The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-05-07 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-TUESDAY.

A question was put to Mr. Hogg by Lord JOCELYN,
as to the papers which the Court of Directors of the East
India Company might feel disposed to produce respecting
the recall of the Governor-General of India.
Mr. HOGG said, he was not the official organ of the
Company, and had no authority to make any statement
on the subject ; but he presumed the Directors would be
governed by the course which might be pursued by her
Majestv's Ministers.
Mr. F. MAULE moved for leave to brine in a Bill to
regulate the administration of oaths in the Universities of
Scotland. These oaths were originally intended to apply
to Episcopalians, but they had long been allowed to fall
into desuetude, and we:c only now revived in order to be
enforced, not against Episcopalians but Presbyterians,
owing to the recent schism in the Church of Scotland.
As an illustration of the wai in which these test oaths
were made to apply, be stated, that when he was elected
Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, an objection
was taken to him that he bad joined the Free Church, al-
though when Sir R. Peel was tlected to the same honora-
ble position, although known to be an Episcopalian, no
test whatever was applied to him. His object was that
professorships might be held by qualified men without the
application of any illiberal test, with the exception of the-
ological professorships, with which he did not propose to
interfere.

Sir A. L. HAY seconded the motion.
Sir J. GRAHAM said, that the Commission of 1830, >=r-
pointed to inquire into the state of the Universities in
Scotland, had reported the necessity of a more stringent
application of the test. Epit.c'tpaliarts, it was true. hed
occasionally filled offices in the UnivcrsiVes, but no Pres-
byterian Diss,n'or had ec,r [teen allowed to fill any of
the Inorersorshipp, a fact wl,ich he much re:Jetted, though
he scald r, t
" I'sool to tereme at y the sateguetds of
the Church 'of Scot ;1,1 when he sawthe ole-n ho,ttlity to
it avowed by the ;oho r •nts ofthe Pre,. Church, and IN hen
he remembered the impumuce (...f maintaining the corn-

pact by which the Universities and the Church of Scotland
were dee.ared to be for ever united. The right hon. baro-
net cotreltuled by declaring himself opposed to the intro-
duction of ,he bill.

Mr. lturnErtFLno said. it was a scandalous spectacle
to see these tests applied to a man like Sir David Brew-
st:,r. By maintaining the test, they were rendering the
Church of Scotland sectarian in the worst sense of the
term.

The LORD ADVOCATE contended for the necessity of
re,aining the tests, which was the more necessary becamke
of the extent of the late secession in the Scotch Church,
although he did not admit that that secession comprised
anything like two-thirds of the population.
Sir (J. CLERK warned the English gentlemen in the
house that if this motion were carried they would soon
have a similar attempt—indeed the hon. member who had
last spoken had already such a motion on the paper—to
abolish the oaths in the Universities of England.
Some discussion ensued, in which Mr. M`Kenzie, Mr.
BannPrman, Mr. P. W. Stewart, Mr. Colquhoun, Mr.
Hume, and Mr. Forbes took part; after which Mr. Fox
Millie replied, and on a division his motion was nega-
tived by a majority of ]2B to 101.
The house adjourned at a quarter to one o'clock.