The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-12-21 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

litel7NO StinscatnEn.—To the first question, "No," as far as
die canon law of England is concerned. To the second,

2erferaTcommunications we are
-

,mpelled to hold over

7Libirpool &tanbarb.

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TUESDAY MORNING, DEC. 21, 1847

ON Friday evening, an incident occurred in the
souse of Lords, which is worthy of some observa-
tion, as prefiguring what may be the tendency of
the Protestant mind of the empire, if outraged be-
yond endurance by further concessions to the en
isroaching spirit of Popery. The Earl of Clancarty,
on presenting himself to resume his seat in the
souse, declined taking the oath of supremacy; and
applied to be permitted to take in its stead the
oath prescribed in the 10th Geo. IV., chap. 7, (the
Zmancipation Act). This claim was met by the
Lan of Shaftesbury, by the question—" Are you a
member of the Church of England ?" The answer
was, of course, in the affirmative, upon which it
was decided by Lord Shaftesbury that the Earl

sould not be sworn except in the usual manner

His lordship on the same evening addressed a
letter to the Times, explaining the grounds upon
which he made this unusual application, from which
'ore extract the following passage, conveying his
objections to the taking of the oath of Supremacy :
_ _ _

"It had always appeared to me that in what is called the
Oath of Supremacy affirmation is made of that which
would not be literally true so long as persons within the
ftalm acknowledged a spiritual subjection to the see of
4Zorne ; but, believing that the oath was never intended
sr understood to express more than that by the laws and
constitution of the realm, no foreign prince, person,
prelate, state, or potentate bath or ought to have any ju-
risdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority,
ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm,' and that it
iwas originally designed to keep the legislature, magistrates,
and officers of state constantly in mind of the separation
from the papal authority that had then been recently ef-
fected, and of the policy that should be thenceforward
adhered to, I did pot hesitate as long as that policy
Sae
maintained, to compl
Sae law

lithe requirement of

The provisions of the so-called Catholic Relief
Bil 1, he says, did not appear to him to be in viola-
tion of the oath, inasmuch as, whilst admitting
members of the Church of Rome to increased civil
privileges, it was accompanied by the imposition
*pen them of the most solemn obligation to ab-
stain from any acts by which the Protestant church
might be disturbed, or weakened, and by the re-
enactment of penalties against the unauthorized.
2115 sum ptio n of ecclesiastical titles, and by enact-
ments for the suppression of the Jesuits, and other
religious orders of the Church of Rome.

" The case, however, became very different when, in
1844, the Charitable Bequests Act was passed, for by that

lions in Ireland of persons in holy orders of the Church
of Rome aredistinctly recognised, and property bequeathed
ho them as such may be secured to them and their suc-
cessors in continued succession, conformably with the
usages and discipline of the Church of Rome. It there-
fore appears to me that it cannot be affirmed as a fact,
that no foreign person or prelate hath any authority,
eoclesiastical or spiritual, within the realm : for the ecele-
ciastical authority has not only the recognition, but the
actual force of law. ' These opinions I have much more
fully stated in my place in Parliament in the course of the
debates on the Maynooth Bill, in 1845, when I challenged
contradiction without, however, hearing anything in the
Mightest degree to shake the opinion I had adopted.' "

v. L.'.
ynooth Bill.)
Thenceforward Lord Clancarty could not, with
kis views, take the oath. It, however, occurred to
him that he might avail himself of the terms of
*hat prescribed by the Act 10th Geo. IV. Chap. 7,
which, whilst it releases from their disability those
who conscientiously objected to take the oath of

supremacy, at the same time binds them to the
most faithful allegiance to the Sovereign, and prac-
tically to the conservation of the Protestant religion
And Protestant government. The oath of 10th
Geo. IV. Chap'. 7, however. was designed specially
for persons professing the Roman Catholic Religion ;
tind the question arose with him,—how were the
ioerms Roman Catholic religion to be understood ?
Do they necessarily imply subjection to the see of
Rome, and belief in those traditions which the Pro-
testant churches have repudiated as being contrary
to Scripture ? The conclusion to which he came
was that, the Church of Rome, having by the adop-
lion of these traditions, become a dissenting church,
had no right to the term "Catholic" at all - and
the Act of Parliament styling that church " Roman
t3atholic" could not be held correctly to describe
what former statutes referred to as a Popish Church,
but might more correctly be annlied to a ehurch

professin

the religion of the early Christians at
faith, he remarked,

.tome, the principle's of whos

"St. Paul. has handed down to us in the undying words
of his inspired epistle, and those who hold it, as every
member of the church of England must do, may be there-
fore said to profess the Roman Catholic religion, certainly
the only Catholic religion which can with propriety be
denominated Roman." _ _

There is some little obscurity here, mixed up
with much truth. The obscurity is caused by the
concession—an unthanked-for one—made to Popery
by our legislators in modern days, in conceding to
it any right to the use of the term " Catholic" at all.
The early Christians at Rome had no wish to be
spoken of as a Roman Catholic Church; and the
Rresent Romish Church has no right to be styled
oman Catholic, which is indeed a contradiction
in terms, the words "particularly universal" are

just as appropriate. Moreover, we can scarcely
approve of his Lordship's step in attempting to
warp the known and original meaning of the word-
ing of the act to his own purpose, although we are
compelled to admit that his scruples, as to the oath
of supremacy, are fully justified.

His lordship states that he has written the letter,
,Trom which we have quoted, hastily; and perhaps
in seeking to adopt the Act 10th of George IV. he
has acted without sufficient consideration of the
xubject. It is clear however, and we must thank
him for it, that he has started an important clues-
lion for the consideration of the Protestant public
end Protestant Legislators, who will have to take
hereafter an oath, the terms of which they cannot
substantiate.

TRE warehouse owners of Liverpool are really a
*lost unfortunate body. Do what they will, it
would seem to be an impossibility for them to do
Fight. Sacrifice what they may, of their own inte-
-)reats, they fail in satisfying those even for whose
'advantage they most earnestly strive. For years
• they have been objects of constant abuse to the
Whig Radical portion of the community and to its
press. Paying a larger proportion of rates than
.any other class in the borough, they have, never-
theless been accused of selfishness in requiring
that they should not be sacrificed to advance the
interests of parties paying nothing like the same
,amount towards the public burthens. Their oppo-
sition to the erection of dock warehouses, to be
:conducted by a public body, with funds belonging
to a public trust, and erected upon property pur-
'Ohased by that trust at half the price which would
have been realized had it been offered to open com-
petition, was set down as the prompting of avarice
and of a longing for monopoly. The interests of
important trades sought to be engrossed by that
'public body—the rights of coopers, porters, and
ethers, infringed upon by the advocates of dock
warehouses, were urged by them with great reason
and chew of justice ; but the reply was, a reference
to their fondness for warehouse rates, and a more
than insinuation that self, self, was at the bottom
of it all.

Within the past week, however, it has beerLdis-
*crverpd that there are times in which the most
diseordant materials may work together. . The
Dock Committee brought forward a bill; in accor-
dance with the requirements of their former act of
parliament, applying for further powers to erect
warehouses on the dock quays, and especially to be
enabled to carry out a scheme for the formation of
docks in Wapping, and to conclude a purchase of
strand on the North Shore, the importance of
which has been acknowledged on all hands. In
She bill in question, however, it was discovered that
there was no clause for the rating of the new
warehouses proposed to be erected ; and, upon this
point arose a temporary amalgamation of Interest
between the " liberal" tradesmen of the town, and
the heretofore much vilified warehouse owners.
They discovered that they were fellow sufferers in
this question of dock warehouse rating; and an
agitation was commenced to enforce the insertion
of a clause in the bill by which the new warehouses
to be erected upon the dock quays would be made
rateable to the local burthens equably with ware-
houses otherwise situated, shops, dwellings, and
Other species of property.
In the agitation to effect this object there were
IiQUI) more earnest and active than the Liverpool

Mercury, and the Liberal portion of the Select
Vestry. It was joined in by a large majority of the
shopkeepers and rate-payers generally, the ware-
house owners only appearing as those most largely
affected in the question. Meetings were held to
influence public opinion ; members of the council
were canvassed by their constituencies ; memorials
were poured in to the Mayor, praying the Council
to insist upon the insertion of a clause in the dock
bill, if that could be legally done; or, as the alter-
native, to suspend all further proceedings until
next session of parliament. The decision of the
council, under the circumstances, and with the
strong public feeling existing upon the subject be-
fore their eyes, is known to most of our readers.
As such clause could not now originate with
them, as dock trustees, they adopted the alternative
prayed for, of withdrawing the bill, at least so far
as regards the conferring of new powers, rather
than incur the risk of trusting to the committee of
parliament to insert the clause.
With the wisdom of this decision of the Council
we have nothing here to do, although it really
seems to us a rather unnecessary proceeding, and
quite beside the question of rating, to tie the hands
of the Dock Committee with respect to the com-
pletion of the north shore purchase. But it does
strike us as most unfair and utterly inconsistent
that, in their effort to procure a rating clause, hav-
ing lost the warehouses themselves, our contempo-
rary, the Mercury, and the party with which he or-
dinarily acts, should turn round at once upon the
astounded world, and point to the unfortunate
warehouse owners, whom they were hugging in
their arms but yesterday, and proclaim " it was all
their doing." Take our contemporary's version of
the story, and never were a set of innocents so tho-
roughly bamboozled as they have been in this busi-
ness. They attempted to use the warehouse owners,
and they complain now that the warehouse owners
have used them. They borrowed the case of
these gentlemen, in order to get up a feeling of sym-
pathy towards them, which was to cid the px.c,grcaa
of the agitation ; and they intended to part company
with them as soon as they had, by such aid, carried
their point. Unfortunately the feeling created has
carried them further than they wished to go. In

showing the injustice of a body of private—indivi-
duals, who contribute one-third, or perhaps half of
the sum required for the payment of our local bur-
thens, being required to compete with a public
body which contributes nothing, they raised the ques-
tion, which has slept for the last few years, whe-
ther there is any immediate necessity for such com-
petition on any terms.

How absurd, then, is such language as the
following, which appeared in the Mercury of

Friday

" Strong as the warehouse-owners' interest was known
Town Council, we doubted its power and

to be in t

to set at naught a

which, promoted a(the instance of three hundred mer-
chants of this town, was enacted to establish the legal

docks warehouses, admitted by all else to be necessary to
the trade of this port and of the country at large. Whe-
ther such a gross sacrifice of public rights and interests to

those of private individuals will be tolerated by the mer-
chants of Liverpool, by the executlve government of the
country, or by parliament, remains to be seen.

Not Withstanding the gloom which pervades the com-
mercial world, the mercantile spirit is surely still too
buoyant to suffer, unoppdsed, this subjection of public
right and advantages to the unjust and wasteful support
of individual interests. It is probable, moreover, that a
question will arise, in the highest quarters, as to the
propriety of withdrawing the management of the docks
from those who, as Trustees, when debating upon mea-

)r rendering t

f)eneficia.

to the

trade of the country, talk of " protecting" their " own
property" in contradistinction to the public good.

"The extraordinary, almost mysterious -omission in
the Dock Bill of the rating clause, to which the Albert
Dock warehouses are subjected, and the excitement out of
doors which this omission occasioned, gave the opening
which the warehouse-owning party availed themselves of

the rating clause there were special reasons, which good
policy, if not justice, required should not, for a moment,
have been disputed.

We are not aware that Mr. Urquhart, Mr. Thornely,
Mr. Danson, Mr. Jeffery, Mr. Bradley, and other
gentlemen who took part in the meeting at the
Clarendon-rooms, on Monday last, and have done
so much to rouse the tradesmen of the town to a
movement which should influence the Council in
favour of a rating clause, are connected at all with
warehouse property; yet we doubt whether any one
of them would have hesitated to throw out the bill
rather than that it should pass the Council without
such a clause. As to the threat " that a question
will arise, in the highest quarters, as to the pro-
priety of withdrawing the management of the docks
from those who, as trustees, when debating upon
measures for rendering those docks more beneficial
to the trade of the country, talk of '

Hotecting'

` own property' in contradistinction to the "'public
good,"' we know of nothing so strongly confirma-
tory of the propriety of the course taken by the
Dock Committee as the admission which it infers.
If the docks of Liverpool are so far public property,
or designed for the "public good," in contradis-
tinction to the good of the inhabitants of Liverpool,
that they can be taken possession of by government,
what right have we to talk of raising £45,000 per
annum from warehouses upon their quays to relieve
OUTSE

ves from our own local burtileris ? A Go-
vernment Board, managing our Dock Estate for the
interest of the country at large, would no more
allow any portion of its revenues to be appropriated
to the payment of the hurthens of the parish of
Liverpool than of those of Manchester, Bristol, or
any other town.