The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-02-12 00:00:00

was Mr. JOSEPH PEASE, member for South Durham. The hon.
gentleman wore his hat.
The SPEAKER rose and said—" I am informed by the clerk, that
there is a member at the table who objects to take the usual
oaths. I beg to know whether it is so or not? "
Mr. PEASE—" I beg to be allowed to make an affirmation to
the same. effect." _ _ _

Mr. SPEAKER—" lam merely discharging my duty when I
refuse to allow such affirmation to be made without the sanction
of the house. Not only are the privileges of the house eon.*
corned, and a queition of law involved, but even the persona.:
interests of the honourable gentleman are deeply at stake, unl
less the house should itself put a different construction upon
the words of the act than is at present the received one. The
case will be taken up by the house, and I have no doubt it will
construe the law most liberally; iu the mean time; rani gee
the honourable gentleman will excuse rae for requesting him to
retire until the house decides upon the question."
MT. P> SSE then bowed and retired.- - • ' •

Lord ALTIIORI> immediately moved, " That a select com-
mittee be appointed to search the journals of the house, and to
report to the house' such precedents and acts, or parts of acts of
parliament, as related to the right of the people called Quakers,
to take their seats iu parliament, and to the privilege conferred
on them of making,a solemn affirmation in courts of justice
and other places, where, by law, oaths were authorised and re-
quired to he taken." his lordship observed, that it was not
hkely any individual member could have consulted all the acts
upon this subject. One of them was entitled, 'An Act to pre-
vent time undue exaction of tolls or fees on the River Thames,
anti to prevent the spreading of Disease among. Horned Cattle.'
Mr. Wmtauitrotst, and the SOLICITOR-GENERAL thought the
motion should include reports of all cases decided by the judge*
on this point.
Mr. BARING thought they ought to knO* what part" of the
oath the hon. member refused.

Dr. LCSIItNGTON said, that Mr. Pease only objected teethe
form of the oath. He would make an affirmation to every
word it contained.

Au Hox. MEmana hoped Mr. Pease would be admitted be-
fore the electors of South Durham could hear of his rejection'.
A committee was appointed.
Mr. CiiiiIIETT said it was strange-to -hear the •manner -in
which hon. members were wont to discuss the grievances,of the
sister island. (Hear .and laughter.) One Would think they
considered it worse than nothing. If so, why were they sore
and unwilling to part with it? The .hon. member who spoke
last had assumed that, because the exports of Ireland had in-
creased, therefore hcr,prosperity had increased in the same pro-
portion, (hear,) and that. sage proposition was cheered-by the
right hon. Irish secretary and his coadjutors. But so tar from
this being the case it could be proved,-that- in-proPertion as
manufactures increased in this country; the profits of the manu-
facturers and the wages of the workmen had aiminished. Wages
in Lancashire-Wein double, when the imports -were-- woo,- to
what they. were ,at 12,000; aird•when they reached 20,01'0 hags
of cotton imported, 50,000 persons
_on full work earned each
twopence halfpenny per day ! (Hear.) At the very time when
subscriptions were raising in this country, for the relief of the
distressed. in Ireland, vessels arrived in the port of London con,
taining 22,000 quarters of oats from the town of Galway, when
the poor were then actually dying of hunger in the streets:. Of
repeal he would say nothing. He did not understand the sills-
ject, and so would give no opinion. Poor laws, howeier,-4 a
remedy for the grievances of Ireland, were as mere a nostrum
as repeal, wliich was trusted in by its supporters. If. poor laws
be the remedy for Irish destitution, how came it-that the -desti,
tute condition of the English poor was so much complained of?
When Mr. Hume, some years ago, wished to control the church
property, the present Irish Chancell6r and the present Secre-
tary for Ireland laid it down as indubitable laW; that parliament
hau no more right to deal with the property of .the church than
with the property of any private individual. Yet the Secretary
for Ireland, •who made that declaration, had now told them that
it was:his intention to bring in bills that will actually shake the
church ail to pieces. He has found out, therefore, that parlia-•
merit bas'a right to deal with the property"of the chnrch--:thati
it is public and not private ,property. It was very well for Sir
H. Inglis to deny the right of parliament to Meddle with church
property at all, but he would insist that it was the nation's pro-.
perty. The question respecting it is this, has parliament a right
to deal with church property as it pleases, or has it not ? It
did once, he knew, deaf with the whole of it: it took it from
one set-of men to give it to another set: it took away Tavistock
and Wallin Abbey, to give them to the Duke of •Bedford ;
and, if it could do that, can it not now take away parochial and
dean-and chapter property ? This was not "new light," no
gleanings from "the schoolmaster." He had, in 1829, declared.
that emancipation Would be incomplete without the destruction
of the Protestant hierarchy. In these troublesome times, when
some refuse to pay taxes and others talk of resisting .this and
that, it was extremely desirable to have a criterion or standard
of the right of resistance.' He had g.One over. Locke and Coke,
and Blackstone to see how fur we might safely go in that re-
spect. Blackstone left the matter doubtful; ibut the Secretary
for Ireland had cleared up the doubt, and afforded a certain
standard of this right; and as if his authority were not suffi-
ciel.t, there had been added to it the high confirmation of the
member for Leeds. They had told the house that, if any state
of things arose here, similar to that iu America in the year 1776,
then we had a right to -resist, and not before. Let them. see
how that applied- to the case of Ireland. The Secretary was
mistaken; he thought the Americans -demanded to -be reprj-
sented in the British House of Commons. They knew a.great
deal better. They never demanded any such thing; they ne-
ver would have listened to such a proposition.. They demanded
their own legislature, and their accusation against the Sove-
reign was, that he had attempted to interfere with the proceed=
iugs of their own legislature. Now, let him have a word -with
the gentlemen of Ireland. He did not tell them to rebel, al-
though -the Secretary for Ireland. had praised rebellion, and said
it was lawful.' He (Mr, Gobbet:o besought them not to rebel.
(Cheers, and cries of order.) Why was he ,called to-order?
Was it disorderly, in these times to beseech the
_people of Ire-
land not to rebel? Enough- had been done, perhaps, to cause
rebellion; but he entreated them never to rebel; never to suf-
ferstheaselves- to be tempted-to think about rebellion,nntil-they
found some grievances like. those .which the Americans eons-
plained.of. How was he to know what they complained of?. There
will their declaration of independence: there was cause shown
for their rebelliOn, and that cause had been declared by the se-
cretary sufficient. It was written by Jefferson and Madison
together, and it was signed by them, by Washington, and the
rest (Cries of No, no.)
Mr. STANLEY.—Washington did not sign it.

Mr. ConsETT.—Well, that is a matter of no importance.
(Laughter.) It'is a wonderful error, Which I suppose is to
invalidate all I have to say. (Cheers.) This was what the
Americans complained of—" That the King of England has
called together legislative bodies at places uncomfortable and
distant front their residences." That was one charge,. -and this
was another—" That the King of England has made judges
dependent upon his will alone for the tenure of their offices,
and for the amount and payment of their salaries." He did not
speak!of the judges, butliow far this was the case with.the jus-
tices of the peace in Ireland, he would not say. The Ameri-
cans went on to complain; " That he has erected a multitude of
new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers ttyharass the-peo-
ple, and to eat out their substance." Whether. such was the
case in Jreleud—whetherany people had been sent there to eat
out the Substance of the peoplehe would net-take upon him to
decide. The next accusation -was, "That he has kept upon 'us
standing armies without the consent of our own legtslative
.ho-
dies." "Whether this 'applied now he knew not, but at all events
what followed would not fit:—" That he has affected-to render
.the .militaay independent of and superior to the civil power4'
They had not affected that in Ireland; it was not affectation
there. The Americans proceed—" He has combined with
others (what impudent dogs they must have been !) to subject
us to a jurisdiction fcrcigu- to our usages and unacknowledged
by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legis-
lation."lhe next charge went • even further,--" That he has
quartered large bodies of soldiers among us without consent."
This ground of complaint he hoped never could apply to Ire-
land. (Cheers.) Ile trusted there was not a shadow of ground
for applying to onr'present this charge against a former sove-
reign. Then we came to the following Vor protecting the
troops by mock trials from. punishment for any murders com-
mitted on the-innocent inhabitants." Let the right hon. secre-
tary for 'lreland think of this let Irish gentlemen think of it.
It was a short sentence but conclusive, and it speaks to them
as with a voice from above—" For depriving us in many cases
of the benefit if triaP by jury," Let them reflect that this
justified resistance in: the .case of America according to the
lepinions of members of his Majesty's government;
.but bait
remembered also,. that lie neVerwent,so far in his life. (Hear.)
-That justified the Americans in taking up.arms against.theirlaw-
ful sovereign, whom for many years we had called "the best of
kings." Re prayed them, then, 'lotto attempt to deprive their Irish
fello*-subjectseof the benefit of the trial by jury; uid thus afford
them a lawful cause for open resistance. He trusted that, the
first act of the reformed Parliament would not be a Sicluteuth
and Castlereagh act. In answer-to • Mr. Macauley'S claim of
gratitude on behalf of Lord Grey and the Whigs, Mr. Cobbett
detailed the measures of the wings in 1807 for the relief of the
Catholics-; stating':h.ow small a measure their bill was—how
glad 'they would have been to have dropped it altogether—how
the King,contrivedo turn them put upon it—amid how reluct-
antly they quitted office. Ile concluded .bv charging all . the
. For remainder of Debate, see the .Sth Faye.)