The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-26 00:00:00

administration of their business. He was most willing i
to acknowledge the integrity of the Jews, and would
entrust them with the administration of the laws, but it
was quite another thing to place them in the position of
law makers. He urged tha Huns') not to be led away
by false sophisms and pseilo-liberality.
Earl of ELLESNIEItIi said his vote that night
would be the result, not of impulse, but of such re-
flection as his ability allowed him to give to this im-
portant subject. If he could believe with the Right
Reverend Prelate that a great indifference to the safety
of the country could alone induce a vote for this Bill,
no degree of respect for any constituency would induce
him to vote that night in its favour; but looking at the
probable consequences that would follow from this mea-
sure, all he could foresee was that, at most about a score
of respectable gentlemen of the Hebrew nation would
be admitted to seats in Parliament. They had heard of
Dissenters combining against the Church, but they had
never found Jews meddling with such matters. They
often heard denunciations from the conventicle, but
never from the synagogue.—(Hear, hear.) He was
Sold that the Jew was an alien, and merely is sojourner

in the land. How had he acted in those countries
of Europe in which he was not oppressed by unjust
yaws? Had he sheltered himself from the common
danger, under his character of a stranger and a
sojourner?—(Hear, hear.) In the ranks of Napoleon
there were many Jews ; and at Leipsic they fought side
by side with their Christian countrymen for their com-
mon liberties. He had been informed, that even in our
own Canada, they had,in times of rebellion, rallied round
the British standard, without exhibiting any horror of
the emblem which it bore.—(llear, hear.) It had been
rightly observed, in the course of the debate, that this
country stood in a singularly proud position. Ours
might he said to be the only Legislature in the civilised
world in which questions of importance could be fairly
discussed without any undue pressure from external in-
fluence. He would go farther and say that their decision
of that night would most probably affect the condition
of the Jews all over Europe.—(Hear, hear.) Some
Continental Governments might be considered to have
advanced beyond us in liberality, but others, he regretted
to say, had treated the Jews with harshness. Their
Lordships could not read such Governments a better
homily than bypassing the Bill which had been presented
to them that evening.—(Hear, hear.)
Lord STANLEY—I should have been well satisfied,
my Lords, to leave the decision of this question to the
able, to the powerful, to the eloquent, and to the hitherto
unanswerable speech of the Right Rev. Prelate.—(Hear,
hear)—hut I feel it imperative upon me not to give a
silent vote upon a question upon which the discussion
has been exhausted; upon which I can offer nothing
new to your Lordships, and on which it would be in-
excusable for any length of time to trespass upon your
patience. I think that your Lordships should at once
reject this Bill. Noble Lords, in the course of this dis-
cussion, have laid much stress upon a doctrine which I
rejoice to hear repudiated by my Noble Friend, the
Noble Earl who has just sat down, viz., the free exer-
cise of your judgment on this subject, and that the re-
jection of this Bill would be duly and properly stig-
matized as a measure of persecution ; and yet I could
not fail to be struck with the apparent inconsistency
of the argument, because the declaration was imme-
diately preceded by the expression, as the ground of
my Noble Friend's vote in favour of this Bill, that
he thought your Lordship's conduct on this occasion
must materially influence the conduct of other states
with regard to what is properly and appropriately called
the Jewish nation; and yet, if that nation, says the
Noble Lord, in other parts of the world, is subjected to
grievous persecution and the greatest possible hardship.
I shall endeavour to show by my vote this night that the
English Parliament is wholly free from this spirit of
persecution. My Lords, if the vote given to-night,
whether in favour of this Bill or against it, be no indi-
cation of a persecuting spirit, I am at a loss to under-
stand how the Noble Lord reconciles these two conflict-
ing arguments, and how his vote one way or the other
can mark the hostility of this country to the persecution
of the Jews. To the law in its fullest extent, on the
ground of religious opinion, I am as much opposed as
the Noble Lord; but the question on which I draw the
main distinction is this, that the protection of the law
and the enjoyment, of property is one thing, and to de-
prive a man of that protection, on the ground of reli-
gious opinion, is persecution. The privilege of enacting
the laws of the country is not a right, but a privilege—a
privilege, the absence of which is no persecution, no
punishment, no penalty—the possession of which the
Legislature has at all times maintained the right of
hedging round with such conditions as it felt were for the
benefit of the country. I must say that I heard with
some surprise the historical summary with which the
Noble Marquis commenced his speech, the inference to
be deduced from which was, that for the first time in the
reign of Elizabeth this intolerant exclusion of the Jews
took place. The Noble Marquis distinctly stated that it
was not till the time of Elisabeth that this exclusive
system on the ground of religion first commenced; and
that when it first commenced it had no reference to the
Jews. Let me remind your Lordships, that until a
recent period previous to the reign of Elizabeth, the
subject was not only excluded on account of religious
belief, but uniformity of religious opinion was enforced
by stringent penalties. So far from the Jews having a
right to sit in the Legislature, the Jew had not a right
to set his foot on British soil. Then the Noble Marquis
says that the statutes were directed against the only
class of nonconformists of those days, the Popish recu-
sants, and had nothing to do with the Jews; and then
the Noble Marquis goes to the times of William and
Mary, and says that for thirteen years during that time
there was no legal obstacle to the Jew—there were no
terms in the oath, "on the faith of a Chi istian," during
those thirteen years, but there was no power for a Jew
to obtain naturalization.
Lord CAMPBELL—It was not needed if he were born
in England.
Lord STANLEY—Was there any power for a Jew to
hold freehold property, and have a freehold qualification
by which he could be admitted to sit in Parliament?
Was not the oath, such as it was, administered to every
person upon the new test, and although there was that
absolute and legal impediment, the Noble Marquis tells
your Lordships that for these thirteen years there was a
happy removal of the intolerance preventing Jews sitting
in Parliament? To talk about the Jews sitting in Par-
liament in the time of William and Mary is to argue on
a case which is absolutely impossible to arrive; because,
if in those days a Jew presumed to offer himself as a can-
didate for the representation of any city or town in
England, he might have got through the first sentence,
but he would nut have been heard through a second. I
will not detain your Lordships by entering on the his-
toric points, but that which I desire to lay stress upon
is, that it is the privilege of sitting in Parliament and
legislating, and not the right, to which every person:is
entitled. It is a privilege which the State confers
on those persons who are properly qualified. Then
comes the question, what are the proper qualifications
for the Legislature in a Christian subject ? It' is be
true that there is an inherent right to which every
British subject is entitled, what becomes of your pecu-
niary qualification ? What becomes of your law by
which you require that a person shall be of a certain
age ? What uecomes of the right by which you exclude
women from voting ? Why is it that, with the excep-
tion of theßightßeverendßench, who are, be it observed,
in this House, and hold their seats in it because this is a
Christian asserubly—(tlea.r, hear)—why, with that ex-
ception, is every clergyman of the Church of England
debarred from a seat in the House ? I ask, why ? be-
cause it is supposed that the woman, the minor, are per-
sons not having a certain pecuniary qualification. 1 ad-
mit that that pecuniary qualification is an arbitrary one.
I take it upon this principle, that persons who have such
a pecuniary qualification, have such a stake and in-
terest in the country, or are likely to have received
such an education as to enable them to give
a free and independent and deliberate and
conscientious sensible verdict with regard to
the election of Members of Parliament. Then
suppose you contend that this right is inherent in every
British subject—has not every one of these a right to
challenge your qualification and your restriction as an
act of punishment, according to the Noble Viscount—
as an act of persecution, according to other Noble Lords
—or a remnant, according to the Noble Earl on the
cross benches, of an exploded system of persecution ?
Has he not a right to say, I am a British subject—
loyal, peaceable, well disposed, of a good moral charac-
ter? Not a man will say a word against me in my neigh-
bourhood. I bear the highest character for loyalty and
temperance, but I aria debarred by the persecut-
ing law, which says that unless I possess a
certain pecuniary qualification, not only I shall
not have a seat in Parliament, but I shall not have a
right to vote. The qualification is imposed for the sup-
posed good of the country. No one disputes the right
of the Legislature to make the qualification. Is it a
greater disqualification in a Christian assembly and a
Christian country—in a coutry in which the law rests on
the basis of Christianity—in which Christianity is part
and parcel of the law of the realm—is it a greater or a
less disqualification to say, " I have not a freehold es-
tate of 501. or 1001. a year ;" or as a Jew, " I repudiate
all that you hold most holy ; I abhor that which you
worship ; I reject all to which you look up with reve-
rence and veneration ; and, as a sincere Jew, my desire
must be to see your blasphemous religion trodden in the
dust ?" I care not what may be the professions of the
nominal Jew or those nominal Christians to whom their
religious opinions are like garments, which they can put
on or take off at pleasure, but in which the heart and
conscience, and judgment, have no part. Although
I admit there is much in Judaism is common with
Christianity—although I admit that the law was
our schoolmaster, yet whilst I admmiotsatiheelraewiasnmd ueh
in common in the precepts of the
the
Divine precepts of the Gospel,
that of all the crimes capable of being. committed
yet I cannot forget
put RYAa reate eing upon
Moses, that of an attempt to
and punished with the greatest severity ofdthhe. law of
was visited with the greatest severity.f the tooting of an invisible God, atlee crimAe wl
Jewiic
the blessed
u lookstl y
with
must believe even the second person o
con-
demnedTri.ni ty
by
to y beth
ea
many
believe centuriesthe the
educated veneration to lacwonovficatnedoffmenadieetd.acctoourn'taryn.d
the great attachment of the Jews to their
religion,
Jew depo-
sitorieste beo a
an honourable, conscientious, charitable,
they etyh
e havingvv evd beefe
rfao h
.m aln
well- disposed, and loyal, but I cannot place the Jew,
either with regard to his religious belief or with regard
to his social condition, on the footing of any denomina-
tion of Christians, nor can I place him on the footing of
other British subjects. It has been attempted to be ar-
gued that you have cut away the argument against the
admission of the Jews by the admission of other sects
into Parliament, and some Noble Lords have spoken
about the ambiguity of Christianity itself, and have re-
ferred particulary to the admission of Unitarians. Now,
my Lords, I have very great doubts about the accuracy
of ther faith, I do not understand their reading of the
Scripture, I cannot comprehend the interpretation
which I believe they put upon the Scriptures;
but this I know, that if you were. to tell a trai-