation of the popular
liberties.

Considering the rapidity with which the Christmas
vacation is approaching, it would have been most
advisable, probably, for the Hon. and Learned Member
tor Youghal to have postponed his motion for the
second reading of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill
until the re-assembling of Parliament at the com-
mencement of 1848. Not that we conceive the
question of religious disabilities as coming in any
manner within the category of those isolated crotchets
which recently elicited the protest of Sir JOHN
PAKINGTON. We cannot but think, however, that
the proposed abolition of the invidious disqualifica-
tions at present existing against the admission of
Israelites as representatives in the House of
Commons would have been sufficient labour
for one December in the cause of theolo-
gical toleration. Especially in such a December
as this, when the interests of the community are so
marvellously and perillously complicated, and when
a few months' further procrastination could not by
possibility have affected in an injurious manner
either Mr. CHISIIOLM ANSTY or his co-religionists.
To ourselves the hurry evinced by the Member for
Youghal in demanding such an Act of legislation at
such a period of embarrassment, appears as decidedly
crotchetty as his forthcoming motion as to the im-
peachment of the Noble Viscount the representative
of Tiverton, or as that of Mr. I.lactuuAßT in refer-
ence to the convocation of a Parliament in College-
green. The only distinction between them
is, indeed, that the two latter propositions
are crotchetty in themselves, while that of the
immediate removal of Roman Catholic disabilities is
only crochetty in as far as it is extravagantly ill-
timed. This circumstance we are disposed to regret
with the more earnestness, from our solicitude that
the principles of civil and religious liberty should on
no account be again violated by the pertinacious re-
tention of the penal enactments still inscribed upon
the statute book, and this continued retention appears
to us to be in some measure endangered by the
undue precipitation of Mr. CuisnoLst ANSTY. Those
who, like Sir ROBERT IN•BLIS, are enthusiastic (we
will not say fanatical) supporters of the Church
Establishment, may be worried into more violent '
opposition than ever by the maladroit introduction of
this relief measure when the whole Legislature is
distraught with an almost unparalleled accumulation
of difficulties.

Howbeit the representative of Youghal did demand
the second reading of his Bill for the abolition of
certain obsolete enactments against the practice of
the forms of Roman Catholicism within the boun-
daries of the United Kingdom, and the speech in
which the Hon. and Learned Gentleman advocated
this most ration al proceeding on the part of Parlia-
ment was as temperate in tone and as straightforward
in character as could have been well desired. With
the postponement of its examination in Committee
and its third reading in the Commons until some more
fitting opportunity, we shall continue to anticipate
for Mr. ANSTY'S motion a greater degree of success
than attended the recommendation of the Criminal
Law Commissioners in the summer-I°f 1842, the in-
quiry of Mr. DUNCOMBE on the 13th of July in the
same year, the Bill introduced by Lord BEAUMONT
to the House of Lords on the 6th May, 1844, or
those introduced to the House of Commons by Mr.
WaTsoN on the 20th March, 184, on the .sth
February, 1846, and on the 10th February, 1847,
successively. It is but reasonable to expect the
ulterior erasure of so many odious and dastardly
penalties from the book of national statutes. It is
but reasonable to expect, for example, that that
clause should be expunged from Elizabeth 1.,
c. 1, which ordains the infliction of grievous
punishments upon whomsoever shall bow to
the ecclesiastical authority of any foreign
potentate—for it is notorious to every schoolboy in
her MAJESTY'S dominions that all Roman Catholics
are subservient to the ecclesiastical authority of the
Sovereign PONTIFF. It is but reasonable that the
13th Elizabeth, c. 2 , should be altogether repealed,
that Act declaring the importation of papal bulls,
writings and instruments, or even little waxen and
metallic articles called Agnus Deis, and rosaries, to be
an offence punishable in the first instance with prce-
munzre, and to be high treason if repeated. According
to the Courrier Francais, Lord MINTo (a no-
bleman who, without being invested with any
express diplomatic character, may be mo-
rally regarded as envoy extraordinary from the
Court of St. James's to the Quirinal) has
actually signed a convention for the establishment of
relations between Rome and England, between the
Government of VICTORIA and that of the enlightened
,Plus. Supposing this rumour to be correct, and that
Cardinal BUFFONDI is formally accredited as Papal
Nuncio in London, will it be consistent to retain this
Act 13th Elizabeth, c. 2, upon the statute-book, to
require the expiation by severe penalties of the im-
portation of a chain of beads and medals, and at the
same time to connive at the introduction of a live
Cardinal (scarlet stockings, and all), into the very
reception hall of the palace of St. James's ? Such are
the outrageous anomalies which will be removed on
the passage of Mr. CHISHOLM ANSTY'S Roman Catho-
lic Relief Bill through both Chambers of the Legis-
lature. And therefore it is that we are anxious for
the success of this measure—anxious, be it remem-
bered, less on account of the Catholics themselves,
than for the vindication of the character of Protestant
England.

The following is the note transmitted from Bile
by the French Ambassador, M. Bois LE COM7E, to
the President of the Swims Diet :
Kiln'
King of
the French
Ambassador of his Majesty the
received the orderncoift ht9q the, S • Confederationwnmissenttokh hasi
lowing
ar
et isin tCloofvtehre Council o make
fulVteahret oSef Swiss
thes.
Diet, ande°lt'.l,,Tile•
ent'
aniracaotnetdinubeY
to the President
totheenl.iveliest
Sonderbund
ost sincere seritletthte
" The Kings Gov
desire to see all partesracT
faithful to the
of friendship for the Swiss
as Onelo'Bflasiltltil,
benefits of peace, inspired bYurtnloiaePteireo
the Powers which
s
contracted
engagements which France,
signed the Treaty of Vienna of
towards the Confederation, has seen with the
found regret the commencement of the civil we?. Zsett pro-
the cantons which compose that Confederation. Desirous
of of employing its efforts and good offices with the object
of arranging the differences which have been Ow source

of all those hostilitlea, the King's Government has put
itself in communication on this subject with the Govern-
ments of Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia;
and finding these Governments animated by the same
motives, it has resolved, in concert with its allies,
to make a collective offer of the mediation of the five
Powers, with the object of re-establishing peace and
concord between the cantons of which the Swiss Con-
federation is composed. The undersigned is, in conse-
quence, charged to offer the mediation of France for this
object, conjointly with that of the other four Powers.
It', as the King's Government hopes this offer to be
accepted, an immediate suspension of hostilities will
take place between the belligerant parties, and will con-
tinue to the definitive conclusion of the negotiations,
which will be entered into. In this case, it will more-
over be necessary to establish a conference immediately,
composed of a representative of each of the five Powers,
of a representative of the Diet, and of a representative
of the Sonderbund. The basis on which it is proposed
to effect a reconciliation between the Diet and the Son-
derbund consists in causing the grievances put forward
by each of the parties to disappear. These grievance
appear to be, on the cne part, the establishment of the
Jesuits in Switzerland, and the formation of the
separate league of the Sonderbund ; on the other, the
fear of the aggression of the corps francs, and the de-
sign ascribed to the Diet, to destroy or 'violate the
separate sovereignty of the different cantons. The fol-
lowing then are the conditionswhich the King's Govern-
ment would: propose for the re-establishment of peace
in Switzerland:
" First, the Seven Cantons of the Sonderbund should
address themselves:to the Holy See, to demand if it would
not be right, in the interest of peace and religion, to in-
terdict to the Order of the Jesuits any establishment on
the teritory of the Helvetic Confederation, subject to a
just and sufficient indemnity for all the properties, in
lands and houses, which they would have to abandon.
" In the second place, the Diet, confirming its pre-
ceding declarations, would take the engagement
to make no attempts against the independence and the
sovereignty of the cantons, such as they are guaranteed
by the Federal Pact; to accord for the future an effica-
cious protection to the cantons which might be threa-
tened with an invasion of the corps francs, aud, if ne-
cessary, not to admit any new article in the Federal
Pact, without the assent of all the members of the Con-
federation.

Thirdly, the Seven Cantons of the Sonderbund
would then formally and really dissolve their separate
league. _ _

Fourthly, and lastly, as soon as the question of
the Jesuits should be completely resolved, as indicated
in the first paragraph, the two parties would dismiss
their respective forces, and re-assume their ordinary and
pacific attitude.

" The undersigned is charged to express the lively
hope of the King's Government that this equitable pro
rosition will be warmly received by the two belligerent
parties. And he is further charged to solicit a prompt
reply from the Diet. The undersigned prays his Ex-
cellency the President of the Diet to accept the assur-
ance of his high consideration.
(Signed) COUNT DE BOIS LE comrE.
Ambassador of France.
" Bale, November 30."