HC Deb 05 February 1846 vol 83 cc495-502
Mr. WATSON

rose to move, pursuant to Notice, for leave to bring in a— Bill for the farther repeal of Enactments imposing pains and penalties upon Her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects, on account of their religion. The hon. and learned Gentleman said, that he did not mean to preface the Motion by any lengthened observations, and that he did not wish to invite discussion at that stage of the measure. A Bill containing similar provisions had last year met to a certain extent with the approba- tion of the Government, and those provisions had received the sanction of the Criminal Law Commissioners, to whom the whole subject had been referred. The enactments which he sought to repeal were a deep stain on our Statute Book. They were enactments no longer suited to the ago, and he therefore expected no opposition to the measure from any quarter in that House. The Criminal Law Commissioners had said that these Statutes had now become obsolete, that they were opposed to the feelings of the people, and that they ought to be at once repealed. There was one part of the Bill to which he particularly called the attention of the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford, and that was the repeal of certain severe enactments affecting the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, which were continued in the Bill of 1829—he meant the regular clergy, who had come to this country and placed themselves under monastic vows since the passing of that Act. He believed few persons did more good in their sphere than these men, who had devoted themselves to religious purposes and acts of charity; and yet they were liable, on coming into this country and placing themselves under monastic vows, to severe punishment, even to transportation. He thought it, indeed, high time that such an enactment should be removed from the Statute-book. It was utterly absurd to suppose that this could be one of the safeguards which the Church obtained in 1829, or to imagine that the existence of a body who spent their lives in acts of charity and mercy, in following out their religion, should endanger the Church of this country. With these few observations he would simply move for leave to bring in the Bill.

SIR J. GRAHAM

did not intend to offer any opposition to the introduction of the Bill by the hon. and learned Gentleman, if he should think it expedient, under the circumstances he was about to state, to persevere in his Motion. In consequence of what took place at the close of the last Session of Parliament, the whole subject of the Penal Laws, not only affecting Roman Catholics, but all dissenters from the Established religion, was referred to the Criminal Law Commissioners, with the direction that any Statute or portion of a Statute which in their opinion was susceptible of a penal character should be embodied in one Bill. During the recess the Criminal Law Commissioners, acting on that instruction, had framed a Bill, which had been laid before the other House of Parliament by the Lord Chancellor, with the full concurrence of the Government. Every effort would be made by Government to pass that measure; and he confidently expected in a short period to be able to introduce it to that House. It was a measure fully as comprehensive as that which he announced to the House at the end of the last Session.

SIR R. H. INGLIS

had felt it his duty not to rise until his right hon. Friend had addressed the House. He rejoiced on one account, and on one poor account only, at the observations which had fallen from him; and that was, because they had clearly proved to his mind that in his predictions last Session he had not wasted the time of the House; the fears which he had entertained last year, having in the present year been realized by Her Majesty's Government. He wished that hon. Gentlemen opposite would permit him to urge upon them respectfully and seriously the expediency of leaving their separate projects, whatever they might be, in the hands of Her Majesty's present advisers. He believed that the advice just tendered by the right hon. Baronet to the hon. and learned Member for Kinsale might with equal sincerity be tendered to other Members of the House; and that the objects which other hon. Members had in view would be attained quite as readily as the objects of the hon. and learned Gentleman would be attained, by transferring their labours to Her Majesty's Government. He did not mean to divide the House on the Motion for leave to bring in the Bill then under their consideration; but he wished to remind the House what was the nature of the Bill which the hon. and learned Gentleman had brought forward last year, and what was the nature of the Bill, precisely similar in its provisions, which he now asked leave to introduce; and which the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department had adopted as his own. It was a Bill to repeal the Act of Supremacy; it was a Bill to enable Roman Catholic bishops to assume the titles of the sees of prelates of the Established Church; it was a Bill to legalize processions (and processions, let them recollect, of one class of persons, while they had prohibited the processions of another class of persons on the ground of their exciting public opposition and hostility); it was a Bill to repeal the Act for expelling the Jesuits. Could any hon. Member deny that that was a fair summary of the Bill brought in by the hon. and learned Gentleman about this time last year, and which had been rejected on the 9th of July, when it stood for going into Committee? But he should repeat to the hon. and learned Gentleman, and to other hon. Members having similar projects for effecting a "blessed reformation in Church and State," that they might rely much more upon the assistance of Gentlemen on that side of the House, than they could rely on the assistance of his noble Friend the Member for the city of London. His noble Friend had said, on the 9th of July, he believed, when the Bill stood for a Committee, that although "he could not oppose the Motion for going into Committee, he was not prepared to say that he assented to all its provisions." Was not that a lesson to hon. Members who entertained what were called liberal views not to trouble the House with any amateur legislation on their parts, but to suggest their wishes to Her Majesty's present advisers, and to leave to them the accomplishment of those wishes, instead of consuming night after night in vain endeavours to direct the attention of the House to their measures? They might rest assured that those measures would be brought forward with all the advantages of the Government machinery and the Government advocacy, and would be passed on the nights devoted to Government business. He said it seriously—he believed it would be found that the most successful mode of proceeding for carrying those measures, would be for hon. Gentlemen opposite to suggest them first, and then to leave them in the hands of the present advisors of the Crown. Let any body deny that he had correctly stated the substance of the Bill which the hon. and learned Gentleman had introduced last year, and he would be ready to apologise to the House for any unintentional misrepresentation. He repeated, deliberately, that, as far as he recollected, that Bill had comprehended the four points to which he had already adverted, and which were in the present Session, they were told, to be brought forward in the House of Lords, with all the authority of a united Cabinet, by the Lord High Chancellor of England. From what he knew of that new Government measure, he believed it was substantially the same as that which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kinsale had just asked leave to introduce.

SIR J. GRAHAM

would not charge the hon. Baronet with intentionally misrepresenting him, but certainly he had both misrepresented him and misled the House, however unintentionally on his part. He said the Government had adopted the measure of the hon. Gentleman opposite. He (Sir J. Graham) gave a direct but respectful denial to that assertion. So far from adopting the measure of the hon. Gentleman, if it was the same which he introduced last year, on the occasion to which the hon. Member for Oxford had referred, he must state that there were certain clauses in that Bill to which, on the part of Government, he was opposed. He knew not what the Bill was, but if it was the same with that of last year, he should have the same objections to certain clauses which he had stated on the former occasion. With respect to the measure brought forward by the Government in the other House of Parliament, he should be prepared to defend it in all its parts; and if the hon. Baronet chose to attend when the time came, he trusted he should be able satisfactorily to prove that the Bill did not repeal the Act of Supremacy.

SIR R. H. INGLIS

said, he hoped he was as incapable of misrepresenting the right hon. Baronet, as of endeavouring to mislead the House. But he believed that the recollection of the House would go with him when he re-asserted, that the right hon. Baronet, although he had not said that he adopted the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman—and perhaps he (Sir R. Inglis) ought to apologise for having put those words in the right hon. Baronet's mouth—he believed that the recollection of the House would go with him when he re-asserted, that the right hon. Baronet had stated, that if the Bill were the same in substance as that of last year, a similar Bill, (he believed that the words were, "a Bill as comprehensive,") had been brought forward by Her Majesty's Government in the other House of Parliament. If he had misunderstood the right hon. Baronet, he would be ready to apologise to him. But the right hon. Baronet had stated, that the Bill of last year would not repeal the Act of Supremacy. He, however, pledged himself, that this was a prominent point in the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman; and it was as prominent a point, if he were not mistaken, in the Bill introduced into the other House by the Lord Chancellor.

LORD J. MANNERS

said, that it would perhaps be more convenient that the right hon. Baronet should state whether the penalties affecting the regular Roman Catholic clergy were retained in the Bill introduced into the House of Lords. [Sir J. GRAHAM: When the Bill comes in, I will explain it.] When the proper time should have arrived, he would be perfectly ready, although exceedingly sorry, to meet his hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford upon the provisions in question. He could not conceive that the Church of England could derive any benefit from penal Statutes against the regular Roman Catholic clergy. He agreed with his hon. Friend, that there were many safeguards which the Church of England had a right to demand. He thought she had a right to demand to have perfect freedom to increase her resources with the increase of our population; he thought she had a right to demand that her ancient landmarks should not be swept away, or the number of her livings decreased. But he did not think that the Church of England could be benefited by retaining penalties which were not only alien to the spirit of Christian charity, but which the Governments which had imposed them had never had the cruelty to enforce. It was perfectly notorious that there had been enacted against religious bodies in this country, penalties which no one would wish to see carried into effect. He was sure that no one would wish to interfere with the Christian Brothers, for instance, or with the Cistercian Monks—men who devoted their lives to the improvement of their fellow-creatures.

MR. O'CONNELL

hoped, that this Bill would not be withdrawn, or left in the hands of Government; but that it would be permitted to be read a first time, and in due course they would find whether the Bill referred to by the right hon. Baronet was essentially the same. Singular, indeed, it was, that at this time of day, that House should be called on to decide whether the exercise of the priestly office was to be made penal by Act of Parliament—whether a devoted attachment to religious exorcises, the abandonment of worldly cares, and the salvation of the souls of such individuals, as well as the souls of others—were things that the people of England wished to have punished by legal enactment. They had come to a curious period of the world's history. Who had not heard of persecutions of a most atrocious kind—of cruelties of the most hor- rible nature—inflicted on the helpless nuns of Minsk? The monster tyrant who could thus basely and foully commit such outrages on those estimable ladies, was an object of loathing; and it was not creditable to the Christians of Europe, that some public demonstration had not been made to express the horror and detestation of all civilized Christendom against the monster and his satellites who had perpetrated such enormities. What was the principle of the law in this country as it stood? It was the same principle as that upon which the tyrant of Russia, had acted. There was no punishment by our law for the Atheist—none for the Deist: it was all reserved for the sincerely pious and the benevolently humane. To visit virtue and charity with penalties and punishment, was a most anti-Christian proceeding. He felt bound to thank the right hon. Home Secretary and the Government for the excellence of their intentions; and he hoped that their Bill would be found so good as to supersede that of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kinsale.

LORD J. RUSSELL

, allusion having been made to him, wished to say a few words as to his former declaration, that he was not ready at once to repeal these laws without consideration. Last Session he had voted for the Committee, but he had reserved to himself the right of weighing the details. It appeared to him that there was one part of the question that had not been sufficiently attended to: the measure of Government, as far as it was stated last year, did not effect that relief to the Roman Catholics from a law by which they were punished, both for assuming episcopal titles in Ireland, and for belonging to certain religious orders. That part of the subject required interference by the Legislature. As to preventing persons assuming particular titles, nothing could be more absurd and puerile than to keep up such a distinction. He had also the strongest objection to the law which made Jesuits in certain cases liable to transportation: the enactment was as intolerant as it was inefficacious, and it was fit that the law should be put on an intelligible and rational footing. Whether it would be expedient to repeal that part of the law which restricted monastic orders, or whether some security ought not to be required from them similar to that given by Protestant Dissenters, viz., that they should be registered and subjected to the inspection, if you will, of Roman Catholic visitors, was a great question he was not yet prepared to answer. What had happened in various countries in respect to these religious orders was well known. They were not attacked because they professed particular tenets, but because they actually interfered with the politics of the State in which they were established. He was prepared to say that severe penalties ought not to be threatened which no person and no Government would venture to execute.

Bill brought in and read a first time.