The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-12 00:00:00

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nourable and Learned Member for Mitihurst says, that
we are called together to advise her Maje,ty on
matters concerning the Church of England, and be-
cause these words are inserted in the writ of summons,
he argues that Jews cannot be admitted to seats in Par-
liament. • Now what is the answer which a Jew would
give to that argument? " Surely lam as well qualified
to give advice concerning the Church of Eneland as a
Quaker. Ido not refuse to pay tithes.—(Hear. hear.)
I am not disqualified from discussing the question of
peace or war by any religious scruples about the legality
of war.—(Cheers.) It you say that the qualification to
give advice concerning the Church of England is indis-
pensable, how comes it that you have admitted the, Uni-
tarian? The Unitarian diff'e'rs from you on the moat
essential principle of Christianity. But you have ad
witted him, and you have also admitted the Quaker.
Why do you not take from the Jew the same declara-
tion which you take from the Quaker ? So little im-
portance do you seem to attach to the declaration on
the true faith of a Christian,' that a Quaker is not re-
quired to make it. I asked the Clerk of the House to
be good enough to give me the declaration which is ad-
ministered to Quakers. I apprehend that a Quaker be-
lieves all the leading doctrines of the Church of England.
I do not thick that he would have objected to make
an affirmation on the true faith of a Chris-
tian;'" but you have relieved him from the necessity of
making it. Since the speech of mine to which the Hon.
Member for Dorsetahire referred, important changes
have taken place.—(Hear, hear.) The Quaker, the
Moravian, and the Separatist, have been made eligible to
seats in the Legislature. You say that if a Jew comes
into Parliament, a Mahomedan and a Hindoo must come
in also; but you push the argument further than it is
ever likely to advance. Will it be sufficient to say that
you will keep out the Jew because by the law of logical
deduction you must otherwise admit the Hindoo and the
Mahomedan? Sir, I apprehend, even at the point at
which we stand in this debate, and after all the attention
which has been paid to the subject, that the real position
of the Jew is not yet quite understood. It is said that a
Jew is entitled to all municipal offices, and that a Jew
may be sheriff. The Jew, in two recent instances, one
occurring under the present, and one under the late Go-
verntnent, had been admitted to high distinctions; two
Jewish gentlemen, Sir Moses de Montefiore and Mr. 1)e
Rothschild, have been created Baronets. (Hear,
hear.) And I further believe that at this moment the
Jew is eligible to any executive office to which
the Crown may appoint him, no matter how important
may be the duties attached to that office, unless he be
precluded by the oath which is administered to a Privy
Councillor.—(Hear, hear.) I apprehend that there is
nothing which can prevent a Jew being Secretary of
State to-morrow, except through the indirect operation
of the oath required of a Privy Councillor, and there is
nothing in the form of that oath to which a Jew would
object. If you will but permit the Jew to take the
Privy Councillor's oath on the Old Testament the oath
of the Privy Councillor will not exclude him from the
Privy Council.—(Hear.) It is my conviction, therefore,
that unless through the indirect operation of that oath
there is not as office within the gift of the Crown from
which a Jew, practically, is excluded. A certain decla-
, ration, containing the words "on the true faith of a
Christian " was substituted for the declaration against
transubstantiation in the year 1828; and, observe, these
words "on the true faith of a Christian" were
not sent up to the Lords by the House of
Commons.—(Hear, hear.) The Act of Parliament
when it left the Lower !louse did not contain these
words; the Commons were content to admit the Jews
to all executive and municipal offices without requiring
. .

that declaration of Christian faith. The words were in-
serted in the House of Lords, and, rather than lose the
Bill, the amendment was acceded to. A marked dis-
tinction arose as to the period when the declaration was
required; in the case of executive (Ace a certain time
was given, and in the case of municipal office the Jew
could not be admitted because he was required to make
the declaration previously to, and upon, the admission to
office. In the case of all other offices under the Crown,
the Jew was permitted to make a declaration within the
period of six months from his appointment. During the
whole of the last two reiges, however, during the reign
of King William and the reign of Queen Victoria, all
parties appointed to executive office have been given,
under the Annual Indemnity Act, the whole year to
make that declaration. Before the year expires another
Indemnity Act passes, and, therefore, the fact is, at this
moment, except through the indirect operation of the
Privy Councillor's oath, there is not an office under
the Crown which a Jew may not hold and be
protected in holding.—(Hear, hear.) Can we, then,
having acceded to those important changes, permanently
maintain the exclusion of the Jew from Parliament—
when he has the elective franchise ; when he is eligible
to, and bas entered upon, municipal offices ; when
be may be Lord Mayor of London next year ; when, in
a word, he is shut out from no office under the Crown
excepting that of the Privy Councillor ? You show no
jealousy of the Crown ; you have permitted the Crown
for the: last 17 years to appoint the Jew to high politi-
cal office, and you have practically relieved him from the
necessity of making any declaration whatever ; but
het e is a certain trust which we can exercise only
through the goodwill of the electors, the great majority
of whom must always be professing Christians, and yet
you say, such is your jealousy and fear of him in the
character of legislator, that you will continue to exclude
him km the House of Commons. You have, since the
year 1834, admitted to all Parliamentary functions
the Quakers, the Separatists, and the Moravians, and
though you hare shown no jealousy of the Crown in its
appointment of Jews, you exhibit such jealousy of the
Christian electors of this country, that you will not
peravit them to send the man of their choice to this
House if he but happen to be a Jew.—(Hear, hear.)
Sir, my opinion is, that you cannot permanently main-
tain that exclusion.—(Cheers.) You have made previous
concessions with little danger to the interests of the
Church, or to the interests of the Christian religion, and
I do not now think it safe to insist on this only remain-
ing exclusive.—(Cheers.) My firm belief—and I re-
joice in the conviction—is, that the Church of England
is stronger at this moment than at any period within
recent history.—(Hear, hear.) I am sure that such is
the condition of the Church, and I believe that the dis-
position which has been shown to apply timely and
salutary reforms has been the great cause of that
strength.—(Hear, hear.) I believe that in this way a
deep religious feeling has been awakened through the
country, and I am convinced that the strength of the
Church and of religion is not now dependent on the
question of two or three votes, more or less, in this
House.—(Haar, hear.) I believe that the Church
is strong enough to be independent on all essen-
tial points almost of the decisions of this House ;
it is rooted in the affections of the people. The
religious feeling, daily increasing, has been increased
and confirmed by the wise resolutions of the
Church, to consent to reforms which at this moment
constitute its effectual strength, and, therefore, it
seems to me to be a disparagement, both of the reli-
gion and of the establishment, to contend that the safety
of either depends upon the continued exclusion from this
assembly of the Baron Rothschild, or of any other gen-
tleman of the Jewish faith.—(Cheers.) Were it not,
indeed, that there are internal dissensions within the
Church itself—(Cheers)--my firm belief is, that the
Church would be stronger at this moment, after all these
numerous relaxations of disabling laws, than ever it was,
oven at the period when you required conformity to the
Protestant faith as an essential condition of being a
Member of the Imperial Parliament.—(Cheers.) And
therefore it is,—deeply regretting as I do to shock the
feelings of any man sincerely attached to his religion
and to the Protestant faith, yet believing that undue
weight and importance have been applied to those
words, "on the true faith of a Christian," which were
introduced only for a temporary purpose,—that I do not
think it just towards the Jew to continue his exclusion
merely because these words have been retained for 200
years.—(Cheers.) I rejoice that I am enabled to come
to that conclusion, and that I do not endanger the Church
or the Constitution of this country by removing these
disabilities from the Jews. This I feel most strongly,
that if ever there was a class of our fellow-beings to
whom every Christian state in Europe owed reparation
—(Cheers)—for centuries of injustice, persecution,
and wrong, the: Jews are that people.— (Cheers.)
I defy you to read the early history of our country—not
as narrated by Jews, but as narrated by your own most
popular historians—without shuddering at the details of
the cruelties which were committed by our Christian an-
cestors on the Jews.—(Hear, hear.) Look at the account
which your most popular historian gives of the persecu
tion of the Jews. Hear what Hume says of the Jews in
the time of Henry 11. Our ideas at this day cannot
possibly come up to realise the cruelties which were than
common. Hume mentions, that John exacted 10,000
marks from a Jew of' Bristol, extracting a tooth for evc ry
day's delay ; and speaking of Henry, he says that the
King having pillaged a certain Jew of 8,000 marks
handed him over to the Earl of Cornwall, in order that,
having been flayed by one, lie might be embowelled by
another. This is the account of a Christian, not of a
Jew historian. And on what account were these crimes
perpetrated ? Was it not on account of irrational and
unjust prejudices affecting the Jews ?—(Hear, hear.)
Are we quite sure that these bad prejudices are entirely
extinct ? We deny, I know, that we are actuated by
them ; but are we quite sure that prejudices, less in
extent, perhaps, but similar in character, are not now
influencing some of the opposition to the emancipation of
the Jews ? Of this, at least, lam quite certain, that
such prejudices did influence the Legislature at the
last period when this subject was seriously discussed,
I mean in the year 1943. I think the most dis-
graceful day in the annals of our Parliament was that
on which the Duke of Newcastle came down to the
House of Commons and moved the repeal of the Act for
the naturalization of Jews. That was a real concession
to popular prejudices.—(Hear, hear.) The year before,
foreign Jews having been admitted to naturalization in
oar colonies, an Act was passed permitting them to be
naturalized in this country. There was a great ferment,
such a ferment that the Member for Exeter was accused
of being a Jew, and was obliged to state in his defence
that he was in the habit of travelling upon Saturdays.—
(,1 laugh.) Still there was, as I have said, a great fer-
general election was about
ment through the country—a
to take place ; and in the latter part of 1763 the Go-
vernment of that day, in mere deference to irrational
prejudices, proposed the repeal of the Act passed in the
previous year; and one of the greatest functionaries of
that Government, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, conde-
scended to justify the proposed repeal by such argu-
ments as that by meats of it the Jews would
be protected from open violence, that while the
people were so exasperated the Jews would
be liable to daily insult, or even to daily
injury, to such an extent that they could not live
in the country with ease and security, and would
in many instances be forced to quit it. Thus were the
Jews deprived of the rights which Parliament ha? con-
ferred upon them in obedience to the irrational preju-
dices of the day.—(Hear, hear,) I know it may be said
that these ancient cruelties ought not to influence our
present deliberations. Such may be the case but I