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

JEWISH DISABILITIES BILL.

Sir R. PEEL said he had been requested to prevent a peti-
tion in favour of a Bill, the second reading of which he was
about to move. 'I he petition was signed by Sir Moses
Montefiore, by two of the Mcssrs. Rothschilds, Mr. 1). 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.—( Herr, 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 Corns
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 decis
sion 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 for 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 Bill. In
South am ~ton there was, he believed, a case 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 ffiee 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
Montefiore—.had filled those situations. He had also known,
in the case 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 tl e 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 tl e return to the Queen, and her Majesty generally ra-
tified tl:e appointment cf 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 1835, 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