The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-09-21 00:00:00

country, to_ Rome,

result, to Romanism

One of the most in

forms of the protest which the nation has main-

nstthe Papa(

a protest hedged ro
of a prcemunire lev

e pains and penalties
ist those who should
—is about to be

even propose to to

withdrawn b

stablishment of diplomatic rela-
tions with the Roman Court; and a Whig official
—Lord ' ' ' -

pubt, with the nece

IT powers to effect that

It is some acknowledgment of the deeply-rooted
aversion to any traffic with Rome, which exists in
the Protestant mind of the British people, that the
projebt is set about with all the tortuosity, on the
part cf its authors and advocates, of a college of

esuits. His Holiness Pope Pius the Ninth, in the
exercise of the political functions of his double
office of a political and spiritual potentate, has de-

parted from the course of his predecessors, by the
profession of a liberal and tolerant spirit. More
astute than they, he sees that the corporeal thral-
dom of his subjects may be relaxed without weaken-
ing the spiritual thraldom in which they are held.
Enervated Italy is sufficiently secured to his power
by the priestly influences to which every _family
among ,

,st its population is suojected. He finds that
a race of fiddlers and singers, lazzaroni and ban-
ditti, a bankrupt and a profligate aristocracy, and
an ignorant and superstitious populace, may be
allowed to waste their breath in vivas to the empty
name of liberty, so long as they are fast held by the
spiritual arm. Austria, however, fears both the

contact and exam

taken a step, pE

ble, to protect her.

self from the, ,n throughout Europe
forthwith expends its sympathy in behalf of the wily
power, the liberties of whose people are said to be
invaded. Rome stretches forth her hands as a sup-
pliant for protection and aid ; and the Whig rulers
of Protestant England, instead of boldly standing
forward and, in the name of their Sovereign and
her people, proclaiming to the aggressor their de-
'-4. the faith of treaties shall be main-
he weak protected against the strong,
..eizes the p. text offered, for another purpose—for
the purpose of glossing over, by an appeal to our
sympathies in behalf of the oppressed, a further
approach to fraternisation with Popery; for such,
however cunningly attempted to be concealed, is
the recognition of the temporal power of a sove-
reign, whose very title to his throne is based upon
the will of a spiritual confederation.
The utilitarian grounds upon which we are urged
to accredit an ambassador at Rome are thus set
forth, in a most jesuitical article, by the London
Times of Wednesday last :

n; and Libei

termination t
tained, and t

" The truth is, that there is hardly a single Court o f
Europe with which it is of greater importance that we
should be in regular and legitimate communication than
this. The Pontifical dominions promise to be the birth-
place of that enlightened and liberal policy which is to re-
trieve the long degradation of the Italian Peninsula, and
which it is the interest of all philanthropists to promote.
Nor is the influence of their sovereign confined to his own
territories. As the spiritual head of a vast number of
British subjects, he exercises a certain controlling power
within these realms which it might indeed be thought very
desirable to transfer to more amenable hands, but which
it is the height of childishness to ignore. The influence,
such as it is, actually exists, not in force sufficient, as ex-
perience has often proved, to be weighed for a moment
against the suggestions of loyalty or patriotism, but with
quite enough in reality to deserve attention. And yet, for
the sake of a statute already condemned by sense and
reason, we have been contented to forego all the benefit
which might be derived from amicable relations with a
sovereign whose voice on certain points would be respect-
fully listened to by some millions of British subjects."
We request our readers' attention to the sentence
which we have printed in italics. The Roman
pontiff, our contemporary says, exercises, as the
spiritual head of a vast number of British subjects,
a certain controlling power within these realms.
The constitution of England,however, is established
upon the decisively expressed principle that "the
Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction temporal or
spiritual within this realm of England." And yet
we are recommended to sneak into favour with the
temporal sovereign, that he may be tempted to
exercise his spiritual influence for our advantage
and peace: The Queen of England is to stand
before the world in the character of an humble
suppliant, at the feet of his holiness of Rome, for
permission to wear her imperial diadem in quiet-
ness ! The power of a foreign monarch is to be in-
voked to her aid, whenever her Roman Catholic
subjects are rebellious or unruly ; and the confes-
sion is thus virtually to be made, in contradiction
to her own declaration on oath, that no foreign
power shall exercise dominion or influence in the
direction of the internal affairs of her kingdom. A
humiliating ground, truly, upon which to defend
the recognition of the popedom by the presence at
Rome of an ambassador
But, if the position in which we are urged to
place the sovereign and the nation is humiliating,
infinitely greater is the meanness by which we are
to seek that position. We are not boldly and
openly to declare that we are prepared to reverse
the course which we have adopted towards Rome
since the reformation ; we are not to approach the
Pope in a straightforward attitude, with a straight
forward meisage; but to wriggle and crawl into
his presence, in an attitude of whining self abase-
ment, and low and selfish trickery—an attitude
half way between that of conscious knavery and in-
tending treachery. The same journalist, in the
same feeler which he has just put forth in behalf
of her majesty's ministers, says :
" It must have been long evident to attentive observers
of Italian politics that the current of events in that country
would not wait for the impending adjustment of our diplo-
matic relations with the court of Rome, but that circum-
stances would compel us to anticipate, in some fashion,
the obvious decision of so important a question. The
wisdom of our ancestors had bequeathed us a position of
considerable embarrassment, and some little delicacy was
,eyni.vite to reconcile the necessities of the case with the

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way it is e

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1 liable to the accunn

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e graciously r
ver which at pi
sympathies o

without ren
1 penalti

lering th

Mean as Whiggery i

'wives

which our ingenious
ent

ght into

anything so mean as tt

member to

a too-,

iow thi

introduction

proscription of the law ; but our readers will probably be
of opinion that by the arrangement we now announce, her
Majesty's ministers have contrived rather happily to
escape the dilemma in which the imperative demands of
policy and the inevitable penalties of a prwmunire had
conspired to place them. The Earl of Mintu, who is now
on his road to Turin, will extend his tour to Rome, and,
though not accredited by any official introduction, or in-
vested with any formal representative character, will be
enabled by his presence at the Pontifical Court to facilitate
the circuitous intercourse between two slates which have so
sensibly persisted in blocking up the ordinary channels of
a necessary communication. The position and connexions
of his lordship will be an immediate and sufficient guaran-
tee of his responsibility, and will confer upon him much
of that authority which it is as yet forbidden more directly
to delegate, while his known qualifications for such a
mission supply a complete assurance that the interests and
honour of England will be safe in his hands. In this
—^" 'ha? Ministers may be enabled to
22cate with a friendly state at a very critical