The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-07-16 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE QUEEN'S ANSWER TO THE PEERS.
(From the Morning Herald)
The answer which the Queen's ministers put in her
Majesty's mouth, in answer to the address of the House
of Lords on the government scheme of national edu-
cation, is worthy of the spirit in which that scheme
was conceived and propounded. It is a Jesuit scheme,
contrived with the view of undermining the religion of
the foremost people of the Reformation, and eminently
jesuitical and evasive is the answer which has been de-
livered from the throne to the assembled Peers of Eng-
land, deprecating a project so fraught with danger to
our Protestant faith and interests.
It is one of the lamentable consequences of the con-
tinuance in office of a ministry that neither know how
to rule or resign, that the naturally candid and ingenu-
ous disposition of our maiden Queen is imposed upon,
and her unsuspecting sincerity is made subservient to
the trickery and fraudulent policy of a set of advisers
who have resolved the noble science of government
into the lowest arts of deception. That the Queen
may soon be delivered out of such hands, and her na-
tive virtues saved from the contaminating influence of
such councils, is the earnest and ardent prayer of all
her Majesty's subjects who feel for the dignity of the
throne and the honour of the country.
Her Majesty has been instructed by her ministers to
say, " I am ever ready to receive the advice and assist-
ance of the House of Lords, and to give to their re-
commendations the attention which their authority
justly deserves ; at the same time I cannot help ex-
pressing my regret that you should have thought it ne-
cessary to take such a step on the present occasion."
This is a civil rebuke, but a rebuke it most certainly is.
That the Sovereign should acknowledge the authority
of the House of Lords, and in the same breath express
regret on account of the respectful and constitutional
exercise of that authority, in defence of the endangered
interests of religion, is to civilly repudiate the proffered
counsel of that august body, touching the highest in-
terests of the state.
It is true, ministers did not think it prudent or poli-
tic to advise that the House of Lords should meet with
the same treatment as that conferred on the corpora-
tion of London on a memorable occasion, and which
was described in the Common Council by the unpo-
lished, but very expressive, word, "snubbed." The
corporation of London avenged themselves of the mi-
nisters, through whom the " snubbing" came, by kick-
ing out, by a vast majority, the proposed sycophantic
address in support of the bed-chamber plot. The lords
can, if they please, take another step, which ministers
would have still more reason to regret than the ad-
dress against the jesuitical education scheme. They
can address the Sovereign for the dismissal of the
tricky and incapable advisers who surround the throne
only to betray the best interests of the country.
These tricky and incapable ministers, who, with a
majority of five on their bill for suspending the Jamaica
constitution, admitted that they had lost the confidence
of parliament and the country, dared to make a money
vote a cover for a most insidious attack upon the re-
formed protestant faith—dared to put aside altogether
on a question of such imperial importance as that of
national education the LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITY of
the House of Lords—dared to persist in their vile
scheme, though carried by only a majority of TWO in
the commons, and denounced by a majority of 111 in
the lords. Feeble and pusillanimous as they are, the
Melbourne ministers have dared all this, and now they
DARE advise their young and inexperienced Sovereign
to tell the assembled peers of England—the pillars of
her throne—to EXPRESS REGRET that they should
have thought it necessary to exercise their constitutional
authority in defence of the principles which placed the
sceptre of these realms in the hands of her Majesty's
family.
Ministers may profess as loudly as they please, in a
speech from the throne, their regard for the interests
of the established church Men who made it an avowed
merit of their policy some years ago, when their ma-
jorities were larger than at present, " to inflict a heavy
blow and great discouragement on protestantism," can
care nothing for the established church, which is the
great bulwark of the protestant faith in Europe.—
Their celebrated " appropriation clause" evinced a sin-
gular regard for the interests and stability of the na-
tional establishment ! Their selecting a person for the
lord lieutenancy of Ireland whose chief recommenda-
tion was his declaration of interminable warfare against
the persecuted protestant church of that country, showed
how deeply they are impressed with the " sacred obli-
gation" of mantaining the protestant religion as by
law established, and to whose protection the Queen
has pledged the solemn assurance of her CORONATION
OATH.

The education plot—hatched by Jesuits, and smug-
gled through one half the parliament under the cover
of a money grant—is another overt act of the attach-
ment of those dishonest and despised ministers to the
established religion of the country. No doubt the
people so understood it when they saluted them with
hootings and groanings yesterday, which must have
penetrated the recesses of the palace. Such are the
men who induce the Queen to say "It is with a deep
sense of that duty (which binds me to the support of
the established church) that I have thought it right to
appoint a committee of the privy council to superintend
the distribution of the grants voted by the House of
Commons for public education." In other words, the
ministers tell the country that their regard and reve-
rence for the established church has induced them to
transfer from themselves in the cabinet to themselves
in the privy council a power which they have most
unconstitutionally usurped—a power belonging only to
the WHOLE LEGISLATURE, which, according to the
part allotted it by those ministers, is only allowed to
register the decrees of a committee of the privy council.
Thus the protestant religion and the constitution are
attacked together. The committee of the privy council
will itself register the decrees of the Jesuit supporters
of the government—and England will no doubt have a
branch of the Romish college de propagandd fide very
near the throne.
What is parliament to be allowed to do? We have
it in the answer from the throne—" Of the proceedings
of the committee (of the privy council) annual reports
will be laid before parliament, and the House of Lords
will be enabled to exercise its judgment upon them."
So then the House of Lords will be allowed to exercise
their judgment upon the "educational grants," after
those grants have been made, and to exercise an empty
right of criticising the application of the public money
after the money has been distributed. This is surely a
gracious boon of her Majesty's ministers to both houses
of parliament.
Under this solemn mockery of the legislative power
of parliament the Douay Bible and the Rhemish Tes-
tament, with their corrupted texts and persecuting an-
notations, are to be made part and parcel of the public
education of a people to whom the reformed faith of
Christianity is dear for its own sake, and dear for the
blood of the martyrs who died to deliver England from
the sgrievous and degrading bondage of the papal su-
premacy. The distinctions between religious truth and
error—between pure religion and superstition—between
scriptural purity and corrupt human invention—are to
be obliterated that whiggism may still obtain the sup-
part of a faction that are now labouring indefatigably
to effect in England a COUNTER-REFORMATION.