Sitting of 7 February 1848

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN.—For Sunderland, Sir Hedworth Williamson, Bart.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By several hon. Members, from an immense number of places, for and against the Jewish Disabilities Bill.—By Mr. Beresford, from Suffolk, and Viscount Emlyn, from Pembroke, complaining of the Conduct of the Roman Catholic Clergy (Ireland); and from Essex, against the Woman Catholic Relief Bill,—By Sir J. Y. Buller, from Axminster and Devon, for Repeal of Duty on Attorneys' Certificates.—By Viscount Palmerston, from Southampton, for Repeal of Property Tax Act.—By Mr. C. Buller, from Norfolk and Cam bridge, for Rating Owners in Lieu of Occupiers of Tenements.—By Viscount Morpeth, from Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Manchester Unity, for Extension of the Benefit Societies Act.—By Captain Berkeley, from City of Gloucester, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, from Halifax, for Sanitary Regulations.—By Mr. Milnes, from Pontefract, for Retrenchment of Naval and Military Ex penditure.—By Sir J. Y. Buller, from Torbay, against Repeal of Navigation Laws.—By several hon. Members, from Officers connected with the Administration of the Poor Laws, for a Superannuation Fund.

RELIEF OF THE POOR (IRELAND).
MR. SCULLY, in the absence of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. John O'Connell), asked the following question, which had been put upon the paper by the latter hon. Member:—"Whether, considering the enormous and every-day growing increase of destitution in many parts of Ireland; the nearly total want of means among her small farmers and agricultural labourers to purchase food and maintain their families; and the inability of the poor-law to support the overwhelming pauperism of the country—the Government have not some measure ready for the pro viding of relief by means of food or employment, and thus far preventing the wholesale wasting and destruction of human life among the poorer classes of Ireland."
SIR G. GREYcomplained of the inconvenient form in which the question was framed, involving as it did a series of assumptions, the disproving of which, if he were to undertake that task, which, how ever, he did not intend, would necessarily lead to a long debate. It was unfair in any Member to avail himself of his privilege to insert upon the paper, contrary to the rule of the House, late at night, a question like that which had been read by the hon. Member. On the present occasion he could only repeat what he had al ready stated on a former occasion, namely, that the Government was not prepared to submit to Parliament a proposition for the resumption of public works, or the system which superseded the public works; that was to say, the system of feeding all the destitute poor of Ireland by means of advances of public money. He would take that opportunity of reading to the House some papers, which would show the manner in which relief had been afforded in Ireland under the Poor Law Act:—
"By a statement furnished to the Committee of the British Relief Association by their agent in Ireland, dated the 31st of January, it appears that assistance has been afforded out of the funds at his disposal to those unions in which either a temporary pressure arose from the inefficient action of the board of guardians, or the extent of the distress really exceeded all the power of legal relief duly and fully exerted by them. 'The selection of the proper cases for the interference of the association was made by the Poor Law Com missioners; and the expenditure of the relief afforded at their recommendation was superintended by the temporary poor-law inspectors, and accounted for according to the provisions of the Irish Poor Relief Acts.' But the chief mode of relief adopted by the association has been the assistance given in food and clothing to the children of the poor through the medium of schools. It
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appears that 'the Commissioners decided, on the 29th of October, that such assistance should be given.' On the 6th of November the agency issued a circular letter to the Inspectors of twenty five unions, acquainting them with the intentions of the association, and soliciting their co-operation. All the inspectors responded to the appeal, and set out, without delay, to bring the intended relief into operation. The returns of the first week, ending the 28th of November, showed eighteen schools, with 2,136 children daily attending them. The returns of the last week, ending the 23rd of January, showed above 44,000 children, to whom relief was afforded by 655,229 weekly rations. The increase during the intervening eight weeks was gradual. The total number of rations issued since the beginning was 2,111,513. The assistance which is given in food to children becomes a great auxiliary to that given for the out-door relief and otherwise, and meets a case of the utmost exigency which had sadly needed the charitable interference of the committee. The reports of the inspectors upon this subject, and which I have laid at different times before the committee, concur in this. They also bear testimony to the visible and daily improving condition of the poor unhappy children, to the cheering and beneficial reaction which this provision has had upon the parents, and to the faithful appropriation and distribution of the bounty by those intrusted with it."
"Extract from Poor Law Inspector's report at Skibbereen, Jan. 30, 1848:—'Many lives (I may say, hundreds) have been saved by the plan adopted of giving food to the children at the schools.'"
The House would also, he wa8 sure, excuse him for reading an account of the amount of the poor-rates collected in Ire land in 1847 as compared with 1846, which, he was happy to say, furnished most satisfactory indications of the ultimate success of the Poor Law Act:—
"Amount of poor-rates collected in Ireland in the last quarters of the years 1846 and 1847:—

1846.

1847.

October

£26,805

£121,255

November

36,639

151,684

December

46,440

168,860

Total

£109,884

£441,799

Total amount collected in the twelve months:—

1846.

1847.

£390,071.

£970,318."

The returns for January, 1848, were not yet complete, but the sum collected would probably amount to 170,000 l.

DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS.
LORD J. RUSSELLhaving moved that the Jewish Disabilities Bill be read a Second Time,
MR. STAFFORDsaid, he had intended to have presented certain petitions that evening, but he should now have to present them at a future stage of the Bill. He

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would now, with the permission of the House, proceed at once to the more difficult and onerous task which he had under taken, that of moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months; and it must he conceded by all hon. Members who were conversant with the debates of the House, whatever might be the opinions which they might entertain on the measure now submitted for their consideration, that any one who rose to address the House on the subject laboured under two of the greatest disadvantages that ever constituted a claim upon its indulgence. In the first place, the subject was one on which the arguments were so very few, and the ground so very limited and so frequently traversed, that no novelty of treatment could be reasonably expected; and in the next place, the arguments them selves were of so sacred a nature, that if they were not interwoven with the character of the Bill itself, he should most reluctantly approach them in the course of the discussion. Although the House had seen a number of petitions presented on this subject, yet those who recollected the number of petitions presented when other similar religious questions were involved, would not fail to remark that the petitions presented that night were comparatively few when considered with reference to the number of petitions presented about Maynooth and other similar subjects. In proportion, then, as the pressure from without was small, the House must consider the question as one of abstract principle. It would be necessary for him to travel over again the ground which had already been traversed, lest it might be said that he and those with whom he acted had seen the unsoundness of their arguments, and had yielded to conviction. The question before the House was not one of religious persecution, and was not even one of religious toleration. These two questions were decided when the Legislature determined that everybody, of whatever religious per suasion he might be, should be at liberty to attend religious worship and hold religious opinions without let or hindrance by the State. The question for present decision was, whether the House should continue to hold that the possession of certain religious opinions, or of no religious opinions, ought to operate as a political disqualification. The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) had placed the case of the Jews on what he called the broad basis of religious liberty, and he called
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their political disfranchisement "the last remnant of religious persecution;" and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford protested against any particular period of our history being chosen as the date of our constitution, both agreeing in thus much, namely, that the whole of our history had been consistent with itself as to the maintenance of a policy whose last remnant we were now called on to remove. He agreed in the main with both these opinions; but he thought that to narrow this question within the limits of this is land, or to date back no earlier than from Magna Charta downwards, was to under rate its importance, and to deny it a just amplitude of discussion. If he ventured, therefore, to assign to that system, whose last remnant they were called on to remove, a far wider field than England, and a far earlier date than Magna Charta, and if in support of such a view he was obliged to touch upon sacred and awful subjects, they would believe that he was not actuated by any feelings of irreverence, far less by any Pharisaic arrogance, which not only would there be miserably misplaced, but which was, he trusted, abhorrent to his nature. As soon as Christianity emerged from her dens and hiding places, and was called to embrace nations within her pale, it was believed that the new principles upon which she based her morality must be thoroughly incorporated with legislation, must be completely interwoven with all the customs and usages of life, with all the edicts which restrained the bad, with all the covenants that bound society together, with all the punishments that awaited the guilty, and with all the rewards that consecrated ambition; so that whether in its ministers or its mysteries, its ceremonies, its martyrs, its saints, or its truths, the question was never within how narrow limits they could draw up their religion, but how far, how wide, they could dif fuse its salutary waters. As all law, there fore, and all usage, did theoretically rest, not merely on religious but on Christian sanctions, any difference of opinion as to those sanctions was considered not merely as a sin against their great Teacher, but also as a treason against society. True it was that great crimes were committed in this zeal for religious truth; true it was that in its exaggeration it depressed the energies of the human mind; that the wicked traded on it, and that the frivolous trifled with it; but still he was not ashamed to declare that, in the early struggles of Chris-

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tianity with the last forms of heathenism and through rough and unlettered ages, they owed to it far more titan they were either willing to acknowledge, or even to appreciate; and, even as it was said that the rival vices were each other's present foes, so he believed that zeal was a far better extreme, if extreme there must be, than to which this age was tending; and he agreed with that French writer who, in the beginning of his Essay on Indifference, said—
"The age which is most to be pitied is not the age which is fanatic for error, but the age which neglects or despises the truth."
We were now come to such a state that the last of three questions with reference to those who disagreed with us in religion must he answered by the House. The first question which they had to ask was, "Shall we persecute them?" that is, "Shall we imprison them? shall we torture them? shall we execute them?" That question would, at least in every Protestant, and he trusted in every Christian, country, be answered in the negative. The next question which would arise was, "Shall we, having ceased to persecute them, and having granted them tolerance, connivance, and sufferance, permit them to exercise the administration of the laws enacted by ourselves?" He could see no reason why there should be any distinction between these two descriptions of civil privileges; and there fore the question came to this—"Shall we admit them, not only to administer, but to assist us in the enactment of laws?" Till now that question had been answered in the negative. It was no answer to the opponents of this measure to say that Parliament had been a Church of England Parliament, next a Protestant Parliament, and was now a Christian Parliament. The question, when the circum stances incidental to those changes were discussed, had always been, whether the differences between ourselves and either Protestant or Romanist Dissenters were deep enough to go to the very root of legislature, to affect its whole character, to change its elementary ideas; not whether we should become, or, at all events, proclaim, ourselves indifferent to Christian ethics, but whether or no Christian ethics did not include those brother Christians whom we excluded; and however, with regard to Romanists, the question of foreign allegiance, or, with regard to Dissenters, the security of the Established Church,
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may have entered into this discussion, it never did enter in such a manner as to affect his present arguments. Till now, they had, ever since the conversion of this island to Christianity, recognised the philosophy, the morality, the ethics, of the New Testament as the basis of all our legislation; and whether they had deposed their monarchs, changed their forms of government, or separated themselves from Popes, still they had declared that the teaching of Him who taught on the Mount—of Him who corrected and contradicted so much of what was "said by them of old time"—of Him who "spoke with authority, and not as the Scribes," was the teaching they were prepared to follow. This was the great acknowledgment and profession they made, as a nation, when they, as a nation, abandoned idolatry, and before sects and differences arose among them. This had been the great acknowledgment and profession which had survived all their differences, and which, in the whole history of this country, was never contravened till the question was brought forward. It was remarkable that it was now proposed to divest our Legislature of its Christianity, for a nation whose polity was eminently theocratic. It was con tended that there was no harm in this, because the numbers in whose favour the change was proposed to be made were but few. This appeared to him to be but little better than an insult to those respecting whom such an argument was held. But it was said that this was the last remnant of religious persecution. Now, on looking over the notices for the day after to-morrow, he found the hon. Member for Limerick intended to move that the Lord Chancellorship of Ireland should be open to Roman Catholics. He did not wish to anticipate the discussion which would follow that Motion; but he would venture to predict that that also would be called the last remnant of religious persecution. It must be remembered that, in the eye of the law, the Lord Chancellor was the keeper of the conscience of the Sovereign; and if it were admitted that the Lord Chancellor might be a Roman Catholic, on what ground could any one maintain the exclusion from the throne of these realms of any person professing the Roman Catholic religion also? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) had said that he should deeply regret that the pious and good custom of opening the proceedings of that House with prayer should be

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discontinued. Now, he (Mr. Stafford) would assume that a member of the Jewish persuasion had taken his seat, and he would call attention to a form of that House, which might be ridiculous, but which was at present in force. He would call attention to the forms of the House as they existed; but if those forms were considered ridiculous, and the House were prepared to enter into a discussion of those forms, let it be boldly and vigorously done at once. Well, then, if the Jewish Member should be anxious to secure a place to address the House, he (Mr. Stafford) would ask, what ought he to do? Why, he must go down to attend prayer. [A laugh.] He could quite well understand that laugh; it was not only a blameless laugh, but it was a consistent laugh in those hon. Gentlemen who wished to vote for this Bill. Those who wished to secure a place must write their names on a card; and what were the two words printed in capitals upon that card? He merely alluded to this in order that it might be known out of doors. Why, the words were, "AT PRAYER;" and he would ask how the name of Lionel de Rothschild could ever fill up the blank underneath these words? If the blank could be so filled up, then he could only say that the rule was an absurdity, and the sooner it was done away with the better. But probably Baron Rothschild would come down and say—"I came in at that time because the Prime Minister of England, in his place, declared that religion had nothing to do with politics, and because the Legislature of England has sanctioned that principle; therefore I came in, and religion having nothing to do with politics, I ask if politics have anything to do with religion? Why do you require me, in order to secure a seat, to attend the worship of Him whom I deem an impostor? I do not ask you to substitute the prayers of the Synagogue for the prayers of the Church; but I ask you to carry out your own principles." If they were going to remove the last remnant of religious persecution, he (Mr. Stafford) would call attention to another grievance seriously affecting that body of religionists in whose behalf it was proposed to legislate. The Jews were compelled to observe the Christian Sabbath as well as their own. Was Parliament, he would ask, prepared to give up Sunday—one of the few remnants of our national religion? Let them ask their hardiest criminals how those criminals commenced their career, and the answer would he, "by neglecting
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Sunday." He would ask if they were prepared to see England the same as much-lauded France, where Sunday was given up? He had himself seen the shops in Paris open on the Sunday the same as other days; and were they prepared to introduce the system here? There was one other point having reference to this matter on which he must touch. It was with great pain that he ventured to allude to it, but the words must be uttered. It had been asked what, after all, was the great difference between the Christian and the Jew? And that question had been asked and amplified on in a manner which could not have escaped the recollection of the House. His answer was this—A Jewish peasant changed the religion of the world. When that Jewish peasant was brought before the Jewish people, the cry of that people was, "We will not have this man to reign over us." Since that time, from nation after nation, from century after century, through all the vicissitudes incidental to the struggles and conflicts of the human race, the cry had gone up from earth to heaven, "We will have this man to reign over us—we accept the splendid apparatus of prophecy and miracles with which his mission has been announced, and attested as a proof of his glorious God-head; obedient to his rule we desire to live; strong in his faith we trust to die." And, Sir, concede what we may, maintain what we will, the distinction must exist immeasurable and eternal between those who look upon the cross of Christ as the fit punishment of a convicted malefactor, and us who, amid all our differences and all our faults, still cling to that cross as our best hope of happiness here, and our only hope of happiness hereafter. He then moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
LORD BURGHLEYseconded the Amendment. The question (said the noble Lord), though it appears to me to admit but of very few arguments on either side, is yet one of no trivial nature; it is one on the result of which is to depend whether this Legislature is henceforth to be a Christian one or not; it is a question as to whether it be right or wrong that we admit Jews into Parliament. I wonder that the fact of his being obliged to alter the oath, and erase from it the words "on the true faith of a Christian," which every Member swears to before he can take his seat, does not show clearly to the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government, that he is bring-

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ing forward a measure which will offend in the highest degree the religious opinions of a very large majority of the people of this country. The noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) has argued that the words "on the true faith of a Christian," which appear to have been first used in the reign of James the First, were not then inserted specially for the purpose of excluding Jews, but were adopted to give more sanction to the oath of allegiance taken by those Roman Catholics who were faithful to the Crown, to distinguish them from those who at that time were disaffected. Let this be so. All I maintain is, that this oath has excluded Jews from the time it was first used up to the present time from sitting in this House; and why should you alter it now? Simply because a Jew is prevented by it from taking his seat; one who, however great his wealth, or respectable his character, does still not belong to our nation, but is a member of one which is scattered all over the world, and of whom there are not more than 40,000 in this country. If you alter this oath to suit a Jew, you will next be proposing to do away with the prayers which are offered up daily in this House, because he says that he cannot join in them. If you do away with this oath, you will open the door to any infidel, whether heathen or Mussulman, provided, as in this case, he may have money or influence enough to secure his return for any constituency. You say, in fact, that if a man has money enough to obtain a seat in Parliament, it signifies but little of what religion he is. You are setting up wealth and influence against Christianity; and if you pass this measure, you deny for ever that that religion has anything to do with our constitution. I entirely agree with what the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth said, when he last addressed the House on the subject of admitting Jews to Parliament. On that occasion the right hon. Baronet said—
"I will say that one of the unavoidable consequences of this measure will be that every one of the forms and ceremonies which give us assurance of Christianity must be abolished. It is perfectly obvious that if we pass this Bill it follows, as a necessary consequence, that every form of oath which requires a profession of the Christian faith must be abandoned. Now this is a most important alteration in the usages of the country. Before Catholics and Protestant Dissenters were excluded, there was still a necessity for all public functionaries to profess Christianity; from the earliest period a belief in Christianity was required as necessary to official appointments, or to seats in Parliament. No person who rejected
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Christianity could obtain office. Therefore, from the first, our constitution was, to say the least of it, Christian. Here then, we have an evident and palpable departure from the principles of the constitution, as admitted and recognised in the earliest periods; and where is the urgency of this vast change?"
These were the words of the right hon. Baronet, nor could he (Lord Burghley) find language better expressive of his own feelings than that which was used at a later period by the hon. Member for the University of Oxford. His words were these:—
"When his hon. Friend used this expression (that they were about to unchristianise England by this Bill), he knew that an attempt would be made to put a misconstruction on his meaning; but his hon. Friend did not conceive that he could use a more appropriate term, or one more approaching to the nature of truism, with regard to this subject."
He trusted they would not believe him to be actuated by any hostile feeling towards the Jews. He had not read the history of that people in such a spirit, nor in such a spirit did he now resist their claims. He trusted that the better part of the Jewish nation would give him credit for being able to differ from them in that spirit of charity which it was the duty of all religions to inculcate.
MR. W. P. WOODthought the disqualifications affecting the Jews reflected so much disgrace on our legislation that the sooner they were removed the better. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment had called upon them as Christians to reject the Bill; but he on religious far more than political grounds, and as a member of that Church which he believed to embody the purest form of Christianity, called upon them to support it. Twenty years had elapsed since he first signed a petition in favour of the Jews. He had often since then revolved the matter in his mind, and the lapse of time and the accession of experience had only tended to strengthen his conviction that the removal of Jewish disabilities was a mea sure which was sanctioned by considerations of justice, truth, and policy; and that therefore the sooner it was carried out, the better it would be for the honour of the country. That religion should have no connexion with polities, was a maxim which had passed into an adage; but, like most adages, it was susceptible of a double interpretation. All men knew that after death came judgment; and, knowing this, it was impossible but that they must feel that in the performance of their political duties they were bound to keep in mind

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their religious obligations. The sense of religious obligation produced the conscious ness of moral responsibility; but with the Christian his faith was his moral life; and in that sense it was manifestly meet and natural that there should be a connexion between religion and politics. But there were other senses in which the adage had a meaning. It was not desirable to see the ministers of religion on the hustings; and a resolution of the House forbade their en trance there. As applied to the present occasion, however, the proper interpretation of the adage was, that religious opinions should be no qualification or disqualification for political station or the enjoyment of political rights. Interpreted in that sense, which was evidently the rational reading, the adage conveyed a principle which he adopted and would ever maintain. If they looked back to the earliest periods of Christianity—to the time of its holy Founder, and of the apostolic followers of that Founder, and to the period of the purest state of Christianity—they would find that it was then distinct from politics and from all matters of State policy; and that it was only when corruption began to affect it, that such a close union existed between it and the State. He had a deep repugnance to quote from Scripture in the debates in that House; but the memory of hon. Members would doubtless supply them with numerous Scriptural passages which attested the anxiety of the Divine Founder of Christianity to disclaim all politics and judicial functions, and to keep the kingdom of Caesar as distinct as possible from that of God. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment had referred to the Jewish theocracy: why, that was the strongest argument against the mixture of civil and religious policy. When the knowledge of revealed truth was confined to one people who were under the immediate government of God, in order to separate them from the rest of mankind, a civil code was assigned them by express revelation, with the minutest directions for their guidance. But when the barrier between Jew and Gentile was broken down, and a new revelation granted to us, coextensive with the world, all such directions were withheld; and, on the contrary, Christians were taught to receive every government as it existed, and were told that they were all ordained of God, though the then rulers were Pagans of dissolute lives and persecuting principles. He therefore rejoiced that the present measure had been brought for-
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ward to remove this still existing trace of political error, and to strengthen the line of demarcation between the things which. were Caesar's, and those which were God's. If hon. Members would turn to any accessible book—to Lardner's Testimonies, for instance—they would there find that the mistaken course of calling in civil rewards and punishments in aid of religion began after the time of Constantine, and not until the reign of Theodosius, precisely at the period when all of the reformed faith considered that the earliest corruptions of Christianity were introduced. Libanius, in his letter to that emperor, adverted to the then commencing innovations, and complained of them, saying, that he thought a worshipper of Jupiter had been appointed to high office by the emperor. From that time there became gradually introduced a principle more or less of persecution, which, he was confident, no one could find anything to support or maintain in the book to which all Christians referred. He would advert to the argument which had been brought forward, that Christianity was part and parcel of the law of this country. He denied that this was the case in any such sense as could be of the slightest avail for argument on the present occasion. What Christianity was part and parcel of the law? Was it that Christianity which allowed all the Members of that House to exercise their religious worship in the mode in which they now exercised it? Why, if the hon. Member for Oxford University (Sir R. Inglis) had lived 300 years ago, in the reign of Henry VIII., he would have been a traitor and a felon. In that monarch's famous Act of Six Articles, it was declared by the first article that whoever denied transubstantiation was guilty of treason; while the crime of felony was declared to attach to those who impugned communion under one kind, auricular confession, and the celibacy of the clergy; and under such enactments the hon. Member for Oxford University would undoubtedly have been adjudged guilty of high treason. In that sense only, namely, in the sense of recognising one definite form of Christian worship, Christianity had been part and parcel of the law of England. But that was statute law, and it was contended that Christianity was part of the common law. He might be pardoned for showing how that notion had arisen, and how little bearing also it had on the present question. No doubt, at the earliest periods it was assumed that the whole

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nation was Christian, according to their established form; and consistently to keep up the total Christianity of the nation in this sense, they must exclude every person who differed from the established religion of the country, not only from public offices, but even from the right of living in the country. This sort of consistency had been followed up by Spain, by the Roman States, by Naples, and by some other countries; and with what result the present condition of those nations would show. That, how ever, was consistency; and our common law in that respect was consistent, for, concomitant with their notion of Christianity, we had the writ de heretico comburendo. That, however, was not directed against persons out of the pale of the Church, or against Jews, but against those who, existing in the Church, maintained opinions contrary to the common feeling of the persons in the Church, and thereby raised disturbance. The first instance of that writ being put in force was in the reign of Henry V., when the Lollards made their appearance, and from their numbers excited alarm. The State came forward with statute law to enable the common law to be put in force; and then they came down to the time of Henry VIII., who found an obsequious Parliament ready to vote for any religion he might think proper, and who obtained the passing of the Six Articles to which he (Mr. Wood) had before referred. This was the sense in which Christianity was part and parcel of the law of the land; and throughout the whole of these proceedings the Jews were never dreamed of, for they were banished from this country in the 8th of Edward I., and did not appear again until the time of the Commonwealth. Therefore it was evidently vain to contend that any laws of bygone times having reference to religious qualifications can apply to the Jews. Then, however, they came to some law cases, which were alleged to lay down the principle that Christianity was part and parcel of the law. These were cases in the times of Lord Hale and Lord Raymond; but they, too, had not the slightest bearing on the question of the right of Jews to fill offices in the State, and to exercise political functions. The first case was a proceeding against a person who had published gross blasphemies against the Author of our faith, and had ridiculed all religion; and the case before Lord Raymond was something similar. Such publications would now be against the law, as
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reviling religion generally. Then they came down to the time of Lord Hardwicke, when a most extraordinary case occurred. A Jew left a sum of money for the purpose of establishing an institution for teaching Jews; and Lord Hardwicke said, this be quest could not be carried into effect, in as much as the object was opposed to Christianity. The noble Lord, however, added, that as it was clearly the testator's intention that the property should be devoted to charity, his relations could not touch it; devoted to charity it must be, and the Crown must be applied to for the purpose of designating to what charity the property should go. And how did the House sup pose was the money left for teaching young Jewish children disposed of? Why, the Crown determined that it should be given to the Foundling Hospital, and employed in bringing up illegitimate Christian children. Certainly the testator would have been very much surprised if he could have arisen from the grave to find how the Court of Chancery had carried out his intentions. Now it was very remarkable that this decision occurred in the year 1753, in the famous year of the Jewish Bill. Such was the history of the notion of Christianity being so much part and parcel of the law of the land that every one but Christians must be excluded from political privileges. The cases before Lords Hale and Raymond only went to the point that no one should be allowed indecently to revile the established religion of the country; and with respect to the case before Lord Hardwicke, the effect of what he said merely amounted to this, that finding Christianity recognised by the country as the established religion, he did not feel justified in establishing for a perpetuity by the authority of the Crown an institution for teaching young persons the Jewish religion. Would those decisions justify that House in saying that Christianity was so much part and parcel of the law that it could not admit Jews to the privileges which all British-born subjects were entitled to? The celebrated case called "Calvin's case," in the time of Lord Coke, had been often referred too, as showing that Jews are not natural-born subjects. Now, that case had nothing whatever to do with Jew or Christian; the matter arose on a question whether Scottish subjects born after the accession of James I. to the Throne of England, were natural-born subjects throughout Great Britain? Many incidental points were discussed, and it was laid down that no infidel

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could be a natural-born subject, because the devil, whose subject he was, was in perpetual enmity with. Christians; and for the same reason it was afterwards at tempted to be said that no infidel could sue or move the courts; but that attempt was repressed by the courts. And Lord Chief Justice Willes said in the case of "Omichavel v. Barker," that the dictum in Calvin's case showed its authors to be subjects of the devil, rather than those to whom it was applied. This, then, was all the ground there was for saying that Christianity was part and parcel of the law of the land; and could anything be more preposterous than applying it to the present case? Whenever the statutes which had been alluded to required an oath on the admission of a Member of Parliament, they referred to the Roman Catholics, and not to the Jews, who were banish ed from the time of Edward I. to the time of the Commonwealth. The Jews first came over in the time of William the Conqueror. They established themselves in Oxford University, where they founded Moses' Hall, Jacob's Hall, and Barnard's Hall; and the Jews were never thought of in all this exclusive legislation, and it was by an accident, as the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) had observed, that they were excluded by certain words in an oath meant to apply to other parties. It was then conceived that making a man say, "on the true faith of a Christian," would estop the Jesuit, and make the man who used it a Christian. If it would have that effect, for his own part he should be most happy to achieve such a result; but the object of the first oath of the kind was to exclude Jesuits and others, who were accused of being implicated in the Gunpowder-plot. from taking any part in the government of the country. As late as the reign of William III., when the principles of toleration had been to a certain degree recognised, an Act was passed excluding Unitarians from certain civil privileges; and that Act provided that if any person ''who had been educated in or made profession of Christianity, should deny the doctrine of the blessed Trinity," he should be liable to certain disabilities. Now, he called upon the House to observe how carefully that Act was worded to exclude the case of the Jews. Indeed it appeared to have been framed with special reference to their exception, inasmuch as they had never been educated in, nor made profession of, Christianity, and they were then recently settled
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in this country. Since that period there had been numerous recognitions of the Jews in various Acts of Parliament—in Acts for facilitating the naturalisation of Jews who had resided a certain time in the colonies, and for relieving them from the necessity of taking certain oaths. In 1833 His late Majesty was advised to give his sanction to an Act of the Legislature of Jamaica, admitting Jews to seats in the Legislative Assembly of that colony; and subsequently the Royal Assent had been given to an Act admitting the Jews into the Legislature of Canada; yet those measures ex cited no alarm in this country lest our dependencies in Jamaica and Canada should be unchristianised. He considered that there was a great fallacy in the argument that the people of this country were a Christian people, and that they must have a Christian Legislature. Persons meant an exclusively Christian Legislature; but they could not say we were an exclusively Christian people. From the reign of Edward I. to that of Charles II. it might have been said that they were an exclusively Christian people; but from the time that they admitted the Jews into this country they ceased to have any right to treat them in any other manner than as all other citizens and natural-born subjects were treated. The first Christian principle was to do to every man as they would be done by; and he would ask whether it was a Christian principle to say to any men, "You may come to this country in any numbers you please; you may tiring your wives and children; you may marry with our Christian daughters; you may accumulate as much wealth as you please, and pay as great a portion of taxation as we think proper to impose upon you; and yet we tell you that you are not worthy to have any voice in the imposition of those taxes." He (Mr. Wood) contended that it was most monstrous and unchristian that they should make use of the Jews—that they should avail themselves of their services and of their wealth as far as they could—and yet deny them the privileges of citizenship. Other countries which had adopted the principle of exclusion had excluded the Jews wholly and entirely; but the English people held out many inducements to the Jews to settle in this country, and then told them that they were unfit to be regarded as fellow-citizens. He (Mr. Wood) considered that it was a great mistake to imagine that they facilitated the diffusion of Christianity by this exclusion.

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On the contrary, he held that the direct reverse was the fact. He considered that, if they wished to convert the Jew, the surest step towards attaining such an end was to put him on an equality with themselves. Conversion was not a matter of declaration at that table; it was an affair of the heart—an influence which must he produced upon a man's mind and heart. He had been much struck with what a writer of the age of Theodosius had said on this subject. Lactantius, speaking of religion, said—
"Res est enim præter ceteras voluntaria, nec imponi cuiquam necessitas potest ut colat quod non vult. Potest aliquis forsitan simulare, non potest velle."
The simulation might be obtained by the declaration to which he had referred; but if they wished to reach a Jew's heart, they should not put an Act of Parliament between him and them: they must place him on a level with themselves. He was not one of those who held that there was no difference between a Christian and a Jew. He did not follow an hon. Member who had asked the House to pass the Bill, on the ground that they were all Jews, or the Jews Christians, for he had really not exactly understood that hon. Member. He considered that there was a vast and an awful difference; but he would say, while it had pleased the Almighty, in his inscrutable wisdom, that a veil should be over the heart of the Jews while passages of their prophets were read in which Christians saw the bright dawning of the Sun of righteousness, let them not deepen that gloom by the rank mists of human prejudice and passion. There was only one other point to which he wished to refer. They had been told that the Members could not join in prayer in that House if they were admitted; and the hon. Member who moved the Amendment had complained of some merriment on that side of the House, when he mentioned the subject. He could assure that hon. Member that such merriment did not arise from the solemn subject to which he referred, but from that hon. Member having stated that he wished to secure his place, and there fore had been present at prayers. And this showed how much the most sacred subjects were prejudiced by juxtaposition with secular forms. He confessed he saw no reason why the prayers should be discontinued. He saw no reason why that practice should not be continued, any more than he saw reason for discontinuing
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a practice which he regretted was not more fully carried out—that of the Members of the House attending Divine service every Sunday at St. Margaret's Church, although the Roman Catholic and Dissenting Members could not be there. But there was a great difficulty about the Christianity of the House. It certainly was not a positive Christianity; for he would ask if the House could come to an unanimous vote on any religious question. They were, however, negative Christians: they certainly were not Jews. It had been remarked on a former occasion that if they admitted Jews into Parliament, they might admit Mahometans and Hindoos; and he saw no absurdity in the argument. It was certainly absurd to talk of such a thing as existing in this country, where there were no Mahometans or Hindoos; but he would ask, supposing a representative system to be establish ed in India, whether, after the experiment of Ireland, where 7,000,000 of people had been obliged for a time to choose their representatives from 1,000,000, any hon. Gentleman would wish that 80,000,000 of Mahometans and Hindoos should be compelled to take their representatives from about 100,000 Christians? Would it be very absurd to allow them to choose Hindoos or Mahometans as their representatives? But in fact Parliament had decided this question. He found in the Act 3rd and 4th William IV., chap. 85, a clause which he considered ought to be written in letters of gold. It was in these terms:—
"That no native of the said territories, nor any natural-born subject of His Majesty resident therein, shall, by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, colour, or any of them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment under the said Company."
Why, they might at this moment have a Mahometan Governor General of India, or a Mahometan Member of Council, in that country. To show that this noble clause was not dictated by any unchristian principle, he might mention that nearly the whole of the remainder of the Act related to the establishment of bishops and chaplains in the East Indies. In conclusion, he wished emphatically to state his satisfaction that this measure had formerly been brought forward by a Gentleman distinguished no less for his Christian piety than for his cultivated mind, and had now been advocated by the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government on Christian principles; and as a Christian,

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and as a Churchman, he earnestly implored the House to pass the Bill into a law.
MR. B. COCHRANEsaid, that he wish ed, before the hon. Member had concluded his very able speech, he would have explained what he meant by the term "negative Christian." He would not follow the hon. Member through his new edition of the history of England; but would con tent himself with saying that he differed entirely from him when he said that Christianity was not a part and parcel of the law of England. He differed from him with respect to the Act of 1753; and must observe, that he (Mr. Cochrane) thought a Gentleman so well read in the history of that period as the hon. Member, ought to be aware how much excitement was produced by the passing of that Act, and that it was in consequence subsequently repealed. He thought that many hon. Members would concur in his feeling of very deep regret that the Government should ever have brought forward the question which was now under discussion; for while, on the one hand, no man with a proper sense of character and integrity would sacrifice his conscientious convictions from the dread of having his motives misinterpreted; so, on the other, the charges of intolerance, uncharitableness, and selfish exclusiveness, were such as no man with kind and generous feelings would willingly incur. But the painful character which belonged to all religious discussions was increased on the present occasion, the Bill having been introduced not merely on general grounds, but to meet an individual case—that of a gentleman, than whom none could stand higher in private or public worth, who had been returned as the representative for the city of London. He (Mr. Cochrane) was fully aware what great claims Mr. Rothschild possessed on the consideration of the House and the country—that he had always proved himself a most zealous and generous citizen. It might not be within the knowledge of those present that Mr. Rothschild not only sub scribed last year most largely to the funds of the British Association, but also devoted his whole time to their proceedings, and also placed three ships at the disposal of the Committee for the carriage of meal. But then, this was not an individual case, to be decided on personal merits; it involved the greatest of all interests—the interests of religion; and here he would say with how great doubt and fear he approached any question involving religious
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considerations, having neither the standing, station, nor authority to enforce any argument which he might adduce. The great evil attending the introduction of such serious subjects was, that upon sacred ground, where the best should take their sandals off, the many were compelled to press forward; and in justification of them selves, to rush in where otherwise they should fear to tread. He trusted it would not be deemed presumption in him to venture, with submission and humility, to state the reasons which influenced his vote. There were many questions involving much experience, deep study, infinite knowledge, in which he would be prepared to bow to the superior judgment of those who had made the solution of those questions their own peculiar province. But this was a question in which he thought that much learning and refined reasoning were calculated rather to mislead. Most hon. Members would remember the aphorism of M. de Talleyrand, "Always mistrust your first impressions," because—he continued with true Machiavelism—" they are gene rally the correct ones." He believed that if hon. Members would take their first sensations as their guides, they would vote against this Bill as entirely opposed to all their earlier feelings, affections, and faith. There was one argument which appeared to him a very important one, and which he did not remember to have heard submitted to the House. The noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government had said that he was the more induced to assist the Jews, because it never was the intention of the Legislature to exclude them. Now, he thought, with all due submission, that this was so far from being an argument in their favour, that it was precisely the reason why the Bill should not be introduced. When the Roman Catholics could formerly point to a particular Act of Parliament as the source of their grievance, they might with justice describe themselves as suffering under disabilities, as intentionally and specially prevented from enjoying honourable trusts among their fellow-citizens, and branded with disqualifications. The same had been the case with the Dissenters. Every speech which was made in former years tended to degrade them in the opinions of their countrymen, and they too could point to the disabilities under which they were suffering. But he (Mr. Cochrane) was at a loss to understand how the Jews could complain of being stigmatised, branded

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(to use the expression of the hon. Member for Oldham) by intolerance and bigotry, inasmuch as the noble Lord told them the oath was never intended to exclude them. They threw no intentional impediment in the way of their entering the House; this oath was only the form in which our religion expressed itself. Surely there was a wide distinction between the removal of obstacles purposely placed in the way of a large class of their fellow-citizens and an alteration in the expression of their faith, in order to admit those whose religion differed from their own. He (Mr. Cochrane) was not prepared to grant that this was intolerance. On the contrary, he was anxious to see every one enjoying the free and full exercise of his religion. He would say, like the Emperor Constantine to Bishop Acesius, "Acesius, take a ladder, and climb up to heaven by yourself." He would prefer rather to legislate for the Jews in the spirit of Julian, than in the spirit of Cyril of Alexandria. If the alternative were presented to him, he would prefer to rebuild their temple rather than to persecute, destroy, and ruin its worshippers; but they were not called upon to decide between fraternity and persecution, but calmly, advisedly, dispassionately to change a long-established form, venerable, and not without value, even if only a mere form. They were asked—and here mark the distinction—not merely indeed to admit Jews into our Legislature, but so to alter its Christian character, that, as a consequence, not merely Jews, but members of every description of faith, however cruel and barbarous, might of right take their places amongst them. And there were Members, like the hon. Member for Ennis, who did not surprise him, and others, like the hon. Baronet the Member for Bedford, who did indeed surprise him, who anticipated with pleasure the time when the benches of that House might be occupied by Mahometan, Hindoo, or Parsce. He had carefully perused the former debates on this subject, and it struck him with pain that, whereas hitherto the question was argued on the simple merits of the Jews—and the necessary consequence of this change was studiously kept out of sight—they now accepted the position, and boldly admitted the consequences. If it were a question of respectful adherence to the Sovereign of these realms—if it were even a question of that oath which they took at the table of abjuration of the house of Stuart,
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obsolete and absurd as it was now become—he believed that there were few who would vote for its abolition, unless some other were substituted, conveying the same expressions of loyalty and devotion to the Throne. And still further, if it were even a question of some mere form, the outward sign of reverence to the Monarch of these realms, he believed the House would unanimously reject the pro position for its abolition. Should, then, a man do so much for his Sovereign, and do less than this for his religion? But then some hon. Members said that there was no medium between equal privilege and direct persecution; and one went so far as to declare that unless they were prepared to grant this right, they might as well go back to the period of torture and thumb screw. But let them turn this position; if there were to be no limit to toleration, were they prepared to admit the Jews to the highest offices in Church and State? Assuredly not; consequently they did themselves assign a limit to toleration, and the only question was, where is the line to be drawn? If with great deference he might be so permitted to express himself, there was one argument of the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government which greatly astonished him, "Because," said the noble Lord, "we yielded to the Roman Catholics when their power and influence were represented by millions, it would be cowardice in us to resist the importunity of thousands." How ever inconclusive, this would be an admirable argument if the Government had emancipated the Roman Catholics through the influence of fear. Then, indeed, it might be said that we should not deny to the weak that which we had conceded to the strong—reject the gentle request, and crouch beneath the brutum fulmen; but if this were so, it was a new reading of this chapter of English history. He thought the Catholic Relief Bill was the result of strong convictions, of generous feelings, of a sense of justice; and if, among the phalanx of noble and illustrious statesmen who carried that measure, there were any who entertained the least sense of apprehension, it could only have been the apprehension of the judgment of posterity, if they left six millions of their fellow-countrymen disqualified from serving their King and their country in Parliament. It never would be believed that the Government was driven into such a measure from cowardice, and therefore it hum-

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bly seemed to him that the argument was quite untenable, seeing that the Jews cannot be numbered even by tens of thousands, and that they were not our fellow-Christians. Some hon. Gentlemen drew examples from other countries; it was true that in Franco all sects were admitted into the Chambers; but then if they would follow such instances they did not go half far enough; for on the 2nd of December, 1830, it was voted that the religious teachers of the Jews should receive salaries from the State, in the, same manner as teachers of different denominations. And what was the condition of France? He would not be tempted to speak disrespectfully of any country; but could they be blind to the fact that it stood on a volcano, and that the want of religion was sadly felt? This was the consequence of a revolution which had robbed all institutions of their sanctity—where, in the beautiful language of the hon. Member for Surrey, the tendency of all legislation is liberate, to set free—where the King is no longer styled his Most Christian Majesty—where a Peer of the realm, the Count d'Alton Shée, publicly boasted that he was neither a Catholic nor a Christian. But even in France, even in the worst days of the Reign of Terror, it was Robespierre who said, "that the man who would weaken religious ties was the greatest of all fanatics "—" Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faud rait l'inventor." No; they might learn the lesson from France, of how much wretchedness a country passed through which threw off all religious obligation, and how little religion there was in a land where the State cast an equal protection over all. Yes; it was true that we also had passed through our revolutions, but then ours were revolutions in defence of our religion. As the great historian, Mr. Fox, said—
"Accordingly, as the sequel of James II.'s reign will abundantly show, when the people found themselves compelled to make an option, they preferred, without any inconsistency, their first idcl to their second; and when they could not preserve both the Church and the State, they declared for the former."
And now we still cling to those forms of religious expression which, however, they might be despised by the philosophical spirit of the day, were not without their beneficial influence on the heart. So the Sovereign was still said to reign by the grace of God. He continued to be styled the defender of the faith. Both Houses of the Legislature had their chaplains and
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forms of prayer; for as M. de Barante had beautifully expressed it—
"There is some analogy between religion without an establishment, and virtue without practice; and as monarchy is the outward form in which the spirit of man's inward reverence for man spontaneously clothes itself, so a church with its rites and its ceremonies is the outward form of an in ward religious faith."
He had carefully avoided uttering one word against the Jews. He had defended the case on its own rights, not on their errors. He might say, in conclusion, that the apathy which the people had generally shown as to the result of these discussions, the indifference with which the country had received this all-important question, should not be matter of gratification to the Government, even although it might facilitate the passing of the measure. Alas! this leaden sleep—this absence of all excite ment—this lethargic torpor, appeared to him to be the saddest sign of the times. Might it not be that all these discussions on sacred things had weakened the confidence and the faith of the nation? and that men began to say, "We will fold our arms in sleep, for it is useless to resist the current which is hurrying us forward; we have conceded so much, that the remainder is not worth maintaining." True, they might reply, Furor est post omnia perdere naulum;" but it was idle to urge this maxim upon them. A now language had crept into politics now, they spoke of a fait accompli, a nécessityé politique, a felicitous expedient: be it so, let them apply this if they would to their questions of commercial policy, to their material interest; but at least let the House resist its application to their faith as Christians.
MR. MONCKTON MILNESsaid, that if the hon. Gentleman who just sat down had approached this question with consider able difficulty, on account of the religious considerations it involved, he thought it needed some apology from him (Mr. Milnes), who maintained the other side, to enter upon, or even touch upon, the religious grounds of the question, knowing so well as he did, from his short experience of the House, how ill adapted it generally was to the discussion of religious topics. Nevertheless he felt that the religious part of the question had been on that evening discussed with the solemnity which it really deserved; and therefore he should not abstain from taking up such points of the question as he thought the speeches that had gone before him actually required. His

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hon. Friend the Member for Northamptonshire had entered into a very fine discussion between what was and what was not persecution. He told them how repugnant to him it would be that this people should be fined or tortured, or should, in common parlance, be persecuted; but his hon. Friend was not prevented by such considerations from being willing to inflict upon a portion of his fellow-citizens something which they almost regarded as persecution, whatever he might do. When they came to take up the matter of persecution, it was the victim and not the oppressor who was to judge of it. All men did not possess the good heart of his hon. Friend, nor would they stop where he would stop; and he had read history less attentively than he thought he had done, if he did not know that it was the admission of this principle which had led to the violation of all right. By permitting persecution of any kind on account of religious opinions, they might go on from step to step, until they passed from the exclusion of his hon. Friend up to the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition. They must see, therefore, whether there was sufficient ground for them to inflict upon their Jewish fellow-countrymen what they considered as persecution. Notwithstanding the benevolent manner in which his hon. Friend had treated the whole question, he thought that he, in a certain degree, had admitted the charge which was brought in the public press and elsewhere, that the advocates of this measure were indifferent to the religious grounds. He would remind him that amongst the advocates of the measure were Lord Bexley, Mr. Robert Grant, and he thought he might add to those names that of the hon. Gentleman who had spoken so admirably that evening. It would be a very unpleasant consideration if the decision which he hoped they would come to, should be painful to the religious feelings of the people of this country. He always felt it was not only a wise policy, but the conduct of a right-minded man, to respect the religious ceremonies in which he could not participate himself, and those religious feelings in which he could not concur. But on referring to what was shown by public proceedings since this question was brought forward, could they have a more signal proof of the feelings of the people of England, than that this great question would not be an outrage to their feeling? He asked them to contrast the feeling that was manifested upon this Bill, with the
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feeling manifested on another question—namely, the grant to the College of Maynooth. Talk about there being no excitement with the public on religious questions! how many hon. Gentlemen were asked to vote in a particular way on the question of the increased grant to Maynooth? How many Gentlemen were told of their votes when they appeared before their constituents? How many hon. Gentlemen were very nearly turned out of their seats at the last election because they voted for that grant? He, therefore, could not admit, with the hon. Member for Bridport, that because a state of apathy had passed over the public mind, the people of England took no interest in the measure now before the House, and that they paid no regard to it. On the contrary, he believed that the population of this country looked upon the matter in its proper and legitimate light—that they looked upon the question not as a religious question. When hon. Gentlemen talked of this measure as having a direct tendency to unchristianise the Legislature, they must use the term in its metaphorical and not its literal meaning. It had been said over and over again, and said truly, by speakers during the present discussion, that the House of Commons would be no more unchristianised by the presence of two or three Hebrew gentlemen, than the nation is unchristianised by tolerating their residence in this country. His hon. Friend had stated that this was not the last link in the chain of religious and constitutional security—that if we repealed the disabilities of the Jews, we must go further; and he pointed to the fact of Roman Catholics being still ineligible to hold certain offices in the State. But this exclusion of the Catholics from the highest judicial office in Ireland, did not proceed from any fear with respect to their religious feelings, but because in the Lord Chancellor of Ireland was thought to be vested considerable Protestant ecclesiastical patronage. He believed, however, that the Lord Chancellor of Ireland had no ecclesiastical patronage; and it was upon that ground that the proposition was made for admitting Roman Catholics to that office. The 9th Clause of the Act now before the House provided a sufficient guarantee for the Protestant Establishment. By that clause, Jews were prevented from advising, nominating, or doing anything with respect to any office or appointment in the Church of England and Ireland, or in the Church of Scotland.

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And if any of Her Majesty's Ministers had been present, he should have asked them whether that clause would exclude Jews from holding the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, or other similar offices in which ecclesiastical patronage might be concerned. Objection had been taken to the Jews on the ground of their want of nationality—that they were aliens, having no sympathy with the bulk of the population. Now, so far from the Jews not identifying themselves with the interests of the community among whom they were placed, it would be impossible to cite any body of men, in any country, at any period of time, who had so completely assimilated their manners to those of the people amongst whom they had been accidentally thrown; and wherever they had been permitted to re side and transact business, the Jews had greatly contributed to the material welfare of themselves and those about them. He felt that this fact carried with it a great moral meaning. It would be impossible for men, even by the most assiduous attention, to have been so uniformly prosperous, had they not added to extreme industry the sterling quality of honesty in all their dealings. They could not have achieved that prosperity unless they had been both upright and diligent, exercising the very virtues which most entitled them to honour as citizens, and pointed them out as fit persons to act as legislators. If he had read history aright, there never yet had been a test or enactment for the exclusion of any class of persons from the British Parliament, without a distinct palpable object. He found that the oath to be taken by the Roman Catholics was proposed and became law in consequence of the terror which the people felt at the probability of a Popish succession; and the Act itself was passed just after the issue of that obnoxious historical event—the Popish plot. The oath was imposed solely on that account. Every other attempt at political exclusion had been marked by circumstances of a similar kind. He found the British constitution perfectly harmonious on this head—it never excluded par ties from power except on grave constitutional grounds—its whole tendency was not exclusive, but inclusive. Just as the English, being a people not of any particular race, but being composed of many races, make their laws, not for the benefit of one class, but for the benefit of the whole community; so is the material of
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the House of Commons formed of all those men whom the people think proper to send there as their representatives. It was so far unjust to exclude any individual from Parliament who had the character and the means to procure a seat. In his opinion this opportunity might have been aptly seized by Her Majesty's Government to bring forward a much larger measure. They might have adopted that reform with regard to religious tests recommended by the Criminal Law Commission in 1845. The Commissioners recommended one form for the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Her Majesty's Government would thus have been enabled to take a larger ground. It had been held by high legal authority—in the case of the Duke of Norfolk being sworn as Earl Marshal—that the oath of allegiance was all that was required, the oath of supremacy being merely an explanation of it. All the evidence of history goes to show that at tempts at political exclusion have been of no practical advantage. Those countries which confine their political advantages to one race of men, or the professors of one form of religion, not only offer a sad ex ample of their impolicy, but they also show how futile are the plans of human wisdom for purposes of that kind. He might show how much better this country had prospered under an extended system of religious and political toleration, than had other countries where purity of race and uniformity of religion were insisted upon in candidates for public office. Yet in Spain, where the latter system was carried to the extreme, Jews had won distinguished honours from royalty itself. A Hebrew gentleman had been invested with the order of Isabella the Catholic. All those attempts at exclusions, however well carried out, had acted injuriously. It had been attempted in this country; and the case of Mr. Rothschild—he would not call him Baron Rothschild, for he had no wish to see him sit in the British House of Commons as a foreign baron—would show whether the attempt could be carried out. The citizens of London, by the election of Mr. Rothschild, had told the House of Commons distinctly and palpably that they did not approve of this exclusive system of legislature. The people ask the House to remove all those religious restrictions. No stronger test of the feeling of the people could be offered than the election of Mr. Rothschild as one of the representatives of the metropolis. Hon. Gentlemen

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might talk of overpowering personal interest, of Government power; but putting that aside altogether, and allowing everything that was said by the opponents of the measure to be true, the election of Mr. Rothschild was a speaking evidence of the opinion of the people. If twenty or thirty years ago any person had said that a Jew would be elected for the city of London, the assertion would have been laughed at. The House could not have any more satisfactory evidence that it could not act more in accordance with the wishes of the people, than by passing this measure. To go back to the religious part of the question. The hon. Mover of the Amendment had alluded to the mode in which the proceedings of the House were daily opened. He had asked whether a Member did not secure his seat by being present at the prayers; and had inquired whether a Jew could be present and join in the prayer? This observation he considered to be quite unworthy of his hon. Friend. Would he make that a reason for stepping in between an enlightened constituency and their elected Member? It was not for such a purpose that the House adopted the solemn manner of opening their proceedings—a manner which every one must feel to be most proper and decorous. When, in prayer they asked that they might not be actuated by private and party feelings—that they might be actuated by Christian feelings and Christian principles; and the House would be carrying out those principles, and acting on those feelings, by the passing of this Bill. All fear of their prayers falling into disrepute, even if a few Jews were admitted, might be cast away. Human nature and everyday experience would war rant the anticipation of a contrary result. Some few years ago his hon. Friend and himself were together at Rome; and never in any city did they see so regular an attendance by Englishmen at their place of worship, as at the Protestant church in the eternal city. The very circumstance of their being surrounded by a population professing a different form of religion, led them to exercise a more habitual reverence in behalf of their faith. The admission of the Jews would rather have a tendency to make Protestants reverence their forms more than ever. Something had been said as to the important effect of a fusion of men of different religious opinions. He would offer no decided opinion on that head. This much he would say—that if
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they would wish to fix a man in those religious opinions which they considered erroneous, they could not do it more effectually than by excluding him from political power on the ground of those opinions—than by telling him, "So long as you hold that belief, you shall not sit in this House." Parties so circumstanced think the exclusion unjust, and cling closer than ever to their creed. The decision to which the House might arrive would be of great importance not only in this but in other countries. The state of the Jews in other countries, was not what it was in this. The question of the admission or non-admission of Jews into Parliament was of comparatively small importance in England; but at the present moment anxious discussions and disputations were being carried on as to the civil rights of Jews in other parts of Europe, and the opinions of the House would exercise an important effect on these discussions. In the Prussian Diet the question of Jewish emancipation had been discussed at considerable length; and it was decided that Jews should be admitted to hold certain public offices. They were excluded from Parliamentary rights by a majority of three. The objections to the complete emancipation of the Jews secured a majority of twenty-two only. It was most important for the House to throw the moral weight of its decision in the right and just scale. He knew that the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford looked with alarm on the Bill, and said that its consequence would be not only to emancipate the Jews of England, but to emancipate the Jews of the whole world. He (Mr. Milnes) firmly hoped that such would be its result. He believed that if they should declare that Jews were fit persons to sit in that House, they would materially assist in the extension of liberal principles all over the world. He had little doubt as to the decision of the House—it would most undoubtedly he in favour of the Bill; but that alone would not make it the law of the land. After the manner in which the opinion of the House had been expressed—after the way in which the English people had shown their approval of the Bill—he did trust no other power would step in between a man elect ed by the British metropolis, and approved by the British House of Commons.
VISCOUNT MAHONwished to state briefly the grounds on which he had al-

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ready Voted, and on which he meant again to vote, against the Bill now under consideration. In doing so, he trusted, nay, he was sure, that not a word would fall from him tending to the disparagement or reproach bf his Jewish fellow-subjects; nor was it in the smallest degree essential to his argument. The Jews in England might he, and he believed they were, remarkable for their ready obedience to the law. They might be, and he believed they were, remarkable for their liberal charity—not confined to individuals of their own persuasion, but extending also to ours. What then? Were those sufficient reasons of themselves to induce the House to divest the Legislature of the Christian constitution which had hitherto belonged to it, and to admit men of any religion or no religion within its walls? For, let it be observed, that the question could not possibly stop at the point to which it was urged; the barriers which opposed the admission of Jews into Parliament once removed, no creed, and, what was much worse, no negation of creed—neither Mahometan, nor Hindoo, nor professed Deist, could be excluded. This had been very fairly stated by the noble Lord at the head of the Government. He had admitted that no further religious barrier could be raised after the concession now demanded; he had said—and the sentiment had been echoed by the noble Lord the Member for the West Riding—that in his opinion no religious creed ought to carry with it anything like a penalty, and that exclusion from the Legislature was a penalty. But this was by no means the view taken by many of the followers of that noble Lord. He (Viscount Mahon) had heard several Gentlemen opposite state in private conversation that they were willing to make the concession claimed for the Jews on account of their respectable character and of the points of their creed which they held in common with them; but that they were not prepared to go further. It was right that those Gentlemen should be in formed that it was impossible to limit the application of the principle; once adopted it must be carried to its full extent. If Parliament should declare that a declaration on the true faith of a Christian should no longer be part of the oath required from Members, it would no longer have the right to impose any religious qualification whatever. It had been urged in the course of the debate, that the question of creed should rest between the Member of
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Parliament and his constituents; that it was for them to inquire what his religious belief was, and to reject or elect him as they might think proper. Let him ask how far that doctrine was conformable with the principles of the constitution in similar cases? It was a principle of the constitution that Members of Parliament should possess a property qualification: might it not be as fairly urged as in the case of religious belief, that that was a matter which could very well be loft to the decision of a constituency, who alone were entitled to determine whether they would be represented by a rich man or a poor man? Might it not be said, "What right has any authority to make inquisition into the pecuniary circumstances of a man elected by a body of the people, and say that the object of their choice should not represent them, because he happens to be poor?" The same sort of reasoning might be applied to the oath of allegiance. Every body knew that in the last century a numerous party in that House supported the Pretender; and it might with just as much plausibility be argued that that was a case of extreme hardship, because the friends of the Stuarts in the constituencies were not permitted to send a few unhappy Jacobites to Parliament. The Archbishop of Dublin had recently published an able pamphlet on the Jewish question, which contained the following passage:—
"We ought to remember that this is not a Bill to entitle a number of Jews to seats in Parliament as Jews, but to remove the restriction which pre vents Christians from electing them. Is it not a scandal that we should think it necessary for the sake of Christianity to impose this restriction?"
How would the Archbishop of Dublin deal with the case of the oath of allegiance? Might it not be said, in the very words which the Archbishop had used, "Is it not a great scandal that we should think it necessary for the safety of the reigning family to impose this oath? is it not an imputation on the loyalty of the people?" Acknowledging, then, a qualification test and an oath of allegiance, why, he would ask, was it inconsistent to demand of all those elected by the people, a solemn re cognition of the Christian faith? It was his belief that the admission of Jews to Parliament would be a violation of what had hitherto been deemed an essential principle of the constitution. It had been asked—"What harm can result from the admission of a few Jews?" It was said that they had admitted the Jew to high

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civil offices; that he was a member of a respectable but by no means numerous body; and that it was not likely many of that persuasion would find their way into Parliament. In passing, he would observe, that it was by no means certain that only a few Jews would obtain seats in Parliament. Although not very numerous in this country, the Jews possessed a large amount of wealth, and it appeared probable that the number who would aspire to enter the Legislature would be large in proportion to the comparative number of their body. But admitting, for the sake of argument, that the number of Jews admitted to Parliament under the proposed change of the law would be too small to hare any perceptible influence on its deliberations or decisions, was that a sufficient reason for violating a high principle? Was it enough to say that no immediate mischief would ensue from what was proposed to be done? This course of argument reminded him of the case of the casuists, so admirably put by Pascal in those letters which would immortalise his name. The casuists maintained that any violation of principle was justifiable if not productive of evil. Thus, for instance, the murder of a tyrant who oppressed his people would be beneficial to that people; thus, again, the robbery of a miser without heirs, and the bestowal of his hoarded wealth on public uses, would be beneficial to the poor. Admit the validity of such reasoning, and there was no act however criminal which might not be successfully defended. He said, therefore, that they must look to the principle itself. The principle was to be maintained entire, and was not to be abrogated merely because no immediate mischief might follow its violation. The noble Lord at the head of the Government laid great stress upon the case of Gibbon; he said, "Of what avail were your religious tests as regarded that disbeliever and powerful assailant of the truths of Christianity? He subscribed the pledge 'on the true faith of a Christian,' and took his seat quietly as one of the Lords of Trade on the corner of the Treasury bench." What advantage then, it was asked, did we derive from the oath he had taken? By way of illustration, he would revert to the oath of allegiance. If it were said that when Gibbon took his seat, and swore on the true faith of a Christian, there was no advantage in that oath, then they must contend also that there was no advantage in a Jacobite taking the oath of allegiance.
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He had seen at Windsor among the Stuart Papers communications from persons of high rank and station, as, for example, Bishop Atterbury, who had taken the oath of allegiance to King George, but was all the while corresponding with King James. But though the oath could not, it seems, control Bishop Atterbury's Jacobite opinions, it did prevent him from disseminating or defending them. Now, as to the terms in the oath, "on the faith of a Christian." If a Deist took his seat in Parliament, having sworn "on the true faith of a Christian," he might retain his Deistical opinions still, but for his own sake he would conceal them. He could not attempt to diffuse them, or to taunt Christians with their faith. Contrast the case of Gibbon with that of Condorcet, and you had at once a proof of the advantage of the test now sought to be abolished. Gibbon, in the House of Commons, concealed his infidel opinions. Condorcet, in the French Convention, made a boast of them. What would happen if, in the present state of the law, a Member should revile Christianity? He believed that, in such a case, the right hon. Gentleman in the chair would feel it to be his duty to call him to order. But would the Speaker have the power or the right to interfere if the religious sanction were withdrawn? Might not the Member in that case say, "I know not why I should be thus called to order. I have not avowed my belief in Christianity; I have not sworn to any faith, and I am ready to declare, as Condorcet declared, my disbelief in the Christian religion?" The inevitable con sequence of parting with the religious sanction would be to lower the tone of debate, and to enable persons to give expression to irreligious opinions and sentiments in a manner which would be most painful at first, no doubt, to the majority, but which by custom would lose its offensive character, and at length become the recognised language of the House. He could not, therefore, resist the impression that this point was one of very great importance. By retaining the Christian oath, though it might not prevent all Deists from becoming Members of that House, it would at least have the effect of excluding all honourable Deists, who would not be guilty of the hypocrisy of taking an oath which did not bind their consciences, while it would also prevent others from openly at tempting to make those about them Deists like themselves. The hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Milnes) had stated in the

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course of his speech, that when at Rome he had visited the Protestant church there, and that he had never witnessed a house of worship better or more fully attended; and that the minority of Protestants there, in the midst of a Roman Catholic majority, were more steadfast and confirmed in their religious principles than they might have been elsewhere. He confessed that he was at a loss to see what argument, or shadow of an argument, was to be drawn in favour of the present Bill from that fact. All that could be deduced from it was this—that a Jewish minority in this House, in the midst of a Christian majority, would be probably more zealous and earnest for their own religious tenets than they were before—and whether the Legislature was found to be very anxious for such a confirmation or reinvigoration of the Jewish faith, he would leave to the hon. Member for Pontefract himself to determine. He (Viscount Mahon) might per haps be charged with inconsistency in having given his support to the Bill for the admission of Jews to municipal offices, and then opposing their admission into Parliament; but he contended there was a great difference between the qualifications required for performing the duties of a sheriff or an alderman, or a justice of the peace, and those required for discharging the important functions of a Member of the Legislature. It was one thing to frame a law, or to assist in framing it, and another thing to administer that law when already framed. He most willingly ac corded to the Jews a share in all municipal rights, and in all the benefits which the late Act conferred; but he thought that the high matters brought under the consideration of that House, mixed, as they often were, with questions most closely connected with those concerning Christianity itself, were not of a nature to admit of Jews taking part in their deliberations. There was only one more point he wished to press upon the attention of the House, and he did so the rather because he saw in the pamphlet to which he had al ready referred, that Archbishop Whately, although not acknowledging the validity of the argument, yet admitted that it was more worthy of consideration than any of the others which he had attempted to refute. The Archbishop said that it might be argued that the Legislature, by removing practically the last barrier that excluded any person from a seat in the House of Commons on religious grounds, might be understood by the
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people to manifest an indifference to religion, or a contempt for Christianity; and the passing such a Bill as the one now before the House might be considered as a deliberate admission on the part of the public rulers of this country that they considered a religious principle was of no intrinsic importance. Now, such he did think would be the popular effect of passing the present Bill. He most certainly did believe that the admission of Jews into the Legislature would have the effect of lowering the tone of religious feeling throughout the kingdom; that it would divest the people of that reliance which they at present felt in the religious character of Parliament; and that it would inflict a great and serious wound on the religious conscience of the country. On that ground he was strongly opposed to passing the Bill. He would end as he began, by disclaiming any intention to throw the slightest imputation on the character of the Jews in England; but he deemed it essential to the maintenance of the Christian religion in this country, that the last barrier which separated the believers in Christianity from those who denied Christianity altogether, should be preserved to the constitution. Believing this to be of such essential importance, and involving a principle that admitted of no compromise, he was deter mined to adhere on this occasion to the course he had on a preceding occasion pursued—to give it his most earnest and strenuous opposition.
SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH: Sir, there is one part of the subject which I think has been singularly overlooked, not only by the noble Lord who has just sat down, but by other hon. Gentlemen who have taken the same view of the subject, and it is this: if the Bill of the noble Lord be rejected, what substitute will hon. Gentlemen opposite propose in its stead? Have they well considered this question? Surely they will not let the law remain in its present state. Have they considered the dilemma in which the House is placed by the fact that an hon. Gentleman who professes the Jewish religion is become a Member of the House of Commons? It appears to me that, as a necessary consequence of that event, Parliament must adopt one of two alternatives. Either Parliament must agree to the Bill of the noble Lord, which will en able an hon. Member who professes the Jewish religion to perform his duties in the House of Commons, or Parliament

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must pass a law which shall declare null and void the election of any person who does not believe in the Christian religion. It appears to me that Parliament must adopt one or other of these alternatives; for if the House will permit me to call its attention to the state of the law, as it would affect an hon. Member who professes the Jewish religion, I think I can prove to the satisfaction of the House that there is an immediate necessity for altering that law. It is certain that, as the law now stands, an hon. Gentleman who professes the Jewish religion may be law fully chosen a Member of the House of Commons, and that he is not legally in eligible on account of his religious belief; for, according to Blackstone, "every subject of the realm is eligible of common right" to be a Member of the House of Commons, subject to certain standing restrictions and disqualifications. Some of these depend upon the law and custom of Parliament as declared by the House of Commons; others upon certain statutes. It is unnecessary for me to enumerate these disqualifications. They are to be found in Blackstone, or in any of the ordinary law-books on the subject. No one, however, will contradict me when I assert that "belief in the Jewish religion" is not one of those disqualifications. I contend, therefore, that Baron Rothschild has been lawfully chosen a Member of the House of Commons; consequently he is legally bound to serve in Parliament; for, according to the well-known principles of constitutional law, every person who is lawfully chosen a Member of the House of Commons must serve, whether he be willing to do so or not; and the House has even held that an hon. Gentleman who had been elected against his will was eligible, and could not refuse to serve. Now, by the statute for the trial of election petitions, every hon. Member who is not disqualified for reasons specified in that statute, may be appointed upon an Election Committee. And I find the name of Baron Rothschild on the election panel E, No. 4. He is not disqualified to serve, for "belief in the Jewish religion" is not one of the grounds of disqualification specified in the statute in question. I assume, therefore, that Baron Rothschild will, when his turn comes, be appointed upon an Election Committee. It may be said, that the Committee of Selection will not appoint him: no doubt they will at present exercise a sound discretion upon the subject; but if they were to lay down the rule that Baron
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Rothschild is not to be appointed, on account of his religious faith, then it is evident they would assume a power which they do not possess under the statute, and for the exercise of which they would de serve censure. I assume, therefore, that, sooner or later, Baron Rothschild will be appointed upon an Election Committee, and that on a certain day he will be ordered to attend in his place to be sworn on that Committee. If he do not attend, the law is imperative that "he shall be taken into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms for neglect of his duty, and otherwise punished or censured." If he do attend, without having previously taken certain oaths, what will be the consequences? There are three oaths, which every hon. Gentleman who does not profess the Catholic religion ought to take before he sit or vote in the House of Commons, namely, the oath of allegiance, the oath of supremacy, and the oath of abjuration. Now, the statutes which have reference to the oaths of allegiance and supremacy are different from those which have reference to the oath of abjuration. I need not trouble the House by referring to the statutes with regard to the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. I will merely observe, that if Baron Rothschild were to sit or vote in the House of Commons without previously taking those oaths, he would become a Popish recusant convict under an Act of Charles II., entitled "An Act for disabling Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament," and which Act has been repealed as far as Papists are concerned. Being convicted of Popish recusancy, Baron Rothschild would incur certain pains, penalties, forfeitures, and disabilities; for instance, he would for ever be disabled from sitting or voting in the House of Commons: the House would be entitled to declare his place vacant, and to issue a new writ for a new election for the city of London; and if he were then to be re-elected, all votes given to him, after due notice, would be lost, and an Election Committee would be entitled to seat his opponent. But Baron Rothschild can have no religious objection to taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. It is certain that he would be entitled to take those oaths in the same manner as he would take an oath in the courts of justice; for there is no provision in the Act of the 30th Charles II., statute 2, as to the mode in which these oaths are to be taken; consequently he would be entitled at common

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law to take those oaths according to the Jewish mode of taking an oath. There can he no doubt upon this subject after the precedent established in the case of Mr. Pease, formerly Member for South Durham. In that case the House held that Mr. Pease, being a Quaker, was entitled to make an affirmation in lieu of an oath at the table of the House, without any specific statute to that effect, on the ground that Quakers are entitled by statute to make an affirmation in lieu of an oath in the courts of law; and being so entitled in courts of law, the House held that they were therefore entitled to make an affirmation in lieu of an oath at the table of the House. Now, in the case of Jews, no statute was ever required to enable them to take an oath in the courts of justice, according to the Jewish mode, for they always possessed that right at common law. Therefore it follows that Baron Rothschild would be entitled to take at the table of the House the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in the same manner as he would take an oath in the courts of law; in the same manner as Jews have taken the oaths in question, when required to do so by various statutes to which I can refer—namely, according to the Jewish mode. There remains, therefore, only the oath of abjuration, which Baron Rothschild is unable to take. What would be the consequences if Baron Rothschild were to at tend in his place to be sworn on an Election Committee without previously taking that oath? The statute now in force with regard to the oath of abjuration is the 6th Geo. III., c. 53, which refers to 1st Geo. I., statute 2, c. 13, which latter statute contains the penalties which an hon. Member would incur for voting in the House without taking the oath of abjuration. Now I beg the House to observe—first, that these statutes give no power to the House to unseat an hon. Member who shall sit or vote in the House without taking the oath of abjuration; secondly, that though they require that every hon. Member should take that oath before "he shall vote in the House of Commons, or sit there during a debate," yet in the penal clause, the words "sitting there during a debate" are omitted. The penalty is attached only to the act of "voting," and no penalty is attached to the act of "sitting in the House.'' Now, I will not assert that there is any legal difference between the act of "voting" and the act of "sitting in the House." But it appears to me that if
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Baron Rothschild were to obey an order of the House, and merely to attend in his place to be sworn on an Election Committee, it would be a question for the Judges to decide whether such attendance in obedience to the order of the House, under the Statute of 7 & 8 Vic, c. 103, would constitute the crime of voting under the Statute of 1st Geo. I., st. 2, c. 13. But whatever might be the decision of the Judges with regard to the legal character of such an act, it is certain that the House would have no power under this statute to unseat Baron Rothschild, even in the event of his voting in the House without previously taking the oath of abjuration. And it appears to me, likewise, that the House would have no power to dispense with the services of Baron Rothschild on an Election Committee, if he were appointed to serve; for the statute for the trial of election petitions is imperative, that every hon. Member who is appointed must serve, unless specially disqualified; and the omitting or refusing to take the oath of abjuration is not among the disqualifications specified in the statute in question. It is evident, therefore, that the law is in a very anomalous state, and that the House has no power either to enable Baron Rothschild to perform his duties as a lawfully chosen Member of the House, or to relieve him from the obligation to perform those duties. It may be supposed that the House has the power to expel Baron Rothschild, and to order a new writ to be issued for the city of London. I do not deny that the House did possess the power, and may still possess the power, of expelling any one of its Members for any reason or for no reason; but since the period when the House transferred its primary jurisdiction in election matters to its Committees, it has not exercised its power of expulsion, except in cases in which its Members have been convicted of grave offences. According to the law and custom of Parliament, the House would be entitled to expel an hon. Member who was convicted of treason, felony, or fraudulent misdemeanor, but not, I think, for any minor offence; and, certainly, no law nor custom of Parliament can be cited, nor precedent can be produced, which would entitle the House to expel one of its Members on account of his religious belief. But if the House were to expel Baron Rothschild, it is quite clear that as the law now stands, a vote of expulsion would not legally disqualify him from being re-elected to serve in the same

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Parliament. It is true that in the well known case of Mr. Wilkes, the House re solved that Mr. Wilkes, having been expelled the House, was incapable of being elected to serve in that Parliament; and when Mr. Wilkes was again elected, the House resolved that his election was null and void, and that his opponent, Mr. Luttrell, was duly elected. But this vote cannot be cited as a precedent, for it was subsequently ordered to be expunged from the journals of the House, as "being subversive of the rights of the whole body of the electors of this kingdom." In another well-known case, an hon. Member was convicted—unjustly it now appears—of a conspiracy to defraud, and was on that account expelled the House. He was immediately re-elected: his return, however, was not questioned, and he continued to be a Member of the House of Commons, though a prisoner in the King's Bench; consequently, if the House were to expel Baron Rothschild, that vote of expulsion would not render him ineligible, would not disqualify him from being re-elected, and would not relieve the House from the dilemma in which it is placed by his late election. The sum and substance of my argument is this: Baron Rothschild has been lawfully chosen a Member of the House of Commons, consequently he is legally bound to serve, and may be summoned to attend in his place in Parliament. If, when summoned, he do not attend, he must be taken into custody and otherwise punished. If he do attend, he would be entitled to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy according to the Jewish mode of taking an oath; but his religious faith Would prevent him from taking the oath of abjuration. He would therefore refuse to take that oath. What would be the con sequence? Now, I cannot pretend to say whether such a refusal would or would not, under the circumstances of the case, constitute an offence for which he could be punished. It is certain, however, that the House has no power to relieve Baron Rothschild from the obligation to take the oath of abjuration—no power to relieve him from the obligation to attend in his place in the House—no power to dispense with his services on an Election Commit tee—no power to declare his election null and void; and that no law nor custom of Parliament can be cited, no precedent can be produced, which would justify the House in expelling him. If, nevertheless, the House were to expel the hon. Gentle-
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man, he would not thereby become legally ineligible; and as often as the House might expel him, so often would the electors of the city of London be legally entitled to re-elect him. Whether they would do so or not is beside the question. I have shown that a dilemma exists, from the horns of which the House can escape only by means of an Act of Parliament. What that Act should be is the question. The noble Lord has proposed this Bill. The hon. Members who object to that measure are bound to propose a substitute more in accordance with their principles. Why have they not done so? They maintain that Christianity is part and parcel of the British constitution, and that all persons should be excluded from the House of Commons who do not profess the true faith of a Christian; and they affirm that the oath of abjuration is a sufficient test of that faith. To enforce these principles their simplest and easiest plan would be to propose that the law with regard to the oath of abjuration should be the same as the law with regard to the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. For this purpose they need only bring in a short Bill to ex tend the provisions of the 30th Charles II., st. 2, to the case of hon. Members not taking the oath of abjuration. Then if Parliament were to agree to such a Bill, every hon. Member who should refuse or omit to take either of the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, or abjuration, would, un less he were a Roman Catholic, become a Popish recusant convict, and be subject to all the pains of Popish recusancy; and then the House would be entitled to unseat and declare ineligible both Baron Rothschild and any other hon. Member who professes the Jewish religion. The question is, therefore, between the Bill of the noble Lord, and a Bill to extend the provisions of the 30th Charles II., st. 2. Now, will any one of the hon. Gentlemen opposite under take to bring in such a Bill? If not, I appeal to them as practical men whether they ought not to agree to the Bill of the noble Lord as the only practicable means of relieving the House from the dilemma in which it is placed by the state of the law, and by the election of Baron Rothschild. Now, the object of the Bill of the noble Lord is merely to make such an alteration in the form, not in the substance, of the oath of abjuration, by omitting the words "upon the true faith of a Christian," as shall enable an hon. Gentleman who professes the Jewish religion to take that

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oath. Now, what objection can be made to the proposed alteration? No one can assert that the oath of abjuration was originally intended as a religious test. The only one of the three oaths which had the character of a religious test was the oath of supremacy; and that oath was directed against the Papists, who were the only religious sect of whom our ancestors entertained any apprehension. On the contrary, the oath of abjuration was directed, not against the Papists, nor any other religion, but against the adherents of the Pretender, to whatever sect they might belong; and the words "on the true faith of a Christian" were employed merely to give additional force to the oath of abjuration. It is easy to prove this position, that the object of the Legislature was merely to secure the Hanoverian succession by the strongest oath it could devise, and not to create a religious test. For whenever the words in question, by acting as a religious test, were found practically to prevent a person from taking the oath of abjuration, then the Legislature interfered, and sanctioned the omission of those words. For instance, in the year 1722, an Act was passed which required that all persons of the age of eighteen and upwards, who had not previously taken the three oaths, should take them before the 25th December, 1723. Before that period arrived another Act was passed—10 George I., cap. 4—which contained a clause to the effect that whenever any per son professing the Jewish religion shall present himself to take the oath of abjuration in pursuance of the Act of 1722, then the words "upon the faith of a Christian" shall be omitted out of the said oath in administering the same to such person. I find like wise a similar clause in the Act of 1740 (13 George II., cap. 7, sec. 3), which was passed for the purpose of naturalising persons settled in the colonies, and which Act required that all such persons should take the three oaths. These two Acts, there fore, prove that it was the intention of the Legislature not in any way to create a religious test by means of the oath of abjuration, but only to secure the Hanoverian succession by requiring its subjects to take the strongest oath it could devise. Consistently with this intention, whenever the Legislature found that practical inconvenience was likely to ensue from the wording of the oath of abjuration, and that persons who ought to take that oath would be prevented from so doing by the words
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"on the true faith of a Christian," then the Legislature interfered, and sanctioned the omission of those words. Now, for the first time, the case has arisen that an hon. Gentleman has been elected a Member of this House who professes the Jewish religion, and who cannot, therefore, take the oath of abjuration in the ordinary form. Parliament ought, therefore, in accordance with the undeniable precedents which I have quoted, to interfere, and it ought to enact in this case, as it did in 1723 and 1740, that when any person professing the Jewish religion shall present himself to take the oath of abjuration, then the words "upon the true faith of a Christian" shall be omitted out of the said oath in administering the same. And such is the object of the Bill of the noble Lord. I do not, however, mean to assert that the question under the consideration of the House is to be settled by mere precedents. For it is in fact a question between two great principles, that have battled against each other since the commencement of civilisation. On the one side is the principle of religious equality; on the other the antagonist principle, that the State is competent to determine, and ought to determine, what religion is the true religion. Now, this doctrine of the religious infallibility of the State, has been in all ages, and among all people, the plea for the crimes of intolerance and persecution. Under that plea Socrates was put to death, and the Saviour was crucified. Under that plea the Pagan emperors immolated the early Christians, the Albigenses were slaughtered, and our own fires were lighted in Smithfield. Under that plea Catholics burnt Protestants, Protestants burnt Catholics, and Calvin kindled the faggot of Servetus with the approbation of Melancthon. Even the pilgrim fathers of New England were persecutors, and hung Quakers on the gibbets of Massachusetts. Under the same plea in modern times we excluded Dissenters from our corporations, and Catholics from Parliament. And for the same reasons Jews are now refused a seat in the British House of Commons. But religious liberty has triumphed over the rude bigotry of antiquity, and the cruel persecutions of our forefathers. It will ultimately achieve a victory over the milder intolerance of hon. Gentlemen opposite. The result will be peace and good will among men of every faith who are subjects of the British empire. In legislating on this question, let us remember that we are

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not merely the representatives of the people of this small island, which is inhabited by men of one race, one language, and one religion; but we are the rulers over a mighty empire, over millions on millions of human beings of every race, every language, and every religion; and we are likewise the parent stock whence in future ages still mightier empires may spring. In the eminent position that we have attained through the energy of our forefathers and of ourselves—famed as we are throughout the world for sagacity, prudence, and fore thought—our practical decisions on the great questions that affect the interests of the human race are watched with intense anxiety by all intelligent and reflecting men. Every onward step that England takes is a step in the civilisation of the world; and the policy of England will gradually become the policy of all enlightened nations. Now, twice of late years we have rendered noble service to our fellow-beings—twice well deserved the thanks of mankind, for the example we have set to the other rulers of the earth: first, when we freed our negro slaves, and proclaimed that to hold men in bondage was inexpedient, unholy, and unjust; secondly, when we removed restrictions on commercial intercourse, broke down the barriers that had long separated neighbouring States, and bound together hitherto hostile communities by the strong ties of mutual interest, which are by far the most potent securities against the hideous calamities of war. Now, Sir, to the principles of civil liberty and commercial freedom, let us join in the government of this empire the third great principle of religious equality. Now is the time—now that the electors of Lon don, the wealthy and energetic citizens of this commercial metropolis of the universe, have chosen as their representative a Gentleman professing the Jewish faith; and let me remark that wherever Jews are to be found despised, persecuted, and op pressed—in Germany or Poland, in Russia or Asia Minor—there the result of this election for the city of London has been hailed by them with joy and exultation, as elevating them to the social state, and putting them on an equality with their fellow-men; for admission into the British House of Commons is justly considered to be a mark of higher distinction to their race than any title or honour that monarchs can bestow. Now, let us confirm this decision of our foremost citizens. Now is the time to declare that as legislators we
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have no business with articles of faith; that our laws should be silent on all questions of religion; and that as adherents of every creed are to be found among the subjects of the British empire, adding to its wealth, augmenting its resources, and increasing its power, so they should all possess the same civil rights and privileges as citizens. And thus let us sweep away the last relics of the ancient reign of imbecile bigotry and intolerance in its dotage.
MR. WALPOLEwas bound to defend the principle upon which Jews were excluded from a seat in Parliament, without infringing upon that constitution which it was the high boast and privilege of this country to have established. He fully agreed with the hon. Baronet who had just sat down, that the question at issue was not so much one of expediency as of principle. At the same time, he could not al together overlook the question of expediency; and he thought that the House would see that the reasons based upon this ground for admitting the Jews to Parliament, did not preponderate over those for their exclusion. He would allow that their paucity of numbers was some argument for their admission; and he was still more willing to concede that the high integrity of their character afforded an argument much stronger. But when hon. Members came to apply the common test, which was applied in all cases where an alteration was made in the constitution, they would find that there was no reason for extending these privileges to the Jews. They could not say that at present the Jew laboured under any practical grievance, or was subject to any vexatious restriction. They could not say there was any exclusion on the ground of dress or worship, as on the Continent; nor could they contend that any great principle of civil and religious liberty was to be vindicated. The House should bear in mind that when the Test Act was repealed, the important principle was admitted that Dissenters and Nonconformists might obtain admission into corporations, in the affairs of which, prior to that, they could take no share. The main reason for passing the Roman Catholic Relief Bill was because a large portion of the inhabitants of the empire were nearly in a state of civil war, and it was necessary to ensure tranquillity. Could anything of the kind be said now? The people concurred in the propriety and policy of those Acts; but could it be maintained that they did so with respect to the

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present measure? Thirty-six thousand out of as many millions was not such a proportion as could influence their judgment by appealing to their fears, or persuade them by the weight of its authority. But with regard to these very persons, he believed that the mass of them would prefer to continue as they were; that they were content to live under a Christian Queen and a Christian Legislature, who would protect their lives and maintain their religion. Viewing it as a question of expediency, he was prepared to object to it no less than when he considered it with reference to what he conceived to be the fundamental laws of the constitution. Looking to it as a question of principle, there were many considerations of importance which compelled him to inquire if the profession of the religion adopted by the great majority of the people of any country, should be made a necessary qualification before any inhabitant of it should be allowed to take a part in its legislation? In answer to that question, and in order to solve the problem, they must inquire whether men were bound to maintain in their national capacity that which as private citizens they conceived themselves bound to maintain as the truth? He would put that question on a narrow ground: this country was, and always had been, a Christian country—Christianity was a fundamental law in the constitution of the State; and unless it could be proved that there was an absolute necessity to alter it, they should no more abrogate it than any other fundamental law of the State. If the great majority of the people desired the change, and if it were their deliberate conviction as Members of that House that the law should be altered, then, and then only, ought they to make so great an alteration. He thought he could prove that the axiom that Christianity was part and parcel of the law of the land, meant something more than his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. W. P. Wood) was willing to admit. Not to go back to times so ancient as had been referred to in the course of the debate, he would satisfy himself with commencing at the time of the Conquest. There was a remarkable edict issued by the first Norman Conqueror, which contained a profession of faith as founded on the fact of Christianity. Since his time all our monarchs had recognised Christianity, and had confessed the profession of that religion to be their tenure of the throne. At this very moment the Sovereigns were required, at their accession, to
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profess it, and to promise to maintain the laws of God. According to the quaint old saying in the Norman French of Henry the Sixth's time, the Scriptures were the law of the land, on which all our laws were founded. The authority of Hale and Raymond had been quoted in the debate; but the hon. Member who relied on these high names had forgotten to tell the House the principle on which the first-named great judge had rested the maxim, that Christianity was part and parcel of the law of the land—namely, that anything which struck at the root of Christianity was manifestly subversive of all civil government. Lord Hardwicke also said, in the course of the judgment which had been quoted to the House, speaking of Christianity, that the constitution and polity of the country hung thereupon. If these words meant anything, they must mean that Christianity was part and parcel of the law of the land, in a more extended and comprehensive sense than that it was illegal to scoff at it. But he could not rest here—he could not but think it strange that no hon. Member had referred to the writ by which they were summoned to that House. Could any one read it and say that religion had nothing to do with legislation? In the old form it ran, that Her Majesty was advised to call them together—"de communi consilio super quibusdam rebus ad regem, statum, et defensionem Angliœ et Ecclesiœ Anglicanœ pertinentibus." Here the Church was named last; but Lord Coke would tell them that though the Church was last mentioned, it was the first in intent, for it so appeared in every Act of Parliament. Could it be maintained, then, that legislation had nothing to do with religion? How could those who differed from them in religion, advise them in the very matter wherein their difference lay? and how could a Jew legislate for that Church of England which was incorporated with the very essence of our legislation? If he were right in maintaining Christianity to be a fundamental law of the constitution, he must be also right in maintaining that a change ought not to be made in. this respect, unless the great bulk of the people desired it, and that wisdom of Parliament counselled them that their desire was just. Unless this could be done, it would be unwise to disturb the public mind on a matter so serious as the national religion. On looking back to history, he found that the mass of the people had never desired this change at all; and if he

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looked to the present time, he could not feel that the petitions presented to the House were any stronger evidence of the existence of such a desire on their part now. On the contrary, a different feeling would be found—not noisy or clamorous, to be sure, but deeply and strongly impressed. Had the hon. Member given any reason for this change? He had listened closely to the whole debate, and endeavoured to form definite notions of the principal arguments which had been adduced in favour of the Bill. The first of these appeared to be that they had advanced so far already that it would be an anomaly and absurdity if they were not to go one step further. It was conceded that Jews might be recorders, mayors, and magistrates; and it was argued that it would be absurd to deprive them of the right to legislate. The noble Member for Bath (Lord Ashley) had hinted at a distinction in this respect which appeared to him sound and just. There was a clear ground of difference, as appeared to him, Between the position of those who made the laws and those who had to execute them. The magistrate acted on his own interpretation of the law; but in making that law the Members of the House acted on the principle that they were a part of the constitution. The executor of the laws must not necessarily be a Christian, provided he administered them justly and well; but the maker of the laws ought to be a Christian, inasmuch as those laws concerned a Christian Church and people. The second argument, which appeared to him to be the most ingenious and plausible, so that he was in some degree constrained to admit the force of it, was, that as they had entitled the Jew to be an elector, they should entitle him to be elected also. The right hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Glad stone) asked who was to make the makers of their laws; and thence proceeded back to bestow on the elective body the principle of legislation, inasmuch as they made those who made the laws. But this argument confounded two matters which were essentially distinct, and proceeded on an assumption which was not correct, namely, that the qualification for the franchise and the qualification for an office were exactly the same thing? Was that so? On the contrary, it was true that by the constitution the right to vote and the capacity to be elected had been always kept distinct. The franchise belonged to the subject, be cause he had interests to be protected; but
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the right belonged to him only as a Subject of the Crown: in the same way the right to sit in the House was not granted to any man for his benefit as an individual. That was a fallacy on which they all went. Legislation was an office, it was a matter of trust, and the possession of a seat in that House was conferred by the public, for whose advantage alone it was given. It would then be absurd and ridiculous to argue the question on this ground, unless they contended that legislation was an office for the benefit of the individual and not of the nation. He would illustrate the argument by a few examples. The subscribers to an hospital had all a vote in the choice of a physician; but they would never think of electing any but a medical man. Again, all the members of a corporation could vote for the election of a town-clerk; but the citizens would be greatly surprised if they saw any but a member of the legal profession appointed to take care of their interests. But the strongest case of all was that of our own clergy. Until the commencement of the present century the clergy had had the right of sitting in Parliament, and Home Tooke sat there and voted for the Bill which excluded them; and since that period no ministers of the Established Church of England or Scotland were eligible to seats in that House. Here then was a class of men who might elect, but could not be elected; and this restriction was indigenous to their state, while it was enacted that as ministers of the Established Church they should not sit in the House; and the exclusion was extended to Scottish or Ro man Catholic priests. Suppose the minister had no cure of souls, why should be not have a voice in the Legislature? Both these classes of persons had rights and interests which ought to be protected, and the House justly said they should be electors, but not elective—in the case of the ministers, because they should not be mixed up in temporal matters—in the case of the Jews, because they were incapable of acting on Christian principle or feeling; but the exclusion did not extend to Non conformist ministers. The third argument had been that urged by the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) in that able way where with he was wont in one short sentence to comprehend some great constitutional principle; but in this instance it appeared as though the noble Lord had been carried away by an antithesis. He said—and he was vehemently cheered in saying so—that

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all who bore the burdens of the State, ought to be entitled to the honours and emoluments of the State. To a certain extent that was true, but not so in its full comprehension. The best answer to the assertion would be—why, if all who bear the burdens of the State ought to be on titled to honours and emoluments, should you, by the 6th section of this very Act, exclude Jews from the Chancellorship or Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. There was a just ground for the exclusion; but on the principle of the noble Lord, exclusion could not be maintained. So far from this principle being correct, it would be nearer the truth to say that more of those who bore the burdens of the State were excluded from them, than were admitted to its honours and emoluments. What were the tests, for instance, applied to Members of that House? They were those of age, of sex, of property, of profession, of office, of country. They should remember that those tests had not always existed, or been enforced. With respect to age, for in stance, they excluded minors; but they had not always done so, for Mr. Fox sat in Parliament, before he was twenty, for the borough that he (Mr. Walpole) now represented (Midhurst). They excluded persons who had not a certain amount of property; and, let him tell them, there were hundreds of persons in this country as well able to legislate as those who sat there. What was the case of the naturalised alien? Did they not apply to him the test of country? He might have lived with them twenty, thirty, or forty years; he might be as capable of legislating as any Member of that House, and yet he could not be a Member of it, nor a Member of the Privy Council. Did he ask the reason of all this? No; because he did not doubt that there were good and sufficient ones. The statutes of the realm expressed them. If they referred to them, they would find that the naturalised alien was excluded, for the better security of the laws, liberty, and independence of the kingdom, because they had no sufficient guarantee either for his allegiance or his religion, and therefore they passed a perpetual law of exclusion against him. On what grounds, then, could they admit the Jews? Did not the same reasons hold good against him as against the alien? The Jew had a separate creed and a separate interest; he was a citizen of the world, who had no land of his own, unless it should please God in his providence to restore him. He was governed
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by a rule of life perfectly distinct from all their notions of law and liberty; and if such was the fact, how could they say that he should be admitted? There was one argument urged by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford (Mr. Gladstone), which seemed to have great weight with the House, and that was, that the constitution of the country was expansive, and that they were first of all a Church of England Parliament, that then they were a Protestant Parliament, and that now they were a Christian Parliament. Following out that line of argument, he did not see why they should not become a Deistical Parliament. He believed that the reason why the right hon. Gentleman's argument met so much favour was from the fact that as since the repeal of the Test Act so many different shades of opinion had found a representative among them, no valid reason could exist why they should not introduce another. It might be true, and unfortunately it was true, that they were a divided people; but the House should re collect that they were united in one point—they were a Christian people still. They were still built up in one form of government, founded upon Christianity, whose seal was the cross. They preserved in their opinions a sort of unity, and they should reflect seriously whether they ought not to preserve that unity even at the cost of being called bigoted. If they introduced all kinds of religion into that House, they ought to consider whether such a course would not give to the people of this country the unfortunate notion that the State was indifferent about the affairs of religion, inasmuch as they might conclude that when ever they saw a desire for novelty, variety, and change, it introduced along with it a great presumption of falsity and error. As long as they gave to the Jew every other right, a free exercise of his religion, and extended to him the safeguards of the law, they would not be committing an act of persecution against the Jews. If there was one nation more than another to whom he would extend every indulgence, it was the Jewish; and when he saw that the noble Lord was returned conjointly with a Jew, his first impression was, that he should probably support the admission of the latter to a seat in the House; and it was not until he had considered the subject deeply and maturely, that he felt himself bound to adopt the course which he had just explained; it was therefore, not without a struggle against his own feelings

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that he opposed the Bill. He (sympathised with the Jewish people. Their history was rich in the recollections of the past, and richer still in the anticipation of the future. He felt that the time would come when they would be what they once were, the favoured people of the Lord. That event would take place without their giving them any ascendancy over them. His feelings, his sympathies, were in their favour; but the question was one of principle, and when principle was at stake, feeling should give way. He believed that Christianity was blended and inter woven with their constitution, and that they could not separate the one from the other. He could not consent to destroy, whatever his private feelings were, that distinctive character of the country which had advanced its temporal interests so proudly, and obtained for it such a moral elevation—that principle which had taught the people firmly to believe that there was only one standard of right and wrong—if they once broke that down—if they once destroyed that line of demarcation by admitting the fatal maxim of the noble Lord, "that those who bore the burdens of the State were entitled to its honours and emoluments"—it would be impossible to say where they would stop. Such a principle was untrue; they had thousands of instances that such was not the fact. They should in no manner diminish the principle on which the State had been founded—a principle associated in the minds of all reflecting men with the greatness of the country, because associated with its goodness. He besought the House to bear in mind that solemn language which they had all heard yesterday (Sunday), that "what ever ye do in word or deed, ye shall do all in the name of the Lord Jesus."
MR. SHEIL: If the honourable, the learned, and exceedingly able Gentleman who has just sat down had been a Member of the House of Commons when the Member for Tamworth brought forward the measure of emancipation, the speech which he has this night pronounced against the Jew, would have been fully as apposite upon that great historical occasion. With all his habits of fine forensic discrimination, I do not think that he can distinguish between the objections urged against the Catholic and against the Jew. He has, for example, strenuously insisted that in the writ by which the sheriff is commanded to hold an election, a reference is made to the maintenance and the defence of the
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Anglican Church. That objection is nearly as strong when applied to the Unitarian, the Baptist, the Independent, and, above all, to the professors of the religion to which it is my good fortune to belong. That men subject to all the duties should be deemed unworthy of the rights of Englishmen, appears to me to be a remarkable anomaly. The enjoyment of rights ought not to be dissociated from the liabilities to duties. A British subject ought, in every regard, to be considered a British citizen; and, inasmuch as the professors of the most ancient religion in the world, which, as far as it goes, we not only admit to be true, but hold to be the foundation of our own, are bound to the performance of every duty which attaches to a British subject, to a full fruition of every right which be longs to a British citizen, they have, I think, an irrefragable title. A Jew born in England cannot transfer his allegiance from his Sovereign and his country; if he were to enter the service of a foreign Power engaged in hostilities with England, and were taken in arms, he would be accounted a traitor. Is a Jew an Englishman for no other purposes than those of condemnation? I am not aware of a single obligation to which other English men are liable, from which a Jew is exempt; and if his religion confers on him no sort of immunity, it ought not to affect him with any kind of disqualification. It has been said, in the course of these discussions, that a Jew is not subject to penalties, but to privations. But what is privation but a synonyme for penalty? Privation of life, privation of liberty, privation of property, privation of country, privation of right, privation of privilege—these are degrees widely distant indeed, but still degrees in the graduated scale of persecution. The Parliamentary disability that affects the Jew, has been designated in the course of these debates by the mollified expressions to which men who impart euphemism to severity, are in the habit of resorting: but most assuredly an exclusion from the House of Commons ought in the House of Commons itself to be regarded as a most grievous detriment. With the dignity, and the greatness, and the power of this, the first assembly in the world, the hardship of exclusion is commensurate. Some of the most prominent opponents of this measure are among the last by whom a seat in Parliament ought to be held in little account. On this branch of the case—the hardship of an exclusion from this

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House—I can speak as a witness as well as an advocate. I belong to that great and powerful community which was a few years ago subject to the same disqualification that affects the Jew; and I felt that disqualification to be most degrading. Of myself I will not speak, because I can speak of the most illustrious person by whom that community was adorned. I have sat under the gallery of the House of Commons, by the side of Mr. O'Connell, during a great discussion on which the destiny of Ireland was dependent. I was with him when Plunket convinced, and Brougham surprised, and Canning charmed, and Peel instructed, and Russell exalted and improved. How have I seen him repine at his exclusion from the field of high intellectual encounter in those lists in which so many competitors for glory were engaged, and into which, with an injurious tardiness, he was afterwards admitted! How have I seen him chafe the chain which bound him down, but which, with an effort of gigantic prowess, he burst at last to pieces! He was at the head of millions of an organised and indissoluble people. The Jew comes here with no other arguments than those which reason and truth supply; but reason and truth are of counsel with him; and in this assembly, which I believe to represent, not only the high intelligence, but the high-mindedness of England, reason will not long be baffled, and truth, in fulfilment of its great aphorism, will at last prevail. I will assume that the exclusion from this House is a great privation, and I proceed to consider whether it be not a great wrong. Nothing but necessity could afford its justification; and of this plea we should be taught, by a phrase which has almost grown proverbial, to beware. Cardinal Caraffa relied upon necessity when he founded that celebrated tribunal whose practices are denounced by you, but upon whose maxims have a care lest you should unconsciously proceed. The sophistications of intolerance are refuted by their inconsistencies. If a Jew can choose, wherefore should he not be chosen? If a Jew can vote for a Christian, why should not a Christian vote for a Jew? Again, the Jew is admissible to the highest municipal employments: a Jew can be high sheriff—in other words, he can empannel the jury by which the first Christian commoner in England may be tried for his life. But if necessity is to be pleaded as a justification
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for the exclusion of the Jew, it must be founded on some great peril which would arise from his admission. What is it you fear? What is the origin of this Hebrewphobia? Do you tremble for the Church? The Church has something perhaps to fear from eight millions of Catholics, and from three millions of Methodists, and more than a million of Scotch seceders. The Church may have some thing to fear from the assault of sectaries from without, and still more to fear from a sort of spurious Popery and the machinations of mitred mutiny from within; but from the Synagogue—the neutral, impartial, apathetic, and unproselytising Synagogue—the Church has nothing to apprehend. But it is said that the House will be unchristianised. The Christianity of the Parliament depends on the Christianity of the country; and the Christianity of the country is fixed in the faith, and inseparably intertwined with the affections of the people. It is as stable as England her self; and as long as Parliament shall endure, while the constitution shall stand, until the great mirror of the nation's mind shall have been shattered to pieces, the religious feelings of the country will be faithfully reflected here. This is a security far better than can be supplied by a test which presents a barrier to an honest Jew, but which a scornful sceptic can so readily and so disdainfully overleap. Reference has been made in the course of these discussions to the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: a name still more illustrative might have been cited. Was not the famous St. John—was not Bolingbroke—the fatally accomplished, the admiration of the admirable—to whom genius paid an almost idolatrous homage, and by whom a sort of fascination was exercised over all those who had the misfortune to approach him—was not the unhappy sceptic, by whom far more mischief to religion and morality must have been done, than could be effected by half a hundred of the men by whom the Old Testament is exclusively received—a Member of this House? Was he stopped by the test that arrests the Jew; or did he not trample upon it, and ascend through this House to a sort of masterdom in England, and become the confidential and favourite adviser of his Sovereign? He was not only an avowed and ostentatious infidel, but he was swayed by a distempered and almost insane solicitude

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for the dissemination of his disastrous disbelief. Is it not, then, preposterous that a man by whom all revealed religion is repudiated—who doubts the immortality of the soul—doubts a future state of rewards and punishments—doubts in a superintending Providence—believes in no thing, fears nothing, and hopes for no thing—without any incentive to virtue, and without any restraint upon depravity, excepting such as a sense of conventional honour, or the promptings of a natural goodness, may have given him—is it not, I say, preposterous, and almost monstrous, that such a man, for whom a crown of deadly nightshade should be woven, should be enabled by playing the imposture of a moment, and uttering a valueless formula at the table of the House, to climb to the pinnacle of power; and that you should slap the doors of this House with indignity upon a conscientious man who adheres to the faith in which he was born and bred—who believes in the great facts that constitute the foundation of Christianity—who believes in the perpetual existence of the nobler portion of our being—who believes in future retribution, and in recompense to come—who believes that the world is taken care of by its al mighty and everlasting Author—who believes in the mercy of God, and practises humanity to man—who fulfils the ten great injunctions in which all morality is com prised—whose ear was never deaf to the supplications of the suffering—whose hand is as open as day to charity—and whose life presents an exemplification of the precepts of the Gospel far more faithful than that of many a man by whom, in the name of the Gospel, his dishonouring and unchristian disabilities are most wantonly, most injuriously, and most opprobriously maintained? But where in the Scripture—in what chapter, in what text, in what single phrase—will you find an authority for resorting to the infliction of temporal penalty, or of temporal privation of any kind, as a means of propagating heavenly truth? You may find an authority, indeed, in the writings of jurists, and of divines, and in the stern theology of those austere and haughty Churchmen by whom the Pharisaical succession, far better than the apostolical, is personally and demonstratively proved. But you will not find it in the New Testament—you will not find it in Matthew, nor in Mark, nor in Luke, nor in John, nor in the epistles of the
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meek and humble men to whom the teaching of all nations was given in charge—above all, you will not find it anything that was ever said, or anything that was ever done, or anything that was ever suffered, by the Divine Author of the Christian religion, who spoke the sermon upon the mountain—who said that the merciful should be blessed—and who, instead of ratifying the anathema which the people of Jerusalem had invoked upon themselves, prayed for forgiveness for those who knew not what they did, in consummating the sacrifice that was offered up for the transgressions of the world. It was not by persecution, but despite of it—despite of imprisonment, and exile, and spoliation, and shame, and death—despite the dungeon, the wheel, the bed of steel, and the couch of fire, that the Christian religion made its irresistible and superhuman way. And is it not repugnant to common reason, as well as to the elementary principles of Christianity itself, to hold that it is to be maintained by means diametrically the reverse of those by which it was propagated and diffused? But, alas! for our frail and fragile nature, no sooner had the professors of Christianity become the co partners of secular authority, than the severities were resorted to which their persecuted predecessors had endured. The Jew was selected as an object of special and peculiar infliction. The history of that most unhappy people is for century after century a trail of chains, and a track of blood. Men of mercy occasionally arose to interpose in their behalf. St. Bernard—the great St. Bernard, the last of the Latin Fathers, with a most pathetic eloquence, took their part. But the light that gleamed from the ancient turrets of the Abbey of Clairvaux, was transitory and evanescent. New centuries of persecution followed: the Reformation did nothing for the Jew. The infallibility of Geneva was sterner than the infallibility of Rome. But all of us—Catholics, Protestants, Calvinists—all of us who have torn the seamless garment into pieces—have sinned most fearfully in this terrible regard. It is, however, some consolation to a Roman Catholic to know that in Roman Catholic countries expiation of this guilt has commenced. In France and in Belgium all civil distinction between the Christian and the Jew is at an end: to this Protestant country a great example will not have been vainly given. There did exist in England a vast

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mass of prejudice upon this question, which is, however, rapidly giving way. London, the point of imperial centralisation, has made a noble manifestation of its will. Lon don has advisedly, deliberately, and with benevolence aforethought, selected the most prominent member of the Jewish community as its representative, and united him with the First Minister of the Crown. Is the Parliament prepared to fling back the Jew upon the people, in order that the people should fling back the Jew upon the Parliament? That will be a dismal game, in the deprecation of whose folly and whose evils the Christian and the statesman should concur. But not only are the disabilities which it is the object of this mea sore to repeal, at variance with genuine Christianity, but I do not hesitate to assert that they operate as impediments to the conversion of the Jews, and are productive of consequences directly the re verse of those for which they were originally designed. Those disabilities are not sufficiently onerous to be compulsory, but they are sufficiently vexatious to make conversion a synonyme with apostacy, and to affix a stigma to an interested conformity with the religion of the State. We have relieved the Jew from the ponderous mass of fetters that bound him by the neck and by the feet; but the lines which we have left, although apparently light, are strong enough to attach him to his creed, and make it a point of honour that he should not desert it. There exists in this country a most laudable anxiety for the conversion of the Jews; meetings are held, and money is largely subscribed for the purpose, but all these creditable endeavours will be ineffectual unless we make a restitution of his birthright to every English man who professes the Jewish religion. I know that there are those who think that there is no such thing as an English, or a French, or a Spanish Jew; a Jew is nothing but a Jew; his nationality, it is said, is en grossed by the land of recollection and of hope, and the house of Jacob must remain for ever in a state of isolation among the strange people by whom it is encompassed. In answer to these sophistries, I appeal to human nature. It is not wonderful that when the Jew was oppressed, and pillaged, and branded—in a captivity worse than Babylonian—he should have felt upon the banks of the Thames, or of the Seine, or of the Danube, as his forefathers felt by the waters of the Euphrates, and that the psalm of exile should, have found an echo
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in his heart. This is not strange: it would have been strange if it had been otherwise; but justice—even partial justice—has already operated a salutary change. In the same measure in which we have relaxed the laws against the Jews, that patriot instinct by which we are taught to love the land of our birth, has been revived. British feeling has al ready taken root in the heart of the Jew, and for its perfect development nothing but perfect justice is required. To the fallacies of fanaticism, give no heed. Emancipate the Jew—from the Statute book of England be the last remnant of intolerance erased for ever—abolish all civil discriminations between the Christian and the Jew—fill his whole heart with the consciousness of country: do this, and we dare be sworn that he will think, and feel, and fear, and hope, as you do: his sorrow and his exultation will be the same: at the tidings of English glory his heart will beat with a kindred palpitation; and when ever there shall be need, in the defence of his Sovereign and of his country, his best blood, at your bidding, will be poured out with the same heroic prodigality as your own.
MR. NEWDEGATEwas most anxious to meet the wishes of the House, and should therefore, with the leave of the House, withdraw his Amendment. He had a deep impression upon the subject which was then under the consideration of the House. A Christian nation was asked to cast aside every religious consideration—every consideration of Christianity—in order to admit the Jews, who repudiated Christianity, to legislate for that Christian nation. And he must express his surprise that the right hon. Gentleman should have compared the feeling against this measure to that which was excited against the mea sure of 1829. He could not but express his surprise at hearing a member of a Church professing to be the most exclusively Christian desiring to cast aside every consideration connected with Christianity, in order to admit those who were the most opposed to that religion. There was but one solution of this anomaly, and that had been given by the noble Member for Arundel, in justification of his supporting the introduction of the mea sure before the House. The noble Lord declared that he was for breaking down all the legal enactments which had been reared for the defence of the Church, well knowing that when these were removed, infi-

279
delity would rush in, and for a time cover (as he expressed it) large districts of the country; but that in the end Christianity would triumph, and that, profiting by the recoil from infidelity, the Roman Church would gather the people of this country within her rigid fold. Now, these anticipations might in some degree account for the support given to this measure by the noble Lord, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sheil), and other Roman Catholics; but they certainly justified the opposition to it which he and other members of the Church of England persevered in. But another circumstance deserved to be marked. Roman Catholic Members, who had last addressed the House in support of this measure, the hon. Member for Ennis on a former occasion, the right hon. Master of the Mint on the present occasion, had in succession warned the House to yield this measure, lest it be compelled to do so hereafter by external force. Was it then the sweet re-collection of the Clare election that caused the right hon. Gentleman to compare this measure to that of 1829? They had seen their table heaped with petitions in favour of the Jews; but did the House know how those petitions had originated? They had lately heard strange stories with regard to the City election; and it had lately come to his knowledge that the wealth of the hon. Gentleman who had been elected had been brought to bear even upon the framing of petitions to this House. It had come to his knowledge that individuals had been employed to obtain signatures in the suburbs of this metropolis; first, at the rate of 1s. 6d. per hundred signatures, but that would not do; next, at the rate of 3s. per hundred, still that would not do; till at last the petitions were filled up at the rate of 5s. per hundred. He would not willingly believe that such things could have occurred, even among the very lowest of our population; but he thought he was bound to mention them, in. order to show that this transparent semblance of the popular feeling had been obtained at the rate of 5s. for 100 signatures. He begged to submit this consideration to hon. Members who professed popular principles, that it was an insult to the Christianity of the great majority of the people, if they attempted to remove the Christian character of the House. The great majority of the people of this country were Christians, and the great majority had a right to establish and
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maintain the character of the representative assembly in accordance with their religious opinions. He had heard some vague anticipations expressed by the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, that he hoped by a closer contact with the Jews in this House they might be converted. It was passing strange that the right hon. Gentleman, himself a member of the most exclusive Church that the world had ever seen, should suppose that by admitting the Jews to this House any serious impression would be made upon them. What were the laws, what was the nature of the religious code, by which this people were governed? Why, they were as exclusive as the religion the right hon. Gentleman professed. These laws were embodied in the Mishna and the Talmud; the Mishna was the embodiment of the traditionary or oral law of the Jews, compiled by Rabbi Judah 200 years after the Christian era? Why, because at that time many Christians practised circumcision and other Jewish rites, so that by the law of Moses the Christian could not be distinguished from the Jews, and the Mishna was compiled to keep the Jews separate from Christians. The Talmud was written for the same purpose, when, in the days of Constantine, Christianity prevailed in the Roman empire; again the Jews adopted a code in the Talmud to keep themselves a separate people. Could it be wondered at that they wished to separate themselves, when we remember that they believe all to be promised to them exclusively by the decrees of Providence? What were the facts in the modern history of the Jews? When they first appeared in this country after their banishment by Edward I., we find them in treaty with the Rump Parliament, about two years after the murder of the king, for the purchase of the Bodleian Library, and of St. Paul's, which they proposed to convert into a synagogue. They offered 500,000 l.; the Parliament asked 800,000 l., which the Jews would not or could not give; and so the negotiation was broken off. The National Assembly of France, in 1791, about two years before the execution of the King of France, considered their claims. The National Assembly granted their prayer, and allowed them the privileges of citizens on taking the oaths to the State. They received this with joy; but when Napoleon, some years after wards, collected them together again, and allowed them to be governed by their own laws, and their own officers, they ac-

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cepted this decree with exultation and delight. Who then should tell him that a feeling of nationality did not pervade the Jews—that they had forgotten that they were a separate nation? Were Members of that as yet Christian House to erase from their memories the whole history of the Jewish nation? Were they to forget that for 1,500 years the Jews were the chosen people of God, and that for 1,800 years they have been scattered over all the nations of the earth? Were they to be deaf to the decrees of Providence, that, because the Jews knew not the time of their visitation, they should be scattered throughout the nations of the earth; that, because they would not accept Christ as their true King, therefore God in his providence had decreed that they were unfit to legislate for themselves?—Were they, the representatives of a Christian people, to set at naught the truths of pro phecy—were they to be blind to the fulfilment of the decrees of Providence—were they to pass by unnoticed those great manifestations of divine justice—were they in their weakness to call upon a people to legislate for them whom God had pronounced to be unfit to legislate for them selves—and, in defiance of every conviction which such considerations must pro duce in their minds, were they to adopt the doubtful system of a double conscience, holding that religion was to guide a man in his home, in his household, in his private actions, but that when he approached this House he should prepare himself to enter and act with an assembly which had cast off Christianity as its characteristic, and whose acts were supposed to coincide with that repudiation? Was this abandonment of principle in accordance with their general policy? From day to day they heard Members of the House extolling the principle of free imports; to that they yielded up their colonies, and now they were called upon to yield up Christianity as the principle which should avowedly guide the decisions of the Legislature; and in favour of what principle were they so to yield up the guidance of religion? What was the principle which required such sacrifices? Why, it was no principle at all, but merely a system which was called progress. He wished to ask Her Majesty's Government, who talked so much of progress, whither they were going? To what bourn they were tending? One, however, after another of principles and institutions which were formerly deemed essential to the
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State, was struck down, and he wished to know where they were to end? To that question he had never heard an answer given. In answer to those who charged him with intolerance, he wished to show that the bounds of the constitution, as included in the term Christian, were not narrow. According to Hooker, the Church and the State were one; and, according to the principles which were now acted upon, all who were baptised were members of the visible Church; and according to the constitution as it stood, with the small exception of some few Jews and other infidels, the limits of the State were identical with those of the Church. Let them look to what constituted the visible Church. In the elaborate works of Hooker it was stated that—
"As for those virtues that belong to moral righteousness and honesty of life, we do not mention them because they are not proper unto Christian men as they are Christian, but do concern them as they are men. True it is, the want of these virtues excludeth from salvation. So doth much more the absence of inward belief of heart; so doth despair and lack of hope; so emptiness of Christian love and charity. But we speak now of the visible Church, whose children are signed with the mark 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism.' In whomsoever these things are, the Church doth acknowledge them for her children—them only she holdeth for aliens and strangers in whom these things are not found. For want of these it is that Saracens, Jews, and infidels, are excluded out of the hounds of the Church. Others we may not deny to be of the visible Church as long as these things are not wanting in them. For apparent it is, all men are of necessity either Christians or not Christians. If by external profession they be Christians, then they are of the visible Church of Christ; and Christians by external profession they are all whose mark of recognisance hath in it those things which we have mentioned. Yea, although they be impious idolators, wicked heretics, persons excommunicable—yea, and cast out for notorious improbity. Such we deny not to be imps and limbs of Satan, even as long as they continue such. Is it possible, then, that the soil-same men should belong both to the synagogue of Satan and to the Church of Jesus Christ?—unto that Church which is his mystical body? Not possible; because that body consisteth of none but only true Israelites—true sons of Abraham—true servants and saints of God. Howbeit. of the visible body and Church of Jesus Christ those may be, and oftentimes are, in respect of the main parts of their outward profession, who, in regard of their inward disposition of mind—yea, of external conversation—yea, even of some part of their very profession, are most worthily hateful in the sight of God himself, and in the eyes of the sounder part of the visible Church most execrable."
He said, then, that unless there were to be no limits at all—unless they were to receive avowed infidels, he could not

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conceive a wider or more liberal definition than was now allowed to constitute a title of admission to this House. Such were the soundest opinions of the soundest divine as to the bounds of the visible Church. If he understood the constitution, it was this—that the State had only the right to inquire who was, or who was not, of the visible Church, and that as in ecclesiastical matters the power of the State was limited to questions of outer discipline and appointment, so the religious qualifications of the State were confined to what he had shown to be the limitation of the visible Church, or as it was termed, the "forum exterius;" and, that, far from being in danger of following the Inquisition, as the right hon. Master of the Mint would have them apprehend, in its interference with matters of conscience and inward belief, the "forum interius" as it was termed, into questions which admittedly were not its province, the constitution limited itself to the wise acceptation of Christian profession. It was a dangerous and unfounded novelty this crying out that the constitution was founded on bigotry and intolerance, and he warned the House against yielding to it the best interests of the State and of Religion.
Debate adjourned.
House adjourned at half-past Twelve o'clock.

MINUTES.
Took the Oaths.—Several Lords.
Sat first.—The Bishop of Manchester.
PUBLIC BILLS—1a Clergy Offences; Diplomatic Relations with the Court of Rome; Audit of Railway Accounts.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Grand Protestant Associations of Loyal Orangemen, of several places, against the Admission of Jews into Parliament.—By Lord Campbell, from Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of various places, that the Provisions of the Benefit Societies Act may be extended to them in common with other Benefit Societies.—From Justices of the Peace, and others, of Forfar, for the Repeal of the Bank Charter Act, and Scottish Currency Act.—By the Earl of Eglintoun, from Provost and Town Council of Glasgow, against Alteration of the Navigation Laws.—By Earl Fitzwilliam, from English Presbyterians of Dukenfield (Cheshire), for the Removal of Jewish Disabilities From Northampton, for Alteration of the Municipal Corporations Acts.—From Clerks, Masters, and Matrons of Workhouss, and others connected with the Adminisstration of the Laws relating to the Relief of the Poor in England and Wales, for a Superannuation Fund for Poor Law Officers.—From the Borough of Northampton, that the Privilege from Arrest now possessed by Members of Parliament may be abrogated.—By Lord Canning, from Committee of West India Planters and Merchants, and others (several petitions), for Consideration of the West India Colonies.

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH THE COURT OF ROME BILL.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEsaid, that in the exercise of the privilege which had always belonged to Members of that House, he proposed that evening to lay upon the table a Bill, and to move that it be read a first time. He hoped that they would permit him to dispense with any notice on the subject, and not require him on that occasion to enter into any lengthened statement. The object of the Bill which he intended to bring in was to enable Her Majesty's Government to open and carry on Diplomatic Relations with the Court of Rome. The Bill, which was very short, would be printed, and in the hands of every noble Lord to-morrow, and he hoped their Lordships would not object to give it a second reading on Friday. The noble Marquess concluded by presenting the Bill, and moving that it be read 1a.
LORD STANLEYconceived that the measure proposed by the noble Marquess ought to contain such guards and restrictions as would satisfy the reasonable scruples entertained by the great body of the people of this country: assuming the policy on which this Bill was founded to be in the highest degree expedient and desirable, he still should say that such a measure ought not to be allowed to proceed with precipitancy. It was directly contrary to what were understood to be established principles, that the Sovereign of a free Protestant country should hold any sort of intercourse with the temporal Head of the Church of Rome. The question was one of great difficulty, and one respecting which there was great danger of misrepresentation; and he confessed it appeared to him a very rapid course of proceeding that such a Bill, introduced on a Monday, should be read a second time on the following Friday. He wished to know whether there was any reason for this haste and precipitancy—any urgent necessity for such a departure from the ordinary course of proceeding? He trusted that the noble Marquess would reconsider his proposition, and permit the ordinary interval of a week to elapse between the one stage and the other of his intended measure.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEreplied, that he felt no desire for an undue precipitancy in such a case as the present; at the same time he should be permitted to observe, that the question did not come before the House as a perfect novelty; on the contrary, he and other Members of
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that House had gone into its discussion on several previous occasions, and had expressed decided opinions on the matter. He considered that fixing the second reading for Friday next was not demanding any very great facility; there were no great difficulties in legislating on the subject; the Bill was a very short Bill, and would not require any extraordinary time for its discussion. To-morrow, when the Bill came before them, they would be better able to judge how soon they ought to proceed to its discussion.
The DUKE of RICHMONDhoped Her Majesty's Ministers would not fix such an early day for the second reading. The question was one of immense importance, and the Bill ought, therefore, to be well considered. He believed that not any part of the people of Scotland were aware that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to bring in such a Bill. For himself he could say, until that moment he had no idea that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Ministers to bring in such a Bill. It was a Bill which the greater part of the people of England would think offered violation to their religious feelings.
EARL FITZWILLIAMdid not think that the Bill could be characterised as offering any violation to the religious feelings of the people of England. If he understood his noble Friend's Motion correctly, it was to obtain leave to introduce a Bill for the purpose of allowing Her Majesty to establish a direct diplomatic correspondence with the Potentate who held sway over the Italian States. He could not think so ill of the mass of the people of England as a nation, notwithstanding what might be said to the contrary, to suppose that they would conceive their religious prejudices were interfered with in this matter. Every one who knew the state of Europe, and especially of Italy, at this time, was of opinion that it was desirable that diplomatic relations with one of the most important rulers of the Italian States should no longer be interrupted. He hoped, therefore, his noble Friend would fix an early period for the second reading of the Bill.
The EARL of EGLINTOUNsaid, nine tenths of the people would be taken by surprise, as he had been, by this Bill. He must beg leave to say, as far as that part of the United Kingdom was concerned with which he was intimately connected, it was morally impossible that the people of Scotland could have time to look over the

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Bill before the second reading had taken place. He trusted that Her Majesty's Ministers would pay some regard to the situation of that distant part of the United Kingdom, and consent to postpone the second reading to a later period.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEwould name as distant a day as possible. The Bill was to establish direct relations with the temporal Sovereign of the Court of Rome, the absence of which power had hitherto been felt to be a great inconvenience.
Bill read 1a.

THE WEST INDIES.
LORD STANLEYsaid: My Lords, four petitions have been placed in my hands; and I think it will be the course most convenient to the House that I should, in presenting those petitions, not only lay before your Lordships the statements which they contain, but endeavour, at the same time, to bring some other circumstances connected with the subject under your notice. I am desirous of stating as fully as I can the state of the West Indies, and the condition of the sugar trade—the alarming condition of both—and the remedies which the parties interested suggest for the relief of the evils under which they suffer. I will state those remedies; and I think it further my duty to state the extent to which I concur with the petitioners, so far, at least, as I have been able to form any opinion. The first of these petitions is from the members of the West India Association at Liverpool; and that petition does, to a certain extent, exhibit the reasonings and the statements contained in the other petitions. All the petitioners concur in representing the state of the sugar trade as most depressed and alarming; and they all concur in representing this state of things as induced by the acts and policy of the British Government, more especially by the operation of the Bill of 1846, admitting the importation of foreign slave-grown sugar into this country in competition with the free-labour sugar of our colonies. The Liverpool Association conclude by a statement that the ruin of which the petitioners complain, is now in active progress; and, unless relief be speedily afforded, there is every reason to apprehend that that ruin will soon be finally consumated. The petitioners impute much of the sufferings and difficulties under which the colonies now labour, to the inconsistent course of legis-
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lation by Parliament; and that, in consequence, the petitioners were utterly at a loss to know what course to pursue. They threw themselves on the consideration of Parliament, and implored their Lordships at the earliest period to let them know what measures were in contemplation with reference to the colonial possessions in the West Indies. They said, if it was determined to persevere in the course Government had been advised to adopt, that they hoped, in mercy to them, Government would let them know their fate at once, and say whether it was their determination to pass an irrevocable sentence by which the British colonies were to cease to produce free-labour sugar; and that hence-forward this great necessary of life was to be obtained from the produce of slave labour. Such a course would, in their opinion, inflict a less severe blow on their interests than the protracted agony of inconsistent legislation. I concur for the most part in the allegations of the petitioners; I doubt not that most men would do so who looked into the details and documents with which I have been furnished; and it is my settled conviction that any man who looks into the subject will agree with me that the state of the West India colonies is most embarrassing and alarming. I concur with the petitioners in the belief that the unfortunate state of these colonies has been brought on by the legislation of Parliament; and I concur with the petitioners when they say, that, having surmounted a great difficulty, cast on them by the Legislature—of which difficulty I should be the last to complain—but after they had overcome this difficulty, and had the greatest reason to rely on the continuance of protection from the British Legislature—at that moment, when they believed the extent of their trials was known, and the extent of their difficulties ascertained—at that moment, when they received the greatest amount of encouragement, when they had been induced to embark yet larger amounts of capital upon the good faith of British legislation, there came a sudden change in the course of that legislation, which in the highest degree aggravated the evils by which they were surrounded. That is a case which the West Indian interest can substantiate—of that they demand remedy and redress. I propose to state their case, and to substantiate it. On such a question I hope to be permitted to enter a little more at length into the evidence, for I feel that this is a question

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of vital importance. With regard to the allegations of the petitioners as to the present state of the West Indian colonies, I feel it is hardly necessary to trouble your Lordships with any statements in proof of their accuracy. The West Indian Committee have sufficiently proved that the condition of the colonies is the effect of past legislation. All classes are embarrassed—the merchant and planter find themselves in similar difficulties. Bach feels reluctant to abandon his property, and yet all feel, under the present wasting conflict, unless some remedies are proposed, that ruin would be the result. That, my Lords, is a general statement made by persons perfectly competent to give it on this subject. But, my Lords, it may be possible that individual cases may have more weight with your Lordships, and give you a better idea of the distress that exists at this moment in the West Indies, than any form of general allegation which I could adduce. And, my Lords, I hope I may be permitted on the present occasion to read a statement which I hold in my hand to your Lordships, in reference to an individual case of this description. It is made by a gentleman of the highest respectability, now resident in this country, and ready to substantiate it, if necessary. The noble Lord then proceeded to read the statement in question, which was to this effect:—
"My estates descended to me from my father, and have been in our possession upwards of seventy years: thirty-two of these years they have belonged to me, and I have great experience of their capabilities. My nephew, the eldest son of the family, has for many years resided on the properties, with his wife, and manages them most ably. The estates are situated in the most fertile part of the east coast of Demerara, and the land yields more than 1½hhd. of sugar per acre. They are free from mortgage. They have the finest machinery both for the drainage of the lands and for manufacture of sugar, and have three steam engines at work upon them. They have a fine people residing upon them, who, from being partners in the profits of the estates, and from long attachment to the family, work willingly and steadily. The weather this last year has been most propitious to the cultivation, and the land has yielded well. The one estate has produced 500 hogsheads of sugar, and 250 puncheons of rum. The other estate 400 hogsheads of sugar, and 200 puncheons of rum. The hogsheads on both estates are what are called heavy hogsheads, averaging a ton weight gross, or 1,600 cwt. net. From the 1st January to the 1st July, 1847, the prices of sugar ranged from 21 l. to 18 l. per hogshead; from 1st July, 1847, to 1st January, 1848, they ranged from 13 l. to 11 l.per hogshead, the last price I received being 11 l. 14 s. per hogshead. By the periods named you will perceive that the great drop
174
in the price of sugar took place simultaneously with the admission of slave-grown sugar, and previous to the monetary crisis. In the extract I send you from my account book, I give you the current expenses alone, and omit all casualties, although they ought to be considered, as each year there are some:—

PLANTATION, NO. 1.

500 hhds. Sugar

£6272

9

11

250 puns, rum

3250

0

0

£ 9522

9

11

Disbursements of estate in labour, stores, and colonial expenses

£ 11,000

0

0

Showing a loss to the estate of

£1478

0

0

PLANTATION, NO. 2.

400 hhds. Sugar

£5550

7

5

200 puns, rum

2600

0

0

£8150

7

5

Disbursements of estate for stores, labour, and colonial expenses

£8407

0

0

Showing a loss to the estate of

£256

12

7"

The difference (proceeded the noble Lord) he accounts for, by stating that the sugar raised upon the one was sold by previous engagement, made before the period at which the Legislature had lowered the duty, and along with it the price of sugar in this country: the other was sold at the current rates. My Lords, that is the statement of an individual case, and I have been assured this morning by a gentleman connected with the West Indies, that neither in Demerara, Jamaica, nor Trinidad, the great sugar-producing colonies, is it possible to raise 1,000 l. on the security of any property situate there. That is the state in which the West Indian proprietors represent themselves as being placed; and this they attribute to your legislation. My Lords, I must, with your permission, to do justice to my case, go back to a period somewhat earlier than the present; and I hope I may be forgiven, if, with the recollection of the part I took in the settlement of the slavery question, I am anxious to place the state of the West Indies, before and subsequent to the Emancipation Act of 1833, before your Lordships on this occasion. The Act of 1833 declared the utter and entire abolition of slavery at the end of a certain period. That Act was accompanied, my Lords, by a grant, magnificent in amount, as far as the sacrifices made by this country were concerned—a grant which, inasmuch as it was entirely consistent with the claims of justice, policy,

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and humanity, I shall never be ashamed of having submitted to Parliament; and I am proud that Parliament was induced to consent to it, since thereby that great act of humanity was not stained by a corresponding act of injustice. But, my Lords, great as the sum of 20,000,000 l., the amount of that grant, was—great and unanimous as was the sacrifice made by this nation to justice, to policy, and to humanity, on that occasion—and I look upon it as the greatest pecuniary sacrifice ever made by any commercial nation to humanity and justice—formed, after all, but an inadequate compensation for the vast amount of injury inflicted by its operation upon the West Indian planters. And, my Lords, nothing can be more unjust and unfounded than the allegations which have been made by certain parties not conversant with the circumstances of the case, that by this grant of 20,000,000 l. the claims of the West Indian proprietors upon this country were totally extinguished, and their case, as regards all further consideration, closed. Let me remind you that when that Bill was first introduced to Parliament, it was the intention of His Majesty's Government on the occasion to give 15,000,000 l.,which was subsequently increased to 20,000,000 l., for the purpose of pecuniary compensation to the planters, together with a period termed apprenticeship, but in reality modified slavery, for twelve years—I may speak of apprenticeship now in these terms, because the prejudice that then existed exists no longer; and I may describe it as what it actually was—modified slavery—I mean so far modified slavery as this, that a portion of compulsory labour was given to the masters during that period, and that they had a right to a certain amount of the services of the negro. It had been intended to accompany the grant, as I have stated, with a premium of twelve years' modified slavery; and this was the modification proposed. It was proposed that the negro should work three-fourths of the day, or seven hours, for his master; the other fourth being reserved for himself, in which to earn, by his independent labour, the means of purchasing at an earlier period his own manumission, if he chose to effect it. And, my Lords, I believe it would have been to the advantage of the negro himself, as well as to that of the West Indies, if that proposition had been adopted; because while it would have lessened the loss to the planter, by its gradual charac-
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ter, it would have promoted in the negro those habits of industry and self-reliance, without which no population is important to a country. But a different conclusion was come to by the House of Commons on the subject. The House of Commons determined that the negro should contribute nothing towards his own liberation; and it then proceeded to reduce the twelve years of apprenticeship to seven years' duration. It has been said that the 20,000,000 l. given on that occasion were as a compensation for that period of time, as well as for the redemption of slavery; but those who remember the debates will remember that the apprenticeship period was held to be practically as much a portion of compensation as the sum in question. In that form the Act was passed. Subsequently, however, it was determined by Parliament that even the limited period of apprenticeship, fixed under its provisions, should not be permitted to expire naturally; and by a certain degree of compulsion on the West Indian proprietors, it was put an end to in August, 1838, though it should have continued in the ordinary course of things until August, 1840. During this period of anxious discussion on the subject, if there was one point more clearly laid down and assented to than another, it was this—that one great object of the abolition of slavery would be frustrated if there should be a cessation of the manufacture of sugar in the British West India colonies. It was never conceived possible by the West Indian interest, that after taking away from the proprietors of the West Indies the benefit and advantages of slave labour, you would now proceed to place them on the same footing, as free-labour colonies, with colonies where slave labour is permitted, and then say that they have had compensation. Nay, more, it was over and over again urged in the course of these discussions, that though the production of sugar under the free-labour system might be comparatively limited, still that the monopoly of the English market, which the proprietors of West India estates would have, would make good that deficiency to them by the increased price of the production in the market. I do not wish to trouble the House with many figures, but I shall now, with the permission of your Lordships, read from a statement which I hold in my hand—a statement of the production of the West Indies previous to emancipation; also during the period of ap-

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prenticeship; and, finally, since the establishment of the system of free labour in those colonies. My noble Friend on the other side of the House, in reference to these facts, is stated to have said that the worst result of the present condition of things in the West Indies would be, that they might cease to be sugar-producing colonies. I cannot, however, I confess, look upon the possibility of such a contingency as that occurrence contemplates with the same calm philosophy as my noble Friend. This, my Lords, is a statement of the amount of sugar produced in the West Indies antecedent to the Emancipation Act—that is to say, from 1815 to 1832 inclusive. And this is the point which I wish to impress upon your Lordships' minds in connexion with it—namely, that until the Emancipation Act passed, the West Indies produced a larger quantity of sugar than was consumed in this country; and that, therefore, there was no monopoly, because the surplus sold in the continental market regulated the price of the supply in this country. That which is true of the whole period in this return is true of each single year of that period; and, my Lords, there is no year of that period in which the production of the colonies did not exceed the entire amount of sugar consumed in this country. In these eighteen years 67,707,430 cwts. of sugar were produced in the West Indies, while the consumption amounted to 57,426,679 cwts. The yearly average produce 3,761,511 cwts.; the yearly average consumption 3,281,011 cwts. The highest produce in any year was 4,313,430 cwts.; the lowest was 3,435,061 cwts. The average, as I have already stated was 3,761,511 cwts. The highest consumption was 3,781,011 cwts.; the lowest was 1,726,896 cwts.; and the average was 3,212,593 cwts., showing a gross excess of 10,280,522 cwts.; and an average excess of 573,462 cwts. of supply over demand. From 1833 to 1838 was the period of apprenticeship, and in those years the produce and consumption bore the following relation:—

Gross produce

13,951,137 cwts.

Gross consumption

19,209,436 cwts.

Average produce

3,487,784 cwts.

Average consumption

3,802,709 cwts.

Therefore, instead of a surplus of production over consumption, there was a gross deficiency of 1,258,298 cwts., and an average deficiency of 314,575 cwts. I shall now come to the operation of the free-labour system—that is to say, to the
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effect of the five years from 1839 to 1843 inclusive. In the first year the fall in the quantity of produce was from 3,521,434 cwts. to 2,823,931 cwts. In the next year it fell to 2,202,833 cwts.; and the year after it fell to 2,148,218 cwts. In the time of slavery, your Lordships will bear in mind that the average produce was 3,761,511 cwts., and in the period of apprenticeship 3,487,784; while in that of free-labour it was only 2,438,681 cwts. It did so happen that during the twelve years subsequent to emancipation in the West Indies, compared with the twelve years previous, there had been an increase in the price of sugar, which indemnified to some extent the West India planter for the reduction in the amount of produce. From 1823 to 1834 the average price was 29 s. 5d. per cwt., while from 1835 to 1847 it was 38 s. This difference made up in a great degree for the diminished production to the West Indies as a body, but not to the West India proprietor; for not only was the production of sugar on his estates diminished, but the price of labour to him has been extraordinarily increased. The difference went from the pockets of the planter to those of the labourer in this instance; and if there be a population on the face of the earth in a state of greater comfort than another, it is the negro peasantry of the West Indies—and I may say, in passing, that as far as moral conduct and good behaviour are concerned, none better deserve it. I saw a letter addressed to a noble Friend of mine, this day, stating the cost of production at different periods, from 1830 to 1846, inclusive, and it was as follows:—From 1830 to 1834, it was 4s. 5d. per cwt.; from 1834 to 1838, which was the period of apprenticeship, it was 6s. 7d.; from 1838 to 1842, it was 16 s. 11 d.; and from 1842 to 1846, it was 21 s. 7d. The petition that I have presented to your Lordships, coupled with this information, leads me to conclude that from 20 s. to 22 s. per cwt. is not far from the average expense of the production of sugar in the West Indies at this moment. The petition from Trelawney states 20 s., exclusive of freight and other charges—of which 13 s. 4d. go to the labourers, while the remainder, viz., 6s. 8d., is all that is left to the planter to meet the disbursements of the estate. I have made those statements, my Lords, for the purpose of showing your Lordships that at a very early period of that legislation for these colonies—especially that period in which slavery was abolished, an act in

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which I concur and rejoice—the Legislature of this country imposed grave practical difficulties and obstructions in the way of the sugar-planters of the West Indies; and I insist that for this reason they have now a distinct claim upon the consideration of Parliament. Not withstanding, however, these difficulties—notwithstanding the increased expense of cultivation, the proprietors of estates in our West Indian colonies did not absolutely despair of receiving compensation for their outlay in consequence of free labour, because they relied upon the solemn assurance of the Parliament that protection should be afforded them. They had seen East Indian sugar introduced into this country on the same footing as the produce of the West Indies; they had also seen Mauritius sugar brought in on the same footing; but still they only desired that you, having crippled their right hand, as it were, by taking away from them the benefits of slave labour, should give them that amount of protection which was necessary to secure them against the competition of slave-grown sugar. They had no reason to believe that Parliament did not intend to afford them protection against all competition up to 1840, although in that year the highest price that had been obtained for sugar—viz., 48 s. 2d., became the subject of discussion. On that occasion the Parliament, acting under the instigation of the then Prime Minister of the Crown, refused to entertain a Motion made by one of the ordinary supporters of the Government, and declared that, in honour and justice, it was bound to maintain the existing protection to the West Indies. Even at that time the noble Lord at the head of the Colonies decided to continue that protection. The House of Commons, however, declared that they would not admit slave-grown sugar for home consumption, in competition with the produce of free labour in own colonies; and a general election was the consequence, in which that declaration was sanctioned by the vote of a large majority of the people of this country. I ask whether, under these circumstances, the West Indian proprietors were not bound to have confidence, and consider themselves safe in extending their operations—to have reliance on the good faith of Parliament to protect them from foreign competition? Under such circumstances has not the British merchant a right to rely that he might safely invest capital upon consignments of the produce of that soil to which procection had been
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thus solemnly guaranteed? Therefore, my Lords in the year 1845, it was thought expedient—and I concurred in the vote—at once to reduce the amount of duty chargeable upon the produce of our own colonies, thereby to stimulate the consumption of it; and it was also deemed advisable to permit competition with those countries against which it could not be alleged that they had the advantage of possessing slave labour. There was some modification of the Bill of 1844 introduced in 1845, and that strengthens my case; because, as in 1844, so in 1845, when the measure was brought under the deliberation of Parliament, with a view to an alteration of the law, the principle was laid down that slave-grown sugar should be prohibited from being introduced into this country; or, at least, put upon such a footing with regard to duties as to operate in effect as a prohibition. My Lords, these were the circumstances under which your planters were encouraged to increase their operations, the colonies to incur enormous expenses with a view to the immigration of free labour, and the inexhaustible resources of the East Indies thrown open—all with the same object alike—viz., to contribute the increased quantity which was necessary to meet the consumption of this country. Thus it was that the merchant thought he might place reliance on the faith of Parliament for the security of his advances, without which the cultivation of sugar could not be carried on; and it was under these circumstances that by the sudden and rapid change of policy in 1846, not only was slave-labour sugar introduced into competition with British free-labour sugar, but also released from that discriminating differential duty which in 1840 the same Minister had deemed to be expedient and indispensable for the protection of the colonies. Instead of the discriminating duty of 12 s., there was imposed one only of 7s., which was to be diminished year by year, until after the lapse of six years, when it placed the slaveholding countries of Cuba and Brazil upon precisely the same footing as our own colonies, with this exception, that Cuba and Brazil have an unlimited supply of that efficient labour which you say your own colonies shall not have. The Act of 1846, then, is in effect a bounty given to slavery; and at the same time that you thus hold out an invitation and encouragement to slavery, you squander the lives and waste the energies of your seamen upon the pestilential coast of Africa,

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in vain attempts to suppress the slave trade—attempts which you yourselves admit to be most unsuccessful—nay, so utterly and hopelessly unsuccessful, that the evil intended to be put down, has, through them, become every day more and more aggravated. You go to all this expense—this outlay of life and money—for the purpose of putting down the African coast slave trade, while at the same time you are, by your unwise legislation, putting millions into the pockets of the slaveowners, of Cuba and Brazil wherewith to foster that same trade. Now, mark what has been the consequence:—In 1835, you introduced a supply from the East Indies and the Mauritius, which in the case of the latter has, under your encouragement, increased its production to an amount, last year, exceeding by 60,000 tons the produce of the former period. But, in the case of India, the increase is still more remarkable, and these are pretty nearly the results. The total exports from India in the year 1834–5 were of the value of 1,526,475 l., while in 1846–7 they were 4,459,422 l.; showing an increase of 2,932,947 l. Of these the exports in 1834–5, of sugar, were of the value of 134,226 l., while in 1846–7 they amounted to 1,690,032 l.;thus showing that under your system of encouragement the increase of export in that single article of sugar amounted to 1,555,805 l.—an amount exceeding the total exports of all descriptions from India in 1834–5. That was the progress which had been made in the cultivation of sugar in India at the period of your last change; and at present sugar is almost the only article of great produce in India which is made by ryots themselves, and upon their own grounds. It is a produce capable of indefinite extension, provided there be a certain price for it in the British market. But the moment that price falls below that certain amount, immediately the supply from India was cut off, for the simple reason, that unless the price in England exceeded, in a certain ratio, the price offered in the markets of India, the population there retained and consumed all the sugar themselves. Thus, for instance, if in Calcutta the price was 22 s. the sugar would come to this country; but if in this country the price fell below that, and only 20 s. could be obtained in the Calcutta market, the export would cease, and then not only was there the loss of these large remittances from India, but there was a loss of freight to the mercan-
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tile navy usually engaged in the trade, and, in addition, a great market was utterly closed to our manufacturers at home. This point is an important one. Now, let me call your Lordships' attention to this last point on which I have touched. I have stated the increase of sugar exports from India to this country. Is it unaccompanied by corresponding benefits to the British manufacturer? The total exports to India in the year 1834–5 amounted to 1,574,182 l.; in 1846–7 they amounted to 4,241,072 l.;; increase 2,666,690 l. And in what way was that increase brought about? The advocates of free trade were urging on your Lordships in the course of that policy, and your Lordships will now see the result. My Lords, of the 1,574,182 l. imported into India in 1834–5, the value of the cotton manufactures was 735,687 l.; while of the 4,241,072 l. imported in 1846–7, the cotton manufactures amounted to 3,087,135 l.; showing an increase in the import of British manufactures into India during those ten years of the value of 2,351,447 l. Thus while the increase of the total imports into India in that period amounted to 2,666,690 l., the cotton manufactures alone amounted to 2,351,447 l. I am, therefore, my Lords, justified in saying that the continuance of the supply of sugar from our East Indian possessions is an object of deep importance to the general interests of the country, and to the manufacturing, mercantile, and maritime interests of the empire. But while these results have been produced under your encouragement—and your own merchants and colonists, your fellow-countrymen, have exerted themselves to the utmost in applying their skill and capital to an amount beyond what was oven prudent under the circumstances, in the hope that having secured the British market they would be enabled to supply an infinitely larger amount of sugar than before—what has been the consequence of your sudden change of policy, without any previous notice or indication of it? Why, the consequence has been that this large importation of sugar has only led, in their case, to ruinous losses on the part of both merchants and planters, and to the bankruptcy of your colonies; 500,000 cwts. of sugar were imported from the British colonies last year, and the price was generally 37 s. This year the price has been as low as 21 s., and now it is 23 s. This fall of price, I do not hesitate to say, is the direct result of your legislation of 1846. But although there has been a fall with us

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of from 10 s. to 12 s. per cwt., in the market of Cuba, there has been no fall at all, but rather an actual rise in price. The price of sugar as between the Cuban and British West Indian proprietor has risen 35 per cent in favour of the former upon the cost of the article. There was a great deal said of the gain to the manufacturers by the large exports to Asia; and, according to their own theory, the result ought to have been the same to the Brazils and to Cuba. But no such thing has happened. Let the experience of the sixteen months previous to September, 1846, and of the sixteen months subsequent be tested, and how did the account stand? To Brazil, Cuba, and Porto Rico, in the first period, the exports had been 2,308,000 l., and in the second 2,477,000 l.; thus, while they measured the exports to Asia by the million, the increase to the slave-labour countries amounted only to just 169,000 l. upon the aggregate sum of 2,500,000 l. In the meantime, what have been the exports to your own colonies during the same periods? I find in the first period of sixteen months, our exports to India, Mauritius, and the British West Indies, were of the value of 5,479,855 l.; while in the second period they were 4,140,629 l., being a decrease of 1,339,224 l. to set against the increase to Cuba, Porto Rico, and Brazil, of 168,082 l., which leaves an actual loss of trade on balance of 1,171,142 l. I think, then, my Lords, I have established a case to show that our sugar-growing colonies have been and are still subjected to injurious legislation at our hands; but that the great and crying evil under which they have been labouring, and under which they must continue to labour, until they finally sink beneath it, is the flagrant injustice, by the Act of 1846, of the introduction of slave-grown sugar. The petitioners in their prayer re quest the mitigation of this evil; and although there is some difference in the nature of their demands, they all concur in requesting an abundant supply of free labour by immigration from Africa; the equalisation of the duties on rum and spirits; the admission of molasses into breweries and distilleries; and the remission of the duty at present existing upon British colonial sugar admitted into this country. The petitioners from Demerara also ask a loan for the purpose of thorough draining; and the petitioners from Jamaica demand the repeal of the navigation laws. I cannot see what advantage the people of Jamaica can derive from the repeal of
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those laws, while I perceive much injury to this country from the adoption of such a measure; and I cannot here but observe, if every important interest of the country is to succumb one after another—if the agricultural interest, the West Indian interest, and, lastly, the maritime interest of this country are all to be abandoned before the spirit of reckless innovation, I do not see where we shall stop, or what is to arrest us in the career of destruction. The West Indian colonist may say, "You place us on a level with the slaveholding countries, except in the restrictions upon slave-labour; remove this, and don't talk to us about your distilleries and breweries in England, and your seamen, your merchants and landed proprietors, your maritime and your agricultural interest; you have passed the Rubicon of free trade, and you must play the game out to the end; and we claim from you that there shall be no restriction what ever put upon us bringing our produce in the cheapest possible way to the dearest available market." The colonists may thus address you. But I, my Lords, do not abandon the ancient policy of this country, and I hope to see the Legislature again return to it. And with respect to the repeal of the navigation laws, I do not think the measure would benefit the West Indies. Admitting that the consequence of the repeal of those laws would be, to throw the carrying trade between the colonies and ourselves into the hands of the United States, which I believe would be the case, I do not see how the West Indies would be benefited by the transfer to the vessels of slaveholding countries of the conveyances of the pro duce of Cuba and Brazil, which is at present mainly carried, I believe, by British vessels. The abolition of the privilege of the carriage to this country of the produce of Cuba and Brazil, which the navigation laws now give to the ships of this country, could only lead to a monopoly of that carrying trade on the part of slaveholding countries; and this, I repeat, I cannot see would be of any advantage to the West Indies. I will not enter on the question of another demand that the petitioners make—namely, that their sugar and me lasses should be introduced to the breweries and distilleries of this country, and that their rum should be introduced at an equal rate of duty with that which is imposed on British spirits. I will only say, with regard to this subject, that here is

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another lamentable instance of the vacillation and uncertainty which paralyse all our mercantile and commercial enterprises, by the course which has been taken by the Government and Parliament of this country. I am told that the Government have intimated their readiness to consent to the introduction of molasses into distilleries, and to the equalisation of the duties upon colonial rum and British spirits. But, bear in mind, that these very questions were subjects of repeated and anxious investigation in the course of the last Session, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer then stated that molasses could not by possibility be introduced into distilleries without absolute loss and ruin to the Excise, and that it would be impossible to provide for the difficulty. Again, with regard to rum and spirits; that was a question very keenly discussed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who contended that it was only fair that the British distiller should have a differential duty in his favour. My Lords, one other subject to which I shall advert, is that of immigration. The question of an unbounded supply of labour has had much stress laid upon it, and it is hardly necessary for me to say that a large supply of labour for any colony must have a material influence, by the reduction of wages, upon the prices of the articles produced in that colony. But, in the first place, I very much doubt whether it will be practicable for the West Indian colonists to procure such a supply of free labour from the coast of Africa as to produce any sensible effect on the wages of labour in the colony. I am most anxious to furnish the colonies with the necessary supply of labour, provided it can be furnished in such a manner as not to be inconsistent with higher and more important considerations. During the time that I had the honour to hold the seals of the Colonial Department, I endeavoured to meet the demand of the West Indian proprietors with regard to the introduction of labour; and I feel some satisfaction when I recollect that, in the latter end of the year 1841, we framed a measure for effecting a large importation of Coolie labourers into the Mauritius. As to Coolie immigration to the West Indies, I confess that I was never very sanguine in the hope that the introduction of Coolies there would be attended with much advantage. It is to Africa that the West Indian proprietors should look; but for the West Indian planters and merchants themselves
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to go to any portion of the coast of Africa, not subject to the control and authority of the British Government, and there to enlist emigrants from amongst the barbarous tribes on that coast, for the purpose of making them free labourers in the colonies—I will not say that this would be a revival of the slave trade—but it would afford to foreign countries a great and reasonable cause of jealousy if they are not prepared to draw the same fine distinctions that we do. Though I admit to the fullest extent the benefit of the freedom which the immigrants would enjoy on their arrival in the West Indies, yet I very much doubt whether it would be practicable to obtain the remedy upon which so much stress is laid, without practically reviving a slave trade, which, although not a slave trade for the purpose of making slaves, yet would be an encouragement to all those intestine wars in Africa, which have hitherto been the effect of the slave trade. The petition from British Guiana states, "that from circumstances arising out of the social condition of the Africans in their own country, it is impossible to procure them in sufficient numbers without negotiating with and conciliating their chiefs, in order to induce them to permit their vassals and dependents to emigrate to the British settlements." Well, my Lords, if, when out of the control and authority of the British Government, British merchants are to go to the African coast and there obtain free labourers, they will only obtain them, not by communicating with the parties themselves, but by "negotiating with and conciliating," that is, paying "their chiefs for permitting," that is, selling, "their vassals and dependants" to go out as free labourers. I ask for no differential duties as against the West Indian colonies on the part of this country—I do not ask for distillers here, or agriculturists here, that their fellow-countrymen in the colonies should be placed under disadvantages—I desire not to throw any impediment, on the contrary I wish to give every facility, to the increase of immigration of free labour to the West Indies. I do not object to the introduction of the produce of our colonies into the breweries and distilleries of this country; but I desire to ask the question, whether you intend also to introduce in like manner the produce of Cuba and Brazil? Upon the whole question my opinion is firm and decided, that—do what you will, apply what palliatives you please, it is impossible—the result of

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the first year has shown it—that, in the present state of the West Indies and our other colonies in every part of the world, they can, upon equal terms, compete with the slave produce of Brazil and Cuba. You have now on hand a larger stock of sugar than was ever known. And the competition of slave-labour produce has supplanted and thrown out of the market, where there was a demand for it, the produce of your own colonies, to the extent of 36,000 tons. At the present moment the planters in the colonies, and merchants here, are almost afraid to speak of their losses. I may mention one case of a single house, whose transactions were of the most extensive character, and whose misfortunes are now publicly known—I allude to the house of Reid, Irving, and Co. They had con signed to them this year, if I am not greatly mistaken, no less than 10,000 tons of sugar, the produce of estates in the Mauritius, for the cultivation of which they had advanced the means, and are responsible; and the fall of prices imposed upon that house alone a permanent loss of at least 100,000 l. a year, or, measured at the rate of 10 per cent interest, an aggregate loss of no less than 1,000,000 l. sterling. Now their loss is the immediate result and consequence of your legislation. In 1840 you said the West Indian proprietors could not compete with foreign slave produce under a 12 s. differential duty. And what is the differential duty now? Seven shillings! Within the last six months you have paid to Cuba, and to other foreign countries producing sugar by slave labour, 625,000 l. for the produce of their slave labour, over and above what you have paid in any former year. You have raised the price of sugar in Brazil and Cuba by your legislation; but you have made it ruinously low in your own colonies. You boast of having lowered the price of sugar to the extent of 10 s. the cwt.; but are you sure that your triumph will be durable? Are you sure that present prices will last? Are you sure that, when, by the encouragement you have given to Cuba, you shall have discouraged your merchants and disheartened the colonists, so that they will no longer continue planting—are you sure that succeeding years may not find you deprived of the sugar from your colonies, and yourselves at the mercy of the slave-producing countries?—that you, with your professions of humanity and justice, have transferred slavery from
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your own colonies to the possessions of other countries; and that then all your notions of humanity—all your notions of religion—and all your love of freedom—evaporate at once before the temptation of a penny a pound on sugar—that penny a pound being the result of your "penny wise and pound foolish" legislation—the result, moreover, of all your inconsistency, folly, and pride. Why, if you mean to encourage slave-grown sugar, in God's name withdraw your squadron on the coast of Africa, and put a stop to the continued waste of human life! But you will find in the end that you have not accomplished your object; that you have not secured even the miserable been of cheap sugar to the people of this country; that you have not stopped but encouraged slavery and the slave trade, whilst you have effected the entire ruin of your own colonies. If you are determined not to change the course which you were induced to take in 1846, at all events let there he a postponement of the ruinous reductions which you further contemplate. But if no other remedy can be devised for the relief of the West Indies, then recur to the national principle of keeping out slave grown sugar by the imposition of differential duties. I freely admit that the West Indian colonies stand in a different position from any other of our colonies, and that they have additional and strong claims to the imposition of differential duties. But I should be concealing my opinion if I did not also say that I have not altered my opinions, and have seen no reason to alter them, but quite the contrary, with regard to that general policy of free trade to which, one after the other, all the great interests of this country are to be sacrificed. Now I, for one, have not bowed down to this idol of noble Lords opposite; for I regard their idol as a very sorry idol, after all. It has a front of brass, but the remainder of the image is composed of even a baser and more brittle material. And I believe that Her Majesty's Government will at length find that they have been following a phantom to their own destruction, by bringing ruin upon themselves and upon the great colonial interests of the country. The noble Lord then presented the petitions.
EARL GREYsaid, that he was deeply impressed with the importance of the subject which had been introduced to their Lordships' notice by the noble Lord. He was hound to admit that distress did exist

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in the West Indies—that it was most severe and most painful—and that he feared the accounts given of it by the noble Lord were in the main quite correct. In this he concurred with the noble Lord, and could assure the House that it was impossible for any one to regret more sincerely than he (Earl Grey) did that such distress existed. But the noble Lord had gone on to say that he agreed with the petitioners in opinion that this distress had been brought upon them by the legislation of the British Parliament. Upon this subject he entirely differed from the noble Lord, and he thought he could show good grounds for differing from him. In the first place, he must take leave to remark that while he admitted the existence of West Indian distress, he must also say that it was greatly aggravated by the peculiar circumstances of the present times. The West Indian interests were suffering in common with every other branch of trade and industry from the general state of affairs in this country. The noble Lord himself would agree in the truth of the observation, that the existing state of affairs and general causes had had much to do with the distress prevailing in the West Indies. The fall of price on many other articles—and these articles of a kind which made them a fair subject for comparison with sugar—had not been less serious than the fall in the price of sugar. For instance, there was the fall in the price of tea, sago, rice, and other articles. And when the noble Lord attributed the existing distress to the measure of 1846, let him (Earl Grey) remind the noble Lord that for several months after the enactment of that mea sure by which foreign sugar was admitted for consumption on more favourable terms, the sugar market was not in a worse state than before, but that, on the contrary, not a year ago, the price was considered to be rather more favourable. There was no doubt that the general paralysis experienced by trade and commerce had checked the power of consumption in this country; and this accounted for a portion, at all events, of the distress which now prevailed among the West India interest. At the same time, whilst he made this admission, he also felt, with the noble Lord, that there were causes operating on the West Indies of a more special and permanent character. The noble Lord, in the speech he made that night, had contradicted his own clients; and he had said that which was in contradiction to all the letters he (Earl
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Grey) had received for the last nine months, and to all the pamphlets—and there had been many—which had been published during the same period of time. The distress was not dated by these writers from the year 1846, but from a much earlier period. It was only the day before he himself had received a letter, which stated that up to 1838 the West Indian estates had been prosperous, but since then they had been in a different condition. Now, his opinion was, the distress of the West Indian interest dated from a much earlier period than 1838. He had a lively recollection of the noble Lord, in the House of Commons, describing the condition of the West Indian colonies in that year, and that he then said that for nearly half a century previous there had been alternations of short periods of delusive prosperity and long periods of extreme distress. He thought that his noble Friend himself could not have forgotten that he had so expressed himself, and that he sup ported that statement by a document of a remarkable description—namely, a report of a Committee of the House of Assembly of Jamaica. Whilst dwelling upon these facts, he wished to be understood as being quite ready to admit that since the period of the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, the period of prosperity had ceased, and that distress, which had formerly been frequent, was now continuous. Since 1838 it was, he admitted, impossible to show that there was anything like prosperity amongst the general body of the West Indian colonies, because there were some exceptions to be found even to that observation. The speech that had been made by the noble Lord rendered it necessary for him to trouble their Lordships with stating what, in his opinion, were the true causes of the distress; and in doing so he had no hesitation in saying that the great and the real cause of the distress which weighed upon the West Indian colonies was the mistake which the Parliament here had made in its legislation of 1833. He believed that the mistake they had made in their manner of carrying emancipation was the true, the original, cause of that distress. He objected to the measure proposed in 1833, when it was brought forward, because he saw how it would work. The consequences that he then anticipated had since happened, with this single exception—that, on the whole, the measure had worked less ill than he anticipated it would have done; and more

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sugar had been produced under its operation than he had supposed there would have been produced. He did not wish to revive old and almost forgotten controversies with the noble Lord opposite; and he should not now refer to them if they did not bear so strongly on the arguments which he meant to address to their Lord ships. With this apology for now referring to them, he asked what was the great fault of the measure of 1833? He thought the measure was defective in this—that, instead of making any provision for the obvious consequences likely to follow from emancipation, it left the negroes without any adequate motive to labour. The apprenticeship had that night been admitted by the noble Lord to be a modified kind of slavery; but when he (Earl Grey) had said so in 1833, his assertion was treated by the noble Lord as if he had given utterance to an absurdity. But, however, the noble Lord now admitted it was a modified kind of slavery. Instead of dealing at once with the difficulties of the case—instead of taking some means to bring to bear on the mind of the negro an adequate stimulus, when the stimulus by which he had hitherto worked was withdrawn—instead of doing this, you contented yourself with merely adjourning the difficulty for a period of a few years, and by doing so you aggravated all the difficulties by which, under any circumstances, the momentous change must be inevitably accompanied. He owned that he was surprised to hear the noble Lord opposite say, that in 1833 he (Earl Grey) was of opinion that emancipation should take place without precaution. The pre cautions were indispensable, and the noble Lord did not provide them. What he did say was this, that Parliament ought not to provide them—that Parliament was to tally incapable of legislating for the de tailed management of the affairs of that part of the world—and he said that if Parliament would content itself with laying down the great principle that every man should be free, and that the law should be applied, the local legislature could then safely be trusted with the task of legislation and of regulation—then it could execute the task which you were totally incapable of performing. They knew the circumstances of each individual colony—they could adapt measures to the peculiar circumstances of each—they could pass the laws—he said let them do this, and that they might be able to do it, let the period when emancipation took place be somewhat
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more remote than the noble Lord proposed. He said, that a year was not too much to give to any legislature; that if freedom was established, if the law was applied to all classes, the colonies might safely legislate for themselves. To any system of qualified labour, to any quantity of modified slavery, he said the local legislature ought not to be trusted; they would of necessity pass laws which would not be satisfactory to all. Then, he said, it would not be their fault, but it would be impossible for them to do otherwise. You could not make laws by which forced labour could be obtained otherwise than by harshness and severity. The noble Lord, when he first brought forward his scheme, was sensible of these objections, and stated that he meant Parliament to provide regulations to accompany apprenticeship; but when he came to undertake the task of drawing up the regulations—and if he referred to his own speech, he would see that what he (Earl Grey) said was strictly and literally borne out—the task of adopting precautions was omitted. It appeared to him, that in legislating, the great and permanent object was to subject the negro to some adequate motives for labour. He, for one, never attached the slightest importance to the theory of those who believed that in the negro race there was some special and peculiar indisposition to labour. He firmly believed that the negro race, on this subject, was very much like the white; and that they would be governed by the same motives by which white men, in similar circumstances, would be actuated; but when he considered what was the actual condition of slaves in Jamaica at the time of emancipation, it was clear to him that if emancipation took place without adequate precautions, there would be no stimulus whatever to the negro to work. What was that condition? The Jamaica slave received from his master supplies to the anual value of from 45 s. to 50 s., which was, in point of fact, very much the same as if he were obliged to work for 1s. a week, or something less, paid in kind. This, with a patch of ground for his subsistence, and a cabin, was all he cost his master. Now, it was perfectly obvious to him (Earl Grey) that the moment the negro became free, he could claim the value of his labour—he would be able to earn in less than one day in each week more than he before received for a week's labour from his master. That being so, why was he to work more than an hour a day? Was it rational to expect

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that, under those circumstances, he would consent, for any wages they could offer him, to give that amount of constant and continuous labour to his master which was absolutely necessary for the profitable cultivation of his estates. That was the argument which he (Earl Grey) used in 1833; and he contended that the truth of what he then advanced had been fully borne out by the result. The whole difficulty arose, in his belief, from the gratuitous use of land by the negro in Jamaica. The extent of land which had been granted, so infinitely exceeded the wants of the population, that it bore, in point of fact, no value in the market, and the negro could always obtain it for a mere nominal consideration. He would, therefore, still obtain the use of land as he did previous to emancipation; and he would in the same way continue to derive the greater part of his subsistence from the cultivation of his land, and would work for wages only so far as to enable him to purchase those articles of necessity which he could not raise for himself. The consequence was, as he had at the time anticipated, and as he declared over and over again, that in the absence of some legislation to raise the price of land, and to render it incumbent upon the negro to work for his master, that the production of sugar must be greatly diminished. He never asserted, as many had done, that the consequence of emancipation would be to cause bloodshed and anarchy in our colonies. The worst result which he had anticipated was the cessation of sugar cultivation. But did he think that that would be a light evil? Far from it. He always thought it of the greatest and most vital importance—far less to this country than to the slaves themselves—that the sugar cultivation should go on. He thought, unless the sugar cultivation were continued, that in the uncivilised and barbarous state in which the negro population then was, the very thing which would tend most to their improvement would be marred and destroyed; and he believed that it was necessary for the real welfare of the negro that he should be brought into a situation in which he should be compelled to do a reasonable amount of work in return for his subsistence. Upon that point he differed at the time from many excellent friends of his, who then took a very active part in the anti-slavery cause. They appeared to think that everything that was bad for the planter was good for the negro. He took a very different view of the matter. He believed
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that, rightly and truly understood, the interests of the planter and the labourer were identical, and that the interests of both required that slavery should be abolished, but that it should be so abolished that the negro should not be tempted to withdraw himself from the regular cultivation of the ground. At that time, then, another plan passed into a law, the plan of apprentice ship. A few years afterwards that system was abolished, but not by the authority of Parliament, for all that Parliament did was to pass laws restraining abuses which undoubtedly had existed under the system of apprenticeship. At the same time he must say, that he thought the West India colonies were cruelly and hardly treated in that matter of apprenticeship. The system was none of their seeking—they never demand ed or desired it—and he had no doubt if the Government at home had required immediate emancipation that the Assembly of Jamaica would have acquiesced in such a step. When that great change was about to take place, he, in his place in the House of Commons, again, but without avail, urged the necessity of some precaution are measure being adopted, founded on the disproportion between the amount of land and the population. In 1833, the planters were prepared to establish a new system, and to act upon the now state of things; whilst, on the other hand, the gratitude of the negroes for the change in their condition knew no bounds; and both parties entertained the best feeling towards each other. But in those five unhappy years, from 1833 to 1838, that state of things had greatly altered. The negroes had discovered that though they were told they were freemen, they were still, as the noble Lord admitted, in a state of modified slavery, and that they did not enjoy the advantages which they had anticipated. The planters, on the other hand, found that they had not reaped the benefits which some of them expected from the apprenticeship; and more than that, they knew that the apprenticeship system was to be but temporary in its duration, and the object of many of them was to make as much as they could during that period, in addition to the compensation, and then to retire from what they looked upon as a ruinous and falling speculation. The consequence was that the pastures were not properly kept up, that the live stock were not properly maintain ed, and that the necessary preparations for succeeding crops had not been made. But,

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more than that, the compensation had originally been given in a manner which prevented its coming in aid of the real necessities of the colony. It went almost entirely to pay off existing mortgages, and did not go to provide new machinery, or to the improvement of the system of cultivation and labour. The consequence was, that in 1838 the change to complete freedom took place under the most unfavourable circumstances which it was possible to imagine; but it also took place without any attempt whatever on the part of the Legislature to subject the negro to any species of moral restraint. He must say that such being the case, it was to him not a matter of astonishment that the consequences had been so disastrous as they had been; on the contrary, his surprise was that on the whole the system had worked so well as it actually had worked, and the more so because there were other circum stances which exposed the planter to considerable difficulties. Amongst these, without going at all into the detail of the subject, he might mention one—the sys tem of taxation adopted in almost all our colonies. He thought, if that were the proper time and place to go into that question, he could show their Lordships that the system of taxation was so contrived as to make it the interest of the negro to de vote his labour to his own provision ground, rather than to work for money wages for the planter. But there was another circumstance which perhaps their Lordships would be surprised to hear him enumerate amongst the causes of the planters' difficulties. Nevertheless, however paradoxical it might appear, he maintained that one great source of the planters' distress was the existence in that country of that system of protective duties upon their produce which they had cherished as of such vital importance to their welfare. He thought he could, he said, show their Lordships, by the plainest reasoning, that the existence of that system of protection had materially aggravated the difficulties of the planter. It had done so not only by teaching the planter to look more particularly to this country as the market for his produce, but in a far more direct manner that system had told to the disadvantage of the planter. He had already endeavoured to show that the great difficulty of the planter arose from the want of an adequate supply of labour, mainly to be attributed to the want of sufficient motive on the part of the negro to work for hire; and now he would show
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that the effect of protective duties had been directly to limit that amount of labour. This was the way in which protection operated. The negro, as he had shown, in the peculiar circumstances of those colonies, under-peopled as they were, and possessing so large an extent of fertile land, could always command the highest wages which the planter could possibly afford to pay. That being the case, it was obvious that the higher the price the planter could afford to pay, the smaller the amount of work which the negro need perform. The higher the price on which the planter could reckon for his sugar, the higher the price he could bid against his competitors for the labour of the negro; and the more that price was forced up, the fewer number of hours in the week it was necessary for the negro to work, in order to live as well as the negro thought it desirable to live. That was, he thought, clear upon the ordinary laws which governed supply and demand. But it so happened that upon this subject he was not left to mere inference of what was likely to result from protection, but he could show them by positive facts that the higher wages had been, the less had been the amount of labour done. A deputation upon this subject waited the other day upon his noble Friend at the head of the Treasury, at which he (Earl Grey) was present. One gentleman, Mr. Greene, made a statement upon that occasion as to the cost at which his produce had been obtained during a series of years in the island of St. Kitt's, with which he was very much struck. Indeed he thought the statement of so much importance that he requested the gentleman to furnish him with it in detail, and he had done so. In one part of the letter, referring to a previous statement, Mr. Greene said—
"The expenses for labour during the first four years amounted in the aggregate to 6,560 l., in producing 15,965 cwts. of sugar; the labour in the last four years cost 8,663 l. to produce 14,800 cwts."
That was to say, whilst the labour cost upwards of 2,000 l. more in the last four years than in the first, the amount of the produce fell off by upwards of 1,000 cwt. He would not trouble their Lordships with the details of this part of the subject; but he might remark that when apprenticeship was first abolished, the negro scarcely knew the value of his labour—he was content with very moderate wages, and for those moderate wages he did a fair amount of work. But the existence of protective

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duties made the planters compete with one another for labourers; wages consequently gradually rose, and as they did so the labourer became more and more independent of his master, and did a less and lees amount of work; and year by year did that become more apparent, as was shown by the statement furnished by Mr. Greene. He thought they would admit that that was a somewhat remarkable corroboration of the argument founded on the general reasoning which he had addressed to them. But he went further. He held in his hand an extract from a despatch, received only a few days ago, from Governor Higginson, the Governor General of Antigua. In this most able and admirable despatch, which he should take an early opportunity of laying before the House, and every line of which was well worthy the attention of Parliament, the Governor General said—
"It cannot, I conceive, be said that the resources of local or native labour have yet been fully developed, and therefore I entertain hopes that the present unprecedented pressure may, in this respect, be attended with beneficial effects. The wages of field work have, within the last three months, fallen from l0 d. and 1s. to 6d. and 8d. sterling per day, and the price of task or job work has been proportionally diminished; in some cases the latter has been entirely discontinued, which seems injudicious, as tending to check instead of to foster habits of industry, and to hinder those who are willing to devote the whole of their time to working on estates, making the most of their labour."
He then went on to say—and he (Earl Grey) begged their Lordships' most particular attention to this part of the despatch—
"Nor is it apprehended, that by this unavoidable measure the working classes will be subjected to any serious deprivations, for as there is reason to suppose that at the higher rates, by working three days in the week, they were enabled to sup port themselves and families in ease and comfort, it is anticipated that at the lower rates, by giving their labour more freely and continuously, they have accomplished the same object."
He also held in his hand another despatch, relating to a totally different subject, dated the 1st of January, 1848, in which the writer, Governor Light, incidentally observed—
"The labourer of ordinary work in the field completes his task in four or five hours, hitherto paid at the rate of four, five, or six bits (equal to 1s. 4d., 1s. 8d., and 2s. 1d.). Supposing each ratio to be reduced a bit, the labourer, by adding another hour to his work, can still earn as much as before."
He had also seen it stated in the local newspapers, that on the east coast of De-
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merara, where a contemplated reduction of twenty-five per cent in wages had taken place, it had been met cheerfully and in perfect good humour by the negroes, who would submit to the reduction of wages when they saw it was necessary, but who, when they saw the planters anxiously competing for their labour, would endeavour to get the last farthing they could obtain. The consequence of that reduction was, that at once, and without the expense of immigration, the colony obtained the ad vantage of an increase of one-fourth to its working population. If that were the case, would any man tell him that the system of protection was to the advantage of the planter? He (Earl Grey) held, on the contrary, that if protection were admissible on the grounds of the general interests of the country, it would be for the interest of the planter himself that we should adhere to the wise determination which Parliament came to in 1846. But there was another ground why protection should not be given to the West India colonist, and that was the burden which it imposed on the people of this country. Was it just, he asked, that the hard-worked and over-taxed people of this country should pay 3,000,000 l. a year—for that was the smallest calculation of the amount of the tax which would be levied in this country by the renewal of protection—in order to keep up wages in Demerara to such a point that the labourer could earn 2s. 1d. by five hours' labour, instead of working six or seven, or possibly eight hours a day, in order to earn a like amount? He was sure the case only required to be stated in order to be admitted. The planter would gain by the abolition of protection, because the cost of protection would be reduced, the amount of his produce would be increased, and he would have the advantage of a more constant and a steadier market, free from those vicissitudes which prevailed under the protective system. For these reasons he could not concur with the noble Lord opposite in thinking that the measure of 1846 was to be charged with the extreme distress which at present existed in the West India colonies; nor could he think that Parliament ought now to retrace its steps. Indeed he found that in the opinion of many of the West Indian proprietors themselves it would be vain so to do. He had received a letter a few days ago, in which the writer stated that even if Parliament did retrace its steps it would be impossible to restore confidence in any system of protection. The state of

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public opinion, enlightened as he believed it now to have become upon the subject of protection, was such that it was beyond the power of any Parliament to create the slightest confidence in any system of protective duties. But it certainly was right and just that whatever Parliament could do should be done for the relief of the West Indies, and he would briefly advert to the measures of relief proposed by the Government which had been touched on by the noble Lord. In the first place, with regard to the immigration from Africa, he must say that the opinion of the noble Lord was almost precisely the same as his own. Following the views of the noble Lord, the Government had endeavoured, as much as possible, to send to the West Indies all the captured Africans taken on board the slavers; and he thought it was of great advantage that they should go there, for it had been found by experience that they rapidly amalgamated with the population there, that they greatly improved in civilisation, and that they were of great benefit to the colony; but, on the contrary, when they were left at Sierra Leone, the case was far different. It was impossible to contemplate the picture of Sierra Leone without the most melancholy reflections. Every attempt which had been made in that colony for the improvement of the negro had most lamentably failed, and he feared that they would still continue to fail. Its local disadvantages were so great, the want of a sufficient quantity of good land was so much felt, and its fatal, dreadful climate, were almost insuperable obstacles to any decided amendment. It was absolutely painful to hear of the constant vacancies which occurred in the civil establishment; and, numerous as the applicants were, he could not bear to send men to such a climate, where, just as men were beginning to know something of the colony, and were becoming able to do something for the improvement of the negro, they were probably swept off by that dreadful scourge which rendered the country so fatal to the white man. It was most lamentable to contemplate the mortality which existed especially among the missionaries, chaplains, and medical officers, who were so useful there. He thought, therefore, it was of the utmost importance that those captured Africans should be sent to the West Indies, where they would be of the greatest possible use, instead of remaining in a state of barbarism in Sierra Leone at great expense to this country.
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Hitherto the colonies had been willing and able to pay the expense of conveying those Africans to the West Indies; but looking at the actual state of distress existing in the colonies, he thought it fair to say that for the future that expense should be de frayed from the British Treasury instead of being borne by the colonial merchant. Beyond that, he had endeavoured to establish immigration from the coast of Africa; no immigrant, however, would be allowed to be sent to our colonies in the West Indies, except from our possessions on the coast of Africa, or from that part of the African coast where slavery was known not to prevail, viz., the Kroo coast. From the Kroo coast no emigrants were allowed to be shipped, unless a British officer was present to see that no abuse was practised; and, from the experience already derived, he was in great hopes that this emigration would be productive of much benefit to the West Indies. It was a great object to obtain a return passage to the coast of Africa to a certain number of these emigrants, after they had laboured in the colonies of the West Indies, because upon their return they invariably reported to their countrymen the high wages they received. Their emigration was thus encouraged; and it was likely to prove very successful, because upon a late voyage of Her Majesty's steam-sloop Growler she carried back from Demerara to the coast of Africa a number of these men, of whom the Governor reported that twenty-nine had accumulated no less than 571 l. l5 s. l0 d. by their industry. This circumstance showed the high rate of wages in Demerara, and that the Kroomen, who had such an extraordinary affection for their native land that they never consented to leave it permanently, could accumulate sums of money to take back with them. He could not help believing that the return of Kroomen to their own country with so much money would have considerable effect in stimulating emigration of this character; most of them during their residence in the West Indies must necessarily pick up more or less of the English language, with ha bits of civilised life, so that their return to Africa was likely to be of no slight importance in advancing civilisation and knowledge in those vast regions. So much having been accomplished in this respect, he had to state that Her Majesty's steamers would no longer be employed on this service, because it had been found possible to make arrangements by which merchant

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ships bound to the West Indies would, for a very moderate charge, take the coast of Africa in their way for the purpose of carrying emigrants to those colonies. In al most all the colonies there existed colonial laws, under which bounties were granted to those who brought in emigrant labour, which were amply sufficient to remunerate shipowners who succeeded in obtaining an adequate number of passengers; but vessels were unwilling to take the coast of Africa upon their way on the mere chance of securing passengers. Her Majesty's Government had therefore made an arrangement whereby the shipowners would be remunerated for this service, not by the colonies, but by this country. Eight ships had already sailed upon this service, two of which were for Jamaica, two for British Guiana, and two for Trinidad. It had been urged by some parties that entire and unrestricted emigration ought to be allowed from the coast of Africa. He need not remind their Lordships, after the statements he had made, that emigration to the British colonies in the West Indies was entirely unrestricted. Any emigrant, from any part of Africa, who might find his way there, would be received. All that the Government said was, that neither the public money nor British ships should be employed in carrying negroes to the West Indies, who, there was reason to suppose, had been purchased for that purpose. There were some Gentlemen, for whom he entertained the greatest respect, who strongly urged the removal of every restriction. Why not, they said, go to the coast of Africa, and at once buy the slaves there, take them to the West Indies, and make them free? It would improve their condition and benefit the colonies, according these Gentlemen. No doubt the colonies would be benefited by the accession of so much labour, whilst the individuals so removed would find their condition ameliorated; but there was this fatal and in surmountable objection to the plan, that it could not possibly be adopted without stimulating all the horrors of an internal slave trade in Africa itself. Create a new demand of this kind for slaves upon the coast of Africa, that demand would be sup plied by internal wars, by fraud, cruelty, and treachery of every description, which would be extended into the furthest recesses of that great continent. He was convinced that no British Minister and no British Parliament would for a moment listen to such a proposal. This was his
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answer to those who complained that Her Majesty's Government refused unrestricted emigration to the West Indian colonies; the only restriction remaining in force was that to which it would be contrary to their most sacred duty to accede. There was one measure which, applying only to two colonies, required some explanation. It was proposed that an advance, not exceeding 200,000 l., should be granted by way of loan, under the sanction of Parliament, to the two colonies of Guiana and Trinidad for the purpose of enabling them to en courage emigration. In 1844 the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) sanctioned the adoption, by those colonies, of plans for raising money by loan for the purpose of emigration. That principle, he believed, had been of some service; but, looking at the cost of Coolie emigration—the temporary nature of the advantages derived from it, inasmuch as it was part of the contract with the Coolies that they should have a free passage back—it was clear that, however well Coolie emigration might have answered for the Mauritius, it was not so well adapted for these colonies. This being the case, he did not think it wise or prudent to charge the whole expense of it upon the permanent resources of the colonies, be cause the benefit would be gone at the end of five years, whilst the charge would re main. The Government might, perhaps, lament that the noble Lord had been induced to sanction such an arrangement; it had, however, been sanctioned, and during the last three years a very considerable number of emigrants had been introduced into those colonies at their expense. Her Majesty's Government conceived that, under these circumstances, they were justified in recommending Parliament that a loan to the extent he had named should be granted; and the more so, because if they did not, it would be absolutely necessary to arrest at once the experiment of emigration from Africa, which was just commencing with favourable prospects of success. It was also proposed to recommend to Parliament that certain loans which had been advanced some years ago to several colonies which had suffered by hurricanes, earthquakes, and other disasters, which loans were now in course of repayment by instalments, should have the time for re payment postponed. The loans to Barbadoes, St. Lucie, and Tobago, originally amounted to 948,150 l. In 1840 an Act was passed to grant some delay in the period of repayment; and it was now pro-

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posed to extend that period for five years more. The amount now due was 657,000 l. In 1843 a further loan to the extent of 135,000 l. was granted to Antigua, Montserrat, and Nevis; and it was intended to allow a similar indulgence of five years' postponement of the repayment. He trusted that, under the circumstances, Parliament would find no difficulty in passing the measures proposed by Her Majesty's Government for the relief of the West India interest. Among those measures was an extensive alteration in the navigation laws; but as that question would come regularly before the House before the end of the Session, he would not enter into the differences of opinion on this subject which appeared to exist between the noble Lord and himself. He was glad, however, to hear the admission of the noble Lord, that if the protective system was not restored to the colonies, it would be absolutely necessary to grant this relief. The next measure of relief to the West India interest was the admission of molasses into distilleries. On this subject the noble Lord (Lord Stanley), had been very severe, exclaiming "what a vacillating and uncertain course you are pursuing—how is it possible trade can flourish when you do one thing this year, and undo it next? Last year," continued the noble Lord, "you refused to admit molasses in your distilleries, but this year you are disturbing that arrangement." If the facts were as the noble Lord had stated, he (Earl Grey) admitted the Government would deserve the censure passed upon them; but they were very different, as the noble Lord would have found if he had been at the trouble of consulting Hansard. The real case was this. Last year his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer provided for allowing sugar to be introduced into breweries and distilleries. He stated at the same time there were difficulties with regard to molasses; but the Excise were engaged in inquiries, the result of which he trusted and believed would be that molasses might be admitted; and if their admission was found, practicable, he pledged himself to propose it in the present Session. The inquiries referred to had been prosecuted; and the Excise, by whom they were made, had reported there were means, not liable to the dangers of abuse or fraud upon the revenue, by which molasses could be admitted into distilleries. Molasses were accordingly to be admitted into distilleries; but the means had not yet been found of
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admitting the same article into breweries. If it were possible, he wished them to be admitted. With regard to rum, the facts were the same. From the first, Her Majesty's Government had declared that the principle which they thought Parliament should adopt, was to place the West Indian and the English distiller upon the same footing; but it was a question of calculation. The English distillers claimed a protective duty of a considerable amount upon their rum, in consequence of certain disadvantages to which they were exposed. The Government thought 6d. per gallon was sufficient. When the subject, however, was discussed in Parliament, there was a manifestation of opinion so strong that the differential duty was raised to 9d. In doing so, however, his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated the calculation was not entirely satisfactory to his own mind, and it would again require the attention of Parliament. He believed that all parties were now agreed that the burden should be alike upon all. Such were the measures Her Majesty's Government intended to propose to Parliament with the view of relieving the West India colonies. The noble Lord had told them they were utterly and entirely deceived, and that if they were not prepared to return to the old protective system, it would be true mercy to let ruin fall immediately upon the colonies. He (Earl Grey) should be wanting in candour if he were to pre tend that any measure which Parliament could by possibility adopt would have any very great or material effect in putting an end to the distress which unhappily prevailed in the colonies; but he would re mind the House, that during the time the West Indies were in the enjoyment of protection, it stood recorded that their com plaints of distress were most grievous. And what did the noble Lord do, under these circumstances, when he held a responsible office? Why, as far as he was aware, the only thing proposed by his Administration was a breaking in upon the principle of protection. By their Act of 1844 they broke in, most completely and successfully, upon the principle of protection against slave grown sugar. He was really almost surprised the noble Lord could keep his countenance when he told their Lordships that the measure of 1844 did not practically expose the colonies to competition with slave-grown sugar; that it merely defined a distinction between slave-grown and free-grown. What, however, had

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been stated by the principal author of the Bill of 1844 as to its practical working? His (Earl Grey's) argument had always been, that it was an absurdity to maintain that a distinction of this kind could be kept up. A certain quantity of sugar came into the market, partly grown by free and partly by slave labour. From that general supply you took the portion which was free labour, and you supposed you did not thereby affect the demand for the other. It was real childishness to suppose the remainder would not be affected; and it reminded him of the Irish servant, who thought that by drawing the wine out of the bottom of the cask, his master would not perceive the loss from the top. This subject was made clear by the author of the Bill in his place in Parliament in January, 1846, long before the present Sugar Bill was thought of.
"The amount of free-labour sugar brought into competition with British colonial sugar, has not at all equalled my expectations. I calculated the amount of free-labour sugar, if I recollect rightly, at 250,000 tons; but the amount actually brought in for home consumption has fallen far short of that. I believe the defalcation may be accounted for chiefly by the failure of the crop "
Where? In Java? In any colony producing free-labour sugar? No, but
—"by the failure of the crop in Cuba, and by the consequent increased price of sugar on the continent of Europe, and the diversion thither of supplies which would have been brought to this country from other parts of the world in which there is free labour." *
He must say he thought this statement from the lips of Sir Robert Peel most effectually ended the delusion of supposing that this distinction could be maintained. If you were to let in any sugar besides that grown in your own colonies, it was idle to attempt to distinguish between sugar the produce of slave, and sugar the produce of free labour. He was well aware it did not lay in Governments or Parliaments to make any branch of industry prosperous. If they flourished, and became prosperous, it must be by their own inherent vigour, and by the energy and enterprise of individuals. When Governments and Parliaments interfered, they might easily do mischief—they could not do good. If that was a justification of the noble Lord, it was also a justification to him (Earl Grey); but he thought they were bad friends to the West Indies who told them their cause was hopeless: that there was nothing for them to do but
* Hansard (Third Series) Vol. lxxxiii. p. 253.
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to fold their hands in despair and give up the contest; that slave labour was necessarily and essentially cheaper than free labour. He denied the truth of that allegation upon the highest authority that could be quoted. There was no distinguished writer or philosopher, of ancient or modern times, who had not stated that slave labour, in spite of its apparent cheapness, was really less efficient and more costly than free labour. In the last century Hume the historian, and Dr. Franklin, held the same position; and he felt the utmost surprise at hearing the contrary doctrine from those who had formerly been active in the work of emancipation. What was the great argument of the Anti-Slavery Society? Why, that free labour was cheaper than slave labour. This was the substance of their speeches and pamphlets, and it was supported by elaborate proofs of its truth. Nothing had yet happened to shake his conviction in this great truth. He firmly believed that a wise and gracious Providence had so constituted human nature, that that which was not morally right was never really profitable. He appealed, however, to experience, and he found that wherever free and slave labour had been exposed to com petition on equal terms, free labour had invariably gained the victory. How was it in the United States? Could the slave States of the Union compete in any one article with the free States, which their climate and soil enabled them to cultivate? He referred to the cultivation of Indian corn as an example. What had been the case with indigo? At the beginning of the present century our supplies of indigo were derived from the West Indies, but we obtained them now from the East Indies. The fact was, the free labour of the East occupied in producing indigo had entirely destroyed its production in the West, where it was cultivated by slaves. He believed, indeed, that if 150 years ago free labour sugar had been admitted upon the same terms as the slave-labour sugar of the West Indies—in other words, if we had not protected slavery against freedom—his conviction was, that the Bill of 1833 would have been unnecessary, and that competition with the free labour of the East Indies would have abolished slavery in the West Indies. Let the noble Lord point to one single instance, where the battle had been fairly fought, of free labour having been defeated. If the noble Lord had it in his power to do this, he

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would yield to him. But he would go further, and show that the difference was in favour of free labour in the colonies themselves, upon a comparison with slave labour of the negroes immediately prior to emancipation. The only means of comparing them was by taking piecework in both cases. Day-labour would prove nothing, because though the individual slave cost little, there were such large deductions to be made for sickness, want of skill, and unwillingness to work, and other matters, that no proper comparison could be made from a mere day's work. It was worth a great deal, however, to compare the prices paid to contractors for work done. In Jamaica it was the practice, when the labour upon an estate was in arrear, to contract with the owners of jobbing gangs to perform that labour; and it was known that the jobbing gangs were the hardest worked of any slaves in the colony. Of course there was a good deal of competition, and the planters always got their work done at the lowest rate they could. Previous to emancipation the prices for these jobbing gangs were from 4l. 10 s. to 5l. 8s.; now, however, the same labour could be contracted for at from 2l. 14 s. to 3l. 2s. But he might be told to quote nothing but what was official. Well, then, within the last two days papers had been delivered to their Lordships, which were in continuation of the annual reports first required by the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) from the colonies for presentation to Parliament. By the establishment of this practice, the noble Lord had conferred great service upon Parliament and the country. Now, in a despatch of April 2, 1847, their Lordships would find the following statement from the Governor of Tobago, Major Græme. He said—
"It is an error to suppose that in Tobago we give a high rate of wages. The price of field labour varies from 6d. to 1s. per diem, according to age, for attached negroes, that is, for such as have houses and grounds; but 1s. 4d. is demanded on Saturdays, which is still, I regret to observe, considered as a day of exclusive freedom, and of exemption from the estate's employ."
This alluded to a very bad system which existed in those colonies of mixing up rent and wages. He believed there were few things which had created more dissatisfaction between parties than the mixing up of two things which ought to be kept so entirely separated. He then went on:—
"It may not here be out of place to give a striking instance of the economy, laying other considerations aside, of free over compulsory labour.
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The charge in slavery for preparing and opening an acre of land in this island, by the employment of a task gang, was 8l. sterling. The same amount of work was performed very recently for 1l. 19 s. 10 d., upon a Saturday, too, when the people, as stated above, demand the higher rate of wages. The gang consisted of twenty-six men and women, with four water-carriers; each person opened 100 four-feet cane holes, which very nearly cover the surface of an acre of ground."
Now, those who objected to the authority of pamphlets would, he hoped, admit that he was not without official authority to sup port him in saying that free labour was cheaper than slave labour. But he did not despair of the success of these colonies. He was bound to say that he did not believe it was within the power of Parliament, or of any measures that their Lord ships could possibly adopt, to enable the West India colonies to flourish under the system that had hitherto been adopted with regard to them. For a proprietor in this country to believe that he could by means of agents cultivate land and carry on a manufacture at a profit was, he was satisfied, an entire mistake. He would ask, could the same thing be practicable in this country? He would ask the noble Lord, did he believe that if the very large estates of his family were taken entirely into his own hands, cultivated on his own account, by his own labourers, paid by himself, could he, even with the advantage of being on the spot and of residing on the estate, hope to succeed in making such a system of management work profitably? Their Lordships would, he was sure, agree with him that the case became still more impracticable when the entire management was en trusted to an agent. An agent had not that freedom of action, and he might add sentiment, with regard to his own interest, which was absolutely necessary for the proper cultivation of the soil. Profit depended in Jamaica, as it did in England, on a careful attention to economy of details, combined with a judicious and spirited employment of capital in improvement. This union was absolutely necessary, in order to enable the Jamaica proprietor to compete successfully with the proprietor in Cuba or the Brazils. But so far from believing that the existence of slavery in Cuba and Brazil gave a facility to those countries to compete with Jamaica, he believed precisely the reverse. He believed that but for emancipation the contest between Jamaica and Cuba would have been infinitely more severely felt in the former island than it had been. And they should remember that the business of

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a planter was not merely that of an agriculturist, but that he was a manufacturer also, and that, too, a manufacture of the nicest kind, requiring the application of the highest principles of chemistry, and operations of the greatest care. Let them look at what was accomplished in Franco in regard to the manufacture of beet-root sugar. The imposition of equal duties on the beet root sugar with those imposed on the colonial produce, it was supposed would entirely annihilate the former; and yet the very re verse had been the result. The manufacture was one of the nicest kind, requiring all the skill of the farmer and of the manufacturer; and to suppose that it could be carried on across the Atlantic by a proprietor residing in this country and ignorant himself necessarily, in the majority of instances, of the details which his agent con ducts, was in his mind the greatest delusion. But a very great change was going on in the West Indies at the present moment. Among many documents which had passed through his hands connected with the state of these colonies, he was very much struck with one which he had received the other clay from a number of planters in the western part of Jamaica, and who stated that they had invested capital to the extent of not less than 142,000 l. in plantations in the colony; and they added, what was a most remarkable fact, that with one exception they had all purchased or leased their plantations since emancipation. That showed what a change of system was in progress in that island; and he believed that in the course of a few years more they would see the soil of Jamaica cultivated by planters carrying on business for them selves, and forming resident owners or les sees of the land. So far from believing that the prospects of Jamaica were bad, he was not aware of any part of the British dominions in which there was so favourable a prospect for the investment of capital at this moment as Jamaica. He believed that a man of intelligence and of scientific knowledge, who was not ready to despise local experience, and who was willing to avail himself of all the aid which he could get from any parties in the colony, but, above all, combining the great principles of science, on which cultivation of every kind mainly depends for success, and adopting those plans which they knew had in some foreign colonies been adopted with so much success, of irrigation and draining—and he was told that the former, namely, irrigation, was the great secret of the success of
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the sugar cultivation in other colonies, though it was a new application in Jamaica—he believed that such a man would have a greater prospect of realising a fortune in Jamaica, than in any other field of investment. He believed that if five or six men were mutually to assist and support each other, and to establish that great improvement which he believed would, by degrees, be generally acted upon in the colony, of having a central manufactory for sugar, he felt persuaded that such a party of men could not fail, with prudence and industry, to succeed. He was convinced that the measures which had been already adopted had stimulated the colonists, and would lead to the general adoption of the wise course which he had alluded to; and he was persuaded that in this manner they would see in a very few years a great change in the condition of the West India colonies. He took a deep interest in the welfare of these colonies; and his strong conviction was that days of great prosperity were in store for them. On the grounds on which he founded these anticipations, he would not detain their Lordships; but he would now conclude merely by again saying that he confidently appealed to the judgment of their Lordships and of the country, whether he had fairly proved that the distress of the West India colonies had not arisen from any measures that had been adopted by the discretion of Parliament, or from any advice given by Her Majesty's present Government.
LORD STANLEYbegged leave to trespass for a moment on their Lordships, on a point on which the noble Lord had charged him with having misrepresented the views of the Government. He had alluded to a statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of last Session; and he now begged to read the words used by the right hon. Gentle man on the occasion. The noble Lord here read several passages from the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Committee on the resolution for the use of sugar in breweries and distilleries in the last Session of Parliament, referring to the motives which had induced Her Majesty's Government not to include molasses in the Bill about being then introduced. He then continued: He found there a positive declaration that it was not the intention of the Government to allow molasses to be introduced in distilleries, and he made his statement on that declaration.
EARL GREYsaid, that what the noble Lord

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read was perfectly consistent with his statement, as it appeared from the speech of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that molasses were not to be admitted, merely because they did not know how to guard against fraud to the revenue.
The BISHOP of OXFORDsaid: I hold in my hand a petition, the prayer of which is nearly the same as that of others which have been laid on your Lordships' table. It is a petition from the Council and Assembly of the island of Barbadoes, complaining of the same disasters, and pointing to the same cure as the others I have referred to. Important as I have felt this petition to be, on account of the source whence it comes, I should have begged the parties who committed it to me, to commit it rather to some other person, if I felt that this question could properly be considered a mere fiscal question. I should be glad to leave a subject of that nature to be discussed by the lay Lords I see around me. But I think this question is drawn up into a much higher region, and must be judged on higher principles than a mere fiscal question. This is at once my excuse for addressing your Lordships on the subject, and the reason why, not viewing with the same dread as others do the principle of abolishing protection generally, I think, in this instance, protection ought not to be abolished; for I believe that there are circumstances in which the warmest advocates of free trade would at once allow that the principle ought not to be applied. The man would be thought insane who should claim a liberty to introduce infected bales of goods to spread death and desolation around, on the principle that free trade required that no restrictions should be imposed on establishing an open market; and he would be thought almost equally mad who should deny the legality of a national blockade for the same reason, or who should say that a nation ought to allow its subjects to give pirates firearms in exchange for food, because firearms were dear, and nowhere else could goods be got as cheaply. Any man would be held insane who would speak of this as a free-trade argument. In my judgment, this case comes under the same law. I think the denial of what is called protection to the West Indies, but which I believe in very deed is the assertion of the righteous determination of England to have nothing to do with the slave trade, is an invasion of justice both to the planter and to the negro. This petition points out
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that the inhabitants of the West Indian islands entered on a vast social experiment at the peril of all their earthly goods, on the faith of a hearty co-operation of the mother country with them. Having entered on that great and, to them, fearful experiment, they complain that you, at the first moment you seem to be pinched your selves by anything like a sacrifice, turn round, leaving them to bear all the loss, and saying, "Let us have all the credit." This is altogether unjust in a great nation. What has been the argument of the noble Earl? This—that the depreciation of the produce of the West Indies is the result not of the competition of slave produce of Cuba and Brazil, but the general depreciation of all mercantile affairs. But the noble Lord did not answer—I do not know why, unless because it was unanswerable—the argument of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley), when he asked the pithy question, why was it, if the general depreciation of mercantile affairs sank the price of West Indian sugar, that the price of Cuban and Brazilian sugar had risen during the same time? That argument is, I think, unanswerable. The produce of Cuba is just as much exposed to the general depreciating causes which the noble Lord says have operated against West Indian produce; but the fact is, the sugar of the West Indies is now, for the first time, brought into ruinous competition with sugar that can be produced more cheaply. What was the only other argument used by the noble Earl? He told us, that just as the protective duties sank, the price of labour sank also, and that therefore the West Indian proprietors, no longer obliged to give extortionate wages, would be able to produce sugar with gain to themselves; while the negro would still have abundant remuneration for his support, even after the reduction. What did the argument go to? Nothing more than this—that it is necessary the West Indian proprietor should never know anything like prosperity; that he should always be kept on the verge of ruin in order to keep him from paying higher wages than were paid elsewhere, and to compel the black labourers to work as they ought. But one thing the noble Lord has overlooked. We do not deny the difficulty the planters have to contend with in dealing with men who are every year more aware of their value in the labour market, who can provide for all their wants by a few hours' labour, and who are every year able to drive a harder bargain

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with masters who must employ them, having no other supply of labour, in consequence of the abolition, of slavery and the operation of a new social system, in which they relied on your assistance to carry them through. A prompt command of labour is an absolute necessity in the tropics. Every one knows the importance of a full command of agricultural labour at certain times of the year in England; among the vegetation of the tropics that necessity is increased tenfold; in that climate, where the weeds increase with every shower, the planter must give the price necessary to keep them down, if he would secure any return at all, and thus he is obliged to give almost any rate of wages for labour at these particular sea sons. Thus it is that, after all, the ad mission of slave labour in competing countries makes the difficulty of the West India proprietor. We are told that if men of capital, prudence, and skill, will only go to the West Indies, they could cultivate the land with advantage. We have heard this so often that one begins to hear it with something of suspicion. There are no better judges of where money can be laid out well than those who govern the money market of England; no one will deny that there are masses of money in this country only waiting for any investment that will give a moderate return: if this is the case, and if these good judges, these sagacious men, say it is impossible to lay out money advantageously in the West Indies, I think that it is a practical answer to the some what theoretic suggestion on which the noble Earl's speech was based. No answer has been given to the argument that it was an injustice to deprive the West Indian planters of the support they had been led to expect. The Minister of the Crown, in his place in Parliament, said, so it was to be; and Parliament assented to every assurance that they should be protected. This last part of the argument I might carry further even than the noble Lord opposite (Lord Stanley). In my judgment a still greater security was given in the pledge furnished by the religion and morals of England, that it would have nothing more to do with the slave trade. That pledge was not a mere question of how far you were bound by acts and treaties; it was a pledge found ed on the labours and sacrifices of all the great men of successive ages—the cautious preparation of Pitt, the zealous exertions of Fox, the labours of those who devoted their whole lives, not to building themselves
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a great name or vast fortune, but to wiping away a stain from England—to giving a pledge that she as a nation would never more have anything to do with the ac cursed slave trade. This is a bond stronger than a parchment deed, an engagement more binding than the promise of any Minister. I say you are now sinning against these great men—against these solemn pledges; let the argument be drawn out as finely as you will, you are, in plain English, sharing a future profit with the slave owning and slave trading planters of Cuba. The noble Earl tells us it is in vain to exclude slave-grown sugar from the markets of this country—that we shall but drive it to the Continent; and it comes to the same thing whether the 150,000 tons of slave grown sugar are sold there or in England. All the same, my Lords? Is it the same thing whether I buy stolen goods, or know that another man does it? Is it the same thing whether I keep my hands clean of such an enormity, or commit it because if I do not another man will? Surely this is an argument we ought not, as a nation, to tolerate; it does not agree with that high tone which broke out in many parts of the noble Earl's speech. It seems to me an argument the people of this country will not endure to have urged upon them: they will answer it by saying, even if the evil be done, we must not be the doers of it. Let us remember what the noble Lord stated at the close of his speech; and it may be a prophetic truth, that if we first ruin the sugar growth of our own West Indian islands, we shall give over to the planters of Cuba and Brazil, not only the supply of our own market, but of all the markets of the world. It is a peculiar at tribute of slave-produced sugar that it is easily cheapened suddenly, and for a time, by an increase in the importation of slaves. The planter has only to give an order to the slave dealer on the African coast; a large number of full-grown negroes are imported; a great quantity of virgin soil is broken up; the market is filled with slave sugar to the ruin of the competitor, according to a well-known plan of trade. Men say they are prepared to undersell a rival for a few months, drive him out of the market, then raise their prices and pay themselves abundantly. This is what we shall do by putting it in the power of the importer of slaves to ruin our own slower and safer production. Remember another point bearing closely on this subject. The noble Earl has told us it was

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an old abolition argument, that free is cheaper than slave labour, and that it was altogether inconsistent in us to urge for an instant the supposition that the West Indies could not compete with Cuba be cause it is supplied with slave labour. This is entirely a mis-statement, though an un intentional mis-statement, on the part of the noble Earl. It was not an abolition argument that free is cheaper than slave labour, but an emancipation argument. It was always admitted that it was cheaper to import slaves full grown, without the expense of their youth or age, and work them to death in the sugar plantations, supplying their place with others. The argument was first used by Mr. Cropper, of Liverpool; he said, as the slave trade was abolished, it would be cheaper to prepare the slaves for freedom by working them as a black peasantry. I believe free labour is cheaper than slave labour. I believe that Providence has so ordered things that what is wrong cannot be really profitable. But what is the measure of profit? Is it the greatest amount of money got in the shortest given time by the least given quantity of labour? If that is the true value of profit, we ought not to hold up as crimes the acts of the pirate and robber who by piracy and robbery makes himself suddenly rich. But in the long-run God sets his hand against wrong-doing; not by such a suspension of ordinary laws as would make six hours of a freeman produce as much as eighteen of the tasked slave, but by filling the heart with such terrors as those felt by the rich Cuba planter, who trembles, knowing that his wealth of to-day may be lost in an out break of his slaves tomorrow, by breaking down all the fabric of morality, peace, and happiness, which alone makes life dear, and wealth worth having. These are the ways in which God testifies at last against the infraction of such laws as this. The question returns simply to this—Shall we, as the English nation, after so many sacrifices to abolish the slave trade, for the sake of one penny in the price of a pound of sugar content ourselves to share the profit of the Cuba planter? Let the House and the country remember, that great as were the abominations of the slave trade, they are now still greater. If the blockade does nothing else, at least it does this, it aggravates a thousand-fold the sufferings of these wretched victims of man's cupidity. You have attempted with your war-vessels to close the ports of Africa, and in thus
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rendering exportation more dangerous and hazardous, you have made it the interest of the exporter to cram his victims still closer than before in those ships which are now constructed with the one regard to speed; and in this way you but increase the agonies and add to the deaths of those whom you strive to save and preserve. And when they reach Cuba, how, again, do they fare? I am ready to admit that there is no code of slave-laws in the known world which contains, on paper and parchment, so many securities for the life and protection of the slave as the code of Cuba; but in such a state of society as is there presented, that code is a dead letter, and an unobserved document merely. There is no safety, no law, for the slave; and I believe there never was a country where the sufferings and endurance of the slave were greater than they are at this moment in Cuba and in the Brazils. Every horrible feature which has been marked in the history of the enormities of the field-slave system in the olden time is found to be exaggerated fourfold in the unhappy lands of which I speak. Things which were never known, never heard of, in the worst days of slavery in our own West Indian colonies, are there taking place unconcealed in the face of day. The professed importation of the one sex alone, the evident intention to work them, and not to reproduce them, the in variable use of the lash to compel to labour, and the presence of bloodhounds in the plantation by the side of the miserable driver—these things are evidences of the horrors of the system. As one of these drivers said, when the question was put to them, "Do you think I could trust my life in the field if I had nothing more than this lash to defend myself? I must have these brute animals for guardians, and I must have these weapons in my belt, and by these only could I compel the code under which my victims are to live." And this, observe, my Lords, is the system which, as I contend, you are called upon to sup port and perpetuate. Most truly do I, in my conscience, believe that if these truths, in all their revolting aspect, were made manifest—if the English people would but recognise these facts, and see that it is not a question of protection, one way or the other, but whether or not they shall have sugar cheaper by the sufferings of these slaves of Cuba, the settlement of this discussion would be certain and immediate. Let the principle be comprehended, and the mind of the people will insist upon mo-

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rality and honour; they will dash at once from their lips the chalice you offer to them, tinged as it is with the blood of fellow-creatures sacrificed to economy. I am convinced that the people have been misled, and that they are ignorant of the inevitable truth that if they violate their most sacred duties and the holiest feelings, and become abettors in the guilt of others, they will be condemned, in sonic way or other, to be partakers in the punishment; for, as the noble Lord has eloquently re marked, it is impossible that any nation can continue long to set at defiance the plainest laws of God, without some, corresponding suffering accruing to the sinners. You cannot share the Cuba profit without incurring your share of the Cuba guilt; and you cannot incur the Cuba guilt without having recorded against you the Cuba chastisement. Let, then, this question, in all its forcible simplicity, be stated in England, and I doubt not of the result. It may be a little sooner or a little later; but I hope, as ruin to the West Indians is impending, and we may shortly be called upon to abandon ourselves to new treaties with other States, the present moment will be made available to our purpose. Our colonists confessedly tremble on the verge of destruction—let us not forget the proof which the history of the world furnishes, that, the moment lost, we cannot recall the prosperity we might have preserved. This remark will apply especially to the condition of society in the West Indies; and it may be that if the ruin which threatens arrives, no efforts we may wake, and no exercise of our power, will be able to re store the position we ought to have maintained. I have ventured to press this matter upon your Lordships once again, because I feel that it is a question of the deepest national morality, as well as of the deepest national prosperity. I have endeavoured to state the argument fairly; and I cannot believe, if the subject be but viewed in a clear light, that after all our anti-slavery labours we will now consent thus palpably to frustrate our own designs, and contradict our own principles. I, for one at least, do declare, if we barefacedly admit this produce of slave labour, on the single ground that sugar will be 1d. per pound dearer if we do not admit it—that is, in point of fact, to make our abolition struggle a deep and indelible disgrace to this country; to convert our cordon of ships on the coast of Africa into a glaring piece of hypocrisy; and to render our treaties
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with neighbouring States an insulting and degrading mockery.
LORD ASHBURTONthen rose, but the noble Lord was nearly inaudible. He was understood to express an opinion favourable to the experiment on a large scale of immigration of free labour. In the mean time, however, in the depressed condition of colonial enterprise, much further loss would accrue (pending such an experiment) if the Government did not resort to other modes of relief. If it was admitted to be a national necessity that slave-labour sugar should not be altogether excluded from our markets, then, as we exposed our colonists at such odds to such competition, we were, as it appeared to him, in justice bound to assist them through the transition stage in which they were now passing. He anticipated some benefit from the loans which the Government proposed to tender to the West Indians; but as to the demand which was made for the abolition of the navigation laws, he thought the discussion on that point might with propriety he postponed. The noble Lord laid several petitions on the table, one from the standing committee of the merchants and planters connected with the West Indies resident in the city of London; and another from the planters and other inhabitants of Mauritius, the concurring prayer of which was for the application of some immediate remedy or remedies to the position in which the petitioners had been placed by recent legislation.
The petitions laid on the table.
House adjourned.