ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES ASSUMPTION BILL.

HC Deb 20 June 1851 vol 117 cc1009-63

Order for Committee read.

House in Committee; Mr. Bernal in the chair.

MR. KEOGH

said, the noble Lord at the head of the Government had intimated to him that he was prepared to give his support to one clause which he (Mr. Keogh) proposed to introduce, and he should therefore bring that Amendment forward at a future stage; but he should not now propose the other Amendments of which he had given notice.

On Question, "That Clause 2 stand part of the Bill,"

MR. MONSELL

moved the addition of these words as a proviso:— That nothing in this Act contained shall be construed to interfere with, or in any manner to restrict, the free action of the Roman Catholic Church in the United Kingdom in matters of a spiritual nature. He was sure no one in the House could object to the proposition, who was really and sincerely anxious to avoid those angry bickerings which tended, as every day proved, to divide the people of this country, including Ireland, into two hostile parties. He was sure the noble Lord at the head of the Government could not object to it, consistently with his answer to the right hon. Baronet the Member for Ripon, that he was perfectly prepared to do anything to save the spiritual rights of the Roman Catholic Church, provided that Church was not the umpire as to what was spiritual and what temporal. It was evident to any one who had paid attention to the discussions on this Bill, that on the one hand the opposers of the measure declared, in the most distinct and solemn manner, that they had no desire to interfere, directly or indirectly, with the temporal authority of the Queen; and, on the other, that the supporters of the Bill declared, in an equally clear and distinct manner, that they had no desire to interfere with the spiritual action of the Roman Catholic Church. Under these circumstances, it certainly seemed possible that the two parties might agree, but for the question who was to decide what was spiritual and what was temporal. The proposition he now made, left that question entirely and absolutely to the decision of the civil courts of the kingdom. It might be said, that if the spiritual and temporal power were mixed, there must be perpetual legislation on the point. But Mr. Grattan (an authority which the noble Lord recognised) said, the accusation that the temporal power was infringed by the Roman Catholic Church was the calumny of a scolding sect. Sydney Smith, in his experience during the time a Roman Catholic hierarchy was established in Ireland, never knew a single instance in which the spiritual power had encroached upon the temporal power; and Lord Plunkett, on one of the last debates on the Catholic Emancipation Bill, observed— But it was said that it was not easy to dissever the spiritual from the temporal power—that it was almost impossible to force them asunder. Now, this very point had been discussed for the last thirty years—the most acute minds during that period had been occupied in considering it. They had been endeavouring to find where the spiritual power of the Pope in this country interfered with matters of a temporal description; and after all this research, they could adduce but one instance"—[2 Hansard, xix. 1275]— and that was a case of marriage. He continues— That was the only instance in which the spiritual power of the Pope interfered or could interfere in any degree with the temporal interests of the people of this realm. The House would recollect that, during the whole of those thirty years to which Lord Plunkett alluded, the Roman Catholic hierarchy existed in Ireland. He now proposed to leave the power of interpretation entirely in the hands of the civil authorities, and of Her Majesty's Courts of Law, where sufficient care would be taken to prevent any infringement of the rights of the Crown. He would leave the matter entirely in the hands of the House. He had brought forward his Amendment in a spirit of conciliation, which he was anxious to see preserved. He should be exceedingly proud if any effort of his should tend to remove that unfortunate spirit of animosity which he saw rising around them, and in that spirit he asked hon. Members to listen with fairness to the proposition which he took the liberty of making to the House.

Amendment proposed, Clause 2, to add at the end of the Clause the following Proviso:— Provided always, That nothing in this Act contained shall be construed to interfere with or in any manner to restrict the free action of the Roman Catholic Church in the United Kingdom in matters of a spiritual nature.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

said, he should be extremely sorry if anything he said should tend in the least degree to diminish that spirit in which the hon. Gentleman had stated, and he had no doubt most correctly, he had brought forward this Amendment—namely, the spirit of conciliation. He should be sorry if it were supposed for a moment that the Government had the slightest disposition to oppose any reasonable effort that could be made for such a purpose. But, with reference to the present Amendment, the Committee would recollect that this was not the first occasion on which a similar proposition had been made. An Amendment very similar was moved on a former occasion by the hon. Member for Arundel (the Earl of Arundel and Surrey); a very full discussion had taken place on that Amendment; and the answer which was then given, and which seemed at the time to satisfy the Committee, as he hoped it would again satisfy them, was this, that really, if any purely spiritual function could be pointed out by any hon. Member with which the Bill would interfere, it would doubtless be desirable that the Committee should pay every attention to the subject, and endeavour to escape from the inconvenience arising from such spiritual purpose being interfered with; but, notwithstanding that this statement had been four or five times made, he had never yet heard any hon. Member mention a spiritual function that would be interfered with, except one, and that was that it would interfere with ordination, and that, interfering with ordination, it would consequently interfere with marriages; but no authority was cited, no case was stated, no reason given why the Committee should accede to such a proposition. Now, he believed that there was no point more clearly established than that the functions of a bishop in no way depended on the title of his diocese, or on his ordination, but simply on his consecration. The Committee were aware that in England the functions of a bishop had been exercised by Roman Catholics without territorial titles ever since the Reformation— that vicars-apostolic being bishops had exercised all the functions of bishops, and had found no difficulty in doing so; and there was nothing in the Bill to prevent them doing as they had hitherto done. Then, again, with respect to Ireland, the Roman Catholic bishops had ever since 1829 exercised all their ecclesiastical functions without let or hindrance, although the prohibitions contained in the Act of 1829 were as strong as anything contained in the present Bill; and he begged the Committee to bear in mind that the object of the present Bill was nothing more nor less than simply to apply the principle of the Act of 1829 to a new description of circumstances. Now, nobody would say that ordinations and marriages had not been going on in Ireland since 1829, and no doubt had ever been thrown upon the legality of marriages among Roman Catholics in Ireland. That being so, then, and there being no other matter with which it was pretended that the Bill would interfere with respect to spiritual functions, were the Committee prepared to insert in the Bill an Amendment which would only promote, not conciliation, but future doubt, discussion, and heartburning? for, without wishing to hurt the feelings of hon. Members connected with the Roman Catholic Church, he would remind the Committee that the interpretation of the words "spiritual purposes," "spiritual jurisdiction," and "spiritual functions," was widely different in the Roman Catholic Church from what it was in any other; that, in fact, the words received a much wider scope among Roman Catholics than among Protestants, and involved a number of functions which Protestants were accustomed to consider as essentially temporal. That being the case, he held that the insertion of the proposed proviso would only have the effect of starting doubts and difficulties in the interpretation of the Act, whereas, in its absence, there would not be the slightest chance of the Bill being supposed to interfere with any ecclesiastical function whatever, or with any spiritual comfort or advantage which Roman Catholics had been in the habit of receiving from their bishops in England since the Reformation, or in Ireland since 1829. It was a remarkable fact, to which he wished to call the attention of the Committee, that, on looking into what he believed to be an authentic document, he found that a very large proportion—nearly one-third—of the bishops in the Roman Catholic Church consisted of persons who derived no titles from territorial sees, but were merely vicars-apostolic, with merely nominal sees. He must, therefore, oppose the Amendment.

MR. MONSELL

said, the right hon. Gentleman replied by stating, that the Act of 1829 had not been put in force in Ireland, and that vicars-apostolic did just as well as bishops in England; but surely he would not forget the whole discussion of the last two months, and that the most distinguished lawyers had expressed the strongest possible opinion that as this Act would make illegal every Bull coming from the Court of Rome, and of course every act under every such Bull; it would interfere with the spiritual functions of vicars-apostolic as much as with those of bishops. The right hon. Gentleman had never condescended to refer to that opinion, though he frequently referred to the case of Lalor, as interpreting the 16th Richard II., and the offence of Lalor was clearly proved to have been the signing himself as vicar-apostolic.

MR. SCULLY

considered that the Solicitor General had assigned no sufficient reason for rejecting the proposed proviso. This Act went much further than the Act of 1829, because that Act did not allude, either by implication, or directly, to the introduction of Bulls into this country. With reference to the consecration of bishops, he should like to know how that point would be affected by this Bill. There bad been a recent instance, in the case of the consecration of the Bishop of Killaloe, in the county which he had the honour to represent. That consecration must take place under a Papal Bull. By this Bill all Bulls from Rome were illegal, so that the consecration would be illegal. This Act went much further than the 10th George IV., for any act under a Bull from the Pope would subject the individual to a severe penalty, which was not the case under the 10th George IV. The holding of synods was another most important matter, which would be affected by the Bill; for the Master of the Rolls had said that this Bill was intended to affect the synodical action of bishops; and thus the Government were attempting to put down what every other country in Europe was trying to keep up—the moral force of the Catholic episcopacy in this country. It was quite evident, from the provisions of this Bill, that it exceeded the promise of the noble Lord, that he would not allow it to interfere with the spiritual concerns of the Catholics.

MR. SADLEIR

expressed his regret that the Government had not acquiesced in the principle, at least, of the Amendment. He had listened with great attention and respect to the hon. and learned Solicitor General, and could not succeed in detecting anything approaching to an answer to the reasons for the Amendment of his hon. Friend. The object of his hon. Friend's Amendment was to prevent future litigation of a most vexatious and mischievous character. So far from the Amendment rendering the Bill obscure, it was calculated to clear up the obscurity of the Bill itself as regarded a most delicate and important question; and the passing of the Amendment would show that the Government really had no desire to interfere with the spiritual functions of the Roman Catholic bishops; and he challenged the hon. and learned Gentleman to show that the Roman Catholics attached any different meaning to the expression "spiritual matters" from that given to it by Protestants. By the establishment of a hierarchy in this country, in place of the vicars-apostolic, the Roman Catholics gained an independent position in this country as regarded the Pope of Rome, which they could not otherwise enjoy. He confessed that he, for one, was not prepared to surrender that advantage. It was impossible, he thought, for any Roman Catholic in this country not to feel gratified by the substitution of bishops for vicars-apostolic, who, he made bold to say, were nothing but the agents of the Court of Rome. Bishops were better adapted to avert or put aside any obnoxious rescript that might be sent over by a man occupying the Papal chair who might be averse to this country. The Bill would force the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland to forsake those ancient forms which had been observed by them for centuries; but if the right hon. Gentleman meant to do that, he would find that, after all, he was powerless to affect, in the slightest degree, the action and power of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland. But by their Bill, the Government would disarm, weaken, and strike down the moderate men in Ireland, while it would strengthen and arm those who desired to convert the Catholic religion to their own sordid purposes. Moderate laymen, in Ireland, had of late been daily increasing; but this Bill would deprive them of their influence, and throw them back for years to come, while it would cast upon the clergy in Ireland a great amount of influence in temporal and political matters, of which the Roman Catholic clergy desired to be divested. He hoped the Government would pause before they rejected altogether, both in form and in spirit, the Amendment of his hon. Friend. If the real object of the promoters was not to impair the action of the Roman Catholic religion in matters spiritual, it was of the last importance that they should express their wishes and objects in clear and definite terms.

MR. J. O'CONNELL

thought that the noble Lord at the head of the Government was hound to adopt this Amendment, or some similar form of words, by the expressions which he had put in Her Majesty's Speech from the Throne at the beginning of the Session, and in which there was a distinct injunction to the Legislature to preserve intact the religious liberties of Her Roman Catholic subjects. The noble Lord would not be carrying out that injunction if he did not give some such safeguard as that which was now asked for. But besides the expressions in the Royal Speech, the noble Lord had over and over again by his own personal declarations asseverated that he had no intention whatsoever of interfering with purely spiritual functions and jurisdiction. The Committee had now almost gone through the Bill, and not a word had been found in it that could be said to afford a guarantee that the religious privileges of Roman Catholics should remain intact. He appealed to the noble Lord whether he would not do something of the kind. There were portions of the Bill which were capable of very severe construction, and what would be the consequence when it came to be administered by the courts of law? Perhaps the best of Judges were not always free from bias—it might be imperceptible even to themselves; and there was no bias in the mind so strong as that caused by religious feeling; and as the Bill stood, without the addition of some such words as were now proposed, Roman Catholics would be at the mercy of any Judge. There was, he feared, a strong and insidious religious feeling spreading throughout society. It had already appeared on the magistrate's bench, and who would say that it might not invade the sacred precincts of the judicature? The Roman Catholics did ask the noble Lord to give them some guarantee; and, if he did not like the form of words in the Amendment, let him select any other he might consider sufficient for the purpose.

VISCOUNT BERNARD

observed that all through the protracted debate on this Bill they had been told by the Roman Catholics that the Bull which had caused so much dissatisfaction in this country, was simply a spiritual act. Therefore, according to that interpretation, if the Committee adopted the proposed proviso, they would be legalising the very act against which they were legislating.

COLONEL RAWDON

said, that the proviso had been brought forward simply to provide against the operation of the Bill in matters purely spiritual. It appeared there was a doubt as to the construction of the Bill in that respect; and he thought that it was the duty of the Committee, in such a case, to give the benefit of the doubt to the party legislated for, and to construe it in a liberal spirit. If they took that view, then they would insert the words proposed. He had come down to the House in some doubt as to the necessity for the proviso, but rather prepossessed in its favour. He had, however, declined to give a specific answer when asked to support it, because he wished to hear what the Government would say, and he had failed to hear from the Solicitor General any allegation that the insertion of these words, or something like them, would injure the effect of the Bill, and he should, therefore, give his assent to the Amendment.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

said, his impression was that the proposal contained in the proviso had been already decided in the Committee; and he would refer the Committee to the Motion, on a former occasion, by the noble Lord the Member for Arundel, in which they would find the same proposition, that nothing in the Bill should interfere with spiritual functions. It appeared to him clear that the introduction of the words proposed by the hon. Member for Limerick would only lead to dispute and angry feeling. The noble Lord had said—and it was contended by many Roman Catholics—that the whole of the Rescript constituting the Archbishopric of Westminster was of a purely spiritual nature. That, as it appeared, was for Parliament to decide; and the proposal of the hon. Member was to take away the decision from Parliament, and leave it to the courts of law. He thought that their legislation on the subject should be as clear as it could be made. By legislation they might make a particular act illegal, or they might forbid a certain act, and put a penalty upon it; but if, for example, by a proviso they enacted that nothing in the Bill should militate against the civil liberty of the subject, it would become a matter of great dispute in a court of law what did militate against the civil liberty of the subject. Such a proviso, it appeared to him, ought not to be inserted in an Act of Parliament, for the effect would be to leave to the judgment of a jury that very ambiguous question, "What is spiritual and what is temporal?"

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The Committee divided;—Ayes 42; Noes 160: Majority 118.

COLONEL SIBTHORP

moved two Amendments which he had placed upon the paper. The first was, an addition at the end of the clause, and was to the effect that any offender against the Act who had been fined 100l., should be further imprisoned until the said sum should have been paid, and that after the payment he should be banished from the United Kingdom during the period of his natural life. He should have been glad to make the fine 500l. instead of 100l., as some improvement on the milk-and-water measure of the Government. The second Amendment was the introduction of a clause to the effect, that if any Secretary of State, or high officer of the Crown, or any person holding any confidential appointment in the Government, should after the commencement of the Act permit, sanction, or in any manner encourage, directly or indirectly, any such assumption of titles provided against in the Act, every person so offending should be fined 500l., imprisoned until the fine was paid, and thereafter rendered incapable of holding any office, place, or employment in Her Majesty's service. The hon. and gallant Member expressed the hope that he should have the support of those sixty-three honest Members who had, on a former occasion, evinced their strong attachment to their Sovereign and to the Protestant religion. He could tell the noble Lord that there existed a strong opinion out of doors that he ought to have taken a very different course in vindicating the authority of the Sovereign from the aggression of a foreign Power. Cardinal Wiseman was certainly a dangerous person, and, when he made his appearance here with his now authority from the Pope, ought to have been at once sent out of the country. The noble Lord was not, however, much better; and the general impression of those who studied this question was, that his conduct could not be reconciled with a desire to uphold the sovereignty of the Queen, and the independence of this country. He (Colonel Sibthorp) had felt it his duty to introduce this clause; he had expressed his sentiments fairly and honestly on the conduct of the noble Lord, and as he felt no anxiety to prolong the debate, he would withdraw the clause. The sooner this Bill, bad as it was, had passed, the better. They had already wasted plenty of time in discussing it.

MR. MOORE

must do the hon. and gallant Colonel the justice to say, that his proposal was far more just and reasonable than that of the noble Lord (Lord John Russell); because, if the crime committed had been really what the noble Lord described it to be, if it really touched the regality of the Crown and the independence of the nation, the penalty proposed by the gallant Colonel was far more commensurate with the offence than the penalty of the noble Lord.

MR. BERNAL

If the hon. and gallant Member does not divide, the question will then be, "That Clause 2 stand part of the Bill."

MR. REYNOLDS

despaired of the Government taking any of the poison out of the Bill, after they had rejected the moderate proposition of the hon. Member (Mr. Monsell). The hon. Member had asked the Committee to leave the Roman Catholic Church the exercise of freedom in spiritual matters, and the noble Lord, having a majority of 160 to 42, rejected the proviso. Now, seeing that the noble Lord had rejected it, he was surprised that he had not invited the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Sibthorp) to persevere with his Amendment, for with what consistency could the noble Lord reject the one, and refuse to adopt the other? He would take that last opportunity of declaring that this clause was in his opinion a repeal of the most valuable portion of the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act —that it was a clause of pains and penalties—and that in his opinion it was an insult to the Roman Catholic religion, and those who professed it. This Bill would be remembered against the Whig Government, not only during their natural lives, but also against their successors who professed the same politics. Since he had last addressed the Committee on this subject he had spent ten days in Ireland, and had had the opportunity of hearing the opinions of the Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and laymen, on the conduct of Government; and he could assure the Committee their indignation against the Government and against the majority of the House knew no bounds. They had withdrawn all confidence from the House and the Government, for they believed that they were not likely to receive any measure of justice at their hands. They thought that they must look to themselves for protection in future. They conceived that they could not now look to this House for fair play; and he (Mr. Reynolds) was authorised to repeat, in the name of his fellow-countrymen, including many Protestants and Presbyterians, and the liberal and enlightened portion of every sect and party in Ireland, that they looked on this as a, retrograde step in legislation, disgraceful alike to its authors and supporters. All though he had no desire to use other than courteous and moderate language, yet he could not help declaring that the English vocabulary did not furnish language sufficiently strong for him to express his indignation of the outrage inflicted by this measure on the creed of ten millions of Her Majesty's subjects who had been guilty of no crime. He admitted that the majority of the House were in favour of the Government in respect to this measure, but he contended that all the argument was with those who opposed the Bill. Before this clause were finally passed, he begged to remind the Committee of the arguments used by the right hon. Member for Ripon when he last addressed the Committee on this subject. Those arguments were unanswered and unanswerable. He warned the Government that by pushing forward this Bill, they were creating discord among the Queen's subjects, and rendering the government of the country more difficult and expensive.

DR. POWER

referred to the conflicting opinions which had been expressed as to the effects of the Bill, and contended that, seeing the existence of such doubts, the noble Lord was bound to have remodelled the measure. Hon. Members on both sides of the House had said that they did not contemplate interfering with the spiritual functions of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, and he therefore thought that in the midst of so much doubt, their best course would be to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, in order that it might be brought into a consistent shape. By doing this they would satisfy the people of Ireland, and give them some evidence that they did not wish to interfere with their religious liberties. The consequences of this measure might soon be displayed. Suppose the Bishop of Ross, who had been appointed since the issue of this Rescript, should suspend a priest. If that priest were actuated by revenge, he might exhibit his letters of ordination, in which his bishop would call himself "Bishop of Ross." The assumption of that title would subject the bishop to the penalty of the present clause, and if proceedings were taken they would be sure to sow heartburning and discord among the population, whatever the result before the legal tribunals. Many hon. Members supported this Bill not because they believed that there was anything in the act of the Pope per se very objectionable, but because they believed with the noble Lord that it was part and parcel of a great plan to crush not only the civil liberties of this country, hut of Europe. If he (Dr. Power) believed that the issuing of the late Rescript of the Pope formed part of any such plan, he would most heartily and cheerfully vote for the Bill; and there were few Catholics who would not be willing to co-operate with the noble Lord in resisting any attempt on the civil liberties cither of the Crown or the people of this country.

The Committee divided on the Question "That Clause 2 stand part of the Bill:"— Ayes 150; Noes 35: Majority 115.

List of the AYES.
Adair, R. A. S.	Fergus, J.
Adderley, C. B.	Fitzroy, hon. H.
Alcock, T.	Forbes, W.
Anson, hon. Col.	Fordyce, A. D.
Arbuthnott, hon. H.	Freestun, Col.
Baines, rt. hon. M. T.	Freshfield, J. W.
Bankes, G.	Fuller, A. E.
Baring, rt. hn. Sir F.T.	Goddard, A. L.
Barrington, Visct.	Gordon, Adm.
Barrow, W. H.	Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.
Bass, M. T.	Grey, R. W.
Bell, J.	Grogan, E.
Beresford, W.	Guest, Sir J.
Berkeley, Adm.	Gwyn, H.
Bernard, Visct.	Hall, Sir B.
Birch, Sir T. B.	Hallewell, E. G.
Booker, T. W.	Hallyburton, Lord J. F.
Bowles, Adm.	Hamilton, Lord C.
Boyd, J.	Harris, R.
Boyle, hon. Col.	Hastie, A.
Bremridge, R.	Hastie, A.
Brisco, M.	Hatchell, rt. hon. J.
Brotherton, J.	Hawes, B.
Buller, Sir J. Y.	Hayes, Sir E.
Bunbury, W. M.	Heathcote, Sir G. J.
Burrell, Sir C. M.	Henley, J. W.
Campbell, hon. W.	Herries, rt. hon. J. C.
Campbell, Sir A. I.	Hindley, C.
Cavendish, hon. G. H.	Hodges, T. L.
Cayley, E. S.	Hodgson, W. N.
Childers, J. W.	Hope, Sir J.
Clerk, rt. hon. Sir G.	Hotham, Lord
Clive, H. B.	Hughes, W. B.
Cockburn, Sir A. J. E.	Johnstone, J.
Corry, rt. hon. H. L.	Jones, Capt.
Cowan, C.	Kershaw, J.
Craig, Sir W. G.	Lacy, H. C.
Cubitt, W.	Langston, W. H. P. G.
Davie, Sir H. R. F.	Legh, G. C.
Davies, D. A. S.	Lemon, Sir C.
Dawes, E.	Lewis, G. C.
D'Eyncourt, rt. hon. C. T.	Lindsay, hon. Col.
Disraeli, B.	Lockhart, W.
Divett, E.	Long, W.
Dod, J. W.	Lygon, hon. Gen.
Dodd, G.	Mackenzie, W. F.
Drummond, H.	Mackie, J.
Dundas, Adm.	M'Taggart, Sir J.
Edwards, H.	Mangles, R. D.
Egerton, Sir P.	Morris, D.
Elliot, hon. J. E.	Mulgrave, Earl of
Estcourt, J. B. B.	Mundy, W.
Evans, W.	Napier, J.
Evelyn, W. J	Ogle, S. C. H.

Packe, C. W.	Spooner, R.
Paget, Lord C.	Stafford, A.
Pakington, Sir J.	Stanley, hon. E. H.
Palmer, R.	Stanton, W. H.
Parker, J.	Staunton, Sir G. T.
Patten, J. W.	Thicknesse, R. A.
Peel, Col.	Thompson, Col.
Perfect, R.	Thornhill, G.
Plumptre, J. P.	Tyler, Sir G.
Pugh, D.	Verney, Sir H.
Reid, Col.	Waddington, H. S.
Rice, E. R.	Walpole, S. H.
Richards, R.	Walsh, Sir J. B.
Romilly, Sir J.	Watkins, Col. L.
Rumbold, C. E.	Wawn, J. T.
Russell, Lord J.	Williamson, Sir H.
Russell, F. C. H.	Willoughby, Sir H.
Sandars, G.	Wilson, J.
Seaham, Visct.	Wood, Sir W. P.
Seymour, Lord
Sibthorp, Col.	TELLERS.
Somerset, Capt.	Hayter, W. G.
Somerville, rt. hon. Sir W.	Hill, Lord M.

List of the NOES.
Arundel and Surrey, Earl of	Morgan, H. K. G.
	Murphy, F. S.
Bright, J.	O'Brien, Sir T.
Clements, hon. C. S.	O'Connell, J.
Corbally, M. E.	O'Connor, F.
Crawford, W. S.	O'Ferrall, rt. hon. R. M.
Devereux, J. T.	O'Flaherty, A.
Ellis, J.	Oswald, A.
Fox, W. J.	Sadleir, J.
Goold, W.	Scully, F.
Grace, O. D. J.	Smith, rt. hon. R. V.
Graham, rt. hon. Sir J.	Somers, J. P.
Greene, J.	Tenison, E. K.
Higgins, G. G. O.	Tennent, R. J.
Hume, J.	Vane, Lord H.
Keating, R.	Walmsley, Sir J.
Keogh, W.
M'Cullagh, W. T.	TELLERS.
Meagher, T.	Reynolds, J.
Monsell, W.	Power, M.

Clause 3 (Act not to extend to Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Scotland).

MR. SHARMAN CRAWFORD

rose to propose an Amendment. The Bill did not exempt the Scotch Church from the allegation in the preamble, "That the attempt to establish under cover or authority of the Sec of Rome," any power or jurisdiction in this country "is illegal and void." Although an exception was made in one of the clauses in favour of the Church in Scotland, it still remained under the proscription of the declaratory clause. Now it appeared to him that this Bill, under the pretence of resisting Papal aggression, was an aggression on all voluntary episcopal Churches. No voluntary episcopal Church could exist in the United Kingdom under this Bill without being liable to the pains and penalties prescribed. The Bill was in effect really to establish the arrogant claim of superiority of the Established Church over voluntary Churches; and he would, therefore, resist this Bill because it was an aggression on the voluntary principle. He wished to call the attention of the House to one of the dangers put forward by the noble Lord. The noble Lord, in his letter, said, "There is a danger, however, which alarms me much more than any aggression of a foreign Sovereign. Clergymen of our own Church, who have subscribed the Thirty-nine Articles, and acknowledged in explicit terms the Queen's supremacy, have been the most forward in leading their flocks step by step to the very verge of the precipice." This Bill provided no safeguard against that. What was the cause of that danger? It was that the Established Church of England was under the control of the State. The clergy were independent of the bishops, and there was no congregation or synod by which its rules and ordinances might be enforced. So long as that was the case, there could be no safety for the principles of that Church. Then, what was the remedy? Every conscientious Christian would be obliged to secede from that Church, and form a Church of themselves. Therefore he did not wish to see any enactment passed which should take away the power of any free episcopal Church, whether in England, Scotland, or Ireland, from appointing their own bishops. The noble Lord in his letter also said, "The liberty of Protestantism has been enjoyed too long in England to allow of any successful attempt to impose upon our minds and consciences." He agreed with that so long as they maintained the principles of civil and religious liberty; but religious liberty was not enjoyed so long as the dominion of the State was maintained over the doctrines and ordinances of the Church. Would the noble Lord propose an Act of Parliament, by which the Church should have its remedy in its own hands?

Amendment proposed— To leave out from the word 'place' to the end of the Clause, in order to add the words 'used as the designation of office in such Church, or to the assumption or use of the title of Archbishop, Bishop, or Dean, taken by any person solely as the designation of his office, for the government of any voluntary Church according to its rules and usages, and not claiming or assuming to have by Law in respect of such title any jurisdiction, authority, or pre-eminence in the United Kingdom,' instead thereof.

SIR GEORGE GREY

thought the addition of the words proposed by the hon. Gentleman very objectionable. They were indeed very ambiguous. If the hon. Gentleman meant only to preserve the right of Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops to use the designation of archbishops or bishops, then he answered that there was nothing in the Bill which by possibility could prevent their right so to designate themselves; but if the hon. Gentleman meant to say they were to use the title of archbishop or bishop of a diocese, the title being taken from some city or place in the United Kingdom, merely on the ground that they did not thereby claim to have bylaw any authority or jurisdiction in respect of such title, then he said the proposed Amendment would neutralise the Bill.

MR. SHARMAN CRAWFORD

said, that his object was to give the Scotch Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and all other voluntary churches, the power of assuming the designation of archbishop and bishop, if they should think fit.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 118; Noes 33: Majority 85.

MR. KEOGH

intimated his intention not to oppose the clause. The same liberty which he claimed for his own Church, he was willing to concede to that of others.

THE EARL OF ARUNDEL AND SURREY

would not oppose the clause, inasmuch as its operation would be emancipative; but he could not help saying, that it involved the promoters of the Bill in a flagrant inconsistency. The plea that had been assigned in justification of the measure, was, that an attack had been made upon the supremacy of the Crown. But it was worthy of remark, that, whereas, in England, a Church was maintained by the State which acknowledged that supremacy —a Church which denied and had always denied it, was maintained in Scotland. The Episcopal Church in Scotland stood in the same position to the Crown as the Catholic Church in England and Ireland. Both Churches wore Episcopalian, and both were voluntary, and yet a different measure of legislation was sought to be applied to each. It was true that the bishops in Scotland were appointed by a native power, while the Catholic prelates derived their authority from a foreigner; but as the statute law of the country now permitted Catholics to acknowledge a foreigner as the head of their Church, it was absurd to legislate for them on a dif- ferent principle from that applied to other churches.

SIR GEORGE GREY

remarked, that the Scotch bishops stood on a totally different footing, inasmuch as they did not hold their office from the appointment of a foreign Power. There was nothing in this clause, however, which gave them a right to assume these titles. The right had been denied by the Court of Session in Scotland, and this clause left them just as they were before.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he agreed with the right hon. Baronet that there was a distinction between bishops holding office by foreign authority, and those who did not so hold it. But the question which he wished to put to Her Majesty's Government was of a different description. He wanted to know why this clause was not to extend to other bishops who might choose to hold territorial titles, but might not hold them under the authority of a foreign Power. Perhaps the answer would be, that there were no such bishops. But there might be. There were some persons in Scotland professing to be episcopalians, who were dissatisfied with the arrangements of the Scotch bishops, and who had taken steps to obtain the appointment of a bishop of their own. Why should they be prevented from doing this? Then why should not the Wesleyans, if they chose, call their superintendents of circuits bishops with territorial titles. If they were going to lay down this restrictive law, they ought to tell them why they did it. He, himself, with the views that he entertained with regard to this Bill, certainly would not undertake the responsibility of attempting to amend it, but he thought Her Majesty's Government on their own principles —not on his principles, because that would not satisfy him with the Bill—but on their own principles, they ought not to make the assumption of titles unlawful except they were derived from a foreign authority.

THE CHAIRMAN

was putting the clause, when

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he hoped there would be some answer to his question.

SIR GEORGE GREY

said, the right hon. Gentleman asked why this clause should not extend to the Wesleyans. His answer was, that the Wesleyans, as a body, supported this Bill; they did not ask for any indulgence of the kind; and that their case was an imaginary one, put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. The Government had dealt with the bodies of religionists they found in existence, and had not felt themselves bound to provide against supposititious cases. It was only within the last few years that the Scotch bishops had partly assumed these titles: he said partly, because in legal documents they did not assume them. Those titles were not legal. At the same time, it was totally unnecessary to subject the bishops who assumed them to penalties.

MR. OSWALD

said, the right hon. Gentleman observed that the bishops in Scotland had no legal right to assume these titles, and that was true. He also said they had only assumed them within the last few years; but the fact was, they had used territorial titles ever since 1727. In 1731 there was a code of canons drawn, and another in 1742, in which the now existing territorial titles were repeated nineteen times. The use of territorial ttiles was necessary to the constitution of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, and they claimed the right as British subjects to use them.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, it was perfectly true the Wesleyans had no bishops, and he did not point out the discrepancy as an immediate evil to anybody; but they were introducing a restriction against civil and religious liberty, without giving the slightest reason for it. He wanted to know why these persons, who had just as much right as any Scotch bishops to assume titles, were to be precluded from so doing?

MR. REYNOLDS,

looking upon this clause as an emancipative clause, was favourable to it; but, if a division should take place, he should not vote at all, as it should never be said of him that he voted for any part of this Bill. This clause, he contended, was at variance with the second clause, which they had already passed. He conceived that their treatment of the Scotch bishops, who were violators of the law on the hand, and of the ten millions of Catholics on the other hand, was making fish of one, and flesh of the other. He was for full civil and religious liberty all over the globe, and he thought they ought not to compel a man to support a church he dissented from. The right hon. Gentleman said, besides the Scotch bishops there were no other bishops in England except those of the Established Church. There were, however, the Moravian bishops, who derived their authority from a central German Power. The whole Bill was atrocious and infamous.

The clause was agreed to without a division.

Clause 3 to stand part of the Bill.

MR. SHARMAN CRAWFORD

rose to move the addition of a clause providing that the Bill shall not extend to Ireland. He invited, in the first place, the attention of the Committee to the nature of the aggression of which complaint had been made. In a letter of the 29th of September last the Pope divided this country into districts, for the purpose of establishing a Roman Catholic herarchy. This was alleged to be a violation of the Queen's supremacy; and yet the noble Lord at the head of the Government admitted, that having consulted the law officers of the Crown, they had declared that neither the common law nor the statute law had been infringed. He could not understand, therefore, how it was that any violation of the Queen's supremacy had taken place; neither could he understand upon what principle of common justice, or of common sense, it could be maintained that Ireland should be included in the punishment which was about to be awarded to an act of the Papal Court, which had no reference to any country except England. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had stated that certain clauses of the Bill had been withdrawn, in order that it might not affect Ireland; but he apprehended that the Bill in its present shape would operate most injuriously on the interests of the Roman Catholic bishops in that kingdom. This Bill did what the Act of 1829 did not do, for it declared that the assumption of titles was void and illegal, and consequently the courts of law could not give it the liberal construction which they put upon the former Act, but must decide in accordance with the strict moaning of the words contained in the preamble of the Bill, and must invalidate all acts done by Roman Catholic bishops who assumed the titles of the dioceses over which they presided. It was said that all prosecutions under the Act were to be instituted by the Attorney General; but was it fit that a people should hold their religious rights and liberties at the mercy of that learned personage? This Bill would go to prevent bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland from taking the titles of the sees to which they were appointed, though it was essential that the powers of a bishop should be defined by territorial limits. It would be impossible, therefore, to appoint bishops at all; and if no bishops could be appointed, then no priest could be ordained; and, consequently, the Bill would practically destroy the religion of the great body of the Irish people. It was said that it was necessary to pass a similar law for both countries, because the English and the Irish Churches were united. That, however, was a fallacy. They were called so in the Act of Union; but since that period very different measures of legislation had been applied to them. Ten bishops had been abolished in Ireland, church cess had been swept away, and one-fourth of the tithes had been cancelled. Legislation for the two Churches had been separate and distinct. No less than twenty different statutes had been passed since the Act of Union for the Irish Church, which did not apply to the Church of England. The latter was the Church of the great body of the nation; the Church of Ireland was the Church of only a section of the nation. In the year 1834 there were only one and a half millions of Protestants (including Protestant Dissenters) in Ireland, and there were six and a half millions of Roman Catholics. He contended that all the legislation which had taken place on this subject since the passing of the Act of Union had been based upon a different state of circumstances to those which existed in England. It would be impossible to promote kindly feelings between the people of England and Ireland if a measure of this kind were made law. Moreover, the Bill in its present shape would lead to persecution, which always tended to increase the power of the sect persecuted. The English were anxious to reduce taxation; but if this Bill passed as it now stood, an army must be maintained to keep Ireland in subjection, which would clog any future efforts for the attainment of that object. When he remembered that the Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops of Ireland were honourably received at the Court of the Sovereign, he could not understand how it was now sought to punish them with the infliction of penalties. He claimed exemption from the Bill for Ireland, because there had been no aggression, or semblance of aggression, on the part of the Church or people of that country; because the Roman Catholic hierarchy there was not a new, but an old established, hierarchy; because the Roman Catholic religion was the national religion of Ireland; because the Bill in its present shape must oppress the religion of the people, and destroy their civil rights; and, lastly, because it would weaken the legislative union between the two countries, and increase the national expenditure.

Clause, "That this Act shall not extend or apply to Ireland," brought up and read the first time.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

observed that the clause which had been proposed, would, he thought, if adopted, really render the Bill liable to the very numerous objections which had been taken to it, as it now stood, on the score of inconsistency. The principle of the Bill as it had been advocated throughout on the part of the Government was this—that it was an infringement of the lawful prerogative of the Crown that a foreign Power should assume the right of creating authorities, dignities, and jurisdictions within this realm, such as had been attempted to be created by the Bull sent over to this country with reference to the archbishopric of Westminster. The offence consisted in the assumption, contrary to the Royal prerogative, of jurisdiction and authority. The offence, as far as regarded Ireland, as well as this country, was a violation of the arrangement made by the Act of 1829, with which all parties had professed themselves satisfied, by which the assumption of titles connected with dioceses in England and Ireland was prohibited. It was true that the letter of the Act of 1829 did not prevent the assumption of the titles of sees which, at the time of the passing of that Act, were not in existence; but those who had advised the Pope to take the steps which he had adopted, had recommended him to do what was, nevertheless, a clear evasion of the spirit of that Act. The object of the statute was to prevent the assumption by the Roman Catholic clergy of diocesan or territorial titles. The Committee was asked to exclude Ireland from the Bill; but if that proposal were acceded to, the consequence would be that it would be lawful in Ireland to receive a bull of the Pope, conferring- territorial titles upon the dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church in that country, but illegal in England. If it was regarded in this country as an aggression and an insult on the prerogative of the Crown, that a bull of the Pope of Rome should authorise the assumption of titles hero, could any person consistently object to an identical course being pursued in Ireland, or, in other words, contend that the Queen's preroga- tive did not extend to that kingdom? The Act of 1829 certainly applied to Ireland as much as to England, and its object was mainly to give relief to those who had been long subject to unjust persecution under tyrannical enactments, which were really acts of pains and penalties. He could not discover in the present Bill any pains and penalties beyond those contained in the Act of 1829, which had been received with universal satisfaction by those whom it affected. He considered that the Legislature of the United Kingdom, while declaring they would not depart from any concessions then made, were still entitled to say, "We will not allow the spirit of that Act to be evaded, or the compact then so solemnly entered into to be broken." Could anything be more absurd than to introduce into a measure contemplated to apply to the United Kingdom—to Ireland no less than to England — a clause providing that Ireland should not be dealt with at all? The preamble of this Bill would recite the Act of 1829, and yet it was proposed to except from the Bill that very country with reference to which the Act of 1829 was mainly passed. He saw nothing in the condition of Ireland to afford a reason for excepting that country from the operation of the Bill. If this were a Bill which touched spiritual matters, or the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, it might possibly be urged that, looking to the large proportion of Roman Catholics in Ireland, compared with the ratio which they bore to the whole body of the population in this country, a different rule of legislation ought to be adopted. He considered, however, that what would be unjust towards a large body of Irish Roman Catholics would be equally unjust towards a small body of Roman Catholics in England. If the sacred principle of toleration were in question, however small the number of persons might be who were affected by it, no vote of his should go against that principle. But the present Bill affected matters merely temporal. On no ground could they exclude Ireland, but on that of numbers. But the principle of numbers had nothing to do with the principle of justice or injustice. Therefore as he looked at that, he saw nothing but general principles on which to rest the Bill— the principle of law and the principle of the compact to which he had referred; and there was every reason why, all the principles being common to the two king- doms, the two kingdoms should be included. It was said that Ireland should be excluded, on the ground that the Bill was an infringement of the spiritual rights of the Irish Catholics. He denied that it trenched upon the great principle of toleration at all; and even if it did so trench, that infringement would not be a ground for the special exclusion of Ireland only. For these reasons he trusted the House would give a decided negative to the clause now proposed to be added so the Bill.

MR. ROCHE

thought this Bill unjust to the Catholics of England, as well as to the Catholics of Ireland; but he viewed it as the most unjust measure towards Ireland that had ever been contemplated by any Government. The hon. Solicitor General was too good a lawyer to say that this Bill only repealed the Emancipation Act, or to deny that it did extend the restrictive clauses of the Act of Emancipation. But then the hon. and learned Gentleman relied on the spirit in which the Emancipation Act was passed. Well, what was the spirit of the debate which took place before the passing of the Act of 1829, in the House of Lords? The Duke of Wellington on that occasion told their Lordships that the restrictive clauses as to ecclesiastical titles was merely introduced to satisfy the scruples of a few right rev. Prelates and other Peers in that House. Lord Malmesbury, in the same debate, declared that he looked upon the same restrictive clauses as a farce, and worse than a farce. But if the spirit in which the Act of 1829 was passed was referred to, might he (Mr. Roche) not refer also to the spirit in which it had been hitherto carried out in Ireland? It had been notoriously carried out by their own Lord Lieutenant, even in a much more generous spirit than that in which it was passed; and, in fact, under the Acts of the Legislature the Catholic bishops had received their titles in Ireland. Therefore when a Bill like the present, which was practically a Bill of pains and penalties against the Catholics of Ireland, was introduced, he had a right to say they were abandoning their own principles and the spirit of liberality in which they had heretofore carried out the Emancipation Act itself. He confessed that he could not look on the extension of this Bill to Ireland, throwing the apple of discord, as it did, into that country, in which he had an interest at stake, with the same cool and philosophical a spirit as the hon. and learned Solicitor General. The extension of the Bill to Ireland was a great political blunder. It would awaken an excitement in Ireland, the extent of which the Government had no idea of, and it would go far to check its returning prosperity. He warned the noble Lord that this was the beginning of a very serious end. He (Mr. Roche) was afraid that the noble Lord was not acquainted with the real feelings of the people of Ireland upon this Bill. Had the noble Lord been really acquainted with—if he pleased to call it so—the bigotry of the Irish people, he would not have attempted to play the game which he was about to play, by extending the Bill to Ireland. The Solicitor General, by way of justifying that extension, had said it was but reasonable that the Bill should have universal application; but he (Mr. Roche) would ask the Government whether they had any intentions of extending the Bill to the Colonies? Why did not the Government propose to extend the Bill to every quarter in which British power was pre-eminent, and in which they could conveniently do so? Fear evidently prevented the extension of the Bill to the Colonics. The Colonies were distant many thousands of miles; and the Government, knowing how easy a matter it would be to revolt, took care not to exasperate the Roman Catholics in the Colonies by including them within the operation of this Bill. But he warned the Government not to permit the proximity of Ireland to delude them too easily into a confidence that they might do in that country what they durst not do in the Colonies. The Government had better reckon the number of their supporters in Ireland before they made an onslaught upon the religious liberties of the Irish Roman Catholics. The Irish Roman Catholics were not so distant as the Catholics in the Colonies; but they were much more numerous. He warned the Government not to adopt a course of religious persecution which would tempt the Roman Catholic clergy (who had hitherto been the peace preservers of Ireland) to conspire against British authority. A revolt in Ireland would be far more dangerous than revolts in the whole of our Colonies. This was by no means an agreeable topic, and he regretted that the determination of the Government to extend the operation of the Bill to Ireland had compelled him to speak thus. He was not so much surprised at seeing a Bill introduced on this subject with regard to England, because nobody could doubt that the establishment of a Roman Catholic hierarchy had aroused a strong feeling of resistance to that establishment throughout England. The noble Lord himself performed a humble part in arousing that feeling. But at no one of the meetings held in this country to protest against what was called "Papal aggression," was there, as far as he could ascertain (and he bad diligently read the reports of those meetings) a single hint that the Bill should be extended to Ireland. Even the noble Lord himself, when introducing this measure, had admitted that there was no reason why Ireland should he included, and that he proposed to apply a remedy merely where the disease existed. Upon this point he (Mr. Roche) agreed with the Times, which was quite against the noble Lord upon the question, and which certainly presented a great indication of the public feeling and sentiment of this country. Whether he considered that journal right or wrong, he must say that upon most questions it was with the majority of the people of this country; and there was no subject upon which the Times had written more strongly and powerfully than on the non-extension of this Bill to Ireland. The Colonies had not been included in this measure, because the Government were too apprehensive that the colonial roll would be greatly curtailed if such a Bill as this were attempted to be enforced in our Colonies, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have much heavier budgets to submit to that House. As a friend of the tranquillity and prosperity of Ireland, he implored the Government not to act so madly as to extend this Bill to Ireland. He by no means wished to overlook the claims of the Roman Catholics of England. He had ever tendered them as much support as was in his power, when their religious liberties were in question. He felt as much as any man could do, the injustice of introducing such a measure as this against the English Roman Catholics. The noble Lord, in reference to this question, had committed what in a statesman was worse than a great crime, namely, a great political blunder.

MR. G. H. CAVENDISH

said, that the same reasons which induced him to support the Bill as regarded England, would induce him to oppose it as regarded Ireland. In legislating upon questions like this, we ought to look at the feeling of the great body of the people. There was a feeling in England which ought not to be tampered with; and the Roman Catholic hierarchy, by assuming a title from a town or city famous in our history, seemed to assume a nationality and a condition and status they had never held since the Reformation. But the case was very different with regard to Ireland. He freely accorded to the English Roman Catholics a character for loyalty and attachment to the constitution, which perhaps could not be so freely accorded to the Irish Roman Catholics; but there were reasons why that should be so. Despite the determined and systematic attempts to plant Protestantism there since the time of Cromwell, there had been no conversions to any extent among the native Irish, with whom the descendants of the original Protestant settlers bad never amalgamated. The Protestant Church, though established and endowed, was still an alien Church, and had never taken root there. It was, therefore, useless to think of legislating for Ireland upon questions of this sort with the same measures as for England, for it was impossible to overlook the practical distinction between the national feelings of the two countries. The Synod of Thurles had been cited; but were there no other bishops than Catholic bishops who had opposed the system of national education in Ireland? Why, even now there were Protestant bishops in Ireland who themselves were the warmest and most uncompromising antagonists of the Government system of education there. Whether some arrangement might be made by concordat for a veto, this was not the time to inquire; but he felt that this Bill, as regarded Ireland, was not conceived in the spirit in which we had been legislating for that country; and though he regretted to differ from the noble Lord at the head of the Government, he must support the clause for exempting Ireland from the operation of this Bill.

MR. J. CLAY

said, the Protestant feeling of this country had been so strongly excited, that it would have been impossible for the Government to have refused to legislate at all on the subject; because the country would have found another Administration if the present one had resigned; and, impatient at the delay which had been interposed, a much stronger and more stringent measure would then have been demanded. If the Government had refused to pass some enactment, the Protestant and national spirit of the country would have kept the quarrel alive. At the same time he considered this measure would be a very serious offence to the consciences of the Roman Catholics of Ireland; and if they were to be subjected to the penalties under this Bill, they again, on their part, would keep the quarrel alive. Believing that the people of this country, although anxious to repel the aggression made upon England, did not desire to have this measure enforced upon Ireland, and entertaining the most anxious wish to see the speediest termination given to the existing quarrel on this Bill, he should vote against extending the operation of the measure to the sister country.

MR. LAWLESS

defended the Roman Catholics of Ireland against the insinuation of the hon. Member for North Derbyshire (Mr. Cavendish), that the same loyalty was not to be expected from them as from the English Catholics. Want of loyalty to the Sovereign could never be justly charged upon the Irish Catholics. It was much to be deplored, however, that the whole conduct of the Government with regard to this Bill, both before the period of its introduction, and after it was before the House, should have been such as had tended to excite great ill-feeling and a deep sense of injury among the Roman Catholics of Ireland. The friendly and Christian feeling which had grown up between the people of different religious denominations in that country during the administration of the measures adopted for the relief of the Irish famine, had all been checked and embittered by the course which the noble Lord at the head of the Government had pursued; and the former religious animosities which had been so destructive to the social peace of Ireland were already revived. On the one hand, the few Protestants dispersed through Ireland had met to petition against Papal aggression; and on the other, the names which had been attached to those petitions had been posted up on the walls of the towns by the Roman Catholics. And certainly the proceedings of these Protestants in Ireland were somewhat impertinent, because no aggression had been committed in Ireland, and the Protestants there could have nothing; to complain of. The feeling was very strong in the county of Cork, in one of whose towns (Bandon) it might be remembered that, formerly, there having been written over the gates— Jew, Turk, or Atheist May enter here, But not a Papist. a wag chalked up— Whoever wrote these words, he wrote them well; The same are written on the gates of hell. The only case that the noble Lord had brought against the people of Ireland was the fact that at the Synod of Thurles there was a majority of two against the colleges, and for that reason the six or eight millions of Catholics were to have their feelings crushed by an attack on their Church, for this Bill was nothing else. He could not see how an English House of Commons could be asked to pass a measure which would carry us back one hundred years. Honour to those English Members who still adhered to the spirit in which the Emancipation Act was passed! How could so many have been persuaded to stultify themselves? He was not unwilling to yield to the voice of England, if that voice were really raised for a Bill which the interests of England demanded; but the voice of England ought not to be permitted completely to crush the voice of Ireland, even if the voice of England were in favour of the Bill. He believed, however, that a very small portion of the people of England were aggrieved by the measure, and that a still smaller portion wished it to be extended to Ireland. As stated by the hon. Member for the county of Cork, the voice of England was well expressed by the Times newspaper; and that journal was strongly opposed to the extension of the Bill to Ireland. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated his intention to take every opportunity of opposing another Irish measure, on which he had been already beaten three times, and, in fact, of giving it nothing short of a factious opposition on every single point, in the hope that by some chance division he might throw it out. The determination thus avowed by him was a precedent for the Irish Members to continue to take every opportunity of dividing against the measure, so that if possible, they might tire its supporters out. They were justified in offering even a factious opposition in a case in which the religious feelings of their fellow-subjects were affected. The strongest feeling of the Irish people, which this Bill attacked, was their veneration for their clergy, to whom indeed he believed it was due that the country had not long since been deluded with blood. History, and very recent history, would show the consequence of trying to coerce the strong religious feelings of a people. The case of Belgium, as bearing upon this point, had been well put in a pamphlet by Mr. O'Dwyer, to which he would draw the attention of the House. He was determined to oppose the Bill in every way he possibly could, and was prepared to divide in favour of the clause.

MR. HENRY DRUMMOND

said, the simple question before the Committee was, whether this Bill should be applied to Ireland, and the importance of the consideration lay in this: not that it was merely temporary in its consequences, but that it had a reference to what an hon. Gentleman, in his observations, had called the possible subsidence of this agitation. This agitation never would subside. He had said as much before, and he repeated that it never could subside, because the aggression was on the part of the Roman Catholic Government; and by all the members of that creed it had been determined, as they had avowed, that the Protestants, from the state of heathenism in which they said they were, must be brought to yield a submission to them. They had chosen a hundred and a hundred times in the House to throw back in the teeth of those who supported the Bill, the word "aggresion." [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] There was a different question before the Committee, else he would prove it. But when the hon. Gentleman appealed to them, when he said "you cannot accuse our loyalty," he replied he knew their loyalty, that it was one and undivided to the Pope of Rome, "and," they added, "perish the thrones of kings and queens!" [Loud cries of "Oh, oh!" and "Question!" "Prove it!"] The declaration had been made and published, and he then held it in his hand. [Cries of "No, no! "] No, no! there were so many pio no-nos. [Laughter, and cries of "Read, read!"] He would take another opportunity to prove his assertion. [Oh, oh!" and cries of "Read!"] The hon. Gentleman then read—"We respect the authority of the Vicar of Christ infinitely more than we do any musty Act of Parliament." [Hear, hear!" and loud laughter.] Wait a little; I spoke of your loyalty. Is divided allegiance nothing? The hon. Gentleman continued to read: "We consider our allegiance due to the Roman Throne first of all." ["Oh!"] You see that, now; "And second to that, and in an infinitely lower sense, to mere civil governments." [Loud cries of"Hear, hear!"] But hear what follows: "We owe our loyalty to the holy Roman See; and perish the thrones of kings and queens of earth rather than that shall be in the slightest degree tarnished." [Loud cries of "Hear, hear!"] "As the spiritual power infinitely exceeds the temporal, so does our loyalty to the Holy See that which we owe to the Queen." [Loud cries of "Hear, hear!" and much noise and confusion.]

An Hon. MEMBER

demanded the authority he was quoting.

MR. H. DRUMMOND

You have no right to it unless I think proper; it is a matter of courtesy which lies with me.

An HON. MEMBER

I demand the authority which the hon. Member for East Surrey has quoted.

MR. DRUMMOND

What! upon compulsion? It was a Catholic print, the Catholic Vindicator, that spoke in these terms.

MR. O'FLAHERTY

I believe, Sir, that I have the right to call to order. The hon. Member for West Surrey, in his usual style of good feeling towards those persons in this House who profess the Roman Catholic religion, has quoted certain paragraphs which I, for one, believed, as he quoted them, to have been sentiments expressed by some hon. Members of this House, or by some Catholic authority. I now find that he quotes from a newspaper which I, for one, never before heard of. I think it anything but fair and just—and, if the rules of the House permitted it, I would say it was anything but honourable —in the hon. Gentleman to make use of these quotations— [Loud cries of "Order!" in the midst of which the Chairman also called the hon. Member to order]. I will not be put down. [Cries of "Chair, chair!"]

The CHAIRMAN

An expression has dropped, I hope unadvisedly, from the hon. Member, that he will not be put down. I hope he does not apply that to the Chairman of this Committee.

SIR ROBERT H. INGLIS

Whatever fault might have been committed—and I do not see that any has been committed by my hon. Friend the Member for West Surrey—would have been noticed by you, Sir; but, at all events, I thought that when the hon. Member for Galway rose, he would have specified some particular instance in which my hon. Friend the Member for West Surrey had deviated from the strict order of the House. I submit, Sir, to you, and to every other Member of the House, whether the hon. Member who interrupted my hon. Friend did specify a single instance in which my hon. Friend the Member for West Surrey had violated the rules of this House, or, still further, the rules of good breeding.

MR. KEOGH

The hon. Member for Galway has, I believe, been called to order by the hon. Baronet who has just spoken. Now I do not see how he has violated order. My hon. Friend the Member for Galway said, that if the rules of the House permitted him, he would say that the conduct and observations of the hon. Member for West Surrey were anything but honourable. Now, I am well aware— and every one in the House is well aware —that an evasive sort of expression is constantly used, in order to avoid coming within the rule of violating the orders of this House. Now, all that my hon. Friend said was, that he would say something if the rules of the House permitted him to do so. I have seen much more flagrant evasion of the rules of order of this House declared not to be disorderly when a form of expression of that kind has been used; and I must confess that I, for one, cannot tamely submit to my hon. Friend the Member for Galway being called to order for evading the rule of the House, when I can cast my recollection back a few short weeks and remember what was then passed over from the hon. Member for West Surrey.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

The questioe is, whether the hon. Member for West Surrey was out of order; and undoubtedly the hon. Member for Galway, whatever may have been the expressions which he had used, has made use of no expressions or arguments to prove that the hon. Member for West Surrey was out of order. Whether his argument was good or bad— whether what he said could be controverted or answered, or not—it must be evident to the Committee that in nothing he said was he at all out of order.

MR. SADLEIR

But his hon. Friend the Member for Galway had been called to order by the Chairman for using an expression which was perfectly in order.

MR. O'FLAHERTY

I was stopped by the Chairman, and only by the Chairman, and I sat down to hear the expression of his opinion. I now beg to inform the noble Lord, as well as the hon. Member for West Surrey, that I have not used any expression that I do not hold by. I believe that I have used no expression in contravention of the orders of this House. If I have done so, I am as ready as any man in this House to apologise for it; but I cannot permit the hon. Member for West Surrey, or any other Member— [Cries of "Order!" and cheers]—to use such expressions without standing up to protest against it. [Cries of "Chair!" and "Order!"] I will not be put down. [Cries of "Chair!"]

The CHAIRMAN

When the hon. Member for Galway rose, I considered that he was rising on the point of order; but I did not immediately collect from the speech of the hon. Gentleman on what point he complained of the hon. Member for West Surrey.

MR. O'FLAHERTY

I now complain of the hon. Member for West Surrey for quoting in such a manner as to lead to the conclusion that he was quoting expressions of Members of this House. [Cries of "No, no!"] He had led the House to suppose he was doing so; and if the hon. Gentleman had not been called upon to name his authority, I am sure that it would have remained upon the minds of Members of this House, that the expressions he quoted were those of Members of this House. And my object in calling him to order was simply to let the House and the country see from what documents he quoted.

MR. DISRAELI

believed the case to be a very simple one. The hon. Member for Galway supposed the hon. Member for West Surrey made an assertion on not sufficient authority. That was not disorderly, but was a very fair topic to which the hon. Member for Galway might advert in reply. So far as he (Mr. Disraeli) could say, the hon. Member for West Surrey might have made an indiscreet statement —he offered no opinion on that point—but the hon. Member's statement was not disorderly. The hon. Member for Galway might do what he wished to do in the course of the regular discussion; and it was not competent for him to interpose when an hon. Msmher was addressing the Committee.

MR. REYNOLDS

As a Roman Catholic Member, I have no objection whatever to the reading of any documents, no matter what their contents may be, even though they are insulting to my creed; but I think it only fair and reasonable that a Gentleman who reads such a document should, at all events, state from what source they emanated. I thought the hon. Member was quoting from some authentic document that would bind me as a Catholic, and I think that the course which he took was not a fair one.

The CHAIRMAN

It is perfectly competent to the hon. Member for Dublin to rise in his place to speak to order; but he must excuse me for now again repeating, that I do not see to what particular point of the speech of the hon. Member for West Surrey he is now addressing himself as disorderly.

MR. HENRY DRUMMOND

then proceeded. He said that he had no intention to lead to a discussion of this sort. The hon. Member for North Derbyshire (Mr. J. H. Cavendish) drew a distinction between the loyalty of the Roman Catholics of England, and that of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. There was not much in this, he thought, either one way or the other; but the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Lawless) who got up to answer him, made such a very large demand for credit to be given to the loyalty of the people of Ireland at this particular moment, that, having this document in his pocket, he could not resist the temptation of reading it, thinking that no one would care for a mere loose assertion on his part, while they would give weight to it if it was supported by the authority of a Roman Catholic newspaper. He believed he might safely say with reference to the present as to a former occasion, Ce n'est que la verityé qui blesse. He had also another document written by a Roman Catholic priest. ["Read, read!"] No; he was not going to read it; it was published in the Tablet, the only authoritative paper of the bishops. ["Read!"] He would not read it then; but would read it at another time. He was going, when he was interrupted, to speak to the point of whether the Bill should be extended to Ireland or not. He believed that this question would not rest here, and he thought that it was of the greatest importance that they should not be irritated into doing what was unjust. Now, we had been grossly insulted in this country; that insult was continued, and had irritated us day by day; and there was no doubt that the country from one end to the other was excessively irritated in the matter. But what had been done to us had not been done to Ireland. When the noble Lord brought forward his measure, he satisfied neither himself (Mr. Drummond), who thought that other things might have been done, nor those who thought nothing should have been done; but he satisfied himself by saying, "I will do that which I think necessary, and will not do any more than I think necessary." Now, the aggression and insult had been confined to England alone. There had been no change whatever with regard to Ireland. He did not indeed think anything of the fact that a certain measure of courtesy had been extended to the Roman Catholic prelates of Ireland; the order and precedence of rank was regulated by statute, and it required an Act of Parliament to give precedence to any class which did not already possess it; therefore he did not think that the noble Lord and his Government were fairly chargeable with having induced this aggression by any courtesy they had shown to the Roman Catholic prelates. The real truth was that they would not grapple with that which was the real danger, and that was the Irish Church. He was not going to help them out of it; he could not do it; he heartily wished he could. But there was the pinching place, and unless they could fairly meet this, they would never get out of the difficulty. But, above all, he besought them—let them not from any provocation we had received in England be tempted to carry into Ireland a measure which the Catholic Church there had not deserved.

MR. CHISHOLM ANSTEY

could not see on what principle it was proposed to extend this Bill to Ireland, and not to the rest of Her Majesty's dominions. It was said that the reason was that what the Pope had done here would not have been illegal if done in our transmarine provinces, because the law violated was purely an English one. On what principle then was its extension to Ireland justified? He would repeat, what he had often before asserted, that the issuing of a Bull by the Pope for establishing or continuing a hierarchy in Ireland on the present state of the law, and regard being had to the peculiar provisions of the Act of 1829, was perfectly legal; but that a Bull issued by the same authority, and for the same purpose, was perfectly illegal in England. The case on which this Bill rested was that the Pope had attempted an aggression upon rights and interests of a temporal character. It was on this ground that the noble Lord founded the Bill; but he said at the same time that it would be objectionable to legislate beyond the necessity of the occasion, and the mischief it was intended to redress. The Pope had committed such an aggression in England by attempting to take from the Roman Catholics of this country rights that belonged to them under pre-existing canon laws of the Church sanctioned by Acts of Parliament; but he had not committed any aggression of the kind on the rights and privileges of the Irish Roman Catholics. But the noble Lord was not true to that principle when he extended the measure to Ireland, where no aggression on public rights had taken place. The Irish Roman Catholic Church had shown, in 1815, its determination to repel aggression of that kind. An attempt was then made, by means of what was called a good understanding with the Court of Rome, to influence the bishops and priests of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland so far as to induce them, and through them the laity, to accept a scheme of ecclesiastical management prepared for them in concert with the English Government. What happened? The bishops did not immediately resist the Pope, but the priests and the laity did, and the bishops were forced to submit, and unanimously ratified the resolution previously come to by the Roman Catholic laity and priests in every parish of every diocese in Ireland. Who was the principal mover of the anti-Roman resolution? Why, the late Mr. O'Connell. No one was more loud and zealous than Mr. O'Connell in denouncing those whom he justly called the slaves of Rome. The ever-memorable resolution of the members of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland which affirmed that the Roman Catholics of that country would regard as nugatory any mandate affecting their temporal rights and duties as citizens, was drawn up and moved by Mr. O'Connell himself. What followed? The Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda and every Cardinal of Rome gave their assent to the anti-Roman resolution of the priests, laity, and bishops of the Irish Roman Catholic Church. But the English Roman Catholics had not shown equal zeal in defending their independence against the act of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman. On the contrary, they had come forward in too many instances to adopt it, and in no instance had they come forward to disavow it. As a proof of that, he would mention that he had been requested by an English Catholic gentleman of undoubted position to state that months before Ministers were able to place on the table a notice of their intention to legislate on this matter, an attempt was made by his informant, and a few other gentlemen of equal standing in society, to move the English Catholic body to anticipate the measures of the Government by expressing their opinion of an act which, notwithstanding all declarations to the contrary, a vast majority of them disapproved of. Their object was that it should go forth to the world how far they sympathised with, and how far they disapproved of, the Rescript of the Pope, and in what way they discriminated between the spiritual and the temporal, and between the ecclesiastical and civil interests affected by that Rescript. Accordingly these Gentlemen circulated through the country the copy of an address to the Premier Peer of England (the Duke of Norfolk) the natural representative of the Roman Catholic body, in the vain hope of getting what they deemed a sufficient number of signatures attached to it. This address (which the hon. and learned Member read) was to the effect that, as great excitement prevailed on the subject of the proposed changes, and as it was probable a measure would be introduced into Parliament on the subject, it was thought the Roman Catholic nobility and gentry should meet together to consider the question; and his Grace was invited, as their natural representative, to sanction the intended meeting by consenting to preside at it. It was thought that if only twenty gentlemen signed this document there would be no difficulty in inducing the distinguished nobleman to whom it was addressed to accede to the requisition; but not half that number were induced to append their names. [Ironical cheers.] Those Gentlemen who cheered were surely not attending to the statement he was making. The document was circulated among those who held opinions adverse to the Rescript, and adverse to the movement altogether, not among those who were in favour of it. But perhaps some Gentlemen might think that if the address had approved of the Rescript, a sufficient number of signatures would have been appended. He could inform them, however, that Cardinal Wiseman had not been in the country one week till he tried to get a meeting held, and he, too, failed in his object. No doubt an address was presented to the Cardinal; but it was matter of notoriety that one-half of the gentlemen who signed it did so more to express their condemnation of the scurrilous attacks made on him at public meetings and in the press, than to approve of the movement which had taken place, and of which, on the contrary, they highly disap- proved. That was a matter of notoriety amongst Roman Catholics, and he was in a condition to produce evidence of its truth. He thought that a strong case had been made out for legislation, and for very stringent legislation, in the sense of the first clause. [Ironical cheering from the Roman Catholic Members.] Yes, he repeated that a case had been made out for annulling and putting an end, by means of the authority of Parliament, to the ill-advised and insolent aggression of the Court of Rome on the temporal rights of English subjects; whereas no case at all had been made out for the two remaining clauses, and least of all for the proposition to include Ireland within the scope of the Bill. That was the distinction he took, and hon. Gentlemen opposite would do well to consider with him whether they would not effect their object by excluding Ireland from the Bill.

An HON. MEMBER

We decline any connexion of the kind.

MR. CHISHOLM ANSTEY

was not at all ambitious of making common cause with the hon. Gentleman opposite. He was there an independent Member, representing both Roman Catholics and Protestants, and unless he were to advocate fraud and imposture, and ambition, as parts of the Roman Catholic system, he must express his unqualified condemnation of the recent act of aggression on the part of the Court of Rome. When the noble Lord referred to the proceedings with respect to the Synod of Thurles and the Queen's Colleges, and made them an argument for extending the Bill to Ireland by way of precaution against similar contingencies in Ireland, he must tell the noble Lord that the excitement which was caused in Ireland by the peculiar wording of the Bill would do more to make these contingencies likelihoods, and to bring them to the verge of certainties than the most dexterous manœuvres of domestic ambition or foreign arrogance could have done. The noble Lord, by including Ireland in the Bill, had ranged the people of Ireland on the side of Dr. Cullen and against the Colleges. The popular excitement or frenzy in Ireland dated only from the month of February; and the noble Lord would do well to assent to the Amendment for excluding that country from the Bill.

MR. WEGG-PROSSER

said, that if Parliament were really called upon to defend the Queen's prerogative, it would be absurd, in a constitutional point of view, to exclude Ireland from the Bill; but if, on the other hand, they treated the question in a political point of view, he was of opinion it would be injudicious and unwise to include the population of Ireland in the measure. From the political aspect of the case, apart from the constitutional question, it was perfectly obvious that Ireland ought to be entirely excluded from the Bill. This double aspect of the case placed the opponents of the Bill in a dilemma; but he thought the wisest course for those who were opposed to its principle would be to vote for the Amendment.

MR. GOOLD

said, that religious animosities were dying out in Ireland, when the unfortunate letter of the noble Lord came to rekindle the slumbering embers of religious discord. The noble Lord could not withdraw that letter—litera scripta manet—but he would now put it to the noble Lord to make some reparation for that, by consenting to exclude Ireland from this Bill.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

said, it appeared to him impossible, if the Bill were to be proceeded with at all, that the House could consent not to include Ireland in its provisions. If the prerogative of the Crown had been infringed—which he must presume to have been the case—and if the Bill was intended to protect that prerogative, it could not, he conceived, be made to allow the prerogative being infringed in England, and at the same time allow it to be infringed in Ireland with impunity. If the independence of the nation had been assailed, they could not permit that that independence should be protected from assailment in England, but that it might be assailed, without punishment, in Ireland. He did not see, in point of argument, the possibility of any logical defence of the Bill unless Ireland were included in it. But then, in point of practice, they were told that the majority of the people of Ireland were Roman Catholics, and that, therefore, Parliament ought not to pass a Bill which prohibited that being done in Ireland which the Roman Catholics in that country might wish to see done. But it appeared to him the whole argument in that respect went not so much against this particular Bill, which in a very trifling degree extended the present law, as it did against the existing law, namely, the provisions of the Act of the 10th of George IV. Because, if it were right to allow persons to call themselves the "Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin," or "of Armagh," or the "Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick," and so forth, in order to accomplish that object it was necessary to repeal the Act of the 10th of George IV. But what the Bill now under consideration purported to do was to prohibit a Roman Catholic bishop taking upon himself a title of any other place not now existing as a Protestant bishopric. The law, as it stood in the Statute-book, was perfectly operative against the pretensions now put forward by the Pope and the Roman Catholic hierarchy; so that the whole of the argument as regarded the practice appeared to him not to he one against including Ireland in this Bill, but an argument for the repeal of the law which now existed. He did not think the hon. Gentleman had at all improved his case by asserting that the provisions of the Act of the 10th of George IV. had not been enforced. He (Lord John Russell) maintained the contrary; but, supposing that to be true, and supposing that the Government, had allowed an Act to be on the Statute-book which the Roman Catholics considered to he a persecuting statute—a statute of pains and penalties against the members of their religious persuasion—assuming that to be the character of the Act, it was so much the more necessary that they should seek its repeal. Therefore, what they ought to do was, not to insist upon this Amendment, but proceed at once with asking for the repeal of that statute so far as the Roman Catholics of Ireland wore concerned. When they did that, the whole question would be before the House. As the matter stood at present, it seemed to him to him to be far more a question of reason and logic than a question of practice. The present Bill carried but a very little further than as the law now stood the prohibition against the assumption of titles; but what it clearly did was to prohibit the assumption of titles of places which were not the subject-matter of the titles of any existing Protestant sees. Having made that law in regard to England, he did not think they could with consistency, at the same time, say that any person in Ireland might receive a rescript from the Pope, by virtue of which he might assume the title of Bishop of Galway, for instance, or of any other place in that country without the authority of Parliament. That would be a course so very inconsistent that the House could hardly assent to it.

MR. REYNOLDS

must say that with every respect for the judgment and sound- ness of views of the noble Lord, the noble Lord in the speech he had just made had not satisfied him that the Bill should be extended to Ireland. Prior to the surrender of Limerick, instructions had been given by King William III. to the civil and military authorities to whom he had deputed the government of Ireland, to respect the Catholic religion to this extent—that the Catholics should enjoy all the rights and privileges which they had enjoyed in the reign of King Charles —that they should have one-half of the Church, revenues, and that the Catholic gentry who had been deprived of their estates by confiscation should have one-half of those estates restored to them. Let them compare that act with the present conduct of the noble Lord at the head of the Government. The hon. and learned Attorney General had said that in a question of this nature numbers ought not to be taken into account; but he (Mr. Reynolds) contended that the fact of there being several millions of Roman Catholics, ought to have great force in the discussion of this question. He hoped the noble Lord would not take the character of the Catholic people of England or Ireland from the hon. and learned Member for Youghal. That hon. Gentleman had stated that he (Mr. Reynolds) and those who acted with him had communion with the hon. Gentleman. If the hon. Gentleman meant religious communion, he (Mr. Reynolds) had some doubt upon the subject. It was not for him to impeach the sincerity of the hon. Gentleman's belief—that was between himself and his God; but as regarded the hon. Gentleman's meanderings in that House, they had no communion with him: no connexion existed between him (Mr. Reynolds) and the hon. Member, and he was happy to say none ever had existed between them in that House. The hon. Gentleman had borne, he would not say false witness against the creed he professed, but against the community of which he assumed to be a member, and his meandering in that House had divorced the hon. Gentleman from all connexion with him (Mr. Reynolds). The Catholics who sent him into that House had disowned him publicly, and had passed a vote of censure upon him for his conduct in connexion with this Bill. He (Mr. Reynolds) knew not only that the Catholics of Youghal had not entrusted to him the presentation of their petitions against this Bill, but that the Protestants of Youghal distrusted him also. He (Mr. Reynolds) would not say that the hon. and learned Member's constituents despised him, because that would be unparliamentary; but he would give the hon. and learned Member notice that when his appeal was to be made to be re-elected, the hon. and learned Member would not be seen in Youffhal—he had been weighed in the balance and found wanting —the handwriting against him was already on the wall; Youghal had disowned him, and he (Mr. Reynolds) also disowned him. The hon. and learned Gentleman stated that he was a Roman Catholic, and a sincere one. He (Mr. Reynolds) hoped he was; but the hon. and learned Gentleman exhibited very little gratitude towards the head of that Church which had the honour of counting him among its members. The Holy Father himself not only received the hon. and learned Gentleman into the bosom of the Church, but conferred upon him the order of St. Gregory of the Brazen Sword; and the gratitude the hon. and learned Gentleman exhibited was to calumniate the Pope, and to call him a tyrant, whilst his gratitude towards the English Catholics was shown by his desire to coerce them from their allegiance. He (Mr. Reynolds) would tell that religious exotic that the Catholics of England knew better than to follow a blind leader. They knew whom they would trust—and they would not trust the hon. and learned Member for Youghal. He (Mr. Reynolds) could not help referring to the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. H. Drummond), who had that night made a speech which he (Mr. Reynolds) might divide into two parts—the one, in which he scolded the Pope and the Catholics, and the other in which he very honestly declared that the Catholics of Ireland ought not to be punished for the sins of the Catholics of England. He (Mr. Reynolds) thanked the hon. Member for that declaration; but the hon. Member walked into that House with his pocket filled with musty documents, and after having deliver-himself eloquently and argumentatively, as he always did, drew out those musty records, and read a paper which he (Mr. Reynolds) thought at first was one of those ordinances which bound the consciences of Catholics. He (Mr. Reynolds) asked the hon. Member to read the names, but he refused to do so. And what did that paper turn out to be? Why, a newspaper, called the Catholic Vindicator. He (Mr. Reynolds) knew not where that paper was published; but he took it for granted it had its existence on the other side of the Tweed, and he believed it was a paper of high character. He was, however, no more bound by the statements of that newspaper, than by the extraordinary tumblings of the hon. and learned Member for Youghal. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. Drummond) spoke of allegiance to the Pope; but he forgot to say that that was a spiritual and not a temporal allegiance; and he calumniated him (Mr. Reynolds) and ten millions of his fellow-countrymen in England, Ireland, and Scotland, who professed the Catholic creed. They (the Roman Catholics) did not acknowledge the Queen to be the spiritual head of their Cburch—they, on the country, totally and entirely repudiated such a doctrine; but they believed the Queen to be the temporal head of this great empire, and they were prepared to do that which their ancestors did in assorting their allegiance, namely, to sacrifice their blood and their property in the vindication of their honour. Let no man, therefore, impeach him (Mr. Reynolds) with a divided allegiance. The Catholics of England and Ireland, in the event of the Pope being able to do that which he was not now able to do, even if he were disposed, namely to invade this kingdom, would meet him in the battle field. ["Oh, oh!"] He understood that ironical, he should not call it insulting, cheer, of the hon. and learned Member for Youghal. He (Mr. Reynolds) would repeat what he had stated, that his creed taught him that if the Pope himself, aided by any number of troops, dared to set a hostile foot on any portion of Her Majesty's dominions, the Catholics of England, Ireland, and Scotland, would he the first to meet and repel him. Were not hon. Gentlemen acquainted with history? Did they not know who commanded the British fleet against the Spaniards, and that it was a Roman Catholic, and an ancestor of the noble Lord the Member for Arundel? Now, what were the Committee about to do? For uniformity's sake they were about to extend this Bill to Ireland. The Solicitor General had no stake in this cause: that hon. and learned Gentleman lived in England; his fortunes were not cast in Ireland, and therefore he might fold his arms and say, the vessel might sink or swim, for he was no passenger. But the hon. and learned Gentleman might be in the State cabin, as he was now. The vessel, however, might spring a-leak, and the hon. and learned Gentleman might go to the bottom. The hon. and learned Gentleman said, this was not a Bill of pains and penalties; but he (Mr. Reynolds) would ask, had not the hon. and learned Gentleman introduced words into the second clause that did not exist in the Emancipation Act? And what were they going to do? They bad a population of 8,000,000 in Ireland. Their last account exhibited about 7,000,000 of Catholics, and about 1,000,000 of all other religious sects. There were only 750,000 Protestants, and for the sake of them it was proposed to extend this Bill to Ireland. He (Mr. Reynolds) cared very little whether the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Mr. S. Crawford) was carried or not. He (Mr. Reynolds) voted for it on principle; and if he had a wish on the subject, it was that it should not be carried. If they passed this Bill, and retained Ireland in it, if they prosecuted in England, which he doubted, they dared not to prosecute in Ireland. Their Act would be a dead letter on the Statute-book. He could not say what the Catholic bishops might do, but if he (Mr. Reynolds) were a Catholic bishop, he would give the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) notice, that twenty-four hours should not elapse after their Bill became an Act of Parliament, until he would incur its highest penalties. It was his duty, as a representative of the people, to warn them against the step they were about to take. They were sowing the seeds of discord and disunion in Ireland. In conclusion, he begged to warn the Committee how they dealt with this question. He gave them notice they were only commencing their troubles; and probably it would be advisable and beneficial if the noble Lord would take the advice offered him that night by the Member for North Derbyshire (Mr. Cavendish), and pause, and take counsel before he persevered in that mad career.

MR. CHISHOLM ANSTEY

assured the House, that he was not about to reply to the personalities which he, in common with, he believed, most hon. Members, considered would be best treated by being passed over in silence; he would leave the hon. Member in the undisturbed notoriety of having contributed more than any other Member to lower the character of the debates of that House. He would not institute a comparison in any respect with the hon. Gentleman, neither as to conduct in that House, nor electioneering prospects. "Without comparing ourselves in any way —God forbid I should do so!—I will only say, that I did not use the expressions the hon. Gentleman attributed to mo. He says I called the Pope a tyrant. I neither did so, nor used any expression which could induce any Gentleman—even the hon. Gentleman himself—to think I used it. Neither was I guilty of the bad taste of saying I was a sincere Catholic. I never, in any assemblage or company, boasted of my sincerity as a Catholic. I am sure the House will bear me out in this refutation of the statements of the hon. Gentleman."

MR. J. O'CONNELL

rose amid loud cries of "Divide!" He would not trespass more than a few minutes on the House. He was sure hon. Gentlemen would not refuse to listen whilst he vindicated the memory of his deceased relative. It had been stated that the late Mr. O'Connell had resisted the aggression of the Pope on the veto question. That was a great mistake, for the question of the veto had not arisen until long after the time referred to. As to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Youghal, he must protest against the supposition that that hon. Gentleman represented the people of Ireland, or any portion of them. The hon. Gentleman had been called upon to resign his seat on account of his most extraordinary conduct. He could not bring himself to condescend to vote for this clause, as he did not wish to separate himself, or his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen from the cause of the English or Scotch Catholics. He sought no special exemption from this most paltry and contemptible Bill.

MR. CAMPBELL

rose amidst much interruption, and was understood to say that the justice and imperative necessity of excluding Ireland from the measure was not apparent until the 24th section of the Act of 1829 was carefully attended to. That section was twofold—it implied a sanction, and contained a prohibition; it contained a prohibition of the local titles appropriated by the National Establishment. It implied a sanction of the titles which were not appropriated by the National Establishment. Should any doubt arise as to the latter point, a word would be sufficient to disperse it. Legislation would not otherwise be necessary. So far as Ireland was concerned, the Act of 1829 was reckoned solemn and conclusive. What it gave ought not to be with-withdrawn without an overmastering ne- cessity—it ought, in its permissive parts, to be considered as a compact, and no reason could be given for the violation of so grave, historical, and dignified a compact, except that the prohibitory part of the section had been broken and inoperative. That the limitation which existed in Ireland had not been enforced, could hardly be considered a reason for extending it. The range of violated statute and imbecile legislation should rather be contracted than enlarged. The powers which were found inadequate for restraining the assumption of appropriated titles would be found more painfully inadequate to restrain the assumption of those which the prelates of the Irish Church had not desired to preoccupy. They ought to amplify their means before they widened their pretensions. It might be thought, however, that such an argument was open to objection, because the Act of 1829 was framed for the United Kingdom; and if Section 24 contained an understanding that the local titles in Ireland ought not to be disturbed except upon a specified condition, it contained an understanding also that no local titles should be trenched upon in Great Britain either, unless that condition was insulted. In point of fact, however, the Act of 1829 provided for circumstances as they were. In England, vicars-apostolic were the functionaries of the Roman Catholic religion; in Ireland a local hierarchy had existed ever since the Reformation. The result contemplated by the Act of 1829 was obvious—that the Roman Catholic religion would preserve the position which it held respectively in England and in Ireland at the time of its enactment. That result was what they were now entitled to preserve and perpetuate, but not, in his opinion, to subvert and overthrow. But would they gain in their defence of the Protestant religion by the effort? The Papal Sovereign had struggled in his own sense and in his own interest to overthrow the equitable balance he had pointed to. By sounding manifestoes and ambitious declarations he had tried to introduce into Great Britain the hierarchy which existed in the sister kingdom, and had spared no forms of self-assertion and of arrogance by which the nature of his policy could be intruded on our fears or our resentments. Parliament was required to consider in what manner an aggression so flagrant and undisguised should be encountered. Two methods were suggested. It might either resist an innovation, or inflict a grievance; it might either defend a safeguard which had been attacked, or withdraw a boon which for many years had been conceded; it might either throw a shield around Great Britain, or, stretching its arm across the Channel, might strike another blow, to be again eluded by its adversary, and again insulted by its object. He asserted with a fearless emphasis that between these two courses Parliament must make an option. The train of reasoning by which he came to that conclusion was transparent. That the measure, as it stood, was sufficient to avenge the honour of the Crown, or execute the wishes of the country, no man of any party connection or persuasion had asserted. Were the least importunate of critics asked by what provisions it required to be strengthened, he would answer—by the clauses introduced into the first Bill, explained by the Master of the Rolls, applauded by the House of Commons, appreciated and adopted by the public. It was worth while, therefore, to inquire on what grounds, and to escape what difficulties, these well-matured and well-defended clauses were rejected. Was it not upon the ground that Ireland resented—on the ground that Ireland resisted them —that, with those powerful securities against ecclesiastical assumption, to extend the Bill to Ireland was impossible? Who could recollect, therefore, the history of those clauses, and deny that to extend them there at all was inexpedient? For the sacrifice disastrously incurred in the midst of national dismay and parliamentary confusion, was there any prospect to console, or any possible advantage to indemnify them? It could scarcely be worth while to disappoint sentiments which the letter of the noble Lord augmented and invigorated, although it did not, as some had said, with blind malignity, create; to give the Pope a triumph over Parliament; to place the Master of the Rolls in an equivocal position; to insult the House by contradictory approaches to its judgment; to mutilate a Bill which was not ample in the outset; to impair the reputation of a party which had flourished ever since the Revolution, in order to revive the animosities, to renovate the factions, to undo the peace, the harmony, the government of Ireland, without a prospect of restraining the assumptions which were made under the clause he had alluded to, and which, when they continued, under further limitations, to arise and flaunt in their presence, would only make the Act of 1829, so far as limi- tations were concerned, yet more conspicuously incapable, and more elaborately frivolous. It might be indiscreet, perhaps, to dwell any longer on the subject, unless the interests of Lord Clarendon were no less involved than that of Ireland in the question. The success of Lord Clarendon in dealing with the famine of 1847, in quelling the rebellion of 1848, in sustaining the zeal, the loyalty, the confidence of all classes in a time of staring want and slumbering disturbance—the power he had gained over minds originally hostile, the development of industry which had taken place under his Government—should all conspire in suggesting a reluctance to the Legislature to assent to any innovation of the Act of 1829 so far as Ireland was concerned, of which the effect would be to make it more difficult to reconcile administration with enactments, and to form a wider gulf between the statutes of the realm and the invincible desires of the people. The reasons for excluding Ireland from the Bill were so lucid on the surface, that they required little aid from argument or rhetoric. He had stated them, with no regard to regularity. They all occurred upon the questions, Was it just to Ireland to include it? Was it just to Lord Clarendon? Was it consistent with the honour of the Crown, the country, and the Protestant religion? Was it just to Ireland to violate a compact? Was it just to Lord Clarendon to increase the dissonance of statute and of policy? Was it just to Great Britain to make effectual legislation against the Roman Pontiff perfectly impracticable, and that after its hopes had been indulged and its enthusiasm flattered by the powerful? The party leaders of the country might answer these questions as they would. There could be little doubt in what manner Parliament should answer them. It should not be taken in by the preposterous formality that the Irish Church required a protection it never enjoyed before, because in Great Britain they had had a struggle with the Pontiff, which (if this Motion was allowed) would terminate in his confusion. It should not be taken in by the pedantic chivalry and pompous technicality that the Sovereign required an assertion of prerogative in Ireland, of which Sir Robert Peel never dreamt in 1829, because they were about to scatter the ambitious nomenclature which the Pope was ready to domesticate amongst them. If in 1829 it was proper to permit titles which did not interfere with the Establishment, this was not the moment to prohibit them in Ireland. Let not the English people turn away from constitutional defence to mad and mischievous invasion—let them not pursue an enemy, in evading and escaping whom consisted the extremity of triumph. The party leaders had, perhaps, been seized with an honest love of uniformity and symmetry. Uniformity and symmetry he would not presume at present to depreciate. But sound and ruling politicians should be ready from time to time to make a sacrifice of the ideal to the practical, to forget the dream on the occasion, and postpone the theories of art to the necessities of empire. Against the soaring aspirations and sweeping visions of their leaders, they had public interests to balance, and public exigencies to array. They arose out of the English monarchy, which, if its dignity was outraged, had none to throw away on crude and ineffective vindication. The Statute-book ought not to be involved in shadow struggles with the wants, the feelings, and the intelligence of Ireland!—of Ireland, whose cup of bitterness, however skilfully exhausted by the statesman, might yet by state pedantry once more be made to overflow. Abandoned by their noblest patrons, and despoiled of their most legitimate adherents, they invite you—those interests and exigencies—to achieve another act of liberality and prudence. In a moment of Imperial emergency and Protestant resistance, they forbid you to indulge the temper of the most enlightened thinkers who direct us, by forging an ovation for the Pope from the distrust of more than half the realm, and the convulsion of the residue.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Clause be now read a Second Time."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 60; Noes 255: Majority 195.

List of the AYES.
Anstey, T. C.	Evelyn, W. J.
Arundel and Surrey, Earl of	Fox, W. J.
	Goold, W.
Bell, J.	Grace, O. D. J.
Blake, M. J.	Herbert, H. A.
Bright, J.	Higgins, G. G. O.
Castlereagh, Visct.	Hindley, C.
Cavendish, hon. G. H.	Hobhouse, T. B.
Clay, J.	Horsman, E.
Clements, hon. C. S.	Howard, Sir R.
Corbally, M. E.	Hutchins, E. J.
Dawson, hon. T. V.	Keating, R.
Devereux, J. T.	Keogh, W.
Drummond, H.	Lawless, hon. C.
Ellis, J.	M'Cullagh, W. T.

Meagher, T.	Reynolds, J.
Mahon, The O'Gorman	Roche, E. B.
Moore, G. H.	Sadleir, J.
Morgan, H. K. G.	Sawley, Col.
Murphy, F. S.	Scully, F.
Norreys, Sir D. J.	Shafto, R. D.
O'Brien, Sir T.	Smith, rt. hon. R. V.
O'Connell, M. J.	Smythe, hon. G.
O'Ferrall, rt. hon. R. M.	Somers, J. P.
O'Flaherty, A.	Talbot, J. H.
Osborne, R.	Tennent, R. J.
Peel, F.	Tollemache, hon. F. J.
Perfect, R.	Vane, Lord H.
Pilkington, J.	Williams, W.
Ponsonby, hon. C. F. A.	TELLERS.
Power, Dr.	Campbell, W. F.
Rawdon, Col.	Crawford, W. S.
List of the NOES.
Abdy, Sir T. N.	Cholmeley, Sir M.
Adderley, C. B.	Christopher, R. A.
Alcock, T.	Christy, S.
Anson, hon. Col.	Clifford, H. M.
Archdall, Capt. M.	Clive, hon. R. H.
Arkwright, G.	Clive, H. B.
Bagot, hon. W.	Cochrane, A. D. R. W. B.
Bagshaw, J.	Cockburn, Sir A. J. E.
Baines, rt. hon. M. T.	Codrington, Sir W.
Baldock, E. H.	Coles, H. B.
Bankes, G.	Colville, C. R.
Baring, rt. hn. Sir F. T.	Compton, H. C.
Barrow, W. H.	Corry, rt. hon. H. L.
Bateson, T.	Cowan, C.
Beckett, W.	Cowper, hon. W. F.
Benbow, J.	Craig, Sir W. G.
Bentinck, Lord H.	Crawford, R. W.
Beresford, W.	Crowder, R. B.
Berkeley, Adm.	Dalrymple, J.
Berkeley, hon. H. F.	Dashwood, Sir G. H.
Berkeley, C. L. G.	Davie, Sir H. R. F.
Bernard, Visct.	Davies, D. A. S.
Best, J.	Dawes, E.
Bethell, R.	Denison, E.
Blackstone, W. S.	Disraeli, B.
Blair, S.	Divett, E.
Blandford, Marq. of	Dod, J. W.
Boldero, H. G.	Dodd, G.
Booker, T. W.	Drumlanrig, Visct.
Bouverie, hon. E. P.	Duff, G. S.
Bowles, Adm.	Duff, J.
Boyd, J.	Duke, Sir J.
Boyle, hon. Col.	Duncan, Visct.
Bramston, T. W.	Duncan, G.
Bremridge, R.	Dundas, Adm.
Brisco, M.	Dundas, rt. hon. Sir D.
Broadley, H.	Dunne, Col.
Broadwood, H.	East, Sir J. B.
Brocklehurst, J.	Edwards, H.
Brockman, E. D.	Egerton, Sir P.
Brooke, Sir A. B.	Ellice, E.
Brown, W.	Elliott, hon. J. E.
Buck, L. W.	Enfield, Visct.
Bunbury, W. M.	Estcourt, J. B. B.
Burrell, Sir C. M.	Evans, J.
Buxton, Sir E. N.	Evans, W.
Cabbell, B. B.	Ewart, W.
Campbell, Sir A. I.	Farnham, E. B.
Carter, J. B.	Farrer, J.
Chichester, Lord J. L.	Fergus, J.
Child, S.	Fitzroy, hon. H.
Childers, J. W.	Foley, J. H. H.

Forbes, W.	Masterman, J.
Fordyce, A. D.	Matheson, A.
Forester, hon. G. C. W.	Maxwell, hon. J. P.
Forster, M.	Mitchell, T. A.
Fox, S. W. L.	Moody, C. A.
Freestun, Col.	Morgan, O.
Frewen, C. H.	Morris, D.
Galway, Visct.	Mulgrave, Earl of
Gilpin, Col.	Mundy, W.
Glyn, G. C.	Napier, J.
Goddard, A. L.	Neeld, J.
Gordon, Adm.	Neeld, J.
Granger, T. C.	Newdegate, C. N.
Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.	Ogle, S. C. H.
Grey, R. W.	Packe, C. W.
Grogan, E.	Palmer, R.
Grosvenor, Earl	Parker, J.
Guest, Sir J.	Patten, J. W.
Gwyn, H.	Peel, Col.
Halford, Sir H.	Pigot, F.
Hall, Col.	Plowden, W. H. C.
Hallewell, E. G.	Plumptre, J. P.
Halsey, T. P.	Powell, Col.
Hamilton, G. A.	Price, Sir R.
Hamilton, Lord C.	Prime, R.
Hanmer, Sir J.	Pugh, D.
Harris, hon. Capt.	Reid, Col.
Harris, R.	Ricardo, O.
Hastie, A.	Rice, E. R.
Hastie, A.	Rich, H.
Hatchell, rt. hon. J.	Richards, R.
Hawes, B.	Romilly, Sir J.
Hayes, Sir E.	Russell, Lord J.
Headlam, T. E.	Russell, F. C. H.
Heneage, E.	Sandars, J.
Henley, J. W.	Scrope, G. P.
Herries, rt. hon. J. C.	Seaham, Visct.
Hervey, Lord A.	Seymour, Lord
Hildyard, R. C.	Smith, J. A.
Hodges, T. L.	Smyth, J. G.
Hodgson, W. N.	Somerset, Capt.
Hollond, R.	Somerville, rt. hn. Sir W.
Hope, Sir J.	Spearman, H. J.
Hope, H. T.	Spooner, R.
Hotham, Lord	Stanford, J. F.
Hughes, W. B.	Stanley, E.
Inglis, Sir R. H.	Stanley, hon. E. H.
Johnstone, Sir J.	Stanton, W. H.
Jolliffe, Sir W. G. H.	Staunton, Sir G. T.
Jones, Capt.	Stuart, J.
Kerrison, Sir E.	Talbot, C. R. M.
Kershaw, J.	Thesiger, Sir F.
Knox, Col.	Thicknesse, R. A.
Knox, hon. W. S.	Thompson, Col.
Labouchere, rt. hon. H.	Thompson, Ald.
Langton, W. H. P. G.	Townshend, Capt.
Lascelles, hon. E.	Trevor, hon. G. R.
Lawley, hon. B. R.	Tufnell, rt. hon. H.
Legh, G. C.	Tyler, Sir G.
Lennox, Lord A. G.	Verner, Sir W.
Lewis, G. C.	Vivian, J. E.
Lindsay, hon. Col.	Vyse, R. H. R. H.
Locke, J.	Waddington, H. S.
Long, W.	Walpole, S. H.
Lopes, Sir R.	Walsh, Sir J. B.
Lygon, hon. Gen.	Watkins, Col. L.
Mackenzie, W. F.	Welby, G. E.
Mackie, J.	Wellesley, Lord C.
Macnaghten, Sir E.	West, F. R.
M'Taggart, Sir J.	Westhead, J P. B.
Mandeville, Visct.	Wigram, L. T.
Manners, Lord C. S.	Willcox, B. M.
Martin, C. W.	Williamson, Sir H.

Wilson, J.	Wyvill, M.
Wilson, M.	TELLERS.
Wood, rt. hon. Sir C.	Hayter, W. G.
Wood, Sir W. P.	Hill, Lord M.

SIR ROBERT H. INGLIS

moved the insertion of the following Clause:— And whereas the Queen's Majesty, in right of Her Imperial Crown, is unto all Her Subjects, under God, the only lawful source and fountain, as well of honour as of jurisdiction, and no Foreign Prince, Potentate, or Prelate, Lath in his own right any authority to confer within this Realm, or any other dominions of the Queen, upon any of Her Majesty's Subjects, or upon any other resident therein, any pre-eminence or jurisdiction in or over the said Realm or dominions, or among or over the people thereof: And whereas it is notorious that the Bishop of Rome hath of late years taken upon himself to constitute, and by territorial limits to define, certain new Sees and Dioceses within this Realm, and the Dominions thereunto belonging, and further to appoint unto the said Sees, and also unto other sees, already existing and recognised by law, certain persons as Bishops of the same, and bath thereby pretended to give to such persons authority not only over all Members of the Church of Rome, but also over all the Queen's Christian Subjects therein resident, and hath further assumed to give to certain other persons Archiepiscopal dignity and Metropolitical jurisdiction within Her said Majesty's Realm and Dominions: And whereas such assumptions have no foundation in the law or custom of this Realm, but rather are manifestly against all law, yet by negligence and sufferance of late years, such assumptions have gained allowance and countenance, to the great disparagement of Her Majesty's Imperial Crown and dignity, and to the weakening and disheartening of the Protestant Reformed Churches of this Realm, and to the discouragement of the Protestant faith in the land, and in all other Her Majesty's Dominions: And whereas certain rank and precedence hath in divers manners by Statute of the Realm, by Letters Patent, by Warrant under the Sign Manual, or by ancient prescription, been attached to different offices, Ecclesiastical as well as Civil, and to divers classes of persons within this Realm, and also to particular persons during their natural lives, all such rank and precedence being regulated by certain rules, whereof the Crown, as the fountain of honour, is the author, guardian, and keeper; and whereas no subject of this Realm can confer any rank or pre-eminence upon any other subject except through the Queen's Royal authority to him delegated, and no subject of the Queen is permitted by the custom of this Realm to bear, without the special license of the Crown, any Title or Dignity tendered to him by any Foreign Prince, Prelate, or Potentate: And whereas the rank and precedence of the Archbishops and Bishops of the United Church of England and Ireland, and also the use of Titles appropriated by most ancient prescription to the same, are part of the rights and privileges of the said Church which the Kings and Queens who shall come to the Crown Imperial of this Realm are, on their accession, bound by oath to maintain: And whereas, without disparagement to the said United Church by fundamental Laws estab- lished, the like Rank, Precedence, and Titles cannot be imparted to the Bishops and Clergy of any Communion not so established: And whereas all the Ministers and Servants of the Crown are required by law and bound in duty to serve the Queen according to the law and custom of the realm: Be it Enacted and declared, by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, That, notwithstanding anything which appears to the contrary, in a certain Local Act entitled the Dublin Cemeteries Act, or in a certain other Act entitled the Act for Charitable Donations and Bequests in Ireland, it is not and shall not he deemed lawful for any Minister or Servant of the Crown in the United Kingdom, or for any governor or subordinate officer in any of the dominions thereunto belonging, on occasion of any public state or ceremonial, or otherwise, to give or allow any rank or precedence, or to use in any public legal or official document any prefix of title or appellation of honour in respect of any Ecclesiastical Order or Dignity in the Church of Rome, to any person not having Her Majesty's license for such title or appellation of honour under Her Royal Sign Manual, duly notified in the official Gazette of the place; provided that nothing herein contained shall affect any usage of Rank or Titles in respect of any Roman Catholic person or see in any dependency ceded by treaty to the Crown, in which treaty there shall have been special provision for the maintenance of the Church of Rome therein. The question involved in this clause was twofold—the creation of temporal jurisdiction and titles of honour by a foreign. Prince, on the one hand, and the recognition of such titles by Her Majesty's Government, on the other. The proposition which he had ventured to lay down, and which he believed to be perfectly impregnable, was that, so far as the realm of England was concerned, Her Majesty was the sole fountain and guardian of honour; that no honour which did not flow either directly from the Crown, or from some authority derived from the Crown, such as that possessed, for instance, by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, could be recognised by the constitution, or could convey any legal status to the parties claiming such honour. He maintained that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in suggesting to the Secretary for the Colonies the propriety of instructing the Governors of Colonies to recosrnise among the Roman Catholics in those dependencies a system of rank and precedent which he assumed the Charitable Bequests Act had conferred upon Roman Catholic prelates in Ireland, had greatly exceeded his duty; and that Her Majesty's Colonial Secretary, in adopting that recommendation, had still more exceeded his duty. The noble Lord at the head of the Government had that night justly argued, that if the prerogative of the Crown was to be maintained in England, it was equally necessary that it should be maintained in Ireland; so, in like manner, he (Sir E. H. Inglis) said, that if the prerogative of the Crown were good in England, it was equally good wherever the Queen's flag was expanded. Exceptions might, of course, be made by the provisions of a treaty; but whatever exceptions might exist in the cases of Malta, the Mauritius, Trinidad, and, above all, in Canada, he maintained that in the great mass of our Colonies the prerogative of the Crown was the same as in the British Islands themselves. He held, moreover, that the Crown of England ought never to sanction colonisation in any part of the world, unless the Crown were prepared to carry to every such colony the essential elements of the English constitution. He held, that as trial by jury, the law of primogeniture, and all the common law of England, were necessarily carried by Englishmen to every colony which they founded; so ought their highest privilege and blessing, their Church, to accompany them as a part of their social existence. Had the Government, he asked, gained anything by their concession to the Roman Catholics contained in the Dublin Cemeteries Act, the Charitable Bequests Act, and the table of precedence which appeared in the Dublin Gazette of the 7th of August, 1849? Was there one of them who had expressed the slightest sense of gratitude for such concessions? He regretted to have heard the argument used that night—and not by Roman Catholics only, but by persons who called themselves Protestants—that Ireland was a Roman Catholic country, and ought to be dealt with upon principles different from those which applied to England. Had the hon. Members who used that argument forgotten that the same Queen for whom they expressed such devoted loyalty and attachment was bound by solemn oath to maintain the Protestant Church, not in England only, or in Scotland only, but in Ireland as much as in either? He trusted after what had happened, that the authorities at Dublin Castle would take care in future not to give the Roman Catholic bishops any precedency which Her Majesty the Queen had not given them. For the last twenty years the Government of this country had been engaged in the course condemned by this clause, and it was now time to return to a more constitutional system.

Clause offered (Declaring it unlawful to give rank or precedence, on occasion of any public state or ceremonial, or to use in any public document any title or appellation of honour, in respect of any Ecclesiastical dignity in the Church of Rome, to any person not having Her Majesty's license).

On the Motion that the Clause be brought up,

LORD JOHN RUSSELL

I rise to object to the bringing up the clause, which, indeed, is not a clause so much as a long Bill, and which is as much entitled to be considered as a separate measure as any I ever heard of. The hon. Baronet, in the preamble of his Bill, brings forward a heavy accusation against the Government—not the present Government, but the preceding one, and the one that preceded that; in short, every Government that has existed for a long time past, leaving hardly any person that has held office since 1829 without some mark of his censure. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire seems to agree in that opinion—[Mr. SPOONER: "Hear!"] And certainly he and my hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford are apparently almost the only two persons that could hold office in the new Cabinet that must be formed after the vote of censure that is to be pronounced upon all Governments that have existed in the country for the last twenty years. In the beginning of the hon. Gentleman's preamble it is stated— And whereas such assumptions have no foundation in the law or custom of this realm, but rather are manifestly against all law, yet by negligence and sufferance of late years such assumptions have gained allowance and countenance to the great disparagement of Her Majesty's Imperial Crown and dignity, and to the weakening and disheartening of the Protestant Reformed Churches of this realm, and to the discouragement of the Protestant faith in the land, and in all other Her Majesty's dominions. That is a grave and solemn charge, and one in which I cannot agree. But my hon. Friend goes on, and he comes to the enacting part of the Bill, and he says that, notwithstanding certain Acts of Parliament, certain things shall not be lawful. I must say that it would be difficult for any Judge or jury to tell what would, or what would not, be law according to this clause. Then he proceeds to say that it shall not be lawful for any Minister or servant of the Crown, on any public state or ceremonial, or otherwise, to give or allow any rank or precedence, or to use in any public legal, or official document, any prefix of title or public appellation of honour to any person not having Her Majesty's license for such title. What would be the occasion of a public state or ceremonial, or what the title or appellation of honour referred to, it would be very difficult to say. He would suppose that, in some Order in Council, some Roman Catholic Bishop might be called the Right Rev. Bishop — that might be considered a prefix or title of honour. Then, in regard to the Colonies, it is said that no title is to be given, unless where the same has been conceded by treaty. But it must be recollected that many of the Colonies possess Legislatures of their own, which decide on their affairs; and it may be made a question in every one of those Colonies whether an Act of Parliament is to overrule these Legislatures; and also, whether these titles are guarantees in the terms of capitulation or treaty, by which some of those Colonies surrendered to us; then there are Acts of Colonial Parliaments recognising these titles: so that the adoption of this clause would give rise to a scene of confusion in the Colonies which it is impossible to describe; in fact, there is hardly a Minister who would not be liable at one time or another to be tried for a misdemeanour. Then it would be impossible to tell what the hon. Member means by a public occasion. I have sometimes met Dr. Murray at dinner, and I have always asked him to go out before me, and thought it a very proper piece of eivility so to do; but that might be construed into a public occasion, or said to be a piece of state ceremonial, and a jury might be asked to convict him (Lord John Russell) under this clause. I must, therefore, oppose the bringing up of this clause. [Loud, cries of "Divide, divide!"]

Motion made, and Question put, "The said Clause be brought up."

The Committee divided:—Ayes Noes 166: Majority 44.

List of the AYES.
Adderley, C. B.	Boldero, H. G.
Arkwright, G.	Booker, T. W.
Bailey, J.	Booth, Sir R. G.
Baldock, E. H.	Boyd, J.
Baldwin, C. B.	Bremridge, R.
Bankes, G.	Brisco, M.
Barrow, W. H.	Broadwood, H.
Bateson, T.	Brooke, Lord
Bentinck, Lord H.	Brooke, Sir A. B.
Bernard, Visct.	Buck, L. W.
Blackstone, W. S.	Buller, Sir J. W.
Blair, S.	Bunbury, W. M.

Cabbell, B. B.	Long, W.
Campbell, hon. W.	Lowther, hon. Col.
Campbell, Sir A. J.	Lygon, hon. Gen.
Chaplin, W. J.	Macnaghten, Sir E.
Chichester, Lord J. L.	Mandeville, Visct.
Child, S.	Manners, Lord C. S.
Christopher, R. A.	Masterman, J.
Clive, H. B.	Maxwell, hon. J. P.
Codrington, Sir W.	Miles, W.
Coles, H. B.	Moody, C. A.
Colvile, C. R.	Morris, D.
Compton, H. C.	Mullings, J. R.
Cowan, C.	Mundy, W.
Cubitt, W.	Napier, J.
Davies, D. A. S.	Neeld, J.
Disraeli, B.	Noel, hon. G. J.
Dod, J. W.	Packe, C.W.
Edwards, H.	Palmer, R.
Farnham, E. B.	Perfect, R.
Farrer, J.	Plowden, W. H. C.
Forester, hon. G. C. W	Plumptre, J. P.
Fox, S. W. L.	Prime, R.
Frewen, C. H.	Reid, Col.
Gallwey, Sir W. P.	Repton, G. W. J.
Galway, Visct.	Rushout, Capt.
Gilpin, Col.	Sandars, J.
Goddard, A. L.	Seaham, Visct.
Granby, Marq. of	Sibthorp, Col.
Grogan, E.	Somerset, Capt.
Guernsey, Lord	Stafford, A.
Gwyn, H.	Stanley, E.
Hall, Col.	Stephenson, R.
Hallewell, E. G.	Stuart, H.
Hamilton, G. A.	Stuart, J.
Hamilton, J. H.	Thesiger, Sir F.
Hamilton, Lord C.	Thompson, Ald.
Hastie, A.	Tollemache, J.
Henley, J. W.	Trevor, hon. G. R.
Hildyard, R. C.	Tyler, Sir G.
Hodgson, W. N.	Verner, Sir W.
Hope, Sir J.	Vyse, R. H. R. H.
Hotham, Lord	Waddington, H. S.
Johnstone, J.	Walpole, S. H.
Jolliffe, Sir W. G. H.	Walsh, Sir J. B.
Jones, Capt.	Welby, G. E.
Kerrison, Sir E.	Wigram, L. T.
Kershaw, J.	Yorke, hon. E. T.
Knox, hon. W. S.
Langton, W. H. P. G.	TELLERS.
Lennox, Lord H. G.	Inglis, Sir R. H.
Lindsay, hon. Col.	Spooner, R.

List of the NOES.
Abdy, Sir T. N.	Boyle, hon. Col.
Adair, R. A. S.	Brocklehurst, J.
Anson, hon. Col.	Brockman, E. D.
Anstey, T. C.	Brown, W.
Arundel and Surrey, Earl of	Bruce, Lord E.
	Bunbury, E. H.
Bagshaw, J.	Carter, J. B.
Baines, rt. hon. M. T.	Childers, J. W.
Baring, rt. hon. Sir F. T.	Cholmeley, Sir M.
Barron, Sir H. W.	Christy, S.
Beckett, W.	Clay, J.
Bell, J.	Cockburn, Sir A. J. E.
Benbow, J.	Corbally, M. E.
Berkeley, Adm.	Corry, rt. hon. H. L.
Berkeley, C. L. G.	Cowper, hon. W. F.
Bethell, R.	Craig, Sir W. G.
Birch, Sir T. B.	Crawford, R. W.
Blake, M. J.	Crowder, R. B.
Bouverie, hon. E. P.	Davie, Sir H. R. F.

Dawes, E.	Norreys, Sir D. J.
Devereux, J. T.	O'Brien, Sir T.
Dodd, G.	O'Connell, J.
Douglas, Sir C. E.	O'Connell, M. J.
Duff, G. S.	O'Flaherty, A.
Duff, J.	Osborne, R.
Duke, Sir J.	Paget, Lord A.
Duncan, Visct.	Paget, Lord C.
Duncan, G.	Palmerston, Visct.
Dundas, Adm.	Parker, J.
Dundas, rt. hon. Sir D.	Patten, J. W.
Ellice, E.	Pigott, F.
Elliot, hon. J. E.	Pilkington, J.
Estcourt, J. B. B.	Pinney, W.
Evans, J.	Ponsonby, hon. C. F. A.
Evans, W.	Portal, M.
Fergus, J.	Power, Dr.
Ferguson, Sir R. A.	Price, Sir R.
Forster, M.	Pusey, P.
Freestun, Col.	Rawdon, Col.
Glyn, G. C.	Reynolds, J.
Goold, W.	Ricardo, O.
Grace, O. D. J.	Rice, E. R.
Graham, rt. hon. Sir J.	Rich, H.
Grenfell, C. P.	Robartes, T. J. A.
Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.	Romilly, Sir J.
Grey, R. W.	Russell, Lord J.
Grosvenor, Lord R.	Russell, hon. E. S.
Grosvenor, Earl	Russell, F. C. H.
Hallyburton, Lord J. F.	Scully, F.
Hanmer, Sir J.	Seymour, Lord
Hardcastle, J. A.	Slaney, R. A.
Hatchell, rt. hon. J.	Smith, rt. hon. R. V.
Hawes, B.	Smith, J. A.
Headlam, T. E.	Smith, M. T.
Heneage, G. H. W.	Somers, J. P.
Heneage, E.	Somerville, rt. hn. Sir W.
Hervey, Lord A.	Spearman, H. J.
Heywood, J.	Stanton, W. H.
Higgins, G. G. O.	Sutton, J. H. M.
Hobhouse, T. B.	Talbot, C. R. M.
Hodges, T. L.	Talbot, J. H.
Hollond, R.	Tenison, E. K.
Horsman, E.	Tennent, R. J.
Hughes, W. B.	Thicknesse, R. A.
Johnstone, Sir J.	Thompson, Col.
Keating, R.	Tollemache, hon. F. J.
Keogh, W.	Townshend, Capt.
Labouchere, rt. hon. H.	Trevor, hon. T.
Lawless, hon. C.	Tufnell, rt. hon. H.
Lawley, hon. B. R.	Vane, Lord H.
Lewis, G. C.	Verney, Sir H.
Littleton, hon. E. R.	Wakley, T.
Locke, J.	Watkins, Col. L.
M'Cullagh, W. T.	Willcox, B. M.
Meagher, T.	Williams, W.
Mangles, R. D.	Williamson, Sir H.
Marshall, J. G.	Wilson, J.
Martin, C. W.	Wilson, M.
Melgund, Visct.	Wood, rt. hon. Sir C.
Milton, Visct.	Wood, Sir W. P.
Moore, G. H.	Wortley, rt. hon. J. S.
Morgan, H. K. G.	Young, Sir J.
Mostyn, hon. E. M. L.	TELLERS.
Mulgrave, Earl of	Hayter, W. G.
Murphy, F. S.	Hill, Lord M.

House resumed; Committee report progress; to sit again on Monday next.