The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-23 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAV

ing law was sufficient. If so, what necessity was there
/fir any new laws?—(Hear, hear.) The Noble and
Learned Lord also said the 24th clause of the Ca-
tholic Relief Act had been systematically set at defi
ance, and that each successive Attorney-General had
slept at his post. He approved therefore of the introduc-
tian of this measure for the purpose of awaking him. But
the Noble and Learned Lord forgot that he himself had been
in power, and had not enforced the law.—(rear, hear.) if
the Attorney-General of the day attempted to enforce the
law in Ireland, he would not only fail to do that, but pro-
duce the most direful effects in that country.—(Hear, hear.)
The Government seemed to have forgotten that if it was their
intention to avenge an insult, they had taken the most
feeble and unreasonable course of doing so. He did not say
that they should enter into a war with a puny power, but
they should have remembered that in endeavouring to punish
that power for any aggression committed by it, it was not a
foreign power they were inflicting this wound upon, but their
own fellow-subjects.—( Hear, hear.) It was not the Roman
Government they assailed, but the members of the Roman
Catholic Church in this country.—(Hear, hear.) If this
law was put in fosce, the Roman Catholics of this country
could no longer exercise their religion here, they would be
obliged to pack up their goods and chattels, and find sonic
other land where they could worship God. Was it likely
they would do so? He thought not. On the contrary, he
believed they would set the law at nought, and laugh at it.
Under these circumstances he should give his cordial sup-
port to the amendment of the Noble Earl. _ _

The Duke of NEWCASTLE said he could not help ex-
pressing the very deep regret with which he heard the con-
cluding sentences of the speech of the Noble and Learned
Lord. He stated that the Roman Catholic Church was
never satisfied with toleration, but always aimed at domina-
tion.—(Hear, hear.) If such were the reasons which in-
duced the Noble Lord to act as he did now, they ought to
have influenced him before. For that had always been true
of the Roman Catholic Church, and instead of taking away
disabilities we should have retained all the disabilities which
had ever been imposed for the purpose of repressing that
Church. He would not pretend to dispute the legal point
raised by his Noble and Learned Friend. He believed no one
in that House was competent to do so. He, at all events,
was not ; but, taking the law as it was laid down by lawyers
of eminence in the other House of Parliament, the present
Bill, so far from meeting the object intended, would make
confusion worse confounded. Supposing the Pope withdrew
the hierarchy he had recently created, and reappointed the
vicars apostolic, or proposed to enter into an arrangement
with the Government. Would that be done? He believed
not. It never had been the practice in this country to give
or to seek the consent of the Crown in the appointment of
Roman Catholic ecclesiastics. His Noble and Learned
Friend had complained of the remissness of Attorney-Gene-
rals with respect to the 24th clause of the Relief Act. He
must say that it was strange his Noble and Learned Friend
had not stated his complaint sooner.—(Hear.) The whole
course of his own career, when in office, and of all successive
Governments, had been such as to impress the people of
Ireland with the belief that that clause was intended to be a
dead letter, and but for the speech of his Noble and Learned
Friend that night he should have treated it as one of those
obsolete laws which his Noble and Learned had repealed.
If this measure was intended to give any security to the
Established Church, he should say, as a member of that
Church, he should oppose it on that specific ground, for the
day had gone by when it was for the interest of that Church
that its maintenance or security should be based on the in-
jury or exclusion of any other class whatever.—(Hear.) It
was said, however, that this was an aggression on the
Queen's supremacy. He did not concur in that opinion.
The rescript of the Pope in reality asserted only a canonical
power, not a temporal authority. As to the argument that
it interfered with the prerogative of the Queen as the foun-
tain of honour—and a Noble Lord who spoke last night
rested his whole case on the fact, that it was an interference
with the:prerogative of the Sovereign—he would not attempt
to justify the manner in which this aggression had been
made.—(Hear, hear.) There had, to say the least of it,
been a want of common civility.—(Hear, hear.) But there
was a differencein the character and nature of titles. Titles
of honour and distinction, such as those borne by their Lord •
ships, could only be conferred by the Sovereign; but the
titles of the Roman Catholic prelates were derived from their
offices. They were not appointed to their dioceses by the
Queen; they were not recognised by the law, and there-
fore he could not see how such titles could, in
the slightest degree, be considered an invasion of
the prerogative of the sovereign ; and even the
clause which recognised the spiritual character of these
titles was enough, in his opinion, to stultify the whole Bill.
He did not consider that this measure affected Roman
Catholics alone. He knew the risk he ran in hazarding that
opinion on a matter of law in the face of the House, and in
the presence of Noble Lards so competent to deal with it,
but he appealed to his Noble Friend on the woolsack whe-
ther, by modifying and giving effect to the statute of
Richard 11., which this measure did, would not merely
enable the immediate purpose which it was enacted to be
effected, but also purposes which it never was intended to
effeet. If such were the case then, he thought the Dis-
senters of this country, including that mast respectable
body of Wesleyans, who had approached them with so many
petitions, might tremble at the future effect of these pro-
visions. He thought that in these days, as in days gone by,
the Puritans might tremble at the consequences of some
fresh persecution which might arise from the reeuscitation
of those laws. So far from it being an extension of the Act of
1829, it was a measure revivifying old statutes which had be-
come obsolete, not merely to the prejudice of the Roman Catho-
lics, but of every other class of dissenters from the Established
Church of this kingdom. Now to return to the observation
of the Noble Marquis with regard to dealing with a foreign
power. Suppose they were dealing with a foreign power—
which he maintained they were not—in what capacity had
the Pope of Rome sent the rescript of which you complain,
and in which complaint he joined them, so far as its tone
was to be taken into consideration ? Although a foreign
power, in one sense, the Pope had not sent that rescript here
in his capacity as Sovereign of the Roman States, but as the
head of the Roman Catholic Church all over the world.—
( Hear, hear.) He would not touch upon what his Noble
Friend had said respecting a concordat, although it seemed
to him an obvious remedy for the evils complained of;
whether it was an expedient measure he would not discuss.
But when they spoke of the concordats established
with other countries, he asked whether more was
assumed in them than the power to consent to
certain arrangements ? ( Hear, hear.) He believed
that in no country had there been exercised a
power of prohibition such as was to be enforced
by the measure before them. But, in reality, the
objection to this act of the Pope, as that of a foreign
power, struck at the root of all toleration. The Roman
Catholic clergy received their ability to perform their
functions from none but the Pope, and if they cut off from
them the source of their authority, they deprive them
of all power of performing their functions. Even the
priests indirectly, and their superiors directly, received their
authority from Rome, and the whole fabric must fall to
pieces if they raised that objection and acted upon it. But
they said this was not a spiritual, but a temporal act. If
that were so, then, he said, the measure under their con-
sideration was far too weak. The Noble Marquis and the
Noble Lord opposite both advanced, as one ground for this
measure, that there were many Roman Catholics in this
country who claimed the protection of the Legislature
against the proceedings of their own clergy. Now he must
say he thought they should have nothing to do with that.—
(Hear, hear.) There would be an end of all religious free-
dom if Parliament were thus to be called on to interfere in
the religious concerns of any sect. The Roman Catholics
submitted voluntarily to the influence exercised over them
by their clergy, and they were not compelled to submit to it
longer than they chose. The Noble Marquis said he was
satisfied that the functions of the Roman Catholic religion
had been always satisfactorily performed by the vicars
apostolic. It might be so or not, but he questioned the
right of the Noble Marquis, or of that House, to set them-
selves up as judges on that point. He would only say, that
that opinion was at variance with the opinion entertained by
other parties. He admitted that he saw with regret the
spread of Roman Catholic principles. But he asked them against
what party in the Church of Rome was this Bill directed?
Was it against what he might term the English party, or
against what he might term the Roman party? He thought
it would follow that the Bill was directed, not intentionally,
but practically, against the English party, who desired to be
independent of the Court of Rome. He next maintained
that he had a right to assume that, if the Pope had
asked the consent of Government to this appointment of
a hierarchy, that consent would have been given, at least,
sub silentio. In 1846, the Noble Lord now at the head )f
her Majesty's Government advocated the establishment
of the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland, and said
his policy with regard to that country would be, to place
the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church in the north
of Ireland, and the Roman Church, o n a footing of
perfect equality in every respect.—( Hear, hear.) Was that
no encouragement to the Pope ?—(Hear hear.) Had not
the Pope a right to assume that the Noble Lord who ex-
pressed such opinions, would not resent so much smaller a
measure as that he had adopted, and that he would not
have encouraged, so unwisely, those expressions of Pro-
testant feeling which that measure gave rise to.—(Hear,
hear.) The Noble Marquis would no doubt have alluded to
the appointment of the Bishop of Jerusalem in terms more
fitted to his purpose had he been able to do so. But ho
maintained it was impossible to appoint a bishop without
giving to him the name of the diocese over which he had
jurisdiction. The Noble Marquis could not contend that
the words of the preamble were intended merely to prohibit
titles, for they had a decidedly larger operation. He would
refer to the opinion of a lawyer of great eminence, and a
faithful member of the Church of England, that the invali-
dation of the appointment of the Roman Catholic archbishops
and bishops would invalidate also the rite of ordi-
nation, and the sacred one of marriage, and he
could not contemplate a more frightful social evil.
With regard to the parcelling out of the country into
districts, the cant phrase which the Noble Marquis had
adopted to describe the division of the country into die•
ceses, that parcelling out had taken place on several former
occasions without remonstrance from the Government and
without alarm br production of mischief on the part of those
who had been loudest in declaring their apprehension of
what might ensue from the recent act of the Pope. It was
divided in 1688 without remonstrance, and again in 1840 into
8 districts for vicars apostolic; and again, subsequently, into
13 districts, or rather dioceses. Tne Noble Marquis had com-
plained that the Pope had practically ignored the existence
of the Anglican Church; but, apart from what might appear
to be offensive in such a line of conduct, there was really no-
thing to complain of. He, for one, would not consent to give
a vote in favour of a measure which had been supported on
such grounds as he had heard advanced on behalf of it, and
which would have such an operation as he apprehended.
The Noble Marquis feared the increase of influence
which the Catholic priesthood were acquiring over the
Catholic laity ? He (the Duke of Newcastle) feared that
this Bill would only serve to increase that influence.
Complaint had been made of the number of religious houses
in this country, but it ought first to be shown that they
were not conducted in accordance with the law or the dic-
tates of morality. He believed they strictly were so. And
with regard to their denunciation of the Synod of Thurles,
or of Dr. Cullen, he believed that the colleges of Ireland
were not in the slightest danger from either of those quar-
ters, but rather the spirit which was being engendered by
the course of legislation they were now engaged in.—
( Hear, bear.) The Irish colleges were, perhaps, the greatest
boon that had yet been conferred upon the Irish people, and
he confidently believed that the laity of Ireland, if not
thwarted by the irritating offensiveness of alßill of this kind,
would, of themselves, render them all that the Legislature
had ever desired.—(Hear, hear.) Assuming the correctness
of the law which had been laid down by his Learned Friend
(Lord Lyndhurst), and which he was not prepared to
dispute, that the Pope had committed a breach
of international law, he was of opinion that such
being the case the course they should have pursued
was not the bringing in of such a 13ill, but they should have
endeavoured to obtain redress by means of diplomatic inter.
course. He thought that at the meeting of Parliament if
they had, either by means of a protest, or by an address to
the Crown, stated their disapprobation of the act of the Pope,
and of their attachment to the Protestant Church, he believed
that by so doing they would have obtained all that was re-
quired, and all that the necessity of the case demanded. Say
what they would, the passing of this Act was making a step
backwards, and was letting in, the small end of the wedge
for the undoing ogmuch of that which Parliament had al-

r ready done. He felt bound to enter his protest against the
' Bill, and against the raising up of so futile a barrier,
which, on both sides of the water, and especially
in Ireland, would be productive of most injurious conse-
quences.—( Hear, hear.)
The Marquis of CLANRICARDE complimented the
Noble Duke on the able and temperate speech which he
had just addressed to their Lordships. The Noble Duke
and the Noble Earl who led the opposition to this Bill
( the Earl of Aberdeen) had contended that this Act of the
Pope might have been amply and sufficiently met by
a Parliamentary protest. But the Noble Earl and the Noble
Duke must have a very strange notion of the Church of
Rome if they thought that a mere Parliamentary protest
would have been sufficient to deter the Pope from proceed-
ing in such encroachments.—(Hear, hear.) The Noble
Earl and the Noble Duke had said that the Government by
its conduct, had given encouragement to the Pope to take the
course complained of. What the Government had done was
to treat the Roman Catholics with every possible liberality,
and to resist nothing that was not a direct attack upon their
own Established Church, and on their own privileges. Their
Lordships knew that attempts had been made all over the
continent of Europe to increase the power and authority of
the Church of Rome. Let them look to the Spanish Penin-
sula—( Hear)—and if they wanted to know what the Pope
was aiming at, let them read the treaty that had been en-
tered into between the Court of Naples and the Court of
Rome and the Court of Spain.—(Hear, hear.) It was said
that the action of the Court of Rome was altogether spi-
ritual, and yet what did the Pope do in Ireland ? He set
aside the parties who were recommended for primate, and
appointed an individual of his own choice, and they saw
the result had been that attacks were made upon institutions
which had previously met with the support of the people.
The question for the Government, looking at all the circum-
stances, was whether they would accept the Bill as amended
by the Committee, injuriously altered as it was in his
opinion, in some respects, or throw it out altogether.
Rather than adopt the latter alternative, he was prepared to
take the Bill as it was. The Noble Earl (Wicklow), who
had spoken so strongly against the Bill as one which would
prevent the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion in Ire-
land, had made a statement which could not be borne out by
the fact. This Bill would not have that effect, for it was es-
sentially the same as the Act of 1829, and the Roman Ca-
tholics accepted that Act as a boon.— ( Hear, hear.) The
Noble Duke had said that Archbishop Murray bad been re-
cognised by the Government as Archbishop of Dublin. He
distinctly denied that this was the case. The rescript up.
pointing him Archbishop of Dublin had never been acknow-
ledged by the Government. It was a fact that the Pope and
the Roman Catholic Church had, in 1797, proposed to give
the Government a veto on the appointment of vicars aposto-
lic, and that even so late as 1810, Mr. Ponsonby read
in the House of Commons an authoritative statement
from Dr. Milner on the part of the Roman Catholics,
in reply to a statement of Mr. Ponsonby's. In that letter
it was distinctly stated that the Roman Catholic prelates of
this country were prepared to give the Government a direct
negative in the appointment of bishops to the ancient sees of
Ireland—namely, that they,would not nominate parties until
the Government was satisfied that they were, as the Pope
himself had phrased it, good and loyal subjects. He did not
mean for one moment to impugn the loyalty and good faith
of the Roman Catholics in this country. Nothing of the
kind. And it was well known to those who had intercourse
with the Roman Catholics of this country that they neither
were parties to the aggression or approved of the conduct
of the Pope.—( Hear.) He believed that the toleration and
the conciliation which we had shown towards the Roman
Catholics should have led to a very different result ; and,
further, that the requirements of their religion needed not
the establishment of this new hierarchy. The Noble Duke said
he did not justify the manner of its appointment, but the
matter was not so aggressive as it bad been called. Now, in
such a case as this, the manner was everyaing ; it was the
essence of the whole question, and therefore it was that the
Government had felt themselves bound to repel and
resist the aggression.—(Hear, hear.) The Noble Earl last
night, who roved the rejection of the Bil, had compared
the present times with those of the Popish plot. Why was
there any delusion about the circumstances in which they
were placed? Was it not a fact that a now hierarchy had
been created by the Pope, in a manner which all admitted
to be insulting?—(Hear, hear.) That 'has a reality, the
feelings it had excited were also a mane,. Under these
circumstances, he called upon their Lordslips to adopt the
measure, the necessity for which must 10 regretted, but
could not be denied.
Lord MONTEAGLE confessed he had net heard any in-
formation respecting the present Act which was at all satis-
factory to his mind. He thought this was a very extraor-
dinary course with respect to a Bill which all would admit
was a penal Bill, and which ought to be Poked at with ad-
ditional jealousy, when they remembered that it was a penal
Bill based upon religious distinctions. He asked any member
of the Government, he asked any of the I'oble Lords who
had supported it, or who intended to support it, to tell
them what would be its practical effete He would
ask his Noble and Learned Friend on the woolsack, what
would be the practical operation of this Bil on the ancient
Roman Catholic sees in Ireland, as well as its practical
operation upon the intruders into the pretended new sees in
England ?—(Hear, hear.) He did not deny the manner of
the act was offensive; but he said, by the Bill we did not
attack the Pope, but other people. It wts, in fact, the
greatest collection of Irish blunders ever seer, with the added
injustice of inflicting penalties upon innocent parties for the
acts of others. It was, therefore, a combination of blunders
and injustice such as, perhaps, was never befire known. He
admitted that the introduction of a new hierarchy, and the
formation of new sees by a foreign power, was indefensible by
the law of nations ; he quite agreed with the Noble Lord, in
saying that the act itself could not be justifies.—(Hear.) He
would admit that this was a case whick demanded the
attention of Parliament, but it did not follow that he was
bound to accept the measure that was new before them.
It might as well be said, that standing in seed of medical
treatment we should submit to the first medicine that the
most arrant quack might offer to him. sow, this measure,
he conceived not to stand on much better ground than that
of mere quackery. It was a Bill that would be a dead
letter in its operation ; and of all stets to take in these
religious matters, the most imprudent was those is which
unnecessary irritation was produced. If they were obliged
to irritate, let them irritate for a lawful ptrpose ; but a mea-
sure that irritated for mischief, without iritating for a useful
purpose, was decidedly bad. It was a mater of notoriety, not
only to Ministers, but to every Memberof either House of
Parliament, that these Catholic orders wee extending in the
country, and not any of the Cabinets thathad been in power
since 1829 bad ever dreamt of taking a sngle step for their
suppression. But in this year, 1851, there was a gigantic
reversion of the old French maxim, On roient toujours a sea
premiers amours: for now men were returnng to their old ani-
mosities. The clause in the Emancipation Act against titles
had a very curious origin, because it was rounded upon the
objections against the Bill which were eetracted from, the
petitions presentekby its opponents. He would affirm, that
if they kept an Act of Parliament hangin; over the heads
of members of the Catholic Church of such a subject,
they were not only doing a great injustice but they were
virtually repealing the Catholic Relief Bile--(Hear, hear.)
If it were the intention that this law when eased should not
be acted upon, he would say that it was I most miserable
juggle to attempt in such a manner to saisfy the people—
Hear, hear)--and they were giving to the
?ope and to Car-
dinal Wiseman the greatest possible triunPh. He wished
now to call the attention of the Noble and
,earned Lord on
the woolsack to the practice which prevailet in the courts of
law in Ireland on the subject of these tiths•—(Hear.) In
1847 a case occurred in which Dr. WHale vas a party, and
the Doctor was described in the proceedines as Archbishop
of Tuam, and the description was recognised by one of the
most Protestant judges in Ireland, the Mar of the Rolls.—
(Hear.) The same thing occurred with reference to Dr.
Cantwell, who was recognised as Bisho of hleath. He could
also state to the Honse that in a report wlich was brought
under the notice of Lord Chancellor Suglen'
the late Dr.
Crolly was described in that report as bein( Catholic Arch-
bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland—l Hear)—and the
report passed without any remarks on that joint by Sir Ed-
ward Sugden.—(Hear.) After some furteer observations
the Noble Lord said, if the Catholics o Ireland had to
struggle for freedom, he hoped they won'' not be left to
struggle alone.—(Hear, hear.) Ile calla on their Lord
ships for the sake of their own dignity,
dignity of the state, to pause before they give
the sake of the
give their consent
to such a Bill. But if they did not believethat the remedy
proposed by this Bill was a good one, or that it would not be
acted upon, they were bound to reject the miserable Bill
altogether. The Noble Lord concluded by stating his deter-
mination to vote against the Bill.
The LORD CHANCELLOR and the Bislele of OXFORD
rose at the same time, and there were lout cries for each of
them, but the Right Rev. Prelate gave way,and
The LORD CHANCELLOR said he understood from the
Noble Lord, that some other Bill, or some Ether course than
the present, would have been more effectve, and he had
waited with some anxiety to hear the Noble Lord describe
what, in his opinion, would have been a betel* Bill or a better
course, but he was disappointed. He malls could not un-
derstand the Noble Lord. The Governmeef presented the
Bill to the House ; they recommended their Lordships to
pass it, not because they approved of it mall respects, or
because they would not like a Bill in some respects different
from this, but still at the same time, looking all the cir•
cumstances, they were satisfied with it, and filling to accept
its' responsibility. Was there anything inconsistent in
that ?—(Hear, hear.) What then was the ground of the
imputations cast on the Government by the Ncble Lord? The
Government were prepared to take the ressonsibility of a
measure which they thought was demanded by the interests
of the country. They had been told much of the difficulty
which would arise in putting this Bill in force in Ireland, and
the difficulty which the religious question had always caused
in that country. Ho admitted it. It had been the over-
throw of many Governments, but it must be grappled with.
The Noble Lord did not agree with the Noble Earl in think-
ing this a trifling matter which might be passed over with
indifference. But what did he suggest instead of a Govern-
ment measure? He had condemned that in very strong
terms, and said the noble Lord who framed it seemed more
fond of his own puny offspring than the wise suggestions of
others. But let him recall to their attention the circumstances
Was the which preceded the framing of this Bill. What
feel-
ing manifested by the country when the question was first
raised? Was it not one of great excitement, and would that
excitement not have been still greater but for the conviction
that Parliament and the Government would deal with it. For
twenty years we had been earnest in our endeavours to relax
all the restrictions on our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects,
because we believed them to be loyal. From time to time
these relaxations were made, and there was at last a strong
impressionghat there was a disposition to favour of the Roman
Catholics at the expense of the institutions of the country.
The Noble Lord at the moment of that aggression issued a
strong letter in which he showed the people of England that
while he was devotedly attached to the great principle of re-
ligious liberty, he was at the same time as determined to
support the institutions and the independence of the count
That letter had the effect of producing public confidence, and
allaying all suspicion on the part of the people as to the in-
tentions of the Government. He believed that to its publica
tion they owed the moderate nature of the Bill itself, -be-
cause the people, though dissatisfied with the measure' as
not coming up to their expectations, were yet satisfieds
be-
cause they had confidence in his Noble Friend. —( Hear,
hear.) We had a long struggle in this country, which
though apparently a religious struggle, was in reality as
much a political one. The penal laws were adopted from
time to time, more on account of the political and temporal
tendencies of the Romish system, than its religious doctrines.
But after a time confidence in our:Roman Catholic fellow-
subjects began to be restored, and the penal disabilities
vanished and disappeared. From our own sense of justice,
more than any demand on their part, we made these rela-
tions and did them justice. What had occurred since? A
gradual end stealthy advance of the Romish Church. Was
it unnatural, then, the people of this country should look
with suspicion on the character and motives of the heads
of that Church—(Hear, hear)—not on the Roman Ca-
tholic laity in England.—(Hear, hear.) They were content
with equality with their fellow-subjects.— (Hear,
hear.)
But it was, the heads of that Church who were ever aiming
at power, and that not of a spiritual nature, but temporal
power and dominion. The rescript of the Pope constituting
the new hierarchy was but one of many steps in the same
direction, all of them tending to establish a foreign power in
this realm. The object evidently was also first to establish
the new hieararchy in England ; because if once established
there, the male powers would have hem claimed for Ireland