§ MR. DIXONsaid, he would beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he was aware when he gave it as his opinion that all persons who have received episcopal ordination are thereby disabled from sitting in Parliament, that it was thought necessary to prevent, by special enactment in the Roman Catholic Relief Act (1829) the Roman Catholic Clergy from sitting in Parliament?
MR. GLADSTONESir, I must beg leave to correct the answer I gave on a former occasion. My learned Friends the Attorney and Solicitor General advise me that, according to their view, sustained, no doubt, by the existence of that clause in the Roman Catholic Relief Act, that the provision contained in the Act passed in the case of Horne Tooke would not be understood to exclude from Parliament clergymen other than those of the Established Church. If that be so, the state of the law is one of anomaly and confusion still greater than I had supposed, and certainly it ought to receive the early attention of Parliament. It is not easy to see the precise manner in which it ought to be dealt with; but it is not possible to make any attempt to alter the law in the Bill now passing.