MR. H. BERKELEYsaid, that he rose to put to the Government a question of which he had given notice. He understood that the Secretary of State for the Home Department was unavoidably absent, but he hoped that the Solicitor General or the Under Secretary of State would give him an answer. His question had reference to the Roman Catholic processions, against which there had lately been a Royal Proclamation. It appeared that the Government had determined to enforce an Act for putting down these processions, and he wished to know whether that Act extended to the suppression of those imitations of Roman Catholic processions by clergymen of the Church of England which had notoriously taken place in different parts of the kingdom? And in the event of the existing Act not being sufficient to prevent such practices, which bade fair to create a breach of the peace, he wished to know whether the Government intended to introduce such an Act as would put a stop to practices which were scandalous to Protestantism and disgraceful to the Church of England?
The SOLICITOR GENERALI have to state, in the first place, that the Act of Parliament which is now in force has no operation upon any processions whatever, if such have ever had existence, in which clergymen of the Church of England only have borne part, that Act applying entirely to processions consisting of Roman Catholic priests and Roman Catholic persons. With regard to the second question of my hon. Friend, I have only to state that Her Majesty's Government are not at all aware of the law having been violated, or even of any such processions as those alluded to having taken place in any part of the kingdom. It is, therefore, scarcely necessary for me to add, that they have no intention of proposing in this or any future Session of Parliament any measure of the kind referred to with respect to clergymen of the Church of England.