THE EARL OF CLANCARTYgave notice that, when the Bills relative to the admission of the Jews to Parliament again came before their Lordships, he should move that their further consideration should be deferred for six months.
§ THE EARL OF MALMESBURYwas sorry to state, that at the present moment his noble Friend, Lord Derby, was unable to attend the House in consequence of illness, and he was very much afraid that he should be prevented doing so for the rest of the week. If both the noble Lords who had charge of these Bills were present, he would have asked them on that account to postpone their Bills as the more convenient course to be pursued under the circumstances.
THE EARL OF LUCANintimated that he had no objection to comply with the request of the noble Earl, so far as his Bill was concerned.
§ LORD REDESDALE,having drawn attention to an irregularity in point of form in the Oaths Substitution Bill, said that although he was opposed to the admission of Jews to seats in Parliament, he did not consider that he was called upon to oppose the settlement of the question by a compromise. The House was aware that the Bill which had come up from the House of Commons still remained with their Lordships, and had yet to be sent back to the other House. Now, although their Lordships could not touch the Bill, so far as any matter connected with the two clauses they had rejected was concerned, it was in the power of the House of Commons to alter those clauses in such a manner as might give 1999 this House the opportunity of determining the question of compromise; and it appeared to him that, instead of raising the question upon a new Bill, it would be far better that the proposition for a compromise should come from the other House in the first instance, and that, in the next place, this should be done with as little fighting as possible upon the points at issue. If, then, there were a disposition on the part of the House of Commons to accede to a compromise upon the principle on which alone a compromise could be effected, so that one House might admit the Jew, but the other should not, any such proposition as that should come from the House of Commons to their Lordships, and not go from this House to that.
LORD BROUGHAMwished it was possible to deal with the question in the manner pointed out by the noble Lord; for there were many advantages to be gained by compromising a question which could never result from fighting it out. By the law of Parliament as it now stood, without taking an oath, and without taking his seat, any Jew, any Roman Catholic, any Unitarian, any man, might serve upon any Committee of the House of Commons, however important the subject of its inquiries. That was undeniably the law of Parliament; and, seeing the anomalous position in which the House of Commons was placed—seeing that without taking an oath nine-tenths of the most important functions of a Member of that House might be validly performed without the possibility of a collision with this House or the Courts of law — for it was perfectly clear to any one who read the words of the clause of the Act of Parliament, which not only enacted the penalty of £500 for the act of sitting and voting in the House, but subjected the party to the heaviest disqualifications amounting to the loss of all civil rights —that no Court of law would ever hold that a clause such as that could be construed otherwise than most rigorously and strictly as applying only to persons who voted in the House; and in that belief he held the position of the House of Commons to be most anomalous — he thought it would be a graceful act on the part of the House of Commons to remove that anomaly. Let that House, then, declare, which it could do by its own authority, that no person should serve on a Committee who had not taken his seat; and he was of opinion that with the exception of the Commons 2000 so acting, their Lordships would be well advised in waiving the objections upon which they now took their stand to the clauses which admitted Jews to seats in the other House of Parliament.
LORD CAMPBELLthought, that in the absence of the Earl of Derby the present discussion had better not be carried further. He believed him to be sincerely desirous of a compromise, and that the question should be settled as speedily as possible.