HC Deb 22 February 1826 vol 14 cc689-94

On the order of the day for the second reading of this bill,

Mr. Robertson

begged the attention of the House to the conduct of his majesty's government, with respect to the commercial interests of the empire. They had sacrificed already too much to a dangerous delusion, namely, that of violating the navigation laws which hitherto protected our carrying trade all over the world, in order to found on it the new system of free trade. These regulations of commerce had not only been extended to the butter trade, but to the ports of an old rival nation in commercial transactions, the Dutch. They, however, viewing every thing which affected their interests with their ancient jealousy, no sooner perceived that England put a small duty on foreign salt, than they repealed the concessions they had made in favour of British commerce. With respect to the state of Buenos Ayres, our ministers had adopted a principle altogether foreign to the constitution of this maritime country, and permitted the import of goods of that country in ships, not only of that, but of other states. Similarly objectionable stipulations had been entered into between this country and the new states of Colombia, which must open the trade of this country to strangers; as it was notoriously the fact, that the rights of citizenship would be acquired in Colombia by a week's residence. He would have been much better satisfied had he had an op- portunity of making these statements in the presence of the right hon. the president of the Board of Trade, but even in his absence he felt himself bound to make them.

Sir Robert H. Inglis

said, he rose, not to follow the hon. member for Gram-pound in his observations on the commercial points of the Colombian treaty, which alone, as he was willing to admit, were formally and technically before the House, and as little to object to that treaty generally, but to take this opportunity of calling to the attention of the House one article in it which to him appeared to involve interests far higher than those of any commerce, and to commit the character of the country and the cause of religion. The article to which he referred was the 12th, which stipulates that the Colombians resident in England, shall be entitled to exercise their worship in public and in private with most full and ample toleration; while it stipulates that the English, resident in Colombia, shall be permitted to exercise their religion in their own houses only. In reference to the first point, he, as an Englishman, felt almost degraded, that at this day toleration should be granted to a Colombian arriving here, as if it were a new boon; as if it were in the power of the negociators to give it, or to withhold it; as if it were not almost a chemical ingredient in the air of England. But what is the reciprocal advantage obtained by England? The reciprocity, as was said in the American war, is all on one side: the English residents in Colombia are permitted to worship God in their own houses. Every other article in the treaty gives some benefit to one party, and some corresponding benefit to the other, Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother. But here there is a most lame and impotent conclusion; the Colombian is to enjoy, as he ought, the fullest and freest exercise of his religion here, as free as any other Roman Catholic; the Englishman is to have the free exercise of his religion in his own house. The truth is, that the Colombian government has mocked us, as the English negociators mocked them. Both have granted what they could not withhold. If it be said, that there was a law in Colombia preventing any assemblage in private houses far. religious purposes, and therefore that something was gained as to that point by this treaty, he denied the fact; because, by the constitution of that state, there is no provision made for the exclusion of any one religion. If it be said, that though there is no such law, yet that in practice English merchants have been disturbed in assembling at each other's houses, he denied the fact as to Colombia, and doubted it as to any other part of Spanish America. So much for what has been done: as to what might have been done, he would consider first the circumstances of the state of Colombia itself, and then the precedent of Buenos Ayres. There were many circumstances in the state of Colombia peculiarly favourable, as it appeared, to the admission of religious toleration. In the first place, there was the silence of the constitution as to any exclusive religion in the state; in the next, there was the personal character of the great man who founded and who defends that constitution; who, high as he is in talents and services, and disinterested virtue, is not less high in the estimation of Europe and America for his liberal and enlightened support of every good object. He begun his career by the abolition of slavery; and set the example by the emancipation of his own slaves; he has now been encouraging universal education. In the third place, the character of those who administer the government in his absence is equally favourable to liberal views. The House will recollect that this treaty was signed at Bogota on the 18th of last April; one of the plenipotentiaries being Don Pedro Gual, the secretary of state for foreign affairs. On the 4th of that same April, there was established in the same city, a bible society, under the presidency of the same secretary of state. The meeting was very numerously attended; and, though the object was opposed by two very respectable ecclesiastics, their opposition was overcome, and the society was finally established. It is a minor fact, but not unimportant, as showing the state of the public mind and public opinion, that the secretary of the new society had been secretary to the Inquisition, and the place of the meetings of the society is the former hall of the Inquisition. This is at least some proof that the public mind was more prepared for liberality than might have been expected from the results of this treaty. He did not blame the talents, the firmness, the zeal of the plenipotentiaries, but he thought that he had said enough to prove that something was wanting somewhere to have led to this result. He was sure that it was not owing to any defect in the instructions of the secretary of state for Foreign Affairs, whose large and enlightened policy had been so often and almost so unanimously approved in this House. But this was not all: he had seen yesterday a Bogota newspaper, expressing the feelings which the treaty of England with Buenos Ayres had excited in Colombia: they regretted, referring to the toleration secured by that treaty, that another state had ravished from them the glory of taking precedence in religious toleration: they trust, however, that the example of a state with the same religion, language, laws, and prejudices with their own, will be followed by them; an example which proves to the universe that the people of Buenos Ayres, after having gained their freedom, know how to make use of it. This, indeed, is not the language of a state paper, or of an act of Congress; it is merely the language of a newspaper; but a newspaper at Bogota, as at London, must, to be successful, speak the language, and represent the feelings of a great body of people. When, therefore, he considered these favourable indications—the absence from the constitution of Colombia of any exclusion of toleration; the personal character of Bolivar, in favour of all liberality; the personal character of some of those who administer the government in his absence, and the sympathy of people in Colombia with that liberality, so far as that sympathy can be considered as proved by the passage quoted, it is difficult not to see that a prima facie case is established to justify considerable surprise at the result of this treaty. This was more remarkable when the precedent of Buenos Ayres was remembered. There he found in the treaty with that power the most ample toleration established. If, therefore, the same plenipotentiaries who had been successful in Buenos Ayres had been employed in Bogota, the same results might perhaps have been obtained. He was sure that no instruction could have been wanting on the part of the secretary of state for Foreign Affairs. He did not wish him to have interposed in this negotiation with any threat, still less with the reality of war, if the object were not obtained. But enough had been here said to show how the balance in Colombia was wavering, and though he would not have wished the right hon. gentleman to have thrown his sword into it, he should have thought that the scale might have been turned by his pen. The time at which this failure took place adds to the regret which it occasions. It was just at the time when the Pope, whose influence in the Trans-Atlantic states had been declining, was endeavouring by his letters to recover that influence there. Those more especially who have contended that the church of Rome has changed, ought to look with more than ordinary regret at this refusal on the part of Colombia to grant toleration—a concession which might appear from so many circumstances to have been attainable. If the consideration of this question were to close here, he would have been content to read the treaty in silent mortification; but it was not merely the duty of the House to consider what had been done, and what might have been done, but also what remained to be done. There were still four states to be recognised—Chili, Peru, Guatimala, and Hayti, besides Mexico and the Brazils, the treaties with which, though in progress, were not ratified. In all these cases, he trusted that the right hon. gentleman would secure for the British subjects the benefits of that toleration which had been lost in Colombia.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer

said, he was sorry his right hon. friend, by whose advice the treaty was concluded, was not present, as he had no doubt that full information would have been afforded by him why this point had not been gained in Colombia as in Buenos Ayres. Although the government at Bogota might have been even disposed to make a more liberal concession as to toleration, still it might not follow that the populace might not have been still averse to so violent an extension of religious privileges. It was a matter of congratulation to all who had known any thing of the state of affairs antecedently in those countries to find that even so much had been gained. He could not sit down without remarking, that it was rather singular his hon. friend who spoke last should not, in his anxiety for introducing a more liberal spirit of complete toleration into Catholic states, have turned his thoughts nearer home, and suggested rather than retarded its adoption in a certain protestant country [hear! and a laugh].

Sir R. H. Inglis

begged his right hon. friend to recollect, that he had always made a distinction between granting religious toleration and granting political power.

Mr. Irving

, as a member of the Committee of Foreign Trade, felt himself called on to assure the House, that nothing had been neglected on the part of the committee to secure a just reciprocity of advantages to England in the treaty before the House; nor could he believe that the same object had, for a moment, escaped the observation of that part of his majesty's ministers to whose province these commercial arrangements in strictness belonged.

The bill was then read a second time.