The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-22 00:00:00

T 17, "
LONDON,

The Earl of GLENG ALL presented several petitions
to a similar purport.
The Earl of ST. GERMANS presented a petition
from Waterford against the Bill.
The Marquis of BREADALBANE presented several
petitions from places in Scotland in favour of the Bill.
The Duke of RICHMOND presented a petition from
the holders of church leases in the county of Durham
praying that their interests might be set•ured i❑ the Bill
on church leases before their Lordship.' House.
TURNPIKE ACTS ARRANGEMENT BILL.
The House resolved itself into Committee o❑ this Bill.
The Earl of LANESBOROUGH proposed a clause
prohibiting the use of carts drawn by dogs.
The Earl of MALMESBURY said that many persons
earned their living by means of these carts drawn by
dogs. and he should oppose the motion.
After a short conversation, their Lordships divided,
when there appeared—
Contents
Non• Contents

... 27
... 56

- _
Majority against the clause ~. —29
The clause was consequently lost.
The Bill then passed through Committee.
ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES BILL.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE rose to move the
second reading of this Bill. He must in the outset
confess that it was to him a most painful duty to dis-
charge to have to move the second reading of this Bill.
He had for 47 years been a strenuous advocate of the
claims of his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen,
and had exerted himself in the House and out of the
House to procure the acknowledgment of those claims,
and it was therefore most painful to him to feel that his
duty compelled him to adopt a course which might be
misrepresented into an attempt to deprive of their rights
his Roman Catholic fellow •subjects. It was, however,
some consolation to him to know that this Bill did not
interfere with the practice of religion, or with the civil
liberties of his Roman Catholic fellow-subjects. It was
occasioned solely by—it was meant solely to meet—an
unjust aggression on the part of a foreign Power. It
was also a consolation to him, that in the remarks he should
have to make, it would be no part of his duty to enter into
any consideration of a doctrinal character, referring to the
roman Cathlic religion, nor to propose anything for their
adoption tending to impose restrictions upon the exercise of
that religion, which they s-ere all of opinion ought to be
placed under the protection of those principles of religious
liberty which he was in no degree prepared to surrender.
He should therefore state to them, in the first instance, the
reasons for introducing some legislative enactment to guard
against what no one would doubt had assumed the appear•
once of an aggression on the part of a foreign power; and
next he should have to prove that in a religious point of
view this measure imposed no new restrictions. If he did
not prove both these positions—of the necessity of the mea-
sure, and that it did not interfere with the free exercise of the
Roman Catholic religion—then let them reject the Bill.
What he should have to state in support of the first of
these provisions would be short, as the fact was familiar
to their Lordships that, within some few months past, a
rescript or other document had appeared, sanctioned
by the Pope of Rome, assuming to himself, in distinct
and unqualified terms, the right of conferring territorial
titles in this country. Now, the question arose whether
that assumption was a matter of importance or not.
In his opinion titles of all descriptions, or in any form, were
things of real importance, things of substance, things which
exerted a material effect, first on the imaginations of men,
and then on their actions.—(Hear, hear.) Ho knew that
all the wisest men of this country had always attached ea
importance to thesettitlesas used and enjoyed; but i laiey did
so as regarded titles of a merely profane nature, how much
more would they do so in the case of ecclesiastical titles,
which a foreign power said was for its interest to dispose
of by assumption, and assumption only. He had always
attached great importance to, and felt that it was a wise
proceeding on the part of the Government of this country,
and the Foreign Department especially, that they so
steadily, and sometimes so stiffly refused to permit the
use of foreign titles, and foreign decorations by subjects
of this country, except on very rare occasions, and under
very rare circumstances. —(Hear, hear.) They refused to
do that, because they felt, as the fountain of honour, the
Crown should remain untouched. And Parliament itself,
which had at different times, with caution no doubt,
interfered, more or less, with the prerogatives of the
Crown in other cases, in other duties, and in other privileges
belonging to it, had constantly observed the most
entire forbearance, and had never presumed to suggest to
the Crown, or to interfere with the Crown, in that which it
felt to be its first and exclusive prerogative, the right of de-
termining who should bear and who should use distinctions
of this nature. The consideration of this subject reminded
him of a somewhat homely saying of one of the wisest of our
sovereigns, Queen Elizabeth. When it was urged upon her
to permit the temporary absence of a Noble Lord, a Mem-
ber of that House, in order that he might wear certain
orders, and bear certain distinctions about to be conferred
upon him by a foreign power, she said, "No she never
chose her sheep to be tarred by other shepherds."—
(Laughter.) He wished now to observe, that we ourselves
were as earnest in our desire to recognise in the fullest de-
gree that attention to the rights and independence of other
countries, which we now claimed from this particular power,
as men did from every other. For recently, and in our own
times, we had had an opportunity of evinciug their desire to
concede to foreign powers this right which we
now claimed for ourselves. We had appointed a
Bishop of Gibraltar and a Bishop of Jerusalem, but
we had not appointed them in the same' manner and in
the same mode as the Pope had recently appointed his
bishops in this country. We had only desired to give
the Christians in that part of the world the benefits of
episcopal superintendence, but did not take the step without
reference to the will of the people themselves. They did not
mean to deny the same thing to the Roman Catholics, and
though he wished to see it secured to them, if they thought
it important to the exercise of their religion, was he com-
pelled on that account formally to recognise the usurped
authority to which he had alluded? Now, ho knew that
there were standers-by of our own creed, who, admitting the
offensive character of the proceeding of the Court of Rome,
and the impropriety of the terms which had been employed,
neVerthele.q, were willing to do nothing on this subject.
There were standers.by, who saw that public feeling had
been strongly, he would not say unnaturally excited, but who
said, nevertheless, Who knew that it would not subside ?
i,et them wait." Why, he maintained that the surest way
to maintain alive a system of irritation in this country, and
on that subject, would be to show, in this country, that Par-
liament was determined to do nothing in reference to it.—
( Hear.) Nothing, in his opinion, could be so likely to invite
further aggression than to show that they were not prepared
to make a stand upon that point. He, therefore, thought
he had said enough to show their Lordships that this was
not an occasion on which it was possible, consistently with
respect for the Crown or the feelings of the people, for Par-
liament to remain silent, acquiescing in everything and op-
p)sing nothing, but tacitly sanctioning a course so distinctly
marked and so openly avowed. There remained for him now
to say, that the Catholic religion, within its proper sense and
i.s legitimate objects, would in no degree be impeded or em-
barrassei by the operation of this Bill. And here he might
at once say that he would be justified in throwing the onus
probandi on those who were interested in maintaining the
contrary, and in calling upon them to point out any circum-
stance in which a practical obstacle would be placed in the
way of the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion
in this country. He was not speaking of that interference
which he held to be unlawful - not unlawful under this
Bill, but contrary to the Constitution of the country, as
more stringently developed in Catholic times than at pre-
sent. He referred to the proceedings in Lalor's case,
and their Lordships would find in the report of the law
officers of the Crown, that they stated the reasons which in-
duced them to resort to the particular line of proceeding
which they adopted. These reasons were curious, and they
were also full of sense, meaning, and instruction. They
said that they preferred not to frame the indictment under
the statute of Elizabeth, that all might be informed who
were interested in the matter, but there were laws passed
before the time of Henry the Eighth, as sharp almost as
those recently passed in Protestant times, for the Commons
of England had at all times been sensible of the importance
of upholding the dignity and prerogatives of the Crown,
and had obliged it to defend them. He said, there-
ore, that these laws, only partially repealed by the
Catholic Emancipation Act, were to some extent
still in force. The Emancipation Act, which granted im-
mense privileges and advantages to the Roman Catholics,
did, nevertheless, carefully reserve many points to the
Crown, and one of them especially was the right to appoint
bishops to particular sees. Thus bishops being prohibited
from taking any right under the Court of Rome, all the
functions and duties of the Roman Catholic priesthood
in this country, had nevertheless, been fully and satisfac-
torily performed, and that being so, it was only in ac-
cordance with the expectations of the Roman Catholics
themselves, who, at the time the Act was passed,
expressed a declaration of their entire concurrence in
its objects, together with unbounded gratitude for a measure
conferring such privileges upoa them; it was in accordance
with those expectations that this legislation was now com-
menced. It was too late, therefore, now to tell them, when
bishops had only exercised their authority in Ireland under
that Act, that an impediment was being thrown in the way
of ordination or of marriage, or of those sacred acts deriving
their validity from the Church, and which might be
fearlessly exercised without endangering the independence of
the Crown. It would be an instructive work if their Lord-
ships would look to that evidence, so bold and so clear, which
he remembered to have heard given before a Committee of
their Lordships' House, by the Rev. Dr. Doyle. Their
Lordships would there find a careful enumeration of the
duties of Roman Catholic clergymen, and they would find
no single act of them which had not since been performed,
which might not be performed now, and which would not be
performed without hindrance after this Bill had passed into
a law, and when this subject came to be stripped of the pre-
judice with which it had pleased certain parties to invest it.
He should be sorry, indeed, and be prepared to sacrifice much,
and to run great risks, rather than disturb the religious
opinions of a large portion of the community.—(Hear, hear.)
But because he felt that there would be no such disturbance,
and not only that, but that there was no such intention,
or no such accidental result to be apprehended, that he ven-
tured to recommend this Bill for their Lorhships' approval.
It he were asked whether he considered this Bill essen-
tial to the preservation of the Protestant religion in Eng-
land,Forh he
we
assh oounled
of
answer
those
who th unhesitatinglyoug t t
hteh that
Protestant he did e
relt.
i-
gion gion did not rest for its support on Acts of Parliament, or
by enactments of •any kind. And he was one, likewise, of
those whowas
easwith the State, thought that it
and as wa
was with the
well describedeProtesta
Protestant religion
byeligion
asa
great lawyer and poet :—" What constitutes a state? Not
lofty battlements, nor laboured mounds, high walls, or
infested gates. No. Man—high-minded man ! " He be-
lieved that its real security depended on the sincerity, the
virtue, and the conduct of those who guided it. But because
he believed it to be independent of accident in this .re-
spect, so long as those virtues were preserved, he was not
the less of opinion that it was inconsistent in the country
and in Parliament to show and to proclaim its ad-
herence to those opinions, and its determination to
support the Crown in its privileges, connected, as
those privileges were, both with the State, and
with religion. And he thought it was a duty which they
owed to their Sovereign, and to the people of this country,
secure as they might think themselves, and secure as they
undoubtedly were in the conscientious rectitude of their
religious principles, to stamp those principles so connected
with the law of the country with their approbation, and to
recognise by this declaratory enactment what prerogatives
belonged to the Crown in connexion with religion, and what
prerogatives they had determined should always belong to
it. The Noble Marquis concluded by moving that the Bill
be read a second time.
The Earl of ABERDEEN said it had always been his opi-
nion that the great cause of Catholic relief was carried in op-
position to the wishes of a numerical majority of the people
of this country. That was his opinion at the time, and it
had been confirmed since by the demonstration he had re-
cently witnessed, and by the excitement that had taken
place. That excitement bad been very general, as the
Noble Marquis had said; the people of this country had
shown a great dstgree of feeling en. the subject, and the
manor br Ojai it but -NM kept up, ba~d tendid to keep