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

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-THURSDAY

A great many petitions were presented among them one
by Sir R. Inglis, from Oxford University against the ad-
mission of Jews to Parliament, and some in favour of
their admission.

Lord doing RUSSELL said that he was in correspondence
with the Duke of Wellington on the subject of the de-
fences of the country, but that he was ignorant of the let-
ter purporting to be written by his Grace on the same
subject, until he saw it in print.
In reply to a question Lord Joni.; RUSSELL said 'that
he did not intend to bring forward any measure to relieve
Dissenters from church rates.
Lord J. RUSSELL then moved that the house resolve
itself into committee on the removal of the civil and poli-
tical disabilities affecting her Majesty's Jewish subjects.
lie based his motion on the simple but solid ground that
every Englishman born was entitled to every honour and
advantage which the British constitution held out, and
that religious opinions ought not to be any obstacle to
the enjoyment of those honours and those advantages.
Unless, then, something could be proved to disqualify the
Jews, natives of this realm, for civil and political office,
they were entitled to all the privileges which British sub-
jects claimed as their birthright. Our present restrictions
did not attain the end which they were intended to accom-
plish ; for whilst they excluded those who felt the religious
obligation of an oath, they did not exclude those who
denied religious obligation altogether. Complaints had
been made that the Jews held up Christ as an impostor,
and were constant revilers of Christianity. Now, was
there ever any man who sneered more at Christianity than
Mr. Gibbon, and yet he had taken his seat in that house,
had held office on the true faith of a Christian, and had
Sat on the treasury benches with a government which had
upheld the very highest church doctrines. Mr. Hume
had never sat in that house, but he had held the office of
English Charge d'Affaires at Paris ; Sir It. Inglis could
not name a single Jew who had undermined Christianity
so much ; and yet Mr. Hume would have taken the de-
claration now required to be made at the table, with a
smile perhaps at what he would have deemed the folly of
requiring it. He appealed to the house in the name of
the constitution of England, which was a friend to free-
dom, liberty, and justice, and an enemy of every kind of
lification, to take away this last remnant of religious
He appealed to it also in the name of our
on, which was a religion of love and charity,
gion dictated to us to do unto others as we
Ley should do unto us. The noble lord then
dat loud cheers from all sides of the house.
IS asked the house whether they would have
on on the motion before the house ? If un-
happily it should be the pleasure of the house to go into a
e of the whole house, and the Speaker should
chair, he had no intention that night to give the
aahlc j the prtnNit fltne Qf the prQ-

/194§e any furtim

ceedings ; but he could tell his noble friend that there was
a fixed determination on the part of many hon. gentlemen,
if unhappily this motion should be carried, to give to the
measure, in its future stages, all the constitutional opposi
tion which they could offer. He would call upon the house
to recollect that this motion appeared with the sanction of
the first Minister of the Crown ; yet he did not venture to
introduce this measure as one which her Majesty, with the
advice of her council, had been recommended to submit to
Parliament. Unless public rumour was miStaken, he
thought the noble lord was-not prepared to state that the
measure was one of a united cabinet. He humbly hoped
that it was not anything but.an open question even-in that
house. It was not his intention to enter at present into
the personal merits of the persons professing the-Hebrew
persuasion. He wished the house not to confine them-
selves to the mere consideration of whether the Baron de
Rothscli ild should sit in that house, but whether they were
to sweep away. as a consequence of such a proceeding, the
present mode of representation. He was not one who de-
sired to introduce any subject which might be considered
too sacred for discussion : he did not wish to enter into
any crusade against the Jews or to attack them ; nor did
he wish to remind the house of the fact that they regarded
Him who was considered by Christians their Saviour God,
as a crucified impostor. His noble friend seemed to deny
so much of the Christian character of the constitution as
he (Sir R. Inglis) had been in the habit of claiming for it,
saying that the Christian character of the constitution had
only existed since the year 1829. He knew the attachment
of his noble friend to the constitution, and that he would
not allow of two. England had a constitution,. and a
Christian constitution ; and he defied his noble friend, or
the future historian (Mr. Macaulay) to produce a single
instance in the history of England, from the days of King
Alfred to" those of Praise-God Barebones, from those of
Praise-God Barebenes to those of the Revolution, or from
those of the Revolution to this time, in which any oath
was ever taken except on some Christian symbol. The
Jew was excluded by the constitution of England because
it did not contemplate the entrusting of power to any one
who would not profess his obligation to discharge his duty
" upon the true faith of a ChriStian." The noble lord
might have mentioned an instance—that of Sir Francis
Dashwood. But because some few men, in the course of
the last century, had found seats in Parliament, was that a
sufficient ground for blotting from the statutes of the realm
the solemn declaration which every one was hound to make
on entering the house—namely,, " to discharge his duty on
the true faith of a Christian ? ' It might he expedient in
rstov.--z......t,t. me admit persons witnout taking any oath.
The case was far different in this country where the remo-

imit the by omitting

le most solemn

we
ly performance of prayer

lining to judge any one of his brethren,
iniself to ridicule if he expressed his

belief that a Jew could, without awful blasphemy on the
one hand, or deliberate mockery on the other, repeat these
prayers, " Christ have mercy upon us—the Lord have
Fla. }wive ought to have some very

mercy upon us
great AIN

n view to justify, first, the removal of those
words which had been hitherto considered so important, as
showing the obligation on which they at least professed to
act ; and, secondly, the destruction of that uniformity of
address to the Almighty which had been so long sanctioned.
His noble friend had referred to the small numberof the Jews
in Eogland, and their inability to enforce the demands
which they professed to make. Now, the number of
Jews had nothing to do with his (Sir R. Inglis's) refusal
to make the concession now required. The question was
whether in a matter of pure expediency it was worth
while to make concessions to 30,000 or 40,000 persons,
with the certainty of exciting the displeasure of many
millions ? Two years ago lie ventured to describe a bill
as " A Bill to enable David Solomons, Esq., to become
an Alderman of the City of London." The ill now in-
tended to be introduced might very appropriately be
termed " A Bill to enable Baron Lionel de Rothschild to
sit in Parliament." The number who would be gratified
by passing the measure would be small, whilst the num-
ber disgusted with it would be very great. He admitted'
that this would not be a direct dethronement of Chris-
tianity ; but the question was, how much of the Chris-
tianity of England parliament was prepared to abolish?
His noble friend had said that every Englishman was en-
titled to every honour which his country afforded. Now
he denied the position, and asserted that constitutionally
no Englishman was entitled unless he possessed certain
qualifications. His noble friend had alluded very briefly
to the Jews being a separate nation. A learned Rabbi at
Cambridge, in the course of a dialogue which he published
some time ago, used these expressions :—" Brother, you
are mistaken greatly. You are no Englishman, though
born in England. You are no more than a foreigner.
You have no home in this land, or any other country.
Are you not a Jew ?" He would also refer his noble friend
to no less an authority than the speech of John Duke of
Bedford, delivered in parliament in the year 1753.
Speaking of the Jews, his grace said, " Their latest pos-
terity, while they continue Jews, will continue to be, and
will consider themselves as a people quite distinct and se-
parate from the ancient people of this island." Were
the Jews hereditary inhabitants of this land ? Were they
contemporary with the Saxon race, or with the Norman
or Scotch races ? Were they contemporary with any
body who at any time came into England ? They came in
drop by drop, not by any invitation. They came in for
their own purpose, and ought not to require the laws of
England to be changed for their accommodation. Did
they not possess every means of acquiring wealth and
riches ? Were not many of them living in the highest
state of luxurious splendour ? Did any one interfere with
.thena Whv Ova_ for their sale.. allexlll,l
constitution or this country be overturned ! If, there-
fore, they valued the public peace and the good will of
their fellow-subjects, they would not, for such an object,
risk so much. If they regarded the dishonour which, in
the judgment of many, would be inflicted on our Chris-
tian faith by removing from the statute book those words
which constituted the badge of our professing Christianity,
he called on them on every consideration of duty and in-
terest to pause before they undertook so great a charge.
He called upon them before they hazarded, he would not
say the security, but the confidence which the public had
in the security of our Christian constitution—he called
upon them, in the name of their common Christian faith,
here to pause and make no such change as that proposed.
After speeches in favour of the measure from Mr. J.
Fox (Unitarian minister), Mr. W. E. Gladstone, Mr.
Rornilly, and Mr. D'lsraeli ; and against it, from Lord
Ashley, Mr. Banks, Mr. Goulburn, Mr. Plumptre, and
Sir J. Ackland, the debate was adjourned.