The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-11 00:00:00

field that all was calm until the letter 'of the Noble
; Lord at the head of the Government appeared. The
Honourable Member seemed to have . forgotten.. the
intervening letters of the Pope. He (Mr. Wood)
could not agree with the Hon. Member for Bucking-
hamshire either, that the measure was " paltry, mean, and
useless." The Honourable Member had a measure of his
own to meet the evil, it was true ; but the people of England
would not be satisfied with the Hon. Member's denial of
merit to the measure of the Government until they had
means of comparing it with his own measure. He (Mr.
Wood) had not seen the Bill ; but if it was framed in
the shape of a solemn protest against the encroachment on
the part of the Pope, he was satisfied it would meet the emer-
gency.
Mr. M'CULLAGH confessed, that havinc, listened to the
speech of his Hon. Friend, who had just' addressed the
House (Mr. Page Wood), he was unable to detect in the
greater portion of that speech any logical argument in favour
of the reading of the Noble Lord's Bill. The first part of
that speech would have been very fitting if a bill of indict-
ment had been issued against Cardinal NViseman. Such a
prosecution, however, could not but lie considered as a dis-
grace to the time, and it was therefore too bad for Hon. and
Learned Gentlemen to come there and talk as they had done
about offences committed by C irdinal Wiseman. —Meal%
hear.) It was to be borne in mind that the practice and
courtesy of the House ordinarily ,yielded permission to the
Ministers of the Crown when they asked for leave to bring
in a Bill—( Hear. hear)—but on the present occasion that
had not been done, and he had no doubt that men who
had never done so before would in this instance vote
against the Bill being brought in.—(Hear, hear.) One
objection to the motion was this, would they be
justified as Members of Parliament. and responsible to
the nation, in setting open the floodgates of bigotry?
It had been said that the statutes of Elizabeth had not been
repealed by Lord Lyndhurst's Act, and it was also said that
that period furnished a precedent which they should follow.
But let them consider what the Ministers of Elizabeth had.
to deal with. Elizabeth came to the throne when her rights
to the throne were qUestioned, and she was called upon to
yield obedience to the canon law of Rome. Her rival Mary
was on the throne of Scotland, and more than half of her
subjects were inclined to side with the Scottish Queen. The
Princes of the house of Stuart were, besides objects of great
suspicion, and the people of England felt that they could not
be trusted. In the reign of William and Anne, too, there
was a pretender, who was acknowledged by the Ccurt of
France, and who was at that time a formidable rival.—
(Hear, hear.) But where was there a Pretender now,
and where was there a pretence for saying that the
Queen's rights were questioned, or that the law of the
land could be jeopardised by the late proceeding?—(Hear,
hear.) That Noble Lord had attacked the appointment of
Dr. Cullen, and bad insinuated to the House that Dr. Cullen
was appointed primate for other than religious purposes to
preside over the hierarchy of Ireland. Now he (Mr. M'Cul-
lagh) believed that Dr. Cullen, by the position he held at
Rome, and by his education and intercourse, was peculiarly
well informed of the state of. Ireland, and was, therefore, fitly
chosen to the eminent office to which he had been appointed.
The Noble Lord had alluded in a very significant tone to the
address issued by the synod of clergy to the people of Ire-
land. The Noble Lord told the House, and endeavoured to
leave the impression, that the object of the synod's address
was to deal altogether with the question of landlord and te-
nant and the Queen's Colleges. With respect to the Queen's
Colleges, he would only say that if the Roman Catholic
bishops were not warranted in dealing with the question of
education, considering their position and the number of the
population under their charge, he could not conceive with
what public question they were to deal.—( Hear.) As to the
question of landlords and tenants, would the House believe
him when he told it, that out of the 26 pages of which the
synod's address consisted, there were only 16 lines which
referred in any way whatever to that question, and even in
those 16 lines there was no direct allusion to the landlords.

As to the Bill proposed by the Noble Lord, he must say the
exposition of its nature and scope given by the Hon. Gentle-
man the Attorney-General was far from being calculated to
allay the fears of those who were previously opposed to it.
It bad been declared again and again that the religious
liberty of the laity was not interfered with by this measure,
but that full religious toleration was to be secured to them.
His answer was, that he hated the word " toleration" ; it was
at best but a cover for real intolerance, for paltry tempori-
sing, and mean persecution. Equal justice for all, equally
dispensed to all, was the only permanent basis on which the
legislation ought to rest. He believed that every step they
might take in that retrograde legislation, which the Noble
Lord called upon them to sanction, they would be compelled
to retrace ere long. But it might not be until much mischief
had been done, and he hoped the House would pause at the
commencement.—( Hear, hear.)
Sir G. GREY said, it was impossible not to feel the evils
of a protracted discussion, on a question involving the minute
details of a Bill, which, though prepared and ready to lay
before the House, was not yet in its possession.—(Hear,
hear.) But still be did not lament the length of the debate
because he thought it had cleared the ground of many pro-
positions, which it was desirable to deal with at the outset ;
and had, on the other hand established many propositions
and concurrent demonstrations which must tend to increase
the strength of the argument which must follow in other
stages of the measure.—(Hear.) He thought it had been
demonstrated that we were acting solely on the defensive—.
(Loud cheers)—that every step that had been taken
had been caused by the issue of that document, which stirred
the country from one end to the other—(Hear, hear)—and
which had caused them to call upon Parliament to take
steps which had been provoked entirely by those who
complained of their now being compelled to take them.—
( Hear, hear.) The Honourable Member for Dublin, followed
by the Honourable Member who had just sat down, had ac-
cused them of bigotry. The Honourable Member for
Dublin drew a delightful picture of the religious accord
which previous to this occurrence bad existed between
people of all persuasions, and then he turned round to the
Government, and complained that it bad destroyed that
peace and harmony—that it had renewed bigotry and in.
tolerance. Why, if there was one point that had been
more clearly established than another, it was the fact, that
that act which the Government and the nation complained
of was an illegal act.—(Hear, hear, and "No.") It had been
demonstrated to be illegal, to be opposed not only to the
universal law of civilized nations, but also to the statute
law of this realm.—(Hear, hear.) That fact had been
clearly demonstrated by his lion. Friend the Member for
Oxford, by reference to these statutes themselves ; and the
Hon. Member who spoke last had contradicted that Honi
Gentleman, not by quoting any counter-law, but by mere
assertion.—(Hear.) The Hon. Member had alluded to the
changes in the law produced by the Bill introduced by Lord
Lyndhurst in the House of Lords for the repeal of the penal
statutes. But the Hon. Member had omitted altogether to

notice that Lord Lyndhurst, who introduced the bill, and
who, after a change of Ministry, was solicited by the present
Government to retain the charge of it, after they came into
office, introduced into the Bill the clause complained of by
some lion. Members, namely, that nothing contained in that
Bill should render lawful the bringing in of any foreign bulls
or writings—a clause which, in fact, re-enacted, in almost
identical terms, the statute of Elizabeth.—(Hear, hear.)
The Honourable Member said, if it Wll3 illegal, it was the
duty of the Government not to permit the illegality.— '
(Hear.) He told the Honourable Member that there were
many cases in which the Government, for various reasons,
did not think it their duty to enforce the provisions of sta-
tutes, and that the question had been maturely weighed
whether they should not institute a prosecution against Car-
dinal Wiseman under the existing law. That had been ne-
gatived, and he was fully prepared to justify the conduct of
the Government in that respect. Another point which had
been demonstrated was, that the act of which they com-
plained was not one which was exclusively required for or
intended for the spiritual welfare of the Etoman Catholic
community, but an act by which a claim was made to ex-
ercise temporal and spiritual sway over the whole of
England. If that was disputed, it was only necessary to
turn to the document in which the aggression was an-
nounced and to the rescript that followed it. That
document disregarded altogether the authority of the
Queen over England, it disregarded entirely not merely
the existence of the Church of England, but of every
other church, and claimed that all should be governed
and dictated to by the Pipe of Rome.—(Hear.)
It contained assumptions which were not only incompatible
with the authority of the Sovereign, but rights and privileges
which were at present enjoyed by the members of the Church
of Rome, by the members of the Church of England, and by
members of all Dissenting denominations.—(Hear, hear.)
This had been, he thought, satisfactorily established in the
course of this debate, and it only remained to show that
this Bill would meet the case.—( Hear, hear.) On that point
he would say a few words immediately; but first he would
advert to some reflections that had been cast on his Noble
Friend the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The charges pre-
ferred against the Government during this debate, and
which he was prepared to answer and explain, were three:
First, that they had given encouragement to the Ro-
man Catholic religion and Roman Catholic bishops, by
giving them titles to which they were not entitled by law,
but which were merely titles of courtesy and honour ;
second, that the Roman Catholic bishops had been given
honours and precedence which was prohibited by law ; and,
third, that the lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, immediately on
his arrival in that country, had called them to his counsel
and assistance. With respect to titles of courtesy and
honour, considering the peculiar position these prelates oc-
cupied, as the spiritual heads of the Church to which the
great bulk of the people of Ireland belonged, he confessed
that he acquiesced in the taste and courtesy which treated
them with respect, and gave theca the honorary titles of your
grace and my lord.—(Hear, hear.) Nor could he coincide
with the attacks that had been made on Lord Clarendon for
treating them with that respect. But what was the fact?
The charge had been made first by the lien. Member for
Bucks, and though implied in his speech, it was not so dis-
tinct as in his letter to the Lord-Lieutenant of Buckingham-
shire. The Hon. Member had commented severely on the
letter of his Noble Friend, and in his speech the other night
bad characterised it as a great blunder. He must say
that a greater blunder than the letter of the Hon. Gentle-
man to the Lord-Lieutenant of Bucks he never saw. It was
a collection of blunders, and he thought the Hon. Gentle-
man, considering his own blunders, should be less captious in
his criticism on the epistolary correspondence of others.—
( Laughter.) The Hon. Gentleman said that his Noble
Friend (Lord Clarendon) had called upon the Catholic pre-
lates to take precedence at his court, and to give him their
counsel. That was the charge which he had distinctly and
publicly to deny.—(Cheers.) It was true that his Noble
Friend, on his arrival, when Ireland was in a state of ex-
treme danger, did receive a . deputation, consisting
of, he believed, five Roman Catholic prelates, who
presented to him, from those parts of the country with
which they were connected, a lamentable description
of its condition, and offered their suggestions as to the
measures by which it might be relieved. His Noble Friend
had received that deputation, and listened to them
with that respect and attention, which • their position
and their knowledge entitled them to—(Hear, hear)—and
had answered that, he would at all times be happy to listen
to any suggestions they had to make, or to receive any in-
formation they might possess, as to the condition of the
people. The Hon. Gentleman had also made charges against
the Government of having given precedence to the Roman
Catholic prelates on occasion of her Alajesty's visit to Ire-
land. Some Catholic prelates, it was quite true, were pre-
sented on that occasion to her Majesty, they having to pre.
sent addresses ; but they did 'did not get any undue prece-
deuce 9n the occasion, and were received in common with the
corporation and inhabitants of Dublin, in the same manner
in which they were received on the occasion of the visit to
Ireland of George the Fourth. All were received with the
same honour, including the Presbyterians and the SoCiety of
Friends, which were the only two bodies that were re-
ceived after the Roman Catholic prelates. With regard to
any error which had taken place, the Honourable Gentleman
(Mr. Disraeli) had said that he (Sir George Grey) was re-
sponsible ; but as he was not, lie felt that it was duc
also to those, who were not present is this House, to
say something in defence of them. The party who was
responsible was the Lord Chamberlain, who was a member
of the Free Church of Scotland, and who was not very
likely to give honours and titles unnecessarily. An officer
of his had written a letter of explanation on the subject,
which he (Sir George Grey) thought was, quite satisfactory,
with respect to the' mention of the titles Roman Catholic
Primate of Ireland, and Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Dublin, as applying to Dr. Crolley, and Archbishop Murray.
The Roman Catholic Prelates were habitually admitted