The Sun.
London, England, 1847-02-25 00:00:00

Reformation of Henry TIII. A few were passed in
the reiem of Edward VI.; but the reign of Queen Eliza•
beth was the most prolific of those laws. A great
number were • also passed in the reigns of James 11.
and Charles 11. 'Up to the Revolution of 1688, not
a reign passed without 'witnessing the enactment
of penal laws to protect what was called the Protestant •
faith. In 1829 a great improvement, however, took place iu
the passingbf the Catholic Emancipation Act; still. even
that measure did not repeal many drain' Penal statutes
which were left as protective measures for the - Estab-
lished Church. In 1814 the subject was ..fnither
considered, and about one hundred ditThrent - penal
enactments. principally against Ronian Catholics, were_
repealed. That was a great step in the right direction, and
he felt tench indebted to the Right Hon. aronet,• the late
Prime Minister, for the assistance Which he rendered• on
that occasion in the abrogation 9f those laws. With-
out further preface, he (Mr. 'Watson) would is ow
proceed to explain the provisions of the present
Bill. Not tong ago a full inquiry was made into all the pedal
statutes relating to. Roman Catholics which then existed
The inquiry was conducted by Mr. Edward Ryan and several
other eminent laws-ers, unconnected with politics, and in the
r•-port which they had made to the House, they recom-
mended the repeal i,f all these
,penal enact inents.—( Hes r. )
The first Act lie wished to repeal by the present Bill was the
lst Elizabeth, cap. 1,•-whiele provided for the supranacrof
the Kimr, and cont:nined clauses ordering severe punishment
to all these who il:d trot .reeegniee his authority. The first
ofreness. was fine sintl'iiiiprisonment ; the second offence banish-
ment ; and the third* offence death. Tlie penal pro-
visions of this law were repealed in 1844, but
the power remained to puni-h the offence as a misdemeanour,
and renderi,qr the party ode:Wing liable to be proceeded
against by information. But it was said this law was neces-
sary for the ma ntenance of the- supreinccy of the Crown.
This subject, hoWever, was fully ciiscussed in 1844, whan
Lard Lyndhurst completely established the fact that the su-
premacy oftheCrown dependedoti the common law alone. The
most eminent law authorities corroborated this view of the
matter.' Sir Matthew Hale and other great judges had so
laid it down, that the supremacy of the .King was the com-
mon. law of the realm. If so, what was the object in passing
the law now under consideration ? It was passed in order to
operate against the Roman Catholics,and was directed against
tliferecognition of the authority of the Pope;, for any
Reiman Catholic who admitted the authority of the Pope
wai guilty of an-infraction of this Act of Parliament. Ttse
Commissioners who had made the inquiry into these penal
•laws had unanimously decided that this state ought to be
-repealed. The next law to which he would refer
was that - regarding bulls. He proposed that this
Act should be repealed, as he could not see what
danger there could arise from the importation of these bulls.
He also proposed to repeal the Uniformity Act, and several
other Acts of a similar character,' that 'had relation ea reli
gious worship. Thele Acts were the 25th Charles 11., 80th
Charles 11., 7th and Bth William 111., 31st George 111., and
the two first clauses of 10th George .IV. The latter
had relation to religious processions, and while he had
objections to great religious processionS, like those on the
Continent, taking place, he could not see why any procese
Monti ceremony of the Roman Catholics, respecting burial
or any such rite, should be disallowed.—(Hear, hear.)
He now came to the clause which respected the safer-
guards of the regular clergy. But what were these safe:
guards, or how this Act provided such, he could not con-
ceive. 'The Act of Parliament of the 10th George IV., for the
gradual Suppressinq ,of Jesuits and other religious order;
bound by monastery' vows, provided that those person;
whether British=born subjects or not, should. be pro-
ceeded agaiiist-IsS;• common law, and if convicted
tiatisported • 'for life.. He' knew; that when the word
"Jesuit" was mentioned on the hustings of Birmingham,
tarighlened all the oldlidies of that town into convulsions
bat 'Mier had had many of the persons connected with mo-
nastic:-orders most. learned and intelligent, 'abounding in
works of 'Wire and charity, diligent searchers into history
and philosophy; and if it was said that the'Jesuits had done
some evil; it Must also be admitted that they had'done much
good. The Legislature had already, in the Acts which had
passed the Remise, removed many of those bigoted and penal
enactments, and he now asked the House to finish the good
work by repealing all that remained of them. It we;
argued that those Acts were now obsolete; but that was no
argument, or, if one at all, it was in favour of the abrogation
of them. He asked their repeal, not as a concession to the
Catholics, but as justice to the Protestants, who boasted
themselves the friends of toleration and of liberal measures,
To them he would appeal on this question, and he hoped&
that in support of their principles, they would give their-
consent to the second reading of this Bill.
Sir R. H. INGLIS admitted that the Hon. and Learned,
Member had claims upon the attention of the House as a
sound lawyer, but he thought he could lay no claims to
the character of an accurate historian. He asserted that
penal laws arose with the Reformation, but he forgot theta
was not till long after that many of these laws passed. But
the Hon. Member was also inconsistent With-himself, for, by
the terms of the Act of Elizabeth, if the supremacy of the
Crown over matters ecclesiastical were based on the common •
law of the country, the Protestant aewell as Catholic subjects
of the Crown would be equally liable to punishment. .The
Hon. and Learned Member was obliged to go back to the
early
rigour
this
reign
was opfrEelssi zeadbeatghafionrs
against
instance.o 110 i n
subject,whichanthas,
he was very certain that if the Hon. and Learned Member had had a later illustration he would have given it. Thad -Hon:
andNft
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given ecn, b mu
but,
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however
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aasbtlli
iiygs
hhdteeldpy r
Ceecti
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ce
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Hi e so .
Inglis) might view them, they were tendered and aopetrtel set
securities, and therefere the Hon. and 'Learned Member
should not have alluded to them in terms sp ,uefitting. lie
contended that there was no country iu. ghriatian
into which the Jesuits were .admitted without a direct jaw.
being passed subjugating them in numbers; reai‘s
domes, and objects, to the powers at the time
' being. The Jesuits had greatly . increased in this'
country since the first foundation of their establish..
; ment at Stoneyhurst, and in Ireland ; and, therefore, he
thought that, instead of removing these securities, they should
rather strengthen the hands of Government, to enable them-
to suppress any further extension of their dangerous opinions.
The present Bill prohibited any Catholic subject from assum-.
lug the title of Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of Lon-
don, which made 'lt less objectionable than former Bills
brought in • by the Hon. and Learned Member; but still so
'much remained in the measure as to render it objectionable.
iHe objected to' it on principle—the Church of England
firee Ilse. Established Church. of .the realm. int. lreland .
Le thenabers of the Protestantrhurch were prohibited from
processions, and it would be most unfair to allow to a hostile
!church that which was denied to their own Protestant
Church. Was the Hon. Member prepared to see the pro-
cession of the Host through the streets of London ? If such
scenes were to be introduced into this country it would be
great cause of regret to the passers of such a measure.
The Hon. Member for Cork (Mr. O'Connell) said
that he would not allow the procession of the
Ilost to be paraded through the streets of London, it was a
suhject of too much veneration. It was then for the Hodge
to prevent the
,public exhibition of this ceremony, and not to
leave it to the will of the Catholic priesthood to:adopt it if
they thought proper. • If the present measure **re to pass, •
it would make this-country the only one in the world where
Jesuits were allowed to carry on their profession without some •
restraint. He regretted to see that a law prohibiting the in- .
troduction of bulls and rescripts had been already repealed. In
nc country in the' world was any hull of a foreign potentate; as
was the Pope, allowed to be introduced without the previous
consent of the,_Government of such country. It 'was his in-
tention to support the great cause of Protestantism in the t
country; and he begged to move that the Bill be read a
second time this day six months.
Colonel SIBTFIORP seconded the amendment.
-Mr. B. ESCOTT said that the lion. Member for the Uni- •
versity of Oxford (Sir R. H. Inglis) did not ground his op-
position to the Bill in the last session upon the necessity of
these so-called securities. What was then the real cause of
the opposition, and the great cause which the Right Hon.
Member was determined to maintain ? What
was the use of these pains and penalties ?
They brought no money into the Exchequer,
or. into the Church. He believed the only reason they were
desired to be kept on the•statute-book was to gratify the
pride of some persons who were never happy except when
they were teazing or aggravating their fellow-creatures. He
did not believe that one man in a hundred, out of doors, could be
found to standup for a continuance of these pains and penalties.
But it had been said that these enactments were securities
to the Established Church; btit the Right Hun. Baronet had ..
not shown it to the House how it -was that these penalties
acted as securities. It had been further said that these were
preserved •in the great Act of 1829, and ought to be now
preserved. He (Mr. B. Escoit) thought that the Emancipa-
tion Act of 1829 was a great measure of justice. and he looked
with pleasure to the good that Act had done, rather than
to that which' it had left undone. Let the Right Hon. Ba- ,
ronet look to the Sovereign who now filled the chair of St.
Peter's, who was setting an example to all the other Sove- ,
reigns of Europe by his liberal and enlightened principles.
He hoped the Noble Lord at the head of the • Government, ,
the members of the late Government, and also the Noble
Lord the Member for Lynn, who he belieked waa Considerably
ahead of his party, and whom be had no doubt *ad be a ,
Peel of 1847, would all givd their support to ttie Bill', and be
resolved to give no quaeter to these penal enactments.' •
Mr. SHAW said the 'Hon. and Learned Gentleman had
stated that these statutes had done no gOod, and that they
had brought no money into the EXchequer. Now he (Mr.
shaw) could not agree with the.ll6n. and Learned Gentle-
man in the conclusions 'he had come to, and he would
shortly stele the reasons for so thinking. The Bill
under consideration had his decided objection, because
it . unsettled the arrangement come to in 1829. li
would not•go into the policy or impolicy of the settlement
then made, but he would certainly oppose any attempt to
disturb' it in the manner which the Bill before the House
_
would do. He thought the reservations of the Catholic
Emancipation Act should be maintained as the safeguards
of the Established Church.—( Hear.) He would, ,
support the amendment for the rejection of the 8i11.7-(Hea -Hear.)
Mr. MACAULAY could not allow the diseussion to pass
over without expreising
to!'r,ject the second restdidg of the Bill--( Rear.
his opinion on the merits of the ,
Bill before the House. He confessed he bad
for suffi-
cient
ltiheeardrei,eal
of enactments which at present gave the
owned the
The first • portion of the' Bill
prisoning and fining every person who :sled tee House ,
providedd
least 'allegiance to the Pope. .INI
d for his relienous opinions? for
might be lined or imprisoned
He maintained that there was
oprower of im-
that was the real question. .
would they sanction the. principle that any Roman Catholic
no Roman
of his Church but who was liable
of the hierarch,
(here was not a priest nor bishop but who,
to punishment.
Catholic who admitted the spiritual authority
in the essential teaching of his religion, might be proceeded.
against, and fined
andimprisoned. The spiritual authority
of the bishops of the olt man Catholic religion was a leading
element' of the Catholic religion; so all who acted on that
view of the faith were liable to the oppression of these_penal'
stgt ates.—( Hear,
hear.) Now, he put it to the Honatt•
whether they would consent to tht.i. carrying out of such
laws. Would they agree to the- Justice of the principle,
and were they prepared to give it effect? If they would not,
and he believed net one of them would, why then retain
them on the statute-book ?By the Emancipation Bill the
oath of supremacy, as it regarded Roman Catholics, had been
altered to •anolider, and 'yet they. retained this penal enact-
ment about lb recognition of the supremacy of the Crown. Was
not-this prdceeding most absuid and contradictory? He en—
tertained similar.objectionsto the existing statute against the
imp ortation of bulls. It was admitted that these were perfectly_
innocent; for whatever their instructions might be, they.
could not be carried into effect. The law against them
should not therefore be retained. :With regard to the othei
laws referred to, he considered they should also be repealed;.
but .respect 'to 'processions,. however, he could nett
consent to their celebration. He did not think that
decency or public order could allow of these nubile'
processions ; nay, he was sure that if such a pro-,
cession as was often seen Oq the Continent was to paw,.
up Fleet-street or the Strand, there would be every
probe''
fore, give his consent to a stringent Jaw in regard probe''Oita- of some •distnrbance 'taking place. -,He-wou
to
such
processions. But, regarding Jesuits, he amid not support the
•He could not see
restrictions that were imposed on-
any reason why the Franciscan shoulda
as any
other party.
practice-Isis system of worship tbre_sam
d' on the part of the
the'not be allowed to
He was against any secret proceedings
Jesuits, which the present state o t _
tions. as it regarded registrations
would, under proper reglila- - .
f the "law encouraged, but he,
•
and publicity, give them the same civil and religious P&L