The Sun.
London, England, 1851-01-25 00:00:00

THE

already made such progress that some four or five mil-
lions of reduction in our expenditure has taken place.—
(Cheers.) I have no doubt that further retrenchments
are going on at this present moment. As fiscal ques-
tions will engage a good deal of attention in the ensuing
Parliament, I would have you rigorously to draw a
distinction between two questions which are very often
jumbled together, causing great confusion in the public
mind—l mean the difference between a surplus caused
by an increased revenue, and a surplus caused by reduced
expenditure. The Government comes forward with a
suplus of 2,000,0001. arising from an increase in the re-
ceipts of the various existing taxes; and the Govern-
ment is then too apt to take credit to itself for the
great merit of having created a superabundant revenue.
They do not tell you—and you are too apt to forget
it—that this surplus is merely the effect of your having
given out of your pockets 2,000,0001. more into
the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in one
year than you did in the last year; and then the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer tells you, " I have two millions
more than I estimated, I will return it to you." But I
wish that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer
brings forward his budget you would examine critically
the amount of the redaction of his estimates for the
netxt year's expenditure as compared with the estimates
of .last year.—(Hear, hear.) The surplus that is now
being estimated is upon the present year's estimates; I
want to see the next year's estimates and the budget,
the t we may judge of the Government by their esti-
mates, and not by any revenue they may have reached.
--(Cheers.) I have not since the close of Parliament
acFdressed any audience upon general political topics. I
have addressed peace meetings, I have addressed meet-
ings of freehold-land societies, I have addressed educa-
tion meetings, but I have not addressed a meeting where
so wide a range of discussion and observation has been
permitted as is now open to us in this assembly. I
very much regret it, because I Should like to have
said a few words upon a controversy which has been
raging in this country for two or three
months, and which I should be guilty of cowardice,
seeing it is always my practice to deal with the
prominent topics of the day, not to refer to. I speak
to you only as a politician. For the last two or three
months there has not been a calm in this country. We
Mere heard of a great political calm, but there has been
no calm. On the contrary, there has been an agitation.
It has, I admit, been mainly sectional; but it has been
wide-spread, and it has occupied almost exclusively the
attention of the leading public prints. I need not tell
you that the question is that which is called " The
Papal aggression." The remark I wish to make is, that
the discussion of this topic has overlaid, arrested, and
smothered for a time every political topic. In this coun-
try the public mind entertains but one subject at a time;
therefore the discussion of this topic as a political topic
has prevented the public mind from occupying itself upon
fiscal questions and questions affecting reform in the
representation, and other questions which politicians
have had for many years at heart, so that we approach
the meeting of Parliament without the opportunity being
afforded or taken by the country of signalling
to the Government the views they take upon
these questions. I wish you to bear in mind
that when we meet in Parliament our time will
then, I fear, be very much occupied with the
discussion of this same question; for if we may believe
the Rev. Hugh Stowell in what he told us at a very large
assembly, every political, social, fiscal, or reformatory
question must be suspended until this one great question
be settled by the House of Commons.—(Applause.)
What I want to ask is—" Is this a question that can be
settled by politicians ?"—(Loud cheers.) I may settle it
in my own mind as a Protestant, and as a Protestant I
may have my opinions. But I want to ask, if there is
any reason why religious questions should net be removed
out of the domain of politics, the same as in the United
States of America? Lord Carlisle, when he honoured
himself by coming out of the Cabinet to deliver an ad-
dress to the Mechanics' Institution of Leeds, made a
remark which, coming at the time it did, I think
expressed more than words would entirely do, when
he said, "I confess I do envy the complete toleration
which exists in the United States."—(Loud cheers.)
In the United States the Pore may appoint bishops
wherever he pleases; he may parcel out that vast
continent into as many dioceses as he pleases; he
may send as many cardinals as he pleases; and no
matter by what pompous phraseology all that be
done, the United States' politician, or the United States'
Legislature at Washington, would be perfectly indif-
ferent to it all, Why cannot we, in this country, as
politicians, leave with the same security to private and
individual judgment the settlement of this question, as it
is in the United States? Is it that we are so ignorant,
or that we are so liable to be misled? Then I say let
us look sharp and follow the advice given by Mr. Law-
rence, the American Minister, and educate ourselves.—
(Load cheers.) But lam told that the reason is that
we have a State Church in England. Well, but does a
State Church render the people of this country less able
to protect themselves, by their own unaided judgment,
knowledge, and sound sense, from aggression? Are the
people less able to protect themselves against error be-
cause they have a State Church? Will that be the con-
fession? No. But the State Church has been made
the obstacle, or attempted to be made the obstacle, in
every parish, to the promotion of the same liberality
that exists in America, and against every proposal
with regard to liberty, whether civil, religious,
or commercial.—(Loud applause.) We are and have
been continually tempted to be obstructed by the cry
of "The Church in danger;" yet in every case the parti-
sans of the Church have found their predictions singu-
larly falsified. After the repeal of the Test and Corpo-
ration Act—after the accomplishment of Emancipation—
after the Reform Bill was secured—there was the same
cry; but I believe it will be admitted, by both Church-
men and Dissenters, the Church never was so active and
prosperous, never were so many churches built, and
never bad the Establishment greater authority tbaaafter
the last of those great reforms down to the present day.
Where, then, are the grounds for fear on the part of
Churchmen for the security of the Church? Ido not
stand hero as the advocate or the partisan of the Roman
Catholic body. As a politician I do not presume to
offer my opinions on the faith of any man. But I may
be allowed to say that lam no friend to the organial-
tion of the Roman Catholic body. It is too subduing to
the intellect, and too centralizing for me. But at the
same time let the Roman Catholics living in England
judge for themselves, not only of their own faith and
motives, but of the mode in which they have looked up
to the organization that will follow religious
teaching.—(Loud cheers.) Why should you dictate
to Roman Catholic bishops whether they govern
by a cardinal, an archbishop, or diocese? They do not
come to me as a politician to ask me to give force and
validity to their titles, or to give them stipends out of
the public purse. What right have I, then, as a politi-
cian, to come before a public meeting, or to get up in
the House of Commons, to say a word upon the subject
of their faith, or on the polity of the Roman Catholic
Church ?—(Hear.) We shall be told, pretty often no
doubt, that unless Government interferes the privileges
and prerogatives of the Queen of England will be in-
vaded by the Pope—not by Cardinal Wiseman. Cardinal
Wiseman is a British subject; he cannot invade the pre-
rogative of the Crown without being guilty of high trea-
son; and if he is so guilty, let him be tried by law. But
what prerogative has been invaded by the conduct of the
Pope? Not the temporal prerogative. Why, the Pope
has at this moment in his army a few-thousand -French
and Austrian troops; and I have it on the beat authority
that if these troops were removed dire would be the
dismay and speedy the flight of the whole body—Pope
and Cardinals.—(Cheers and laughter.) It is not,
then, the army of the Popo that is to threaten the
temporalities of the Crown. Are the temporal pre-
rogatives threatened by sea? You may have a list
of the entire naval force of the Pope—it amounts
to two gun brigs and a schooner.—(Laughter.) Put one
quarter of an effective service on the coast of Essex, it
would be quite sufficient to guard the whole island
against it. We are told, however, that the spiritual do-
minion of the Queen is to be perilled. Now, are we as
politicians, who aro called upon to vote money for
ordnance and for shot and shell, to meet and repel the
aggressive enemy that meets us with similar weapons—
are we to forge the spiritual artillery with which we are
to meet this aggression ?—(Cheers.) If we are, I beg
you to consider how capitally we are suited in the Blouse
of Commons for that purpose.—(Loud cheers and laugh-
ter.) Admitting, if you please, that we are the great
majority of us eminent for our piety, how are we con-
stituted ?—(Laughter.) Are we all Churchmen, owning
to the spiritual authority of the Queen? Why, about
40 or 50 of us are Roman Chatholic; and, mark me, you
will have a great many more Roman Catholics returned
from Irelavd at the next election.--(Hear, hear.) We
have an Independent or two, we have three or four
Unitarians, and we have a Quaker I am happy to
say, and I wish we had a good many more—(Great
applause)—and we have a prospect of having
a ave.—(Heer, hear, and laughter.) Now, is not
that a very nice body of men to uphold the Queen's
supremacy as head of England's Church ? If
you wanted to give us a task in the House which should
last till Doomsday, then give us the task of settling the
question of Papal aggression.—(Cheers.) I say, give
it to the politicians to settle if you want it never to be
settled at all. Ashes been well expressed here by Mr.
Bright, politicians have been at the work already for 400
Or 500 years. They have tried every available means;
they have tried fire and faggot, and then came the penal
laws which went every length short of extermination.
What has been the tendency of the last century? Con-
stant relaxation, a tendency more and more to religious
toleration. What has been the course taken by the
leading statesmen of this country?
Why, to their
and
honour be it said, the greatest
_most illustrious states-
men of the last sixty years were so far in advance of the
latent bigotry existing in the country, that they were
ready to sacrifice their fame, they were willing to forego
place, patronage, everything which statesmen and poli-
ticians hold moat dear, rather than lend themselves to
the continuance of a system which I very much fear
there are men now in the Cabinet who owe all their dis-
tinction in public life to having been identified with the
principles of toleration to which we are constantly more
and more progressing, who are now ready to sully
their fair fame, and belie, I had almost said, the
whole of their past political career on entering into the
political season of 1851.—(Cheers.) Gentlemen, I en-
treat you to remove this question of religious opinions
—remove it out of the domain of
politics if you wish,
not only to make progress in those
questions which we
cannot delay, but if you wish to prevent
a
policy. It will not end in a mere return to the retrograde
parties
of religious monopoly, but will be certain toconduct
you into a retrograde track in questions affecting
temporal interests, and for which many of thosewahuor
fancy themselves sincere are now lending their voices
when they raise this cry for religious intolerance.
egree with Mr. Gibson completely, that if this country
suffers one step backwards in the career of religious to-
leration, you are endangering yourselves in questions
on which you feel most nearly interested.—(llear,
hear.) I never felt the slightest doubt in the world
come across my mind on the subject of retaining every-
thing we have gained In the way of social improvement