The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-21 00:00:00

tion to frame any code by which all the relations between
the See of Rome and the Crown of this country may be re-
gulated ; but this I say, that if that spirit which you have
seen lately be not checked—that if it be not checked by the
great display of Protestant and national feeling that has
been shown in this country —that if it be not checked by the
simple and mild enactments of Parliament—if further ag-
gressions should take place—if it be attempted, for
instance, to deprive the people of Ireland altogether
of the benefits of mixed education—(Hear, hear)—if
it be attempted to deprive Parliament of its power
in this respect, and if those who serve the Crown are to
be deterred by menaces with reference to their religious
consolations if they attempt to carry out the system of
mixed education which the Roman Catholics themselves
asked for but a few years ago— then, I do not deny that in
such a case other measures may be necessary.—(Hear,
hear.) And so likewise of similar aggressions. I'differ alto-
gether from my Right Hon. Friend when he says that this
matter of education is one on which the Roman Catholic
clergy may proceed unchecked to any extremity they may
choose. I don't think that you would be right or that you
would be justified, having declared that you meant national
education in Ireland to proceed, in allowing spiritual wea-
pons to be employed for temporal purposes in such a manner
as to prevent the youth and children of Ireland from ac-
quiring secular knowledge, because the Roman Catholic
bishops chose to call it a part of spiritual instruction.—
(Hear.) I remember speaking with a very excellent and
mild bishop of the Roman Catholic Church who undertook
the superintendence of the Roman Catholics of London
not many years ago. Speaking to him on the subject of
granting aid from the Committee of Council to
Roman Catholic schools, I said, "We shall leave
your religious instruction entirely unfettered ; we
shan't inquire what it is, or how it is given." Hs an-
swer was, "No doubt you intend to do so; but I don't
believe you know the extent to which we carry that term
religious instruction;' history, for example, the whole of
civil history, we comprehend under the term of religious in-
struction;' and we should not be satisfied with any part of
the political or civil history of England being taught other-
wise than under the superintendence of the clergy of our own
Church."—(A laugh.) There was nothing arrogant or pre-
tending about that excellent man. This was merely a state-
ment of what the opinions and doctrines of his Church were,
—(Hear, hear) But I must say, if that doctrine were car-
ried to any extent, that with regard to civil matters, and to
matters of physical science, nothing could be taught to the
youth of Ireland except under the superintendence of the
clergy, that nothing could be more for the benefit of the
Roman Catholics themselves than that the State should step
in and say that it would not permit any such a system
to prevail. In this respect, as in all others, I believe that
if what Mr. Grattan predicted should in time fail, this
Bill would be no such great bar and security against such
evils, and that the whole question is not between Pro-
testants and Roman Catholics, but it is a question in one re-
spect between the Crown and the people of this conntry and
the Sae of Rome, but in another respect, it is a question as
regards the Roman Catholic laity, and an attempt to impose
upon it the favourite ultramontaine doctrine of Rome.—
(Hear, hear.) Now, I have observed that Gentlemen who
have opposed this Bill upon the ground that no legislation
whatever is required have entirely failed in making this dis-
tinction, ttough it must be obvious and striking to every
one who has read any part of the history of Europe or of re-
ligious contests. My Right Hon. Friend referred to Bossuet
and other high authorities; and many of those high Roman
Catholic authorities of modern times, like our ancestors,
while they were men of strict and undoubted Roman
Catholic faith, were at the same time most spirited, most in-
dependent, most able, and most constant enemies of the
usurpation of the Court of Rome. Yet I conceive that the
Protestants who now speak upon this subject, do not take
the assertions of such men as Bossuet, or Pascal, but they
take all the assertions that came from the See of Rome,
which in former days, and down even to the present
day, have beetescouted by all the most able and most learned
of the Roman Catholics. They take all these, I say, as the
assertions of Roman Catholic doctrine, of Roman Catholic
faith, and of ecclesiastical discipline. I think when we
come, as I am afraid we must come, to discuss these mat-
ters a good deal further, that this distinction cannot fail to
be made; and however it may have been obliterated for the
time I do feel confident that having passed the Act of 1829
we shall see that the spirit of the laity will revolt against
these pretensions.—(Hear.) Sir, I have been always of
opinion that it was not only for the benefit of the Roman
Catholics, but also for the security of the State, that the
concessions made in 18;29 should be enacted by an Act of
Parliament; but I not only thought that, but that they
should be carried out in spirit and in reality. For that
purpose I thought that the Roman Catholic people of Ireland
should have a large franchise allowed them, so that it
should be clear that they should .have the power of choosing
their own representatives, acid not at the dictation of
their Protestant landlords. I thought it necessary, like-
wise, in order to carry out the spirit of that Act, that Ro-
man Catholics should be chosen and named to civil offices
for which they were capable as freely as Protestants; and I
am pe•suaded that those things, under the present Adminis-
tration, have been fully carried out.—(Hear, hear.) We
passed last year an Act with respect to the franchise, and
from the time that I came into office, eo far as my patronage
has been concerned, I have been always anxious that Roman
Catholics should have a fair share of that to which their
abilities entitled them.—(Hear, hear.) Now, I think that a
great security, but it is upon this conditions that those
Roman Catholics are as free to act according to their own
opinion as Protestants would be in similar circumstances.
—(Hear, hear.) And if you find that Roman Catholics have
bees, like Sir Michael O'Loughlin, the Master of the Rolls,
and Sir Thomas Redington, loyal to the Crown and anxious
to do justice equally between all classes of her Majesty's
subjects, there can be no doubt but that rule of law
should prevail; but if you find, on the contrary, that
these Papal maxims have gained supremacy in Ireland,
and that Roman Catholics in office have been
threatened by the priests if they 'did their duty fairly,
it would oblige those Roman Catholics to leave the service of
the Crown, and to do that which would come to be a practi-
cal denial of that which the Act of 1829 gave them.— (Hear,
hear.) My Right Hon. Friend has a very simple remedy
for that. He says if a Roman Catholic be threatened with a
spiritual sentence, such as the refusal of the sacrament, he
has only to leave the Roman Catholic community.— (A
laugh.) But it is very possible that his conscience may not
allow him to make that change; he may feel that the priest
exercises an oppression upon him, as did that unfortunate
man Count Santa Rosa, at Turin; but his faith in his reli-
gion might yet be totally unshaken ; and if thst be the case,
I say it is for the benefit of the Roman Catholics themselves
that you should assert the spiritual independence of this
country and should not encourage these assumptions of
power on the part of the Court of Rome.—( Hear, hears)
My Right Honourable Friend at the conclusion of his
speech referred to men of eminence, some of whom were
departed and some of whom were still alive, who had fought
manfully and successfully in favour of Roman Catholic inde-
pendence. I was an humble follower of those men, and
though not taking part in the debates upon that subject in
this House, I constantly fought that battle in the country,
and gave my votes upon the same side. Sir, I regret not a
single vote that I then gave. I rejoice that I was in any
way instrumental in procuring religious liberty ; but if
experience now that you have not taken those securities
which Mr. Grattan said you might take ; if I feel some
doubt—some suspicion—some apprehension—of the future
proceedings of the Court of Rome, I am not without the au-
thority of many friends of freedom who expressed similar
fears and similar apprehensions. Ido not know that I need
be ashamed of being somewhat more liberal than Milton
and than Locke.—( Hear, hear.) I do not know
that I need be ashamed of having somewhat of the tem-
per which belonged to Hampden and to Pym and to
all those great men who asserted the liberties of the
country in this House against the tyranny of Charles I. I
do not know that I need be ashamed of feeling somewhat
of those doubts and apprehensions which influenced the calm
and sober judgment of Lord Somers. Those men were the
friends of liberty, many of them writers in favour of liberty
of conscience and of toleration far beyond the opinions of
their age; but they felt, however, that the Roman Catholic
faith might be held as well as any other faith, conscientiously
and consistently with the enjoyment of power; still that
there was something in the character of the See of Rome
which made every friend of liberty jealous of its encroach-
ments and fearful of the establishment of its power.—(Hear,
hear.) Sir, whatever I may have felt with regard to the
particular measures that might be adopted, I have always
maintained an opposition to the Roman Catholic supreme-Sy.
I remain still of that mind ; and when I see that there are
so few of the Roman Catholic body who feel that this
aggression, made without the consent of the Crown and
agairst the will of the nation, is an aggression upon the
supremacy of the Crown and the independence of the people,
my apprehensions are not diminished. but increased by such
a temper. While I remain a friend to religious liberty, as I
trust-I ever have been (as the Roman Catholics, at least,
ought to admit, frequent as have been the rebuffs that I have
_ _

met with in the course of popular elections because I have
said I was for the Roman Catholics)—anxious as I have
been, and ever shall be, for religious liberty, I will not con-
found that cause with the cause of Papal encroachment.—
(Cheers.) I believe that the liberties of England and the
liberties of Europe will be best promoted by its resistance.—
( General cheers. )
The debate was then adjourned until this day (Friday).
The Consolidated Fund (8,C00,000/.) Bill was read a
second time; and
The House adjourned at One o'clock.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS.

(From the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Commons.
THURSDAY, MARCH 20.
NOTICE OF MOTION.

Mr. Brotherton,—Returns of the aggregate number of
Stamps issued for Newspapers in the year 1850, in England
and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, respectively ; distinguish-
ing the number at one penny and at one halfpenny :
Showing the number of London Newspapers, the number
of Advertisements in them, the rate and amount of Adver-
tisement Duty paid by them in the year 1850:
And, similar Return as regards the English Provincial,
the Scotch, and the Irish Newspapers (in continuation of
Parliamentary Paper No. 203, of session 1850)—Friday,
March 21.