SECOND READING.

HC Deb 24 April 1872 vol 210 cc1760-98

Order for Second Reading read.

SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLEN

, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that its object was to remove the restriction which prevented the offices of Lord Chancellor of England and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland being held by Roman Catholics or Jews, to repeal the penal clauses of the Catholic Emancipation Act relating to monastic orders, and to provide that trusts and dispositions of property for pious uses should not be treated as superstitions. Those who lived in these halcyon days, when almost all the offices of the State were open to men of every religious persuasion, could scarcely imagine the state of things that existed so late as the reign of the uncle of our present Queen—King George the Fourth—when Catholics, Nonconformists, Jews, bore the burdens of the State in common with Episcopalians, while for them were reserved all State emoluments and honours. That state of things had been gradually changed, but not without great opposition. The Nonconformists were emancipated by the repeal of the Tests Act in 1828, and the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed in 1829. Thirty years later this was, in turn, followed by the Act for the emancipation of the Jews. By the Act of 1828 all penalties against Dissenters were repealed; but the same course had not been adopted with regard to Roman Catholics. The late Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel passed the Catholic Emancipation Act through fear of a rebellion breaking out in Ireland; but that Act imposed on Roman Catholics an oath which a few years ago this House abolished, as one of a very insulting character, and it imposed certain restrictions on Roman Catholics, as to the holding of certain offices under the Crown, which subsequently, in 1858, in the Act for the Emancipation of the Jews, were also imposed upon them. He now sought to remove those restrictions, and to place Roman Catholics and Jews in the same position as Nonconformists, and to render them by law capable of holding all offices under the Crown. While the Catholic and the Jew Emancipation Acts opened nearly all offices under the Crown to them, those Acts expressly reserved from Jews and Catholics the offices of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Chancellor of England, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. In 1867 he introduced in that House a Bill for opening the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland to Roman Catholics, and that Bill was carried by a majority of 103. His noble Friend Lord O'Hagan had since been appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and anyone who had watched his career would say that it would have been a gross injustice if the law had rendered his appointment impossible. He had included also in that Bill the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; but, subsequently, in Committee, that office was struck out by the narrow majority of 3. Instead of seeking to re-instate it on the Report, he thought it more prudent, under all the circumstances, to be satisfied then with the removal of the restriction upon the office of Lord Chancellor. By the present Bib he sought to supplement what was then done, and to throw open to Roman Catholics and Jews the two remaining offices, the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland and the Lord Chancellorship of England; and he could not see any reason why the restrictions imposed by the Emancipation Acts should be continued. On the last occasion it was argued, in opposition to his proposal, that the Lord Lieutenant had certain peculiar duties in connection with the then Established Church of Ireland—that he had the nomination of the Bishops—though, in fact, they were nominated by the First Minister of the Crown; but now, at all events, that argument could not be urged. The Legislature had in its wisdom disestablished the Irish Church, and the Lord Lieutenant had no longer anything to do with the appointment of Bishops. Was there, then, any reason why the office of Lore Lieutenant should not be open to persons of all religious persuasions? It was said that the Lord Lieutenant was the representative of Her Majesty, and that the Crown being Protestant, its representative ought to be Protestant. If there were anything in that argument, it would hold good of the Viceroy of India; but the Viceroy of India, who represented Her Majesty, might be a Catholic—the Governor General of Canada, who represented Her Majesty, might be a Catholic—and so might be all the other Governors of our Provinces or Colonies. Again, all the Ambassadors who represented Her Majesty at Foreign Courts, might be Catholics. Surely, then, that could be no reason why the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland should not be a Catholic. Any Member of the Cabinet, the Prime Minister himself, might be a Roman Catholic; and even the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, the Minister responsible for its government more than the Lord Lieutenant, might be held by a Roman Catholic. What reason, therefore, was there why Roman Catholic Peers could not discharge the duties of the Lord Lieutenancy as well as Protestant Peers? He further proposed to open the office of Lord Chancellor of England to Roman Catholics and Jews. The opinion was general that no injury had been done to the Constitution of this country by throwing open the Lord Chancellorship of Ireland, and he submitted that neither would the throwing open of the English Chancellorship in any way endanger the Constitution. The Lord Chancellor was the head of the law in England, and Chief Judge in Equity in the Supreme Court; and was there any reason why, as Chief Equity Judge, a Roman Catholic should not be eligible to hold the office? Every Common Law Judgeship—even the Chief Justiceship of the Queen's Bench—could be hold by a Roman Catholic, and so could the Mastership of the Rolls, the Vice Chancellorships, and the Lord Justiceships of Appeal. Apart from prejudice and feeling, what reason could there be why the office of the highest Judge in Equity should not be held by a Roman Catholic or a Jew? That he was also a Cabinet Minister was no reason, because Catholics could hold other Cabinet offices. He knew it was said that the Lord Chancellor of England had a large amount of ecclesiastical patronage to dispense. As regarded the ecclesiastical patronage of the office, the Bill provided that if the office were held by any one who was not a member of the Church of England, the patronage should be handed over to any one of the Protestant Secretaries of State whom her Majesty, by her sign manual, might appoint. The Emancipation Act provided that the patronage of a Minister of the Crown who was a Roman Catholic should be handed over to the Archbishop of Canterbury; but he proposed rather to say to a Secretary of State, because there was a strong feeling that some patronage should be exercised by laymen. This provision, it should be observed, offered the Church greater security than she possessed now, because there was nothing now which required the Lord Chancellor to be an Episcopalian. He might be of any religion or of none; but he must not be a Roman Catholic or a Jew. He was not prepared to name any Roman Catholic member of the Bar who was likely to be appointed Lord Chancellor of England; but he might refer to the present Solicitor General, who could not be appointed to the office because he was a Jew, which would be a great injustice if he were otherwise qualified. What would be said of a law preventing the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) from becoming Lord Chancellor if it should happen that he were or should become a member of the Catholic Church? Was it not monstrous that such men as these should be disqualified on merely religious grounds? On a former occasion the Prime Minister delivered a powerful argument in favour of opening the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland to Catholics; and the same argument would be equally applicable to throwing open the office of Lord Chancellor of England. The Penal Clauses of the Catholic Emancipation Act were introduced as a sop to the "No Popery" feeling of the time, and among them were the clauses against the monastic Orders. The Emancipation Act, by Clause 28, provided that every Jesuit and every member of a monastic Order, who should be in the kingdom at the time of the passing of that Act, should send in to the clerk of the peace of the county in which he was resident his name and place of residence, the name of the society of which he was a member, and the name of the superior of the order, under a penalty of £50 for each calendar month he should omit to do so. The statute also provided that no member of a monastic Order out of the country should come into the country without a license on pain of being liable to be indicted for a misdemeanor and to be banished for life, except only the natural born subjects of the kingdom; but the Secretary of State was to have power to allow a member of a monastic Order, not a natural born subject, to remain in this country six months, but if he remained over this time he was to be liable to be banished the kingdom for life. These provisions were most stringent. The object was to put an end to monastic institutions in this country. Hon. Members heard a great deal of this subject last night, and they were perfectly aware that all those clauses which he had just read were perfectly inoperative. No steps had been taken under the statute; and he (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) respectfully submitted that these provisions ought no longer to remain on the Statute-book. He proposed, therefore, by the Bill to repeal those clauses. Monastic institutions were part of the machinery of the Roman Catholic Church, and Catholic education was chiefly conducted by members of them, and yet they were still liable to banishment and transportation for life. Catholic education in Ireland could not exist without monastic institutions, Even Father Mathew, who received a pension from Government for his efforts in the cause of temperance, and in whose memory a monument had been erected in the City of Cork, was an outlaw and might have been transported for life. So could the monks who were conducting the reformatories of Ireland; and so was Dr. Gillooly, Catholic Bishop of Elphin. Would the Attorney General for Ireland prosecute the Bishop, and put him in the dock with his mitre on his head and his crozier in his hand? If he did, would he be able to obtain a conviction? He did not believe the Army of England could keep the people down if an attempt was made to enforce these clauses, and there was no reason why they should be kept on the Statute-book. He was aware that the very name of a Jesuit excited prejudice in England. As to that he would quote the following passage which he met with in a work he was reading the other day:— There are two sets of Jesuits—the Jesuits of fact and the Jesuits of fiction; and as there are more readers of romances than students of history, the latter are more familiar to the public. The Jesuits of fiction will be admitted on all hands to be terrible fellows, but their proper place is in the circulating library, not in political discussion. The Jesuit of fact closely resembles all other respectable clergymen of the Church of Rome, except in so far as the Order has had in its ranks the most accomplished members of that body. In the history of every branch of our literature distinguished Jesuits are met with; the practice and theory of education are deeply indebted to them; and foremost among the missions to the heathen have always been found the Jesuit Fathers. The Jesuits conducted the establishment at Stonyhurst and a similar school at Clongomes Wood, in Ireland, and these institutions were highly valued by parents of the higher and middle classes of Catholics. The present state of the law wrought serious injustice, because it rendered void all endowments and gifts to monasteries and monks. The witnesses before the Committee on Conventual and Monastic Institutions urged that the law was likely to be weakened in the minds of those who received their education from teachers who were outlaws. A Bill to repeal these clauses was introduced by Mr. Watson, the Member for Kinsale, in 1845, in conjunction with the noble Lord the Member for Leicestershire (Lord John Manners). It was supported by Lord John Russell, and was read a second time; but it was lost on going into Committee, on the Motion of Sir Robert Inglis, seconded by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), who for 30 years had consistently opposed the relaxation of penal laws. In 1846 the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire, with Mr. Escott and Mr. Watson, again introduced the Bill, and although stoutly opposed by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, the second reading was carried by a majority of 43. Lord John, now Earl Russell and every Member of the Liberal party in the House supported it, including the right hon. Baronet the Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey), and the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington); but it was again thrown out on the Motion for going into Committee through the renewed opposition of Sir Robert Inglis. In 1847 the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire again introduced the Bill, but it had to be dropped in consequence of the lateness of the Session. He hoped his Bill would not share the same fate. The last provision of the Bill sought to amend the law in respect of the construction put on a statute of Edward VI., and another of Henry VIII., that gifts or bequests for prayers and masses for the souls of the dead given by Roman Catholics were superstitions, and were, therefore, void and illegal. He proposed that no bequest or gift should be deemed void or unlawful on the ground that the use, trust, or disposition, was superstitious or for a superstitious object. This provision, he might remark, had nothing whatever to do with the law of mortmain. If a gift or disposition were made which would be void by the law of mortmain, by all means let it be void; but he wished it not to be declared void simply because it was made in order that prayers or masses might be offered up for the repose of the souls of deceased persons. The Jews as well as the Catholics believed in the efficacy of prayers for the dead; and although some hon. Members might be inclined to sneer at the doctrine of Purgatory, Dr. Johnson, who was certainly a sincere member of the Established Church, was of opinion that the doctrine was by no means an unreasonable one. The following passage from Boswell's Life of Johnson clearly showed this— I proceeded:—Boswell: 'What do you think, Sir, of purgatory, as believed by the Roman Catholics?'—Johnson: 'Why, Sir, it is a very harmless doctrine. They are of opinion that the generality of mankind are neither so obstinately wicked as to deserve everlasting punishment, nor so good as to merit being admitted into the society of blessed spirits, and therefore that God is graciously pleased to allow of a middle state, where they may be purified by certain degrees of suffering—you see, Sir, there is nothing unreasonable in this.'—Boswell: 'But, then, Sir, these masses for the dead?'—Johnson: 'Why, Sir, if I have established that there are souls in purgatory, it is proper to pray for them as for our brethren of mankind who are yet in their life.' Now, supposing that he, remembering kindly the numerous contests he had had in the House with his hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire, left a sum of money for masses to be said for the repose of that hon. Gentleman's soul—and for safe custody placed the money in the hands of the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird)—why should the law prevent him from doing so? It might be that the masses would do the hon. Member no good; but why should the law interfere to prevent him endeavouring to do it? By the law of Ireland bequests of money for the repose of the soul of the testator were valid. This was decided in 1819, not by a Roman Catholic or a Liberal Judge, but by Lord Manners, then Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and in 1844 this decision was affirmed by Mr. Blackburn, then Master of the Rolls, and afterwards one of the Lords Justices of Appeal. And since that time the Catholics of Ireland had been free to leave money for prayers and masses for the repose of their souls. Why should the Catholics of England he prohibited from legally doing what the law permitted their coreligionists in Ireland to do? He was aware of the endeavours of the Scottish Reformation Society, and of other associations, to get up an agitation against this measure; but the truth was that the Roman Catholics sought to obtain no right which the Dissenters of England did not already enjoy. Any Dissenter might be Lord Chancellor of England or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if his talent fitted him for those offices, and there was no reason why Roman Catholics and Jews should be disqualified from occupying those high positions—unless, indeed, the Roman Catholic and the Jewish religions ought not to be tolerated in this country—a proposition which, he believed, even his hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire would not attempt to maintain. In conclusion, he would quote a passage from the Proclamation issued by Her Majesty to the people of India on the occasion of the transfer of that country from the East India Company to the British Crown. Her Majesty said— Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and the desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to be our Royal will and pleasure that none shall in any wise suffer for their opinions, none shall be molested or disquieted by reason of their religious faith or observances, but that all shall alike enjoy the impartial protection of the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under us that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of any of our subjects, on pain of our highest displeasure. And it is our further will that, so far as may be, our subjects of whatever race or creed they may be, shall be freely and impartially admitted to any offices in our services, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity, duly to discharge. These were right noble words, worthy of the Sovereign and of the Minister who advised them, and he asked for the Roman Catholics and the Jews of this country the same measure of justice which Her Majesty had given to the inhabitants of India. The hon. and learned Baronet concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.

SIR JOHN GRAY

seconded the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir Colman O'Loghlen.)

SIR THOMAS CHAMBERS

, in rising to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said, it was a very difficult question for any Member to handle without giving some uneasiness to those who differed from him; and notwithstanding the temperate manner in which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) introduced his Motion last night, he was subjected to the strongest personal attacks by speaker after speaker. It was impossible to discuss the subject without giving some annoyance to those who differed from them on this subject; and therefore he acknowledged that he rose to make his Motion with some diffidence, lest a similar attack should be made upon him. It was proposed by this Bill to repeal the provisions of an Act passed in 1829, by which the greatest possible boon that could be conferred on a people was conferred, and which had been followed by many others granting further concessions. The gift had been accepted; but now it was sought to repeal the conditions with which it was accompanied. The onus of proof that a grievance existed for breaking away from the restraints and conditions of those securities under which the boon was granted, rested with the Roman Catholics; but the right hon. and learned Member who had introduced the Bill (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) had failed to prove any. If the conditions that were imposed in 1829 were fair and proper, and were then considered by the Roman Catholics as reasonable, considering the advantages then granted, it should now be shown that, from some change of circumstance or sentiment and opinion amongst Roman Catholics themselves, those conditions had become totally unnecessary. That they were thought necessary at the time they were imposed was shown not only by the fact of their insertion in the Bill, but by the whole tone of the debates; and it was admitted by the Roman Catholics that they were fair restraints to be imposed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Colman O'Loghlen), in referring to the various religious restrictions on Nonconformists that had been abolished of late years, had failed to observe that there was a very great distinction between the restrictions formerly imposed on Nonconformists and those imposed on Roman Catholics. The restrictions imposed on Nonconformists were not for the security of the State—from a belief that the civil and political government of the community was in peril—but as a guarantee for the security of the Established Church—while those imposed on the Roman Catholics were so imposed because it was thought that by them the safety of the State was imperilled. The troubles of States had been attributed for centuries to the evils against which the securities in question were intended to guard, and the Roman Catholic States of Europe had had to impose restrictions on the Roman Catholic Church for the purpose of protecting the civil and political government against the spiritual influences that were brought to bear against it. The fact that the unrestrained working of the machinery of the Roman Catholic religion by means of the monastic Orders had been the cause of the gravest political evils was one which lay on the surface of history. With regard to the office of Lord Chancellor of England, which it was now proposed to throw open to Roman Catholics, the grievance complained of was one of the smallest imaginable; for the chance of a Roman Catholic becoming Lord Chancellor of England was so remote that the question would not arise probably once in a century. All restrictions on public grounds would now and then touch an individual, and why alter the law for the purpose of providing for a case that might happen once in one or two hundred years? By the Constitution the Sovereign of this country must be a Protestant, and therefore it was essential that the Lord Chancellor of England and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland should also be Protestant, and he denied that there was any analogy between them and the office of Viceroy of India or Governor of Canada. By giving up those two offices they would give up the whole principle of the Constitution of England, because the same arguments that had boon used for the proposed change would equally apply to the Heir to the Throne. Was the House likely to be encouraged to change the law by the events that had occurred on the Continent of Europe since the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Act? Every Government at home had from time to time been embarrassed by the state of Ireland. Agencies had been set to work against all the schemes that had been devised for a national education for Ireland, and for improving the condition of the people of that country—agencies similar to those against which not Germany only, but every European State had been obliged to rouse themselves and protect themselves. There had been for some years past in this country a determination on the part of the Roman Catholics, in one form or another, to withdraw the Roman Catholic population of the country out of the community. In the matter of education, the reform of criminals, the safe custody of prisoners, and the relief of paupers, the Roman Catholics had for years shown a uniform, constant, and perpetual design to remove those of their Church out of the rest of the community. He (Sir Thomas Chambers) on the contrary was of opinion that all classes of the population should unite for the benefit of all, and that therefore the Roman Catholics were pursuing a policy which did not tend to the national welfare. The other object of the Bill was to legalize in this country the various monastic Orders of the Roman Catholic Church; but if ever there was a time to make the change, this was not the proper time for doing so. Attempts had been made, but unsuccessfully, to accomplish the object now in view; and the fact and the boast had been that the law was openly defied in England in respect to religious Orders. Nothing had occurred between 1829 and 1860 to render this proposal palatable to the House; and he appealed to the recent state of the Continent in proof that the proposed change should not be acceded to. No doubt the clauses sought to be repealed were inserted in the Relief Act for the purpose of putting an end to the religious Orders in this country, as the Duke of Wellington openly avowed in the House of Lords— Another part of the bill has for its object the putting an end to the order of the Jesuits, and other monastic orders in this country.…. The measure which I now propose for your lordships' adoption will prevent the increase of such establishments, and, without oppression to any individuals, without injury to any body of men, will gradually put an end to those which have already been formed. There is no man more convinced than I am of the absolute necessity of carrying into execution that part of the present measure, which has for its object the extinction of monastic orders in this country. I entertain no doubt whatever, that if that part of the measure be not carried into execution, your lordships will very soon see this country and Ireland inundated by Jesuits and regular monastic clergy, sent out from other parts of Europe, with means to establish themselves within his majesty's kingdom."—[2 Hansard, xxi. 55–6.] He (Sir Thomas Chambers) would observe that the clauses were deliberately re-enacted as recently as 1860, by the Statute 24 Vict., c. 134, s. 7. No time could have been more inopportunely chosen than the present to propose to legalize the indefinite multiplication of institutions belonging to religious Orders of the Church of Rome, which were wholly secluded from the operation of the law. At the door of every such institution the British Constitution stopped. No Habeas Corpus could be obtained, and it was idle to assert that it could. ["No, no!"] It was impossible to prove what was necessary to set in motion the machinery of the law. The Roman Catholic Members had resisted the slightest operation of the law in relation to the inspection of convents and monasteries; but he doubted whether they acted wisely, if they desired the maintenance of such institutions, in refusing to admit the application to them of regulations which were enforced in every Roman Catholic country. What was necessary 40 years ago in restricting these institutions was ten-fold more necessary now. In discussing this question, he did not confine his observations to monasteries maintained by Roman Catholics, but to all others, whether they belonged to Mahommedans or Hindoos, or other religious communities. The proposed repeal of the statute relating to religious uses virtually amounted to the abolition of the law of mortmain. Here, again, there was no substantial grievance, because it was candidly admitted that certain persons living in community in defiance of the law of the country, held property, and refused to obey an order of that House to give information, on the ground that such information would reveal the illegality of the trusts on which that property was granted to them. This conduct appeared to him to be subversive of all the principles of Government. Secret trusts existed to an enormous extent in this country; but it was not so much the extent of them, as the absence of trustworthy information as to their real extent, that rendered the matter so serious. It had often happened that the mere accumulation of property by religious bodies had been considered so great a national evil that the most violent remedies had been deemed absolutely essential. During nearly 300 years the existence of a monastery was not known in this country, and a few years ago there were only 16—now there were 600, and their number was rapidly increasing. If this increase went on indefinitely, a state of things would be brought about of which the State would be compelled to take notice. Why, then, should the Act against superstitious uses be now repealed? The question was not so much whether it was right or wrong to hire a person to say masses for souls in Purgatory, but whether if the doctrine were honestly believed by a dying person, and if that person were reminded of it, it was not likely that property would be bequeathed away from those who were justly entitled to it. The real object of the law against superstitious uses was to protect the civil community against spiritual influences, which, from the nature of the doctrine of Purgatory, worked with a force which it was impossible for the State to resist. Roman Catholics might leave hundreds of thousands of pounds to Archbishop Manning, and no doubt the money would be applied with integrity and fidelity to the promotion of Roman Catholic schemes. Every single shilling devoted to these purposes went into mortmain, and was held from generation to generation; but it contributed nothing to the general taxation. It might be said that such institutions had often been put down because the State wished to grasp their riches. That might be so, but he believed they were put down because they were felt to be incompatible with public liberty. This, however, was no reason why we should give up the Act. Nothing, in his judgment, could be more inexpedient than to abolish the safeguards contained in the Statute of 1829 and re-enacted in 1860, and, at all events, so serious a change should not be made except on the responsibility of the Government. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment.

MR. W. JOHNSTON

, in seconding the Amendment, said, that considering what had recently happened and the unsettled state of affairs on the Continent, it was an exceedingly inopportune occasion for making proposals of this character and for seeking to sweep away the last remaining safeguards of our Protestant Constitution. It seemed to him singularly out of place that the hon. and learned Member for the county of Clare (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) should have chosen the present time, so soon after the Church of Rome had declared the infallibility of the Pope, to strike a blow at the Protestant institutions of Ireland. With regard to the proposal to throw the office of Lord Lieutenant open to Roman Catholics, he would point out to the House that the Lord Lieutenant was the representative of the Crown, and unless Parliament was prepared to repeal the Act of Settlement the office of Viceroy could not be conferred upon a Roman Catholic. As regarded the abolition of the office of Lord Lieutenant itself the question was very different. The cry of religious equality had been raised in support of the Bill; but religious equality was a phrase which meant different things to different people. It was sought to relieve the Jesuits from certain disabilities; but it should be remembered that that Order had been expelled from Catholic countries by order of the Popes themselves, and were at the present time under a ban in Spain and Switzerland. It had been said in the course of the debate that the existing law could not be carried into effect, even with the aid of the whole Army of England. Now, Acts of Parliament might be good or they might be bad; but it was not pleasant for Parliament to be told that the law of the land was to be set at defiance by the law of the Roman Catholic Church. Sir James Graham had been quoted as one of the supporters in time past of a Bill similar to the one now before the House. This reminded him of an anecdote, the authenticity of which would be denied, but which he gave on his own personal authority. Some years ago a clergyman who had been a canon of the Church of Rome told him that he had been told by the principal of the Order of Jesuits that four Members of the Cabinet of the late Sir Robert Peel were under Jesuit influence, and one of the four was Sir James Graham. In conclusion, he asked for a direct assurance from Her Majesty's Government that they would not allow the safeguards which surrounded the Protestant Church to be destroyed, but would maintain the Protestantism of the Crown and the inviolability of the Act of Parliament.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Sir Thomas Chambers.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

SIR JOHN GRAY

said, he regretted that an act of justice to their fellow-subjects should be opposed at this period on the very grounds which were alleged nearly half a century ago by the opponents of Catholic Emancipation, who said then as it is said now, that the result would be hostile to civil liberty. He thought it rather unfortunate that the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Johnston) should have been the person to complain of the statement made by his right hon. and learned Friend, that the whole Army of England would be unable to enforce compliance with the existing law which consigned the members of the religious orders to banishment:—and should they return to transportation, which now meant penal servitude? This complaint came with very bad grace from the hon. Member for Belfast, who had not long since declared that he would himself put the law at defiance, and with the assistance of 50,000 stalwart marshalled men, belonging to a secret society, prevent the Law Officers of the Crown carrying out the provisions of the Party Processions Act. All that was desired by the supporters of the Bill before the House was to remove one of the grossest injustices Parliament had ever put upon a people for adherence to the practices of their faith; and all that was meant by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill (Sir Colman O'Loghlen), to which the hon. Member for Belfast so ill-advisedly referred at the outset of his remarks was, that it would be impossible to carry out so unjust a law in the face of the overwhelming opposition of public opinion. The injustice which he desired to see remedied, but which the hon. Member for Belfast wished to perpetuate, lay in a law which placed it in the power of one man to banish certain classes of the Catholic priesthood from Ireland, and to punish with transportation for life such of them as ventured to return from banishment to the land they loved, and for the elevation of whose people they desired to labour. The Bill which the House was now asked to read a second time would simply have the effect, if passed, of putting Roman Catholics and Jews in the same position as regarded civil rights with the Protestant Dissenters and other Nonconformists. The hon. Member for Belfast contended that a Roman Catholic could not be appointed to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland unless the Act of Settlement were repealed, on the ground that the Viceroy being the representative of the Crown and the Throne, the office could only be occupied by a Protestant. But he forgot to mention that, while a Nonconformist could not occupy the Throne, it was quite competent for him to fill the office of Lord Lieutenant—and therefore a Dissenter could enjoy civil rights which were denied to the Roman Catholic. He forgot, too, that in India a Roman Catholic, a Mahommedan, a Hindoo, or even a person of no religious belief whatever, might be made Viceroy, and might exercise a much larger authority than was possessed by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. It had been declared by the Queen that she accepted the Throne of India on the principle that every man who was a subject in India should be free and unfettered in his religious opinions, and that no man, because of these opinions, should be excluded from civil offices for which his merits qualified him. Could the same be said for Irish Roman Catholics? Roman Catholics were shut out from civil distinctions which were open to every other religious profession. A man might be an infidel, but that would not debar him from getting any office in the State from which conscientious Roman Catholics were excluded. There was not an argument which had been used against the Bill that had not been drawn from the old armoury used by the opponents of Catholic Emancipation. He was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Belfast object to the Bill on the ground that it would destroy some of the most important and most cherished institutions of the country. What were those cherished institutions? Some years ago the Southern States of America objected strongly to the destruction of the "cherished institution" of slavery, and now he supposed the hon. Member objected to the destruction of that "cherished institution" by the blessed provisions of which the clergy of the several Orders referred to in the Bill, who had done more than any other section of the community to promote civilization, and to advance the prosperity of Ireland, might be banished from her shores as felons. He could not think that the Imperial Parliament would endorse the views of the hon. Member. Parliament was summoned by the Queen in order to maintain the Throne and Constitution of these realms, but it could hardly hope to do this by retaining upon the Statute-book enactments so contrary to Christianity, humanity, and truth, that the Government dared not put them in force. If, then, the Government could not enforce them, let the Parliament have the manliness to repeal them, and refuse to be a party to the public demoralization that must result from the maintenance of laws which possess no sanction, and the enforcement of which would be universally regarded as a crime. There was something higher than the law of the land. There was the law of nature, of justice, and of Heaven; and he contended that it would be far better and more statesmanlike to openly abandon the power to send one's fellow-subjects to the galleys than to retain on the Statute-book laws which could only be enforced at the sacrifice of the rights and violation of the consciences of a whole nation.

MR. HOLT

said, that one of the arguments used in support of the measure now under consideration struck him as very remarkable. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the second reading urged that the law of the land ought to be altered to suit the convenience of those who were in the habit of breaking it; and that an office, the holder of which was supreme guardian of the law, should be opened to those who avow that they habitually break the law. It was avowed that this measure was introduced for the purpose of opening certain high offices of State to Roman Catholic subjects. But when the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) said that since 1829 the Roman Catholics and the Jews had been subject to restrictions, and that Nonconformists were not subject to the restrictions imposed upon Roman Catholics, he (Mr. Holt) had to inquire whether there were not reasons why Roman Catholics were placed under restrictions which were not imposed upon their fellow-subjects. It would be admitted by every Roman Catholic Member of the House that it was one of the principles of the Church of which they were members, that education should be mainly, if not entirely, confided to the hands of the priesthood. ["No, no!"] He certainly thought that the recent action of the Roman Catholics in this country showed that such was the object they had in view. As he understood it, the great object of the Roman Catholic clergy and the teachers of youth was to make the Roman Catholic laymen and children confided to their charge obedient sons of the Church. [Mr. MATTHEWS: Hear!] He was glad to see that the hon. Member accepted that as a correct statement. The Doctors who had written on the canon law had proved that a question of morals included almost every action in which a man could possibly concern himself. Now, the clergy were the exponents of the doctrines and laws of their Church, and it followed that in all political actions in which roman Catholic gentlemen might be concerned they were bound, if they were consistent and adhered to the training in which they had been brought up, to submit to and follow the teaching of their Church. ["No, no!"] That state of things seemed to him to tend to destroy that independence of character and that sense of personal responsibility which he believed to be one of the greatest safeguards for freedom in this country. In his opinion the doctrines in which Roman Catholic youth were trained made a man unfit to discharge the duties required in this Protestant country. They made him—to use an expression uttered by a Roman Catholic on a public platform—a Catholic first, and then an Englishman. He would not quote long passages from the canon law to prove that the doctrine of the Church was as he had stated; but hon. Members would find it at length in Gury, where the argument of the chapter de Legibus, as he understood it, amounted to this—that, if the two were incompatible, the law of the Church was to be obeyed instead of the civil law. The practical result of this doctrine would be found expressed in L'Univers of March 28, 1868, where it was said—and the House should remember that the quotation was from an undoubted Roman Catholic organ— No one who is truly at heart a thorough and complete Catholic can give his entire adhesion to a Protestant leader, be he Whig or Tory; for in so doing he divides the allegiance—in some instances destroys it altogether—which he owes to the Church. The doctrine so expressed was a full confirmation of the statement of Adam Smith, that— The Church of Rome is the most formidable combination that ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government, as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind. He might in confirmation of this quote the Syllabus of 1864, which hon. Members would recollect was a general condemnation of what were styled Liberal opinions on the statement of Lord Beaumont on the subject; but not to weary the House he would only refer to the present state of things in a great Continental Empire. The events of the last few months in Germany were proof, if proof were needed, of the correctness of this doctrine, and the conflict that had arisen in that country between the Church of Rome and the civil Government showed, as The Times had said—"That an infallible Pope is simply an implacable foe to German liberty and German unity." He would venture, too, to remind the House that the Roman Catholics themselves had not been backward in avowing their designs, and in stating that the great object they had in view was to reconcile this nation to the Church of Rome; and all their acts, whether as politicians or as private individuals, were directed to that end. The Tablet of August 6, 1859, reported the following words as having been used in a sermon by Dr. Manning:— If ever there was a land in which work is to be done, it is here. We have to subjugate and subdue, to conquer and rule, an Imperial race.…. We have to bend or break that will which nations have found invincible and inflexible. Were heresy conquered in England, it would be conquered throughout the world. Since the promulgation of the Doctrine of Infallibility, Roman Catholics were bound to believe in the infallibility of the Head of their Church, and it was as well that the House should know the light in which an infallible Pope regarded civil government. Pio Nono, according to The Times, used the following words in an address during the present year— What are certain Governments? They are like a pyramid of which the apex is one dependent on a Cabinet which is dependent on an Assembly, which in its turn is dependent on a thousand demons who have chosen it. All are slaves of sin; the Angel of God pursues them and threatens them. The proposal now was to throw open certain high offices in the State to gentlemen who had been trained to implicit obedience in an infallible Pope—who knew that the Pope regarded Protestantism as a pestilent heresy; and who, holding these views, and feeling themselves bound to do all in their power to promote the ascendancy of their Church, would be compelled to take steps fraught with peril to the institutions and the Protestantism of this country. The Bill, in fact, was an attack upon the Protestant institutions of this country. Some hon. Members who supported this Bill desired the removal of certain stringent provisions against the Jesuits; but were those provisions, he would ask, one whit more stringent than the provisions for the suppression of the Society of Jesus contained in more than one Papal Bull—Bulls, be it remembered, issued by infallible Popes? Was it the Jesuits of fact or the Jesuits of fiction to whom Pope Clement XI. referred when he said—"The Jesuits are perilous servants and tyrannical masters?" Did they remember that Clement XIV., in 1773, issued a Bull, in which he stated that he had omitted no care or pains to arrive at a thorough knowledge of the Society, and that the result of his deliberations, examinations, and prayers, was— That it is very difficult, not to say impossible, that the Church can recover a firm and durable peace so long as the said Society exists; and I therefore suppress and abolish the said company, so that the name of the company shall be and is for ever extinguished and suppressed;" and that these "letters should remain to all eternity valid, permanent, and efficacious. Now, Clement XIV. was an infallible Pope, and in resisting this Bill we, poor heretics as we were, were only carrying out the dicta of infallible authority. He trusted that he had convinced some hon. Members, at all events, that it would not be conducive to the welfare of the Protestant institutions of this country to give this Bill a second reading. There were, no doubt, some who regarded this as purely a religious question. Mr. Cobden, whose authority had some weight with hon. Gentlemen opposite, would scarcely have been of that opinion, for, referring to Ireland, he said— The above facts go far to prove that, in human affairs at least, the Reformed Faith conduces more than Catholicism to the prosperity of nations. They were not, in his opinion, sent to that House to apologize for their Protestantism, but to boldly avow and defend it; not to betray, but to guard the principles for which their forefathers contended at the Reformation, and which they confirmed at the Revolution. In the interests of his constituents and in the interest of his country, therefore, he could not—he dared not—do otherwise than offer the most determined opposition to the second reading of this measure.

MR. SYNAN

said, he was surprised to find the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. W. Johnston) supporting these clauses of the Emancipation Act, which were justly offensive to many of his countrymen, and contrary to the common sense of Europe. It had, indeed, been alleged that these clauses were inserted in that measure as securities for the Protestant constitution of the country, and at the time the Act was passed no doubt there might be some pretence for enacting them; but surely no time could be more proper for their repeal than now when—whatever they might have been at the time—they had become inoperative and useless, because for the imaginative safeguards and securities of Acts of Parliament there had been substituted the undoubted loyalty and attachment of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects to the Throne. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Thomas Chambers) had referred to the Act of Settlement. Now the substance of that Act was, that the Crown of this country should be held only by a Protestant Sovereign. It was plain, therefore, that the passing of this Bill would in no way affect the Act of Settlement; and as to the admission of a Roman Catholic to the office of Lord Chancellor, even were it more probable than the hon. and learned Gentleman supposed, did anyone ever hear that the interests of the country had in any way suffered by the appointment of a Roman Catholic to the High Chancellorship of Ireland? The hon. and learned Gentleman had also objected to the Bill, that it was, to some extent, a repeal of the law of mortmain. But the principle of the mortmain law was to prohibit the tying up of landed property in the hands of ecclesiastical corporations; but though the Acts against superstitious uses might have originated in the Mortmain Act they had really little to do with it. He confidenty appealed to the House to say whether it was necessary any longer to keep upon the Statute-book provisions such as those which it was now sought to repeal.

DR. BALL

said, that though this Bill was no doubt one of great importance, hon. Members would be under a great misapprehension if they should be deluded into the belief, by the attendance of Irish Members, by the numbers who had spoken, by the ardour of their support, or the vehemence of their expressions, that it was a Bill of any great importance as regarded Ireland. The provisions of the Bill chiefly affected England. In Ireland there was no Act of Parliament corresponding to the Act of George II. in England; there was no Act of Parliament making bequests void because they were given to religion—in Ireland the legality of such bequests could only be challenged in case they were given to a corporation, and they would be equally void whether that corporation were an insurance company, a municipal corporation, or the Irish Church before it was disestablished. The law affecting corporations sole—such as Bishops, the clergy—was part of the old law of England. By Poyning's Law, passed in the reign of Henry VIII., the laws of England prior to that time were extended to Ireland; but the provisions forbidding the holding of land at that time in force were passed by Catholics, and were grounded not on religious but on social and political considerations. In England, however, the question was different. There was reason to doubt about the policy of maintaining these laws when it was found that they were constantly evaded. In Ireland the charitable bequest by a dying person possessed of land would be invalid; but how was the law evaded? The charity was not named in the will; but the property was given to the Bishop, or other person, without any mention of any trust, and therefore the law could not reach the case. It was now proposed that they should pass a Bill of this kind, with sweeping clauses and no qualifications; but before they did this they should have the best legal advice upon the matter, so that they might know what qualifications and cautious provisions should be enacted, and also in what language they should be placed. In the Bill several abstract propositions were laid clown. This seemed to him to be a haphazard way of proceeding in reference to such an important matter. Questions of such importance ought to be dealt with by the Government and the Law Officers of the Government. To hear the speeches which had been delivered one would have thought that the existing enactments inflicted great oppression upon some persons, when, in fact, the enactments really operated upon nobody, except so far as bequests were concerned. An Act of Parliament had been passed rendering invalid all bequests not of land merely, but of money also, to what was called in the law "superstitious uses." And here he thought he was justified in complaining of the absence of the English Law Officers of the Crown. As far as the Irish Executive was concerned, the Treasury Bench was amply represented, but in a matter so nearly affecting the interests of this country the House was entitled to the assistance and aid of Her Majesty's legal advisers. As to the distinction that had been made by the law as regarded the religious belief of the Lord Chancellor of England, it had been made on account of the peculiarly intimate relations between the holder of the office and the Sovereign. It was well known that the Lord Chancellor was the adviser of the Queen's conscience. The Queen of England was not only supreme in law and in the Governmental Departments, but the constitution of the Church of England placed her in a peculiar position as regards that Church. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) was disposed to take a much lower view of the Sovereign's relation to the Church than he was; but the fact that decisions in ecclesiastical cases were given by the Queen herself, on the advice of the Privy Council, was enough to show the important character of that relationship; and this, on consideration, was sufficient to require that the Lord Chancellor should be a professor of the same religious belief as the Sovereign. If, however, an Act were passed depriving the office of Lord Chancellor of these characteristics, and making him a mere Judge, having no peculiarly intimate relations with the Sovereign, he (Dr. Ball) would be one of the first to throw the office open to professors of all creeds; but as long as the Lord Chancellor retained his present position the holding of that office must be restricted to professors of the same faith as the Sovereign. As regards that part of the Bill dealing with the monastic Orders, one would suppose from the speeches that had been made that the monastic Orders in Ireland were being oppressed. This, however, was not so; he had never heard any one of them treated with the slightest disrespect even. And if this were so, how was it hon. Members for Ireland made the House re-echo with complaints as if some portion of their countrymen were continually smarting under extreme oppression? He was desirous of proceeding with caution in this matter. He was perfectly ready to admit that it was useless to maintain penalties in the Statute-book which were never enforced; but he was not prepared to say that there should not be power in the Government in extreme cases to interpose in a stronger manner than the mere ordinary law enabled them. In dealing with a matter such as this one was exposed to two antagonistic forces. Roman Catholics, he was bound to say, were sometimes unreasonable. When a fair argument was adduced, contrary to their views upon a matter such as this, they would exclaim—"Then you are endeavouring to maintain the old spirit of ascendancy." And if, on the other hand, an admission was made that some concession should be granted, and that the law was defective, immediately one was met by the cry from the other side of "Ultramontane influence." It was, however, the duty of every man who respected himself to regard neither insinuation, but to say what he believed to be true, and act upon it. Such questions as this were not disposed of by encouraging allegations which had no solid basis—by yielding when there was no real ground of complaint—but would be more completely met by proceeding in accordance with the resolution expressed by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington), when addressing his constituents, to "act with firmness and act with patience."

MR. HERON

said, that the Roman Catholics wished to be placed in the same position as Presbyterians and Non-conformists in reference to the offices of Lord Lieutenant and Lord Chancellor; and he must remind the House that it had already affirmed by a majority of 103 that the office of Lord Lieutenant should be open to Roman Catholics, and he saw no reason why they should decline to re-affirm that Resolution. He wished them to carry the principle to the fullest extent, and to declare that no religious disabilities should attach to the tenure of any office. It was not necessary that the Lord Lieutenant should be a Peer; and, considering that the Chief Secretary had in reality more power than his superior, it was a singular anomaly that the one office should be closed against Roman Catholics, and that the other and more powerful office should be open to them. The hon. and learned Member for Dublin University (Dr. Ball) had spoken of the monastic Orders as if they had no grievances. But he (Mr. Heron) would remind the House that at the Reformation the Roman Catholics of England were deprived of the great endowments for education founded by them in the Middle Ages. He himself had been first educated at one of the Roman Catholic Colleges of this country, presided over and conducted by ecclesiastics; and subsequently he went to Trinity College, Dublin, to complete his education. The difference in the position of the schoolmasters in England and in Dublin was, that whilst the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics of England were exposed to pains and penalties, the ecclesiastics who taught in the Dublin University were thoroughly free from any such consequences—as they ought to be—whilst discharging the duties of their honourable profession. Some hon. Members had alluded to the law of Habeas Corpus being powerless as regarded the inmates of convents and monasteries in Ireland. It was absurd to speak on such a subject when they considered that both monks and nuns were to be seen in the full light of day pursuing their sacred calling in the execution of the purest acts of charity to the poor and the friendless. What, he asked, was to prevent any of these monks or nuns, if they pleased, remaining outside those walls in which they were said to be imprisoned? He called upon the House to re-affirm the principle already laid down by a large majority in respect to the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and to abolish the disability existing in respect to that of Lord Chancellor of England. By doing so they would be only acting in harmony with the principle of the Constitution of this country, which declared that England should be free, and every one of her subjects should have equal rights and equal privileges. He trusted that England, which had always been the asylum of the world, would not so far forget her glorious mission as to re-enact in the 19th century the laws of oppression against any religious sect or denomination.

MR. GREGORY

said, there could be no doubt of the fact that the endowment of monastic and conventual institutions was a matter of much complication and difficulty. Nevertheless, the law had failed to operate against their extension, inasmuch as they were increasing every day, and they were accumulating property to a very large extent. The only difficulty which stood in the way of holding such property, was that arising from what were called "superstitious uses;" but even if money was bequeathed for such purposes to Roman Catholics they did not lose it—it was devoted to some other roman Catholic use to be specified by the Court. Hon. Members on the other side complained that those Roman Catholic institutions for educational purposes were not placed upon the same footing as the ordinary educational endowments of this country. But the cases of the monastic Orders and of the Professors of Trinity College were not identical. As a member of the Committee of Inquiry into this subject he had put a question to a Roman Catholic witness, whether he thought that his Church would be satisfied to take upon it all the rights of our educational endowments, together with their liabilities, involving from time to time Parliamentary inquiries, inspection by visitors, the regulation of their establishments, &c. But to that proposition he had failed to obtain a plain or satisfactory answer. The impression which this circumstance left upon his mind was that the Roman Catholics were anxious to obtain all the rights, but were unwilling to take upon themselves the liabilities which the holding of such endowments carried with it. In respect to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, it appeared to him that the disqualification of Roman Catholics for that office arose from the fact that the Lord Lieutenant was Vicegerent, and directly represented the Sovereign; so that if they abolished the disqualification in respect to that office they would be approaching very closely to the abolition of the disqualification imposed upon Roman Catholics in respect to the sovereignty itself. As to the Lord Chancellor of England, it struck him that the nature of the functions attached to that office had not been properly brought before the Honse. The office was created by the delivery of the Great Seal into his hands. The holder of it was thus made superior in point of precedence to all other subjects of the Crown—he was a Privy Councillor by right of his office, and Prolocutor of the House of Lords by prescription. To him belonged the appointment of all magistrates throughout the kingdom—he was patron of all Royal livings under a certain value; he was likewise general guardian of all infants, idiots, and lunatics, and visitor of all hospitals and colleges of Royal foundation, and general superintendent of all charitable uses in the kingdom. He was thus brought into intimate connection with the administration of the affairs of all educational and charitable foundations of the country. And, in addition to all these functions, the Lord Chancellor of England was the private and confidential adviser of the Sovereign in all matters ecclesiastical and civil. The enumeration of all those functions he thought was enough to show that the Lord Chancellor of England must be of the religion recognized by the State and professed by the Sovereign.

MR. NEWDEGATE*

said, that the only English lawyer who had spoken in this debate was the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Sir Thomas Chambers), who occupied a judicial office, and that he had moved the postponement of the second reading for an indefinite period. He (Mr. Newdegate) prayed the House to remember that only yesterday the House was pleased to give him leave to introduce a Bill for the establishment of a Commission which, if that Bill passed into law, would be empowered and directed to inquire into one important subject which had been under discussion to-day, but a summary conclusion as to which was proposed by the measure now before the House. This Bill would directly affect some English laws which undoubtedly did touch Ireland, and yet it had been introduced by four Members of the House, every one of whom represented an Irish constituency. Now, he thought that the Members for England and Scotland had a right to expect that the House would abide by its decision of yesterday, so far as it indicated the purpose to appoint a Commission to inquire into the operation of the Superstitious Uses Act and into the operation of the law of mortmain. He would beg the House to recollect that the clauses in the Act of 1829, which were now in question, were calmly considered in 1860, and were revived by the Act passed in that year, which gave facilities for removing gifts from the direct operation of the Superstitious Uses Act—a statute the hon. and learned Member for the county of Clare (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) proposed to repeal wholesale by this Bill. Now, he (Mr. Newdegate) anxiously supported the Act of 1860, and voted for it. It was originally introduced by his late Friend (Sir Charles Selwyn); but by an arrangement it was taken out of his hands by the late Sir George Lewis, who was at that time the Home Secretary—so that the Government and the House were now asked to repeal absolutely the clauses of the Act of 1829, which were revived in 1860, with respect to their bearing upon the devolution of property, by Sir George Lewis, the Secretary of State of a Liberal Government. All he hoped was that the House would allow a Commission to be appointed, whose duty it would be to investigate those difficult questions, before it proceeded to sweep away an enactment which it was perfectly clear was not wholly inoperative. The evidence before the Committee of 1870 showed that there was no law of mortmain in Scotland, except the law known as Ex capite lecti; but last Session the Legislature repealed that law—so that there was now, in Scotland, no law of mortmain whatever. And if they now repealed these provisions of the Act of 1829 there would be nothing to prevent the monastic Orders in Scotland acquiring any amount of property in perpetuity. He did not think the House was ready to do that. Much had been said about the Jesuit Order, and it was, without doubt, a powerful organization. He would have the House remember that they had the testimony of the chiefs of the Old Catholic party in Germany to the effect that that Order commanded the late Council at Home; and he prayed the House not only as a Protestant, but as a Catholic, which he claimed to be almost in the sense of the Old Catholics of Germany, not to favour this Order, when its operations were such, that the Roman Catholics of Germany had recoiled from the despotism which it would fix upon them, and were supported in their resistance by the roman Catholic Government of Bavaria and by the Imperial Government of Germany. Why, then, should the House at that moment, by sanctioning the principle of this Bill, declare that, in the case of England, there was no occasion whatever for the same measures of precautions against the machinations of a priesthood, whose influence had always proved dangerous to public liberty—as was shown by the conduct of the Old Catholics of Germany? If ever there was a period of our history when Parliament should be cautious in dealing with this question, it was the present. He did not wish the House to rest upon his bare assertions; but they had in this country publications, which were well known to have emanated from the old Roman Catholic party in Germany, with the learned and estimable Dr. Döllinger at their head—publications he heartily wished that hon. Members, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, had studied. They had the works entitled Janus and Quirinus, both emanating from the enlightened mind of Dr. Döllinger. A perusal of those works was calculated to furnish hon. Members with the most valuable information, and to instruct them in the importance of those very serious questions. He (Mr. Newdegate) wished to show the House the position of the Jesuit Order, and the power it had acquired over all the other ecclesiastical orders. In Quirinus they were reminded of the fact that Pope Clement XIV., in 1773, was compelled to suppress the Jesuit Order in consequence of the disturbances which it had created over a great portion of Europe. The Order, however, was revived by Pope Clement's successor, Pius VII., in 1814; but in the document reviving it not one word was used to contravene the reasons given by Pope Clement XIV. (Ganganelli) for suppressing it. The work in question went on to show that the power of the Jesuit Order had in former times been held in check by the power of the other Orders, including the Augustinians, the Carmelites, and above all the Dominicans, who were leagued together by their common hatred of the Jesuits; but that since the restoration of the Jesuits this had been completely changed—all the ancient Orders were in decline, and hence now that they enjoyed the special favour of the Pope, they had come to acquire power in Rome which might be called quite unexampled—they had, in fact, become the legislators and trusted councillors of the Pope, who saw with their eyes and heard with their ears. Now, knowing that Spain had been recently compelled to expel that Order, and that Switzerland, within the last few months, had taken a similar course—knowing that that Order was now struggling with the powerful Government of the Gorman Empire, he asked the House not to adopt any step the operation of which would encourage that Order to indulge in those old and mischievous machinations so characteristic of it. He had before him a copy of the sermon preached by Dr. Manning, which had been referred to by his hon. Friend the Member for North-West Lancashire (Mr. Holt), in which he described this country as "the centre of heresy," and urged the Roman Catholics of England to use their best exertions to render the power of England subservient to the objects of the Papacy, for then, he said, the will of the Roman Catholic Church must become dominant throughout the world. Could the House desire to give encouragement to such objects as these? Dr. Manning and Cardinal Cullen, as they well knew, were the most earnest promoters of the dogma of Infallibility pronounced by the recent Council. In another sermon, Dr. Manning lauded the Jesuit Order, praised all their actions, and in reference to the Gunpowder Plot, said that they must be considered as utterly absolved from any participation in the conspiracy to blow up that House; and added that he looked upon them as the most fitting agents for carrying out that policy which was best for the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. Why should the House rest in such blind security as to sweep away all provisions of our law, which prevent the acquisition of property by the Order, but do not prevent them from prosecuting their political intrigues? Let the House remember that if there was any real necessity for a Jesuit to come into this country he had only to apply to the Home Office and he would obtain permission to do so; but it was a singular fact that for the last 30 years no application of the kind had ever been made—a fact which showed their disposition to treat our law with disrespect, if not with contempt. These regular Orders—the Jesuits and others—were rapidly displacing the secular clergy as religious teachers; in one school near London—the children, many of whom were children from St. George's Union—all the teachers were actually Belgian monks. Everything was now done by the Papacy to encourage the members of monastic Orders, who were the regular clergy, to the detriment of the secular clergy. In Ireland the old priests were often patriots, but now the cosmopolitan doctrines of the Jesuits prevailed. There was no Communism so pronounced as the Communism of the Society of Jesus—none—and that Communism was governed by an Absolutism in the General of the Order. For these reasons he prayed the House not to pass this Bill until they had carried out their previous intention by issuing a Commission to investigate the relations in which property stood to these Orders, and how their repeal proposed by this Bill would operate in other respects. The proposals of the Bill as to the Lord Chancellor of England and the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland would strike very close to the Act of Settlement, whereby the Crown of these realms stood limited to the present Royal Family being Protestants. Was there anything unreasonable in the provision adopted 200 years ago that the Sovereign of this country should be a Protestant? Look at what Germany had done. The States of Germany had some of them Roman Catholics on their Thrones; yet they had agreed to choose a Protestant Emperor and a Protestant Family to inherit the Empire. Was not that Roman Catholic testimony to the wisdom of the Act of Settlement which limits the Crown of this country to Protestants? The advocates of this Bill said—"We do not attack the Act of Settlement." True, they did not. But what was it that they did do? By previous legislation, although the Sovereign was still to be a Protestant, they had swept away the provisions which limited the tenure of the high offices of State to persons of Her Majesty's own faith, until there were but two of these offices left; subject to this qualification—they yet expected Her Majesty to discharge the functions of Royalty in the sense of the Act of Settlement as a Protestant Sovereign; and he asked was it fair, was it just—he would not say was it loyal—but he would say, was it considerate to Her Majesty to deprive her of the assistance of the only two officers who, by the nature of their offices, were compelled to be of the same faith as the law had enacted that the Sovereign of these realms must be? For the reasons he had stated, then, he appealed to the House not to act inconsiderately in this matter, but to consent to the postponement of the Bill until the Commission yesterday determined upon had had time and opportunity to inquire into these wide and important subjects.

MR. WATERS

fully agreed with the observation of the hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), that this involved a question which required further consideration before the House would be able to arrive at a proper decision upon it. As the matter stood at present many votes might be given by hon. Members who imperfectly understood the point at issue. Under these circumstances he begged to move to adjournment of the debate.

Question put, "That the debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Waters.)

DR. BALL

expressed his surprise at the extraordinary course that had been taken of moving the adjournment of the debate at that hour, before the Government had given any opinion upon the subject.

MR. SPEAKER

said, that he having already put the Question that the debate be adjourned, and the voices having been taken, the hon. and learned Gentleman was out of Order in rising to speak.

Question for the Adjournment negatived.

Question again proposed, "That the word "now" stand part of the Question."

MR. M'CARTHY DOWNING

regretted that the debate had not been adjourned, as he thought more time should be given for the consideration of the question. It had been pointed out in the Report of the Select Committee on Conventual and Monastic Establishments that any sect in this country except the Roman Catholics might take monastic views, or endow the community to which they belonged, and the House had now to decide whether the law should apply equally to all the subjects of the Crown, both in England and Ireland. He could not but think that the law as it now existed was unjust. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) had drawn an argument from the fact that the Royal Family of Germany was of the Protestant religion; but it should also be remembered that Saxony, with a large Protestant population, had chosen a Roman Catholic Sovereign. The evidence given before the Committee to which he had already referred proved that the secular priests were not sufficient without the aid of the regular orders to meet the requirements of the Roman Catholics, and he was sure the House would not prevent the members of that faith from having a proper administration of their religion. So long as Roman Catholics were prohibited from leaving bequests for prayers for the dead, or to religious houses presided over by the regular clergy, the majority of the people of Ireland could not be expected to admit that they were treated fairly by the law. Without entering into the question whether it was desirable that the office of Lord Chancellor of England should be open to Catholics, it seemed to him that, considering that the majority of the people of Ireland belonged to that religion, it was monstrous to declare that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland should not be a Roman Catholic, while he might be a Dissenter, a Jew, or of no religion at all. It was said that the members of the Catholic Church were controlled by their clergy in the exercise of their political rights; but for his own part he could declare that he never allowed the hierarchy or the clergy to interfere with the exercise of his political opinions and feelings. It was true, no doubt, that the Roman Catholic clergy did exercise a certain amount of influence over the humbler classes in Ireland, just as the clergy of the Church of England were said to have done in Lancashire and elsewhere. The observation made on a former occasion by the Home Secretary, to the effect that the law affecting monastic institutions was unreasonable, ought to have more weight with the House. He hoped the House would allow the Bill to be read a second time, in order that in Committee its various propositions might be properly considered.

MR. BRUCE

said, his right hon. Friend (Sir Colman O'Loghlen) had introduced the Bill in a speech which those hon. Members—too few in number—who had heard it, would admit to have been one of considerable ability, containing much instruction, and delivered in a temperate spirit. It was throughout an appeal to those principles of religious liberty which had guided the House in the decision of that class of questions during at least the last 30 or 40 years. He had waited till that late period in the debate to endeavour to gather the sense of the House, and especially of hon. Gentlemen sitting on his own side, as to the provisions of the Bill before the House. In support of the Bill, he had listened to many excellent speeches from Roman Catholic Members; but he confessed he was disappointed at not having heard any expression of opinion from any Nonconformist Member in regard to its provisions. Why that silence? He could not believe that the arguments pressed with so much force by his right hon. Friend met with no response from Liberal Members who were not of the Roman Catholic faith—he thought the reason why his right hon. Friend received so little support from the quarters he had indicated was because in his Bill he had mixed up questions which were essentially distinct, and which ought to be kept separate. The measure dealt with four different matters. In the first place, it proposed to repeal the section of the Roman Catholic Belief Act which made it impossible for a Roman Catholic to hold the office of Lord Chancellor of England. His right hon. Friend had a very easy task in showing how illogical and anomalous the present state of the law was in respect to that appointment. If he gathered rightly what had fallen from him, his right hon. Friend assumed that the Roman Catholic was not the only religionist excluded from the Lord Chancellorship, and that the same exclusion extended also to members of the Jewish persuasion. In that he believed his right hon. Friend was mistaken. There was no law which prevented a Jew from being Lord Chancellor. The right hon. Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), in his very temperate speech, rather suggested than said that the Lord Chancellor might have been supposed to be the special adviser of the Crown in all matters of religion; that, by the Act of Settlement, the holder of the Crown must be a Protestant, and the Lord Chancellor was regarded as the keeper of the Royal conscience. Yet, bringing that opinion to the test of actual practice, they would find that the adviser of the Crown in matters of religion was not the Lord Chancellor, but the Judicial Committee of Privy Council. All those matters were referred to the Judicial Committee, on whoso decision the Crown acted; and there was nothing, as far as he knew, to prevent every Member of the Judicial Committee from being at that moment a Roman Catholic. The hon. and learned Member for Sussex (Mr. Gregory) had read to them a long list of the duties which devolved on the Lord Chancellor; but he (Mr. Bruce) did not gather that there was any one of those duties which might not be performed by a Roman Catholic, with the exception, of course, of those relating to the patronage of livings. But that duty the Lord Chancellor performed in common with the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. With regard to the Visitorship of Colleges, the argument as to the Lord Chancellor not being a Roman Catholic might have been used when the Colleges were closely connected with the Church; but that was no longer the case; and no one could say that the duties connected with the office of Visitor could not be performed by a Roman Catholic Lord Chancellor. The Prime Minister, far more than the Lord Chancellor, was the keeper of the Royal conscience; and it might be said that, in a country the government of which had always been Protestant, it was important that, under all circumstances, the First Minister of the Crown at least should be a member of the Established Church. Indeed, it was well known that the Prime Minister had far more important functions to discharge in reference to ecclesiastical affairs than the Lord High Chancellor, because on his recommendation all the Bishops were appointed, and all the more important offices and valuable livings in the Church were filled up. Then, as to the Home Secretary, he disposed of the whole of the very extensive patronage of the Crown in Scotland. Yet either of those two Ministers might at any moment be a Roman Catholic. But, while it was difficult to find any logical reason why the Lord Chancellor should stand on a different footing from the Prime Minister or other Minister of the Crown, there could be no doubt that the sentiment of public feeling was decidedly against such a change in respect of the Lord Chancellor of England as his right hon. Friend proposed. With reference to the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the case was much stronger. The House, on a former occasion, by a decided majority, had affirmed the principle that there was no reason why the Lord Lieutenant should not be a Roman Catholic. It was then strongly urged that, practically, the Lord Lieutenant acted under the direction of the Home Secretary, who directed the policy of the Irish Government, and who might be a Roman Catholic. The answer to that formerly was, that inasmuch as the Lord Lieutenant was the adviser of the Prime Minister in regard to the selection of Bishops for the Established Church in Ireland, he had functions to perform in respect of that Church which could only be properly performed by a member of that Church. But the state of things had been much altered by the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and there was now an end of the ecclesiastical functions of the Lord Lieutenant; so that that argument had lost its force. Therefore, if he was compelled to give a vote, he should now, as on a previous occasion, support the proposal of his right hon. Friend as to the office of Lord Lieutenant. He now came to the third proposition—namely, for the repeal of the extravagant and practically obsolete clauses of the Roman Catholic Relief Act, touching the Jesuits and the monastic Orders. He was far from saying that at the time those provisions were introduced there might not have been some reason for them; but he was convinced that the House would not now entertain the idea of passing a law that a Jesuit priest, or member of any other Order, who after receiving permission from the Home Secretary to live six months in this country remained here any longer should be subject to transportation or penal servitude. Such a law seemed to him the relic of a barbarous time. The Order of the Jesuits had in former days created political danger in many States; and as the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Heron), in a speech of great moderation, had stated, there might be strong practical objections to such an enormous increase of the monastic Orders as occurred in many parts of Europe in the Middle Ages. The hon. and learned Member who had moved the rejection of the Bill (Sir Thomas Chambers) had quoted from a speech of the late Duke of Wellington, in which the noble Duke gave reasons for the adoption of those severe enactments, and anticipated from their operation the suppression of the monastic Orders in this country. From the time, however, that they were passed until this day they had been entirely a dead letter. There had been, as was well known, Jesuits and members of every conceivable monastic Order in England; and he asked whether any hon. Gentleman present—not even excepting the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate)—would rise in his place and condemn any English Government from that time to this for not putting those laws into force?

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that he had supported a Member of a Liberal Government in re-enacting them.

MR. BRUCE

said, they were not re-enacted, but only not repealed, by a Liberal Government; and, than the late Sir George Lewis, he was sure there was not a statesman of our time who would have more severely condemned the spirit which dictated those extravagant punishments, or more successfully demonstrated their futility, although at the same time he might not have cared to propose a change he could not carry into effect. Not only were those laws inoperative and daily set at defiance, but all admitted that many of the monastic Orders were usefully employed in works of education and charity, and ought not to be placed in a worse position than other persons engaged in similar labours. Lastly, with regard to the part of this Bill relating to the doctrine of superstitious uses, the Report of the Committee on that subject was so full and clear, and demonstrated the objections to the existing law so distinctly, that he did not think any well-considered proposition on the matter would be received unfavourably by the House. But such a question could not be satisfactorily dealt with by a single clause in a measure like the present. In conclusion, he would suggest that his right hon. Friend should rest satisfied with the discussion he had elicited, and not persevere further with the Bill against the evident sense of the House.

MR. COLLINS

joined in the appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to proceed any further with the Bill, which he could not possibly support, because it mixed up three different subjects which should be divided into as many different measures. Now that the Irish Church had been disestablished, there was no longer any reason why the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland should belong to one particular creed; but as long as they had an Established Church in England the Lord Chancellor of England ought to be a member of that communion. Certainly—without intending any disrespect to the hon. and learned Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Matthews)—he did not know any Roman Catholic Member of the Bar who was at all likely to be appointed Lord Chancellor. He could not support the part of the Bill dealing with superstitious uses. Not on account of objecting to prayers for the dead, but because he held it to be undesirable, and contrary to public policy, for the State to sanction bequests for religious services for the dead. Such bequests should be confined to purposes beneficial to persons in existence, or who were likely to exist. As to the penal laws against the members of religious monastic Orders, it was scandalous and disgraceful that any free-born Englishman should be liable to be subjected to the operation of such laws, even though they were never put in force.

SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLEN

, in reply, expressed his regret that the attendance during the earlier part of that debate had been so much thinner than it was towards its close. As that was the case, he would give the House another opportunity of considering the question, and would not have the fate of the Bill decided by the votes of Members who had not heard the Bill discussed, and knew nothing of its merits. The right hon. Gentleman was expressing his readiness to accept any Amendments which might be proposed to bring the Bill more into accordance with the feelings of the House, when—

It being a quarter before Six of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned 'till To-morrow.