The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-03-16 00:00:00

belong

The natural result—and, I have no doubt, the well-antici-
pated result—of such a system of self-violation on the part
of the Roman Catholic body in parliament, is to render
their support, to any ministry or to any party, in the present
balanced state of the House of Commons, an object of vital
importance. Through the medium of this isolation a united
strength of upwards of forty votes (making a difference of
upwards of eighty in a division) is created, which can be
brought down to the house to turn the scale upon any ques-
tion—which, unlike any other equal number of votes, is ca-
pable of being wielded .by an unseen influence—and which,
when so wielded, never stays to weigh arguments—never
hesitates at principles. At the present moment this body
notoriously and avowedly possesses and exercises a control-
ling power over the entire working of the political machine
—can regulate the extent to which concession may be made
by the legislature to the constitutional expression of the
national will—can hold and does hold, in abject subserviency
to its insolent behests, the representatives in parliament of
the whole empire. For five years a compact with this body,
or with the power which works the springs by which its mo-
tions are directed, has enabled a profligate and imbelice mi-
nistry, in defiance of repeated majorities of both houses,—in
defiance, too, of a standing majority of British members in
the House of Commons, and of the great mass of the British
people,—to continue in possession of the reins of govern-
ment—to menace our holy church with " heavy blows and
great discouragements"—to tamper with democracy—to sap
the foundations of our commercial and financial prosperity—
and to degrade and dishonour the name of England through-
out Europe and the world !

It may be urged, indeed, in vindication of such an exer-
cise of their legislative privileges, that as representatives of
the " liberal" party in Ireland, the Roman Catholic mem-
bers only act consistently in supporting with their whole
strength a " liberal" government—a government which,
according to their views, legislates for the social anti religious
welfare of Ireland. It may be urged, too, that so long as
they respect the oath, into which they have entered, to ab-
stain from any act of hostility to the established protestant
church of the realm, they have a constitutional right to take any
part, which they may judge most to their interest upon ques-
tions of general policy, and even to make any compact which
they may choose as to the conditions upon which their sup-
port is afforded. I deny, however, that the Roman Catholic
members of the House of Commons are the representatives
of any lay interest in the sister kingdom—" liberal" or
otherwise. Those members are "de facto" the represen-
tatives of the Romish Church in Ireland. They " live,
move, and have their being" by permission of " the church"
alone ; and can make no compact and will make no compact,
which has not for its object the aggrandisement of that
church. That in the pursuit of this object they adhere out-
wardly to the observance of the faith which they have sworn
towards the protestant establishment of the realm I will not
at present stay to deny. Although perfectly convinced that,
in its spirit ,—that good faith, and the oath by which it was
endeavoured to be secured, have been repeatedly violated, I
am unwilling to impute deliberate perjury to any body of
my christian fellow-countrymen. But if I can establish the
fact that, in the exercise of their admitted constitutional
right of judgment upon general questions, they are influenced
by motives partaking of the principles of their creed—that
whilst ostensibly and professedly preserving their faith they
are in reality, through other agencies, effecting their object—
(which cannot, if they honestly entertain the opinions and
principles laid down by their councils, and inculcated in their
colleges, and from their altars, be any other than the ulti-
mate prostration of our holy church, and the raising of the
" damnable idolatry" of Rome upon its ruins) ;—in that
case, I apprehend, I shall have laid before you an amply
sufficient ground for coming to the conclusion, that the
repeal of the measure of 1829, if not at present even justi-
fiable, must be the inevitable result of a further increase
of power being granted by Lord Morpeth's bill, to the de-
mocracy of Ireland, ostensibly, but, in reality, to the church
of Rome in that kingdom.

Let us examine then the nature of the compact, implied
or expressed, which exists between the present government
and the members of the church of Rome in parliament. The
government of Lord Grey was a reforming—was a " liberal"
government ; and yet it is notorious that the support of the
Irish Catholic; members in parliament was not, as at present,
upon every occasion at the service of the minister. On the
contrary, an extensive agitation existed in Ireland, fomented
by the present member for Dublin, and was conceived to be
of so dangerous a character as to require for its suppression
the temporary suspension of the constitution. The govern-
ment of Lord Melbourne succeeded that of the noble Earl;
the celebrated Lichfield House compact was entered into with
O'Connell and his supporters, and the cry of " justice to
Ireland" was, for a time. stilled. What then, I ask, was
the propitiation by which popery was conciliated and agita-
tion appeased ? It was not, alone, place and emolument and
patronage, liberally showered amongst the dependents of the
Irish mendicant; no : it was, distinctly and notoriously, the
prospect held out to popery of the " appropriation" of a
slice of the revenues of the established church in Ireland,
to secular and to popish uses. The interests of protestantism
were contracted to be surrendered, in exchange for the venal
votes of the mercenaries of the pope.

Since the terms of that particular compact have been aban-
doned ; since that particular breach in the walls of our holy
church has been found impracticable ; one concession after
another has been held out—one outwork after another has
been betrayed by the ministry—to purchase the paltry ma-
jorities by which alone they exist from hour to hour. As
each successive session has been shuffled over, the working
of Irish agitation has recommenced ; and a new demand
sprung up, to be extorted as the price of Irish adhesion in
the next. But has any one of these instalments of the debt,
due, by compact, to popery, been unconnected with the ad-
vance of that dark apostacy itself? Has any one measure,
demanded and conceded, had in view, merely, the social hap-
piness of the Irish people? Not one ! An isolated case of
private jobbing may occasionally be found—some Shannon
navigation job ; but it is a fact, to which I challenge contra-
diction, that not one of those great measures included in the
cry of " Justice to Ireland," and successively forced upon
the acceptance of Lord Melbourne's government, as the
price of Irish catholic support, has had any other ulterior
object than that of weakening the bulwarks of Protestantism,
and prostrating the energies of this great nation at the feet
of the mother of abominations—of hastening forward that
period, which is so ardently and so unceasingly contem-
plated by popery, when the last ray of civil and religious
liberty shall be quenched in Great Britain, and the native
spirit of her people bowed down, in abject submission, be-
neath the gloomy tyranny of Rome.

The whole operation, then, of the emancipation bill of 1829,
up to the present time, has been directed, notwithstanding
the securities by which it was accompanied, to depress the
growth of Protestantism throughout the empire, and to en-
courage the hostile principle of popery. By that measure, in
conjunction with the abuses which have been allowed to
creep into the system of registration in Ireland, the social in.

terests, as- well as the religion itself of the people of Great
Britain, have been placed virtually in the hands of a body of
men whom no faith is allowed to bind—over whom the con-
stitution has no hold—who represent no constituencies ex-
cept the Romish priesthood of • Ireland, and whose votes in
Parliament upon the most ordinary questions of party are
directed by the dark and subtle policy which emanates from
the councils of the Vatican. Whilst this over-riding tyranny
exists, can it be said that you, the existing constituencies of
Great Britain, have an independent voice in the legislature ?
Do the majorities, by which a despicable party are enabled to
cling to office, express your will ? Is it by your permission
that the established religion of your country is hourly in-
sulted—that the constitution of your country is about to be '
abandoned to the wild and reckless demands of democracy—
that infidelity, socialism, and unvarnished infamy, are suf-
fered to pollute even the chambers of the sovereign ? Un-
doubtedly not. At this moment the constituencies of Great
Britain are virtually unrepresented in the House of Com-
mons ; the once boasted constitution of our country is but a
plausible and an ingenious mockery!

It is true that time would in part have corrected this glar-
ing evil. The loyalty and patriotism of the British people
would at length be able to gain the ascendancy for British
interests in that house. Already the majorities which an im-
becile and worthless ministry can command, even with the
utmost aid of popery, have dwindled down to a paltry unit ;
and a few more months, or even weeks, may extinguish them
altogether. Is it to be endured then, I ask, that a reckless
and dishonest faction should be permitted, by the bill brought
forward by Lord Morpeth, to recruit those majorities—to
admit another influx of popery of more undiluted and more
rampant character than the existing body ? Will you—will
the people of England—rush madly forward to a bloody re-
volution; which muA be the issue of thus handing over to the
uncontrolled power of a fierce democracy, wielded by popery,
the lives, the property, and the church of your fellow-sub-
jects ? I leave the question for the present to your calm
consideration.

A PROTESTANT ENGLISHMAN.
Liverpool, March 13th, 1841.

PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT.

(From our London Correspondent)

LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING

The debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday
evening, on the subject of the removal of the Jewish disabi-
lities as applied to the holding of corporate offices, is well
worthy of attentive perusal. Although not apprehensive that
such a measure can ever, practically, effect serious injury to
society; although satisfied that a Jew or a Ilindoo is quite as
likely to dignify by his presence those precious assemblies
which have been created in our corporate towns by the mu-
nicipal reformers of the present day, as some of those sweet-
tempered Socinians who now figure there: yet it is impossi-
ble to imagine by what logic the admission of members of the
Jewish religion to legislate for the moral and social order of
Christian communities can be defended, which will not
equally apply to their admission to the legislature of the whole
kingthim.

The manly and truly English speech of Sir Robert Inglis
is especially worthy of admiration, as proving at any rate how
the British constitution, in its ancient entireness, can be sup-
ported, against all the flippancy of modern liberalism, by a
Christian patriot, a scholar, and a gentleman. Let that
speech, unimpeached as it was throughout in all its positions,
be compared for a moment with a vapid mouthings of ultra-
liberalism, which issued from the lips of the Home Secretary,
or with the insolent chirpings of the unfledged duckling who
followed him, in the person of Mr. William Ewart. Con-
trast the open sneers and ribald mockery with which the very
mention of principle—religious principle, as constituting an
ingredient of fitness for the exercise of legislative powers,
were received by the " liberal" majority of the house, with
the exulting cheers which greeted the ministerial profession
of open latitudinarianism ; and the country will, at the least,
have an opportunity of estimating the degree of safety with
which matters of a higher import might be left to the sole
guardianship of that branch of the legislature. Would that
we had many members in the House-of Commons possessed
of the same sterling and uncompromising Protestantism which
distinguish, on every occasion, the sentiments and the con-
duct of the honourable member for Oxford !

On Friday night, in the I-louse of Commons, a motion was
introduced by the President of the Board of Trade, the sub-
ject of which will, I have no doubt, excite the most anxious
attention of your mercantile community, especially of those
engaged in the trade with our West Indian and American
colonies. It is well known—to your mercantile readers at
least—that the connexion between those colonies•and Great
Britain, hitherto, has been maintained by the formation of a
system of mutually protective duties, in favour of colonial
produce and British manufactures, as compared with those
levied upon the produce or the goods of other countries. The.
proposition of Mr. Labouchere is to reduce the rate of duties
imposed by our colonial tariffs upon all merchandize, not the
produce of Great Britain or of any British possession, to an
average rate of 10 per cent. ;—in effect to throw open the
markets of our colonies to foreign powers, and thus to de-
prive Great Gritain of one of the most important benefits
which she derives from her colonial possessions, in exchange
foi the expense by which they are supported, namely, a pre-
ference in their markets for her merchandize over that which
is afforded to all other nations.

It will scarcely be expected that in my capacity, as a cor-
respondent merely, I can enter into the various and compli-
cated questions which must arise upon the consideration of
a subject of such vital importance to the interests of Great
Britain herself, and of her colonial empire. lam not aware
that the benefits of our past free trade policy at home have
been so strikingly evinced as to call very loudly for their ex-
tension into our dependencies abroad. But it is impossible
not to be at once convinced that the present crisis of affairs
across the Atlantic is about the most impolitic that could be
chosen for the agitation of such a subject—be its propriety
in other respects what it may. We are menaced with a war
of aggression upon our Canadian possessions by the people
of the United States, which it will require all the energies,
and all the devoted patriotism, which our fellow-countrymen
in Canada possess in so erniment a degree, to repel ; and yet
this is the moment which is selected by a whig government
for the agitatic:i of a measure which unquestionably must
tend—whatever other results it may have—to weaken the
connexion which at present exists between the Canadian peo-
ple and the mother country.

The Jesuit cunning which appears to pervade every move-
ment of the pre:-.ent cabinet, is not blind to the fact that the
protection afforded to British merchandize in our colonies,
once withdrawn, the corresponding protection afforded to co-
lonial produce in the markets of Great Britain must be with-
drawn also. If our West Indian colonies receive their pro-
visions, their timber, and their manufactured goods from
foreign nations, can they demand that we should tax our-
selves to encourage the growth of their plantations ? If Ca-
nada supplies herself with the silks, the linens, and the cot-
ton manufactures of Europe, can we any longer allow her a
monopoly in British markets ? Undoubtedly not. The whole
proposition on the part of ministers, to the extent at least to
which it is carried, is a manifest trap, contrived to secure
the adoption, ultimately, in Great Britain herself of a policy
which they dare not, as yet, openly bring before the con-
sideration of the public.

The debate upon the motion, it will be perceived, was
adjourned ; and it is much to be desired that, in the mean-

time, the attention of mercantile communities throughout the
kingdom should be directed to a consideration of the sub-
ject.

In coonection with the present hazardous position of the
Canadas, and with this proposition of ministers, it is impos-
sible to lose sight of the outrage about to be perpetrated upon
the feelings of our loyal Canadian fellow-subjects, by the St.
Sulplice robbery. If there be one darling object second in
importance to the subjugation to her rule of Great Britain
itself, towards the accomplishment of which popery is at pre-
sent directing her energies, that object is to secure a footing
upon the vast continent of America. The preservation by
Canada of her connexion with Great Britain is the obstacle
which can alone arrest the advance of this subtle power ; and

to break that connexion, let past events evidence how un-
ceasingly of late have been her exertions. But it is not by
an ordinary policy that the statesmen of the Vatican carry
out their projects. It is not upon such vulgar instruments
as Papineau and O'Connell, as M`Kenzie and Hume, that
they rely on all occasions to secure their objects. The in-
vincible loyalty of the province of Upper Canada frustrated
their last daring attempt ; and that loyalty must, therefore,
be alienated. The people of Great Britain would still aid in
resisting any similar attempt; and that people must also be
alienated. Rome chooses her time with all the astuteness of
diplomatic foresight; and now—whilst a fierce democracy
from America is hanging upon the frontiers of Canada—when
the war whoop has been shouted, and the bowie knife has
been whetted—a measure of gross dishonesty and shameless
perfidy is flung in the face of her brave defenders by a British
Governor General, whilst a British parliament prepares for
the disruption of the only tie, save loyalty, which binds her
to the British coronal. Deep and subtly daring as are all the
workings of popery—mysterious to the unreflecting of its
opponents and to the blindness of its duped and bewildered
tools—it is much to be doubted whether throughout her past
history—amidst all her plots against the liberties of man-
kind—can be found a more apt choice of time and of instru-
ments for effecting any cherished object, than is presented in
the crisis and the means which have been fixed upon for the
alienation of Canada from her connection with this country.
Unprincipled and reckless jobbing seems to characterize
every measure brought forward by ministers. The county
courts bill, which was read a first time on Friday, contains,
perhaps, as pretty a specimen as could be wished. By this
bill, and another legal measure which is before the house, be-
tween 70 and 80 judgeships are to be created at the disposal
of the crown, at salaries ranging from £5OO to £l5OO a year !
Nice pickings these for secretaries of reform associations and
other similar functionaries, who cling to the skirts of whig-
radicalism for the expected " doles." Her Majesty cannot
afford to make Oxford knights every day in the year; and
hence the qualification formerly proposed for the judges in
question—a standing of ten years at the bar—is dispensed
with, as Sir Edward Sugden remarked, " to extend the sphere
within which the ministerial bounty may fall." Verily, they
are a nice set !