The Sun.
London, England, 1845-07-18 00:00:00

New
J. A. SMITH suggested Monday for the motion on
ew Zealand.
Sir R. PEEL said he was willing to set aside Monday for
the discussion in question; as for the other six Gentlemen, he
would leave them to settle the order of their motions among
themselves.
The orders of the day were then gone into.
SMOKE PROHIBITION BILL.
The further consideration of the Smoke Prohibition Bill was
postponed till to-morrow.
DEATH BY ACCIDENT COMPENSATION BILL.
This Bill was read a second time.
CORONER'S (IRELAND) BILL.
Mr. Sergeant MURPHY hoped this Bill would not be
pressed on, as he believed there would be a great deal of opposi-
tion to it.
Sir JAMES GRAHAM said it would not come on until
after the other orders of the day.
After a few words, it was agreed upon to postpone the Bill
till Friday.
NEW ZEALAND.
Mr. J. ABEL SMITH wished to give notice for the
Honourable Member for Liskeard that he would, on Monday,
move the following resolution :—" That this House deplores
the prospect of affairs in New Zealand, and that that pros-
pect is much aggravated by the want of any evidence of
change in that policy which brought about the disastrous re-
sults that occurred there.
JEWISH DISABILITIES BILL.
Sir R. PEEL said he had been requested to present a peti-
tion in favour of a Bill, the second reading of which he was
about to move. The petition was signed by Sir Moses
Montefiore, by two of the Messrs. Rothschilds, Mr. D. Salo-
mons, and others • they did not address the House in their in-
dividual capacity;but as members of a committee from a depu-
tation of the British Jews on behalf of selves and convo-
cation. • They stated that they were gratified to find that a Bill
had been sent down from the House of Lords, admitting the
Jews to municipal offices, and praying that that Bill might be
passed into a law.—( Hear, hear.)
The petition was ordered to lie on the table.
NEW ZEALAND.
Mr. AGLIONBY— Sir, I wish to put a question to the
Hon. the Under Secretary for the Colonies, a plain, distinct,
question, which requires a plain answer. With reference to
the painful disasters that have recently occurred in New
Zealand, I want to ask the Hon. Gentleman whether that
disaster did not occur in the northern part of the island, 400
miles distant from the settlement of the New Zealand Com-
pany, and whether that portion of the island is not under the su-
pervision of the Church Company?
Mr. HOPE said, that with respect to the supervision of the
Church Missionary Society, the Bay of Islands was that on
which they had been originally settled, but it became the resort
of whalers and runaway convicts, and thus the Bay became the
worst portion of the whole island.
Mr. AGLIONBY said that the Hon. Gentleman had for-
gotten to answer one part of his question, that which
asked him if he was aware that the New Zealand Company
had no settlement in the Bay of Islands. But he cared not
whether the Hon. the Under Secretary answered the question
or not, for the fact was so.
THE JEWISH DISABILITIES BILL.
Mr. BARING presented a petition from Portsmouth in fa-
vour of the Jewish Disabilities Bill.
Sir R. PEEL said that he was about to call the attention of
the House to a Bill which had been sent to that House from the
other branch of the Legislature, and which had for its object
the removal of all the obstacles to the admission of Jews to
municipal corporations. The Bill had received the almost
unanimous support of their Lordships' House, and he trusted
that he would be enabled so to state the objects of the measure
to the House as to induce Honourable Members to give
it in an equal degree their support and concurrence. The
object of the Bill, as he had already stated, was to remove all
impediments of all kinds to the admission of Jews to offices of
trust or emolument connected with municipal corporations.
And first he would state to the House what the impediments
to the admission of Jews were. Those impediments existed
in consequence of the enactment passed in the year 1820, for
the purpose of repealing the former Acts, and substituting in
their room a declaration, to be made in lieu of the sacramental
test. With regard, then, to the qualification necessary to give
appointment to municipal offices, they were, as the law at
present stood, called on to make this declaration.
With regard to the declaration which had been substituted for
the sacramental tests, serious doubts were entertained as to the
construction which should be put upon it, and he believed that
it was held by the Court of Queen's Bench that it did not make
it compulsory on Jews to take the oaths of office. But on an
application to the judges of the Exchequer Chamber that deci •
,
son was reversed, and the declaration must be made previous
or subsequent to their admission to office. It rested therefore
with the coporate bodies whether this is made before or after
the election. He thought that in several places—in Ports-
mouth fur instance, there was a Jew who filled one of the prin-
cipal corporate offices without making the declaration. This,
however, was covered by the Annual Indemnity Bil. In
Southampton there was, he believed, a B
eale of
a similar kind. The object of the present Bill
was to introduce an uniform regulation with respect to
the admission of Jews to corporate and other offices. In re-
spect to the office of county magistrate, and deputy-lieutenant,
there was no practical difficulty in the case of a Jew filling
either of those offices. During the last three or four years
several individuals of that persuasion—Mr. Rossiter, Sir Moses
Mentefiore—had filled those situati )11.3. He had also known,
in the cave of the magistracy, that in the county of Devon
there were several persons of that religion filling the office of
magistrate, and the law saw no practical difficulty in the way
of appointment. In the case of the office of high sheriff, also,
a Jew was eligible by law. Nay, further, the Jew was com-
pelled to serve the office of sheriff.—( Hear.) The Jew was
unable to shield himself from performing the onerous and
frequently expensive office of sheriff. The Privy Council cer-
tified the return to the Queen, and her Majesty generally ra-
tified the appointment of the gentleman who stood first on the
list to the office of sheriff. Her Majesty's prerogative had
been exercised in favour of the Jew to the office of sheriff of
a county, and his attempt to excuse himself from the office had
been overruled. There existed no doubt that the Jew was
eligible to fulfil the office of sheriff for a county or a city
Mr. Salomons had been elected to perform the office of sheriff
for Middlesex. The doubt arose, whether or not the declara-
tion must not be taken either previously to or upon the accept-
ance of office. In the year 1335, Parliament altered the
law in that respect, and expressly exempted the office of
sheriff from the provisions of the Act of 1828, and permitted
him to exercise the office of sheriff without requiring him to
make the declaration previously to taking office. Mr. Salo-
roun's did perform the office of sheriff of Middlsex, and in so
creditable a manner, that he had earned the respect and esteem
of his fellow citizens. He was subsequently elected to the
office of alderman, at the choice of the citizens of London.
Then this impediment of taking the declaration out of the
statute took effect, and refusing to take the declaration, Mr.
Salomons coald not act in the office of alderman. That
fact, alone, was almost sufficient to justify the Bill before the
House. He would refer to the history of that declaration. In
the year 1828, the Noble Lord brought in a Bill for the repeal
of the Test and Corporation Act. He had failed in carrying
that measure, and he (Sir Robert Peel) lent his co-
operation towards carrying the Bill. He suggested
that the form of declaration should be altered.
The form introduced by the Noble Lord was different from the
one he had proposed, and required that every person elected to
any office in a municipal corporation was required to make the
declaration within a calendar month next before his admission
to the office. The form was as follows :—" I, A B, do
solemnly declare I will never exercise any power which I may
have by virtue of the office I hold, to alter or weaken the
Protestant Catholic religion within this realm, or to endanger
it in any way." The Noble Lord saw no difficulty whatever in
the way of religious grounds, and consented to the introduction
of this declaration. That declaration contained nothing which
could throw the slightest difficulty in the way of the Jew filling
a corporate office. but the House of Lords inserted words into
the declaration, which constituted an impediment. In lieu of
the simple declaration, the House of Lords altered it to the fol-
lowing words:—" I, A B, do solemnly, sincerely, in the pre-
sence of God, protest, testify and declare, upon the true faith
of a Christian," &c., and it was these words which constituted
the impediment to the Jew accepting a corporate office.
But the House of Lords, by the present Bill, had
voluntarily removed that impediment, and he therefore
thought, under the circumstances, that House could not well
refuse to pass the measure. The Moravians, Separatists, and
Quakers had declined to take offices of honour and emolument
from conscientious objections to take the prescribed oaths.
He proposed to give to the Jews the same immunities, and to
admit them to the benefits of the Municipal Bill. He
hoped he had said enough to convince the House of the justice
and expediency of the Bill.--(Hear, hear.) The Court of
Queen's Bench had decided that it was not necessary to take
the declaration first, and in Birmingham, Stockport, and Ports-
mouth that decision was acted upon, and Jews were admitted
to municipal offices.---(Hear, hear.) They were at present
entitled to act as county magistrates, and as sheriffs of counties
and cities, and he believed that if a Jew were to refuse to act
as sheriff he would be subject to a heavy penalty.—(Hear,
hear.) He thought the House would not object to rant this
privilege to so great and respectable a body of their fellow-
subjects.—( Hear, hear.)—He would refer to the names
of Gotdsmid, galomons, and Montefiore.—(Hear, hear.)
He had been assured by the most eminent gentlemen in the
body, that they were satisfied with the Bill, although they did
not think it debarred them from prosecuting their claims to
other privileges. The Right Hon. Baronet
,concluded by
urging the House to pass the Bill.
Sir R. H. INGLIS said the speech which the Right Hon.
Baronet had delivered was not more inconclusive than the gene-
rality of the speeches delivered by him. He was anxious to
pay a just tribute of respect to the Noble Lord the Member for
the city of London, and his Right Hon. Friend the Member
for the city of Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay) for the part they
had taken on the subject. They worthily ranked with him
(Sir R. Peel) in any competition of talent in that House.
The measure was first introduced by his late lamented friend,
Sir Robert Grant—(Hear, hear)—but was subsequently
taken in hand by the Government. The Right Hon. Baronet
had made a great historical and legal error with re-
spect to the disabilities under which he said the Jews
laboured. An Act for their • relief was passed in
1828. Until that Act was passed, no one professing the
Jewish religion was admitted to any municipal office whatever,
in any city or borough of England, because no one of that
faith could be admitted to any public office, unless he took the
oath, which was only administered in extreme cases, but which
obliged him to recognise some Christian symbol. He, there-
fore, held that the disabilities under which it was said they
laboured were not created by that Act. The law with respect
to Jews was not in an uncertain state, as the Right Hon. Ba-
ronet had said, as it had been clearly decided by the Court of
Queen's Bench, which must be received as the law, until the
judgment was reversed by the House of Lords. He called upon
the Attorney-Generalto explain to the House in what way the
law was uncertain. Sir R. Grant's Bill was for the purpose of
relieving British-born subjects professing the Jewish religion,
whilst the Bill before the House was not limited to Sir Moses
Montefiore or Mr. Salomons, but to every one of that faith.
The Bill, as it now stood, was for the naturalisation of a whole
nation, for it contained nothing which would prevent a German
Jew from entering the city of London, and holding any muni-
cipal office which he might be appointed to. Believing, then,
as he did, that, by the common law, to say nothing of the
statute law, no J w could take a municipal Office in this city,
because he could not subscribe the oaths required of him, and
believing that the declaratisn of the House of Lords, to which
he had already referred, was wise and requisite. he did net
pee anything in the present condition of the Jews which re-
quired this special exception in their favour. The Jews did
not describe themselves as a sect or a creed, but as a nation ;
and as a nation they were to be selected for these exemptions,ctt.
which were denied to every other nation. The
which had been presented in favour of the Bill were ,rnel rimnbys
e
few, and the House must remember that in the early part of
the session petitions were signed by a much larger number,
distinctly stating that the Jews would not.be satified with the
presr.nt measure. A question of " right," however, whether
.rued by many or few lie would not resist. It was beaus"
this was a measure of " favour" and not of right that he op-
pm.(el it. A celebrated writer, Dr. Arnold, had stated that
the Jesse were voluntary strangers in this country, and had no
more right to interfere in the management of, or to seek citie
eenship in it, than a lodger had to interfere in the management
of his landlord's house. This was a Christianthisforo handful'
of men, that he should admit that Christianity did t form an
esaenttakenOotegral part of the administration and government
AMA Malt-I,i It was no reason that some of them had hitherto
to violate the law with impunity, that they
larlitilfras(-Aercer exempted from it. In France, Jews were
1
ad:n*l4'v i `never admitted—though a Jew might be a
ogle j
ril* ,' r a judge, there was no instant:o of one ever
)r.
_ai....
j