The Sun.
London, England, 1846-05-07 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, May 6.
The SPEAKER took the Chair at Twelve o'clock.
Mr. P. HOWARD presented petitions in favour of the
Roman Catholic Relief Bill from Carlisle and several other
places.
The Dublin Markets' Bill and the Dublin Cemetery Bill
were severally read a second time, and ordered to he com-
mitted this day week. _
The Committee On the Danish Claims was postponed. - - •
Lorcl4. MANNERS presented, a great number of petition®
in favour of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill.
The Bristol and Birmingham. Railway Bill (Ashchurch,
Tewkesbury, and Malvern line) was read a second time, and
ordered to be committed.
Sir W. SOMERVILLE presented a petition from the
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dundee in favour of the
Roman Catholic Relief Bill.
On the order of the day being read for the House to go
into Committee on the
ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL,
Mr. COLQUHOUN objected. The Bill contemplated al-
terations in the established laws of the realm, alterations of
the most important and fundamental laws, which had been
opposed for many years in that House. He wished to say to
the Hon. and Learned Gentleman opposite, that if he would
confine himself strictly to the points in Committee which he
had proposed on a former occasion, he (Mr. Colquhoun)
would withdraw all opposition, and would give every assist-
ance in his power. He trusted they would not alter those esta-
blished laws which had passed for the protection of the public
against ecclesiastical encroachments. He distinctly charged
all the responsibility of this measure upon her Majesty's
Government. The first great change would be an alteration in
the Act of Supremacy. The proposed measure would take away
ail the penalties for denying the Act of Supremacy. ft
would de away with certain oaths that parties holding high
and responsible situations were now obliged to take. If alt
penalties for denying the Act of Supremacy were done away
with, it would become a mere abstract principle, and worthy
no longer to be on the statute-book. It was found necessary
in the time of Elizabeth and William 111. to protect the con-
stitution from ecclesiastical encroachments by stringent
laws. He would ask, was ecclesiastical power and ecclesias-
tical ambition less now than it was in those days ? He fourd
by the Emancipation Act of 1829 that several great officers
of State, and also the Sovereign, could not hold their
station if they were Roman Catholics. If a Roman Catholic,
the Sovereign could not sit upon the throne. By the Act of
1829 it was provided that no Lord Chancellor, Lord-Lieu-
tenant, Lord Commissioner, or Regent, could, if a Roman
Catholic, hold any of those offices. Suppose a Lord Chancellor
should take the oaths of supremacy, and then afterwards,
in imitation of many clergymen of the Church of England in.
the present day, take up with the principles of the Church
of Rome, what security would there be for the public if all
the penalties attached to such an offence were done away with?
Well, then, the case of laymen being as dishonest as church-
men was not an impossible contingency, and yet they were
about to abolish one of the Acts of Parliament, the Act of
Charles 11., and they would afterwards repeal the important
Act of William and Mary, and thus the oath which was now
applied as a test would be than of no avail. Would the
Right Hon. Baronet affirm that the fears entertained by him
were groundless? Let the Right Hon. Baronet tell him how
these fears were to be allayed. They had now the oath of
supremacy, which had been and still was defended
by some of the greatest minds in the county,
as part and parcel of the constitution, but they •
intended by this measure to repeal it He wished (-'
to call the attention of the House to one remarkable fact con-
nected with the Act of 1823, which enacted to oath at pre-
sent taken by Catholic Members in that House—the oath
which allowed the civil supremacy of the Sovereign, but was
silent as to the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. Would the
Hon. Member for Winchester inform him where the distinc-
tion was drawn between these powers—where the civil sue
premacy of the Sovereign terminated, and the spiritual Su.
premacy of the Pepe commenced ? -This was a matter which
agitated all the Courts of Europe • at that very time,
and it was then a claim of the Court of Rome,
that her right to dictate to the Roman Catholic subjects of
this country should be recognised. Lord Beaumont, a Roman
Catholic for whom he (Mr..Colquhoun) entertained the most
sincere respect, said that the supremacy of the Court of Rome
in civil matters ought not to be acted on by her Majesty's
Roman Catholic subjects, and the Noble Lord was supported
by a most respectable proportion of those hold=
ing the same religious opinions. The Honou,rable
Member for Winehester alluded to the objection.
taken by the Bishop of Malta to the oath, and he drew an
inference altogether erroneous from that fact. The Hoe.
Member was in error as to the real facts of the case, and
therefore wrong in the inferenees he deduced from them,
The objection of the Bishop of Malta was not to the Act of
Elizabeth, which it was now proposed to repeal, but to the
Act of 1829, and what was his objection? Why that he, in
1835, referred that oath to the Church of Rome, and the reply
was that it was inadmissible. What security, then, had the
Right Hon. Baronet that the Roman Catholics of Englir
and Ireland would not adopt the same opinion as the clergy-
men of the Church of Rome did? Was he not, indeed, certain
that the unity of that Church would compel them to do
The House would observe, that by this Bill there would be
an altertion a in the oath of sepregnacy, and the Bill repealed,
the statute of Elizabeth; which' to`thade the intikidtttion'hf
Papal bulls or other instruments from the see of Rome.
When this Bill was passed anything in the shape of Papal
rescripts were admitted into France or Spain without being first
examined. This Bill would give increased power to the
ecclesiastics of Rome, which power would be superior to the
state. The very parties to whom it would give increased
power were those who were the most prominent in the
movement for the severance of one -portion of the empire
from the other. He could not contemplate this increased
power being given to the ecclesiastics of Rome without the
most serious alarm. If they repealed the oath of supremacy,
they declared that the Queen's jurisdiction was not entire
over the ecclesiastics of .the Church of Rome. This he
could not support. He thought it would be fatal to
their policy, dangerous to the peace of the empire, and
would he giving a premium to those men who wished to
carry on `that agitation which had been so effectual 'in
France and in other parts of Eurepo. He could
not give his consent, therefpre, to such, a Bill as 'this.
The Hon. Member then quoted the :opinion of the French
Parliament in 1762, which was, that having extracted
certain passages from 147 Jesuit authors' works, and having
them collated, they considered that they taught theft, per-„
jury, and licentiousness of every kind ; and they
moreover stated, that these . passages were approved of
by the Jesuits of all classes, by their theologians and
principals. He would appeal to the Right Hon. Baronet at
the head of the Treasury to prevent such an'enactment, for
it proposed very serious Changes in the Act introduced by
the Right Hon. Gentleman himself—he meant the Roman.
Catholioßelief Bill of 1829. As for himeelf he would enter his
protest as repealing the Act of Supremacy, and endangering
the best interests of the State; he would, therefore, move
that the House do go into Committee upon this day six •
months.
Sir J. GRAHAM was anxious that the Hon. ,Member
who had charge' f this Bill should postpone it until the Bitt
which was now before •the 'ether, House of Parliament, was
before them. The Bill now before the House was founded on
the report of the Criminal-Lew Commissigners, but the Bill
before the House of Lords; and which was now awaiting its-
second reading, went much farther, than that.--'' Upon that,.
Bill several suggeStiOns had been made in'the other House,
and those suggestions were now under_ the consideration of
the servants of the Crown... Ott (these accounts he trusted
the Hon. Member would postpone the: -consideration of hie
Bill till a future period. '
Mr. WATSON cotild not itdcede *te the suggestion Of the
Right. Hon. Baronet the Secretary of, State for the Home
Department. This Bill had -been, in fact, brought into
the House in 1843, and in- -1844 a Bill had• been.
passed which coMprised enany of the clauses of this Bilk' .
but the effect of it was totally list ; and he had, consequently;
brought in a Bill in 1845, which, although it had been stated
that the matter of it should be considered, the
session had passed over without any member of the
Government giving an opinion.whether they were favourable
to this Bill at all. This Bill had been introduced early in the `.
session, and whether the Bill iii the House. of LordS was in-
troduced at all, the House would, certainly haVe to come to a
decision on several of the clauses in his and it appeared
to him that there could never be a better opportunity of
coming to that decision than the present moment, and he
must therefore press on the Bill.

On the motion being put,
The Earl of ARUNDEL, and SURREY said that not

~
having been present at fhe last discussion, he wished to say
a few Words on the present:occasion: He should not have__
enteredon the subject of the Jesuits but for the last observa-
tion of the Hon. Member who had moved the amendment.
He believed that there -was no order of men who had been
more ill used than the Jesuits, fOr he felt assured that they
were as hjgh in intellect, as glorious in virtee ,as any body
of 'men upon earth. Go to Rome, and anywhere and every-
where, and see the Sisters-of:Mercy; those angels upon earth,
and observe whether, under the trials of life, they were not,
like all the other regular orders, promoting the cause 'of
religion and charity. la could not have conceived a greater
mistake than that which it was evident prevailed respecting
his religion, from the speeches which had lately been made
He would not go into the other parts of that Bill, they could ,
be better defended by other persons, who hod more extensive
legal knowledge than he possessed. He would only ofer his
thanks to the promoters of the present measure, and promise
them his hearty support.
Sir R. PEEL regretted that the Hon. and Learned Gen-
tleman would not accede to the proposition of his Right Hon.
Friend. It was very unusual for any Member of Portia-
ment to persistin a proceeding upon which the Government
had stated that they were not prepared to give an opinion. Thz
Hon. and Learned Gentleman required that the. Governmvat
ll He
acknow-
ledged w
should express their opinion before their own Bill, which was
before the other House, was brought into that Aiouse.
obcdisabil-
ities
t would
affectingn Otbtehjeustßtoomreamn ovceatfhroomlictsht ewshtialtoutteh-
_Protestant
Dissenters
le werejus ti be
eteoof
thatleft
purnioporoipvleid,eadodfory:
Committee
oappointed to inquire
throw any
into the
lamatter.
the TvlixaeyGovernment.othe
nill were
thought the proposal made was so reasonable, that unless
the Hon. and Learned epdroGpoensittlieoinTioif agreed ed to it, he should
Wtohetnhe
certainly dissent from entertaining his 13ill.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL thought if theßtwigoht Bills
il o
nwoeurreabbel e-
fore the House,
Gentleman should be acceded to. On one part of the
subject, the Criminal-law Commissioners had offered .
the Right Honourable Baronet
subject)
Criminal-law Commissioners
they reported that they had found
_
several very vexatious
penalties under various statutes,` and they
no oa
do
referredpiuion.-- the(ll ea r.
by which these vexatious laws ' proposed a mode
statute book, and the l might be expunged from the
law be rendered more perfect and
uniform. But when they came to existing penalties
which were in full hey
1829, the Commissionersr d th Act f
o ce , un er e o
said that that was not a •-
point which came properly beneath th •notice. It involved
their
political consideration leils a subject that should be
referred to the Governs' and
It question for the House
to consider whether Government.. was a 9
the penalties imposed by the Act of 182 should be modified or repealed.
SirJAMES GRAHAM said, he was not.prepared to agree
to the repeal of the clauses in the Bill of 1829, which were
contemplated in the present Bill. At present it was very
inconvenient to discuss the provisions of the Bill. It would
be necessary to take the sense of the House upon thes i clauses.
If the course he had proposed was acceded to by the Reil-
and Learned Gentlemen opposite, the Government Bill
would be brought in, and would be discussed fully in con-
junction with the Bill of the Hon. and Learned Gentlemen.
He must say that the course be had proposed was quits con-
sistent with the rules of the House, and, if agreed to, would
give the House the opportunity of fully discussing the
matter.

Lord J. MANNERS thought that alterations proposed by
the measure before the House would not afect the general
question.

•
Mr. WATSON had no objection, if they went into Com-
mittee, to discuss the clauses contained in the Bill of 1829.
He should, however, persist in his motion for the House to go
into Committee, and should, if necessary, take the sense of
the House upon the subject.
After a few words from Mr. COLQUIIOUN,
Mr. O'CONNELL claimed the right to say one or two words
before passing these clauses, as he had been personally at-
tacked by the Hon. Member opposite (Mr. Colcinhoun.) The
Honourable Member had taxed him with having been
in error with regard to Galileo's connexion with the Court of
Rome. He adaiitted that he was iumarato 113 11019 of him