Sitting of 11 June 1849

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBERS SWORN.—Sir David Dundas, for Sutherlandshirei Lord Guernsey, for Warwick County (Southern Division).
PUBLIC BILLS.—1o Small Debt Courts (Scotland): Mines and Collieries; Bankrupt Law Consolidation; Railways Abandonment; Australian Colonies; Benefices in Plurality; Turnpike Roads (Ireland); Assaults (Ireland); Palace Court (Westminster),
2o Collection of Rates (Dublin) j Newgate Gaol (Dublin); Loan Societies; Sites for Schools.
3o Parliamentary Oaths; Silver Coinage; County Cess (Ireland); Sheep Stealers (Ireland).
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Mr. Napier, from Islington, against the Parliamentary Oaths Bill.—By Mr. Pryse Pryse, from Adpar, Cardiganshire, for the Adoption of Vote by Ballot.—By Mr. Westhead, from York, for the Clergy Relief Bill.—By Mr. Fuller, from Cuckfield, against the Marriages Bill.—By Mr. Fox Maule, from Members of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, for the Abolition of Tests in Universities (Scotland), and for Discouragement to Intemperance (Scotland).—By Mr. Reynolds, from Dublin, against the Collection of Hates (Dublin) Bill—By Mr. Wilson Patten, from Manchester, for Repeal of the Duty on Paper.—By Sir T. Birch, from Liverpool, for a Reduction of the Public Expenditure.—By Lord John Russell, from the Mauritius Association in London, for an Alteration of the Sugar Act of 1848; and from the Boot and Shoe Makers of the City of London, for the Establishment of Boards of Trade, and Home Colonies.—By Mr. J. B. Smith, from Dunfermline, against the Lunatics (Scotland) Bill.—By Sir Joshua Walrasley, from London, for the Abolition of the Palace Court (Westminster).—By Sir John M'Taggart, from Wigtown, against, and by Mr. Cowan, from Edinburgh, for an Alteration of, the Public Health (Scotland) Bill.—By Mr. Smollett, from Old Kilpatrick, against the Registering Births, &C. (Scotland) Bill.—By Mr. Loch, from Kirkwall, for an Alteration of the Law respecting Spirit Licenses (Scotland).—By Mr. Cobden, from a Number of Places, for deciding International Disputes by Arbitration.

FRENCH INTERVENTION AT ROME.
MR. HUMEsaid, he had requested the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to be in his place, as he intended to ask him a question with respect to the proceedings of the French against Rome. It was alleged publicly, in the French President's message, that this country agreed in all the proceedings the French had been carrying on against Rome, and as, in his (Mr. Hume's) view of those proceedings, they had been of a most objectionable nature—considering that the Government of this country depended on the will of the people as well as the Government of France and the Government of Rome, it was with regret he saw we were involved in the speech of the President in such a matter at all. He wished to ask, therefore, in what way we were connected with those proceedings, and how far our connexion extended?
LORD J. RUSSELL: As far as I am concerned, I have had no notice whatever of the hon. Member's question, and I did

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not at all know he intended to ask any question on this subject. But I certainly did not read the message of the French President in the way in which the hon. Member seems to understand it. I understand the message of the President to say generally that England and France had been on the best terms during the transactions which had taken place during the last two years. But as to the particular expedition to Rome, we are in no way involved in it. The French Government—so far as I can recollect, not having had notice of the question—asked our opinion with respect to joining the conference at Gaeta, and we gave it as our opinion that we saw no objection to France sending a Minister to that conference. As to the expedition to Civita Vecchia, it is in accordance, we suppose, with the view the French Government took of its own interests, and we are not in any way connected with it.
MR. HUME: But Rome is mentioned specially in the message as one of the objects of policy in which we approved of the policy of France.
At a subsequent period of the proceedings,
MR. HUMEsaid, that seeing the noble Secretary for Foreign Affairs now in his place, he begged to know whether he had rightly understood him to say, on a former occasion, that the French Minister had communicated to him the intention of the French Government previous to the expedition to Civita Vecchia; and, if so, whether that communication included the march of the French to Rome? He would also be glad to know if the noble Lord approved or disapproved of what happened subsequently to the expedition to Civita Vecchia?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that the communication to which he referred on the occasion he alluded to, did not relate to anything further than the intention which the French Government had conceived in the end of November or beginning of December last of sending an expedition to Civita Vecchia; but there was no mention of what ulterior proceedings that expedition might undertake; and, speaking from recollection, he did not remember any particular communication respecting the sailing of that expedition lately.
MR. HUME: What answer did you give?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: The answer we gave was this—that it was not
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for us to judge for the French Government, but that in our opinion the difficulties which had arisen between the Pope and his subjects might be arranged by diplomatic intervention, and that in our opinion that diplomatic intervention ought to have for its object an understanding between the Pope and his subjects, by which the Pope, returning to Rome, would secure to the Roman people those constitutional institutions which were granted last year, and especially a practical and real separation between the temporal and spiritual authorities of Rome.
MR. HUMEfurther inquired whether any intimation had been made to the noble Lord of the intention of the French Government to go to Rome, or to attempt to take possession of Rome?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: No such thing.
MR. J. O'CONNELLasked whether the views of the British Government, as explained by the noble Lord, were quite consistent with the principles professed by them, of not intermeddling in the affairs of foreign countries; and whether the noble Lord was aware of any want of sincerity on the part of his Holiness the Pope with regard to the giving of those institutions?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that Her Majesty's Government had received an intimation from various quarters that their concurrence in the proceedings about to be adopted at Civita Vecchia would be well received.
An HON. MEMBER: From what quarters?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: From Austria, Naples, France, and the Nuncio at Paris. The Government declined taking any part whatever in them, seeing that, considering the geographical position of England, and the particular nature of the British constitution, they did not think we had the same motives either in these respects or in a religious point of view for joining in them. But they did make known to the Nuncio, by a written despatch through the Marquess of Normanby in Paris, precisely the sentiments he had just expressed as those which were entertained by Her Majesty's Government on the matter.
Subject dropped.

BANKRUPTCY BILL.
MR. J. STUARTasked if it was the intention of Government to proceed without delay with the Bankruptcy Bill, which

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had come down from the other House of Parliament. It was a Bill of the greatest consequence to the commercial community, and it was approved by the Lord Chancellor. He asked the question, because, though the Bill came down from the House of Lords on Friday night, contrary to usage, it was not read a first time, and did not appear on the Orders of the Day.
LORD J. RUSSELLsaid, that though the Attorney General had not moved the first reading of the Bill, he had fixed it for consideration before the other orders that day se'nnight. At the same time he must say, though he concurred in the general objects of the Bill, that there was yet a great deal too much matter of a complicated kind in the Bill and in its arrangements and details to enable him (Lord J. Russell) to say that the Government would take it up with all possible expedition. He hoped, however, the House might he enabled to pass the Bill in its general principles and arrangements in the course of the present Session. He understood certain representations had been sent up to the House of Lords as to the appointments and salaries under the Bill, to which their Lordships were bound to give attention. He should much regret to see the House obliged to appoint a Committee to inquire into claims and salaries after the Bill had been passed; and it appeared much better that the House should appoint a Committee previous to the passing of the Bill, than after it had become an Act of Parliament.
Subject at an end.

CANADA.
MR. HERRIESsaid, that, in the absence of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of the Colonics, he took the liberty of applying to the noble Lord at the head of the Government on the subject of those extracts from papers of which, on several occasions, he had to ask the production. He did so in consequence of a question which had been addressed to the noble Earl at the head of the Colonial Department in another place. The noble Earl, in reply to that question, stated that the information which he had on that subject was derived from the Canadian newspapers, and that Lord Elgin, in a private letter, referred to the reports that appeared in various newspapers of the debates, and said that information would be derived from them. Now, on a former occasion, he (Mr. Herries) had suggested that possibly these extracts with respect to the Legislative
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Assembly of Canada might be in the possession of the Colonial Department, conveyed in some private letter. The noble Lord at the head of the Government was ignorant of the fact, as also, it appeared, was the Under Secretary for the Colonies, whom he acquitted of all insincerity in giving his reply. When Lord Brougham asked the noble Earl the Colonial Secretary, whether he had received any information from Canada, the noble Earl replied that all the information which had been officially received had been laid on their Lordships' table. When Lord Brougham then asked whether he was to understand the noble Earl to say that he had received no official or private despatch on this subject, the noble Earl stated, that all the information received had been derived from the Canadian newspapers, and that Lord Elgin, whilst sending private despatches, sent various newspapers containing reports of debates in the Assembly, from which the said information might be derived. Lord Brougham then remarked that it would appear that Lord Elgin had adopted the reports that appeared in the newspapers. Now what he (Mr. Herries) had asked for was, the production of those papers, authenticated by their transmission from Lord Elgin, and containing what would appear to be an account of what took place in the Legislature of Canada on the subject of this Bill, because upon those passages of the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly would depend, in his humble judgment, the degree in which Her Majesty's Government wore responsible for not having timely interfered with respect to the deplorable events which had occurred in Canada.
LORD J. RUSSELL: I cannot correctly answer the right hon. Gentleman's question as to what has taken place in another House of Parliament; but what I have heard from Earl Grey is this—that Lord Elgin is generally in the habit of transmitting to him newspapers of any interest relating to Canadian affairs, and that he has received newspapers from Lord Elgin on this occasion, but without any reference, official or private, to them as containing correct accounts of what passed in the Canadian Assembly. I certainly should object to lay on the table a vast mass of reports of debates. I am told the persons who endeavour to give accurate reports in the House of Lords do not always succeed in doing so, owing to the difficulty of ascertaining correctly what passes there; and I do not think this House would adopt a very wise

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course if they took up a whole file of newspapers and proposed to come to resolutions upon what they found there stated. In any case whatever I do not feel myself answerable for the production of Canadian newspapers on either one side or the other.
MR. HERRIESwas not asking for de-hates, hut for extracts from the proceedings of the House of Assembly, such as had been laid on the table of the other House.
LORD J. RUSSELLwas aware that the former question of the right hon. Gentleman certainly did relate to Motions that had been entered properly on the journals of the House of Assembly. He did not know whether any of them could be taken from the Canadian newspapers, but would inquire.
Subject dropped.

PARLIAMENTARY OATHS BILL.
Order for Third Reading read.
LORD J. RUSSELLthen moved the third reading of the Parliamentary Oaths Bill.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill he now read the third time.
MR. LAW: Sir, in rising to make the Motion of which I have given notice, that the Bill be read a third time this day three months, I bog to assure the House, that nothing but an urgent sense of duty would induce me to present myself on this the last stage of the proceeding, to the exhausted attention of hon. Members; but the important alterations the Bill has undergone in the Committee (if not at the instance, yet with the acquiescence of the noble Lord who introduced the measure), render it necessary on my part to explain the objections I feel as well to the amended form of oaths, as to the dangerous innovations comprehended in the principle of this Bill. Nor is this the less necessary from the unusual circumstance of the exclusion of strangers at that precise period when the construction of the form of oath to he substituted was the subject of earnest and animated discussion in a comparatively thin House. Nor can it be deemed of small importance to ascertain whether more than two hundred dissentients from a measure having the same object, and introduced by the noble Lord in the last Session of Parliament, are still animated with the same sentiments, and equally prepared to record their votes in opposition to this Bill. The main object, however, of the
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Bill, the admissibility of Jews into a Christian Legislature, is not suggested by the title or preamble, and not indeed referred to until you arrive at nearly the conclusion of the clauses that make up this short Bill. It is entitled a Bill regarding Parliamentary oaths only; to be taken by Members not professing the Roman Catholic religion; and my first objection is, that whilst you impose on the Roman Catholic Members of this House the most solemn engagements that they will not employ the powers they possess as Members of the Legislature to subvert the Establishment of our Church in Great Britain and Ireland; yet this Bill now proposes to dispense with these solemn engagements with regard to the Jew, and to leave wholly unrestrained the enemy of Christianity itself. It may be true, that the Jews are indifferent to the doctrine and discipline of the Church; but if admitted to seats in the Legislature, they will have the power of dealing with the temporalities—the property and endowments of that Church—to say nothing of that general and extensive interference that Parliament has assumed, more especially of late years, in all matters vitally affecting the Church of England. The subject-matter of legislation, is the alteration of the oaths hitherto taken by Members of Parliament. The occasion demands in effecting such alteration, that especial care should be taken to require from all advocates of a voluntary system, and the opponents of the Church of England in general—that they should stand equally pledged with the Roman Catholic not to endeavour to subvert the Church as by law established, comprehending not only her doctrine, discipline, and authority, hut the revenues and endowments of that Church. The real, therefore, though somewhat disguised, object of this Bill, is the admission of Jews into Parliament—without even the security afford-ed by the oath required of our Roman Catholic brethren, binding them not to employ their legislative powers against the Church of England. You propose then to communicate to the Jew wholly unfettered by any obligations of duty to Christianity (the basis of our constitution, in Church and State), a capacity to sit and vote in either House of Parliament—so often as the Jew shall find favour with the Sovereign to call him to the House of Lords—or shall persuade his Christian fellow-men to prefer him as their representative in the House of Commons. It is proposed, then.

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to put the oath to be required of a Jew on the same footing as the oath required of Protestants—whether Churchmen or Dis-senters, omitting in the case of the Jew the words" on the true faith of a Christian; "and we are to remain content with the affirmation of the Quaker and the Separatist. It may be said, the Church of England and the Church of Rome regard each other as rivals, or are in the nature of rival establishments; branches indeed of the universal Church. And the fear entertained of Rome may be held to be a fear of subversion by that Church, a fear that the Church of Rome may be established on the site, so to speak, or on the ruins of the ancient English Church. The fear entertained of Dissenters is a different fear—not of subversion with a view to a transfer of the revenues of the Church of England in favour of one or more sect of Dissenters, but a fear of spoliation—confiscation to alleged State purposes—in relief of burdens and taxes, or, as it may please them, in reduction of the national debt. But to return to the Jews, I will endeavour to show that it is a complete fallacy to argue that the Jews ought to be admitted to the Legislature on the plea that all natural-born subjects of the Crown are admissible to Parliament. I pray the House to recollect on what terms they existed in this country under our early kings—from the Conquest more especially to the 18th of Edward I., the period of their banishment. Alternately protected and pillaged by the Crown, their status or position could not be regarded in those times as being practically higher than that of villeins generally —in the most favourable circumstances, a few excepted individuals perhaps might even then be regarded in the light of merchant strangers; but still as strangers—sojourners in the land, having no abiding place beyond the purposes of trade, a temporary residence and dwelling—an interest therein fleeting and transitory—the condition of individuals and of their community ever shifting and migratory. I am confirmed and fortified in this view of the earlier condition of the Jews in this country by the authority of the learned commentator on the laws of England, Mr. Serjeant Stephen, and by the text retained in his commentaries, in the edition of his valuable work published in 1842, Volume Second, page 428:—
"There is a portion (it is there stated) of the natural-born subjects of this nation whose case is in some respects peculiar. The Jews born within
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this realm wore formerly subject to many hardships and degradations, and appear to have been scarcely considered in any other light than that of aliens."
It will be necessary to trace their earlier history, to notice the vast improvements effected in their legal position since 1842, by the statutes passed in 1845 and 1846. And in tracing that history, and in noticing the advances they have made in their social position and legal privileges, we must never lose sight of the impediments their religion, their customs, their peculiar laws and observances; above all, in respect to intermarriages with Christians or others than Jews, necessarily present to their actual incorporation with any other nation or people of the earth. These are impediments that no time or circumstances can remove. They are obstacles the Legislature itself can never surmount. To advert at present to the important changes in their favour effected by very recent statutes, would be to anticipate the line of argument; nor can the full force of those changes be appreciated without reference to their former status under the laws those statutes have repealed. The authorities on which I rely are mostly to be found either in the text, or by reference in an interesting and valuable work, entitled. Anglia Judaica, or the History of the Jems in England; compiled by Dr. Tovey, LL.D., and Principal of New Inn Hall in Oxford. The edition to which I refer is of the year 1738. The history is professedly "collected—(and the contents fully bear out the allegation)—from all our historians printed and in manuscript, as also from the records in the Tower and other public repositories." It had been supposed that the Jews were first brought over by William the Conqueror, A.D. 1066; but the error is corrected by Spelman, from the notice that appears of them in the Laws of Edward the Confessor, which declare "Judœi et omnia sua Regis sunt," 1 Leg. Confess, c. 29, hence their ancient vassalage; but as early as the year A.D. 740, Christians were forbidden to be present at the Jewish feasts in England. In the time of William Rufus, though much their friend from interested and sordid motives, the only place of interment allotted them throughout the kingdom was a large spot of ground without the walls of the city of London, in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, called the Jews' Garden; but in the 24th Henry II. a burial place was allowed them on the outside of every city where they dwelt.

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King Richard I. being greatly incensed by the burning of many evidences of money due to the Jews, which of right, as he alleged, belonged to him after they were dead, it was ordained that all effects belonging to the Jews should be registered. Justices of the Jews were appointed to attend their business exclusively at the Exchequer. The method of proving a deed was, by the testimony of both Christians and Jews, according to a charter of the second of King John. In trials between Christians and Jews the venire facias was sex probos et legales homines, et sex legales Judœos. The Jew creditor, in acknowledging the discharge of a debt, acknowledged the same coram justiciariis nostris ad custodiam Judœorum assignatis:—
"The justices of the Jews were such persons as attended in a particular part of the Great Exchequer, called Scaccarium Judœorum, or Judaismi, on the revenue arising to the King from the Jews; in the same manner as the treasurer and barons at the Great Exchequer upon the general revenue of the kingdom. Two Jews were at one time such Justices, and there is extant the record of their appointment, 2nd Henry III., and instances are cited from Madox's History of the Exchequer to the like effect."
Justices of the Jews were generally judges in all civil matters where a Jew was one party, and their jurisdiction was enforced by writ of supersedeas or prohibition, concluding in such terms as these. Secundum, legem et constitutionem Judaismi; and Lord Coke, in his Fourth Institute, takes notice of "Court of Justices of the Jews," page 254:—
"Notwithstanding the charter of privileges granted by King John to the Jews, he claimed an absolute property in them, and the right of discharging a debt due to the Jews as a debt due to himself."—Anglia Judaica.
The Jews being the only tolerated usurers (the Statute of Merton, cap. v. so expounded by Lord Coke, 2nd Institute, p. 89), the statute Be Judaismo enacts that no Jew hereafter shall take usury. And it was time that the law should interfere "when they usually took fifty in the hundred." In the 55th of Henry III., an Act of Parliament passed, which not only restrained the Jews from purchasing any lands or tenements for the future, but actually vacated all purchases which they had made at any time before restoring them to their first Christian owners upon repayment of the consideration money without interest. Enacting that whatever purchases they made for the future should immediately become vested in the Crown
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—with reservations that they might retain such houses as they inhabited themselves, or let out to other Jews, and likewise repair or rebuild upon any ancient foundations they were already possessed of, &c., &c. Besides these restrictions, with others, it forbade them to sue by any original writ out of Chancery:—
"Nullus Judæus implacitet, vel placitare possit per brevia nostia originatia de Cancellariâ, sed tantium coram Justiciarns nostris ad costodiam Judiæorum assignatis per Brevia Judaismi consueta et hactenus usitata."
King Edward regulated the Jews after his father's model: justices of the Jews were assigned, and the Jews themselves restrained to dwell in this or that particular town, according to ancient custom. In the third year of his reign, was passed the Statute of Judaism, and I beg to call particular attention to the terms of the following passage, seeing that the Act itself was repealed only on the 18th August 1846:—
"And the King also grants that they may practise merchandise, or live by their labour, and for those purposes freely converse with Christians. Excepting that upon any pretence whatevcr they shall not be levant or couchant amongst them, nor on account of their merchandise, be in scots, lots, or talliage, with the other inhabitants of those cities or boroughs where they remain, seeing they are talliable to the King as his own vassals, and not otherwise."
A power is indeed given to purchase houses; but with regard to lands and services in respect to lands then existing, the statute proceeds:—
"Moreover the King grants that such as are unskilful in merchandise and can't labour, may take lands to farm for any term not exceeding ton years, provided no homage, fealty, or any such kind of service or advowson to Holy Church be belonging to them."
Lord Coke, in Calvin's case, said, that an eternal enmity was necessarily assumed to exist between infidels and Christians, and that they were incapable of prosecuting a case in a court of justice—that they had no locus standi there. I rejoice that our treatment of the Jews has been greatly altered since those days; but I allude to Lord Coke's opinion with regard to the Jews, because in tracing their early history everything confirms the view that Lord Coke's sentiments were supported by the law in those days. The 3rd of Edward I. was a statute partly of prohibition and partly of protection to the Jews; but in no sense could it be reconciled with the idea of their possessing the ordinary rights and privileges of natural-born British subjects.

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They were expressly prohibited from holding land, except to farm for ten years, as we have seen: the statute forbade them to sue by any original writ out of Chancery: so long as they were permitted to dwell in this country, they were exclusively assigned to the custody of the justices of the Jews. In A.D. 1290, the recent statute. De Judaismo, being in full force, the whole of the Jews in England, to a number approaching 17,000, wore banished: and they retired from the country "under the protection of the King." After an interval of more than 300 years, they began to reappear in this country. They were silently readmitted in very small numbers under the Protectorate. They formally petitioned to be readmitted; and their case, the legality of their admission, was argued before Cromwell, but with no satisfactory result. It is indeed matter of history, if I may speak it without blame, that an Asiatic Jew, deputed by his brethren came into this country to ascertain whether the Lord Protector had any Jewish blood in his veins, and whether he might be truly regarded as the promised Messiah. The application of the Jews was first addressed to the Council of War on the death of King Charles the First, and they petitioned for a repeal of the law in force against them, which failing, after some deliberation amongst themselves, they agreed upon Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel, a man of much repute and learning as their representative, and sent him over from Holland attended by several of the richest merchants. He drew up and presented a petition addressed
"To His Highness the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland," and entitled "The humble address of Manasseh Ben Israel, &c., in behalf of the Jewish nation, to grant us place in your country, that we may have our Synagogues and free exercise of our religion, &c. &c. as our brethren do in Italy, Germany, Poland, and many other places, &c." Then followed "A Declaration to the Commonwealth of England by Rabbi Manasseh Pen Israel, showing the motives of his coming into England."
These documents are remarkable, as showing the distinctive character of their nation and religion—speaking of their universal dispersion to take place preparatory to their ultimate reunion—an event, which they seemed to apprehend, was at that time drawing nigh to its accomplishment. The Jews being suffered by Cromwell in very small numbers to creep into this country again, although their petition was not granted, and no law affecting them was
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repealed in their favour, were notwithstanding relieved by Charles II., from the payment of the alien duty outwards, which all other classes of aliens were required to pay. That relief, however, was objected to by all other British merchants throughout the country, and especially by the merchants and corporation of London; and King William, afterwards by an Order in Council, dated 14th of October, 1690, revoked their exemption, and by revoking it, and re-enforcing the duty, gave by this Order in Council the strongest declaration that his Government in those days of civil and religious liberty, considered the status of the Jews merely that of merchant strangers liable to the alien duty outwards^—a tax to which no natural-born British subject was liable. It is totally irreconcilable with the Christian constitution of this country to allow the Jew to legislate for it; but it had been argued on the opposite side (by the noble Lord the Member for London) on a former occasion, that only in a modified, not in an exact sense, was Christianity a part and parcel of the common law of the land. As if it was so only to the extent of affording a foundation for criminal proceedings in case of an injurious attack upon the established religion of the country. The case of a bequest of 1,200 l. towards a charity for affording instruction in the Jewish law alone, and not in the doctrines of the New Testament, came before Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, who gave it as his opinion, that the bequest being intended to advance the Jewish law, was a contravention of Christianity, and gave judgment that the bequest fell under the jurisdiction of the Crown for its application to a charitable purpose, totally different from the object of the donor. Accordingly 1,000 l. of the money was applied by the assent of the Crown to the purposes of the Foundling Hospital. All this clearly showed that the Jews were not in the disposition of their money in the advancement of the Jewish law and the Jewish religion; and as it regarded charitable bequests, having these objects considered in the same light as British subjects, making bequests in favour of the national faith of Christianity, part and parcel of the law of the land—but were to be regarded as aliens in religion at least, and their bequest, if not forfeited to the Crown, to be diverted by the Crown, when they were made in contravention of that religion, the basis and foundation of the laws of our Christian country. But the language of Lord Hardwick's judg-

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ment sustains my proposition to its full extent, whilst that judgment rests also on the concurrent dicta and decision of that great authority of the law, Sir Matthew Hale, and of Lord Raymond. So early indeed, as the time of Henry VI., it was laid down and established by the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas of that day, and has ever since been acknowledged, that "the Holy Scriptures was our common law on which all manner of laws were founded." However, with the permission of the House, I will read a short extract of this case of Do Costa and De Paz, decided by Lord Hardwicke in "Michaelmas term, in the 17th year of the reign of George II. His Lordship there says—
"But this is a bequest for the propagation of the Jewish religion, and though it is said that this is a part of our religion, yet the intent of this bequest must be taken to be in contradiction of the Christian religion, which is a part of the law of the land, which is so laid down by Lord Hale, and Lord Raymond: and it undoubtedly is so, for the constitution and policy of this nation is founded thereon."
And this decision of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke would still be applicable to similar bequests, but for the change effected in the law by a very recent statute—the 9th and 10th Victoria, cap. 59, section 2, and to which it will be my duty to advert. In fact, of late years, we have not only acted liberally towards the Jews, but have gone to the extreme limits of the constitution in their behalf. I cannot but consider that to render them capable of holding municipal offices and judicial appointments in corporations, by enabling statutes, and the offices of sheriffs and magistrates under the Crown, by the aid of the Indemnity Bill, a very great stretch of Parliamentary authority; and if we go further, and admit them to Parliament, this will be the first British Legislature that has altered and accommodated the oaths to this object. Considering the oaths that we have imposed upon the Roman Catholics, it surely is not to be endured that the Jew should be invested with a capacity to innovate upon the Established Church, or to despoil it of its revenues. To accede to the prayer of the Jew, I feel to be utterly incompatible with their position as aliens to our constitution in Church and State; and with that security, which the State has a right to demand of all its subjects in behalf of an establishment which the Crown itself is bound to uphold and protect. By the 8th and 9th Victoria, c. 52, Jews are admissible to all offices in municipal corporations, on making
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the declaration therein set forth, in lieu of that enacted by the 9th of George IV. c. 17; but they are still called upon to engage not to injure or weaken the Established Protestant Church, though that engagement be no longer made "on the true faith of a Christian." By the 9th and 10th of Victoria, c. 59, the Jews are placed on an equal footing with Her Majesty's Protestant subjects dissenting from the Church of England, with respect to their schools, places for religious worship, education, and charitable purposes, and the property held therewith. And, therefore, it cannot be fairly said that the exclusion of the Jew from our Christian Legislature alone, is the remnant of the old persecuting spirit. I speak it without intending any offence, in repelling a charge made against the opponents of this measure; but I utterly deny, that I, with others, evince any sectarian animosity, or religious bigotry, in wishing to adhere to a Christian constitution, by excluding from the great councils of the nation those who regard the Divine Founder of our religion as an impostor, and believe, that to mix themselves by blood with its professors to be a profanation. I rather believe that in taking this course, I am only duly reverencing that religion we all profess; and although it may be very true that the number of Jews who would be admitted would be very few indeed, if they were allowed to enter; yet I believe we should be dealing a very grievous blow against the character and fame of this House and the other branch of the Legislature, and should be showing to the people of this country at large, whether you attempt to deny it or not, that we are indifferent to the most important subject of all that has ever come before us. We are often pressed with the argument that we have made various concessions to the Jews, and that in many particulars they are British subjects. It is urged that a Jew may be a juror, a high sheriff, or a magistrate; but the very fact of showing that these privileges were of recent origin, is a proof that until those concessions were made, there was not a status for the Jew as a British subject in this country. There was a time, when in the case of the trial of a Jew, the Jew could demand one half of the jury to be Jews; and, I ask, was he then recognised as a full British subject? There was a time also, when, in all questions of debt between a Christian and a Jew, the jury was composed one half of Christians, and the other of Jews, when

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a Christian witness was required, in addition to the witness of the Jewish persuasion, to establish or to release the debt; but these grievances, it will be said, have been since removed, together with the statute and ordinance of the 54th and 55th Henry III., and the statue or ordinance commonly called Statutum Judaismo. But it was deemed necessary to repeal these obsolete statutes, and to rest the legal rights of the Jew upon a better foundation than the received opinion of the day. I will not now allude to the attempt made by legislation to naturalise Jews in 1753, or to the repeal of the statute the following Session. I concede that by the 10th George I., the words "on the true faith of a Christian," were omitted from the oath of abjuration when taken by the Jews. I give full effect to the statute that encouraged a seven years' residence in our American colony, as a qualification to become a British subject in the case of a Jew; but, reviewing all these concessions, and without attempting their repeal, what grounds do they furnish to concede a seat to the enemy of Christianity in our Imperial Christian Legislature? Having drawn whatever information I could obtain from sources the most friendly and favourable to the Jews, and from authors the least disposed to place unnecessary burthens or restrictions on them: from those who have commiserated their condition in adversity, and attributed their undoubted crimes to the oppressions with which they were visited; it remains for me only to point out how irreconcilable their actual condition is, and ever has been, with a real incorporation with any other people or nation in the world. That it defies the power of Parliament itself—which is supposed to reconcile all things not naturally impossible—to fuse into one nation the discordant elements of a Jewish and a Christian community. A learned Prelate, Bishop Thirlwall, indeed, is reported to have argued thus—
"Take away the religious difference, and there would be no more reason for treating the Jews as aliens, than any of the other races which compose the elements of our mixed population."
Does not the argument of the rev. Prelate beg the whole question?—Nor can I agree with the same rev. Prelate in thinking that—
"By giving your assent to this Bill you will be hastening the approach of the time when the veil shall be taken away from the eyes of the people for whose relief it is designed."
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To employ the eloquent language of the modern and accomplished author of the History of the Jews—
"Refusing still to mingle their blood with any other race of mankind, they dwell in their distinct families and communities; and still maintain, though sometimes long and utterly unconnected with each other, the principle of national unity. Jews in the indelible features of the countenance, in mental character, in customs, usages and laws, in language and literature, above all in religion, in recollections of the past, and in the hopes of the future. Denizens everywhere, rarely citizens even in the countries in which they have been the longest and most firmly established, they appear to a certain degree strangers or sojourners; they dwell apart, though mingling with neighbours in many of the affairs of life."
And again—
"For common purposes they adopt the language of the country they inhabit, hut the Hebrew remains the national tongue in which their holy books are read, and their religious services conducted: their perpetuity, their national immortality is at once the most curious problem to the political inquirer; to the religious man a subject of profound and awful admiration."
We must look therefore to some other cause than the alleged principle of this Bill for its introduction, and the urgency with which it is advocated. The fact is, that the Jews, by their connexions, can command the money market all over the world; and the money market is the secret why it is sought to admit them into this House. It happened that the same constituency that was distinguished by being represented by the noble Lord opposite, had associated with him a gentleman of the Jewish persuasion; but I presume to tell the noble Lord, not to reckon upon the result of any future experiment of this sort—for a very sensible man has stated to me (I will not publicly mention his name, but he is a very respectable person, and I will, if necessary, mention his name in private), that he was one of those who strongly advocated the admissibility of the Jews, and had therefore voted for Mr. Rothschild; but, he added, "make him admissible, and I will never given him another vote." Is it from the idle notion of paying a compliment to a millionaire, who happened to be associated with the noble Lord at the head of the Government, or is it in consequence of his wealth and his influence, especially in the contracting of loans, and in the money market—that this measure was brought forward? Was it introduced from any other accident, than because he is the colleague of the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government, and a rich man well backed on

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the Stock Exchange? For out of 40,000 Jews—the entire number which it is said are in the country—two thirds are located in and near London; and he had the full benefit of all the aid those gentlemen could give him. Why, I would venture to ask, should we break through the fundamental principles of the British constitution to pave the way for the admission of the Jews into Parliament? I do not agree with my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Roebuck), who shook his head, that the smallness of the object is a reason for not opposing the measure. The question in truth is this—will you break down the principles and prostrate the bulwark of the British constitution, to admit the colleague of the Prime Minister into this House? I do not mean to question the noble Lord's sincerity or consistency in bringing forward this proposition; but the stability of the country depends—under the Supreme Disposer of events—upon the maintenance of our institutions on an exclusively Christian foundation. In conclusion 1 beg to move as an Amendment "that the Bill be read a third time this day three months."
MR. RAPHAEL, in seconding the Amendment, said, that though this new Bill, instead of being called "The Jews' Bill," came to them under the more refined appellation of "The Parliamentary Oaths Bill," the object of both measures was the same—namely, the introduction of Jews to Parliament—homage being thus paid to Mammon. He had always been a staunch supporter of Her Majesty's Government, and whether he received their smiles or their frowns they would always find him in their hour of need; but having opposed this Bill silently hitherto, he felt that it now behoved him to say a few words. He had heard nothing new in favour of this Bill, except what had fallen from the hon. Member for Leominster, whose first speech had not only justified, but even exceeded, the expectations of the House and the public. Great as was his admiration for that hon. Gentleman's talents, he must confess that he had not been proselyted. His main objection was unremoved; and as other hon. Gentlemen had repeated their line of argument, he would briefly repeat his own. This was a Christian country, having a Christian Monarch, a Christian constitution, and a Christian House of Commons. Although hon. Members might differ on minor points, they all hoped to be saved by and through the merits of one Lord and Saviour; and this
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one Lord and Saviour the Jews called a blasphemer and an impostor, pronouncing upon themselves that dreadful anathema, "His blood be upon us and upon our children." If the Jews only went as far as the Turks, the case would be different: he might then he induced to modify his opposition. Many hon. Members might not be aware, but it had been stated to himself by expositors of the Koran, that the Turks believed that our Saviour was born of the Virgin Mary, and that he was a great Prophet, inferior only to their Mahomet. The Bill would, he feared, pass that House; but then he hoped the brave Peers of England would reject it, and that, too, by so large a majority that no similar measure would ever afterwards be proposed. In the Turkish language there was this proverb, "As the mountain will not come down to us, we must go to the mountain." Now, the Jews, reversing the order of things, wanted the mountain to come to them; they wanted to have an oath framed which would satisfy their Judaical scruples. If this Bill were passed, and he were ever again returned to that House, he would, on taking the oath, repeat loud enough to be heard on all sides the words, "The true faith of a Christian." If a former measure were, in the words of the hon. Baronet the Member for the university of Oxford, "a godless Bill," á fortiori, this was a Christless Bill, introduced to gratify the vanity and ambition of some half-dozen people. He would give the Jews a piece of advice: it was, that they should remove the veil from their eyes, believe in the sacred mysteries of our holy revealed Christian religion, and embrace its sublime and heavenly maxims; then they might approach the table of the House boldly, and, on "the true faith of a Christian," take their seats, without being indebted to any one. After adverting to the fact that, as a Roman Catholic, he had been recently admitted to a seat in that House, and expressing his gratitude for that admission, the hon. Member concluded by stating that he felt bound to oppose the Bill vi et armis.
Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words, "upon this day three months."
MR. W. KEOGHwas sure that the hon. Member for St. Albans, who had just addressed the House, had acted in a manner for which the Jewish population of the country must feel deeply indebted to him. He had made the extremely honest pro-

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posal that they should cease to be Jews, and should become Christians, and then he would have no objection that they should take their seats in that House. Suppose such a proposition had been made in those days when the members of that religion to which he (Mr. Keogh) as well as the hon. Member for St. Albans belonged, were precluded from entering that House, what would the hon. Gentleman have thought of it? How would the hon. Gentleman, when he sought admission into that House, like to have been met with this proposition—" You have nothing to complain of—you are an unreasonable class of human beings, for what have you to do but abandon every feeling of conscience, come down and forswear yourselves at the bar of the House, and then you will be admitted within the pale of the constitution." He deeply regretted to find voting against this measure a member of the Roman Catholic body, who for centuries had felt the iron enter into their own souls, and the chain of the oppressor, and had been constant appellants for justice. He regretted that a member of a long persecuted body, having at length found his way into that House, should be amongst the first to shut the door against others who sought admission. He (Mr. Keogh) would take up the oath taken by Romau Catholics, and he would ask the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Albans, where did he find in that oath the words, "true faith of a Christian," which he promises to repeat aloud when next he takes the oath? To meet the wishes of the hon. Member for St. Albans, the Catholic oath should also be changed in that respect. It was said that the same arguments had been used over and over again against this measure; and the same observation with the same intention had been made when members of his (Mr. Keogh's) religion were seeking admission into that House; but in his hearing they had not been oftener repeated than they were satisfactorily refuted. What were the arguments against the admission of the Jews into the House? To his mind two general propositions had been urged against their admission: first, that they are aliens in this country; and, next, that their admission would unchristianise the Legislature. Now, suppose a Jew belonging to this country were to go to another country, and that a war having broken out between that other country and this, the Jew was taken in the ranks of the enemy, would they recognise the principle of divided allegiance in his case to such an ex-
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tent as not to inflict summary punishment upon that Jew? With regard to the second ground of opposition to the Bill, that it would tend to unchristianise the Legislature, he considered that the great principle of Christianity was toleration to all mankind. He thought by removing all grounds of exclusion the Legislature would act much more in accordance with that divine principle, than by following the advice of the hon. Member for St. Albans to reject this Bill, more especially when it had been declared by the mouth of an apostle, "that brotherly love is the fulfilling of the law."
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, that the hon. and learned Member who had just sat down, being a Roman Catholic, had rebuked the hon. Member for St. Albans, because, being also a Roman Catholic, he would preserve the Christian character of that House. He (Mr. Newdegate) confessed that it appeared to him to be rather anomalous that Roman Catholics—who belonged to the most exclusive of all Christian sects—should appear as the advocates of the most ultra liberalism in matters of religious opinion in that House. Was it that they were so exclusive in their Christianity as to despise Christianity in every form except that of their own exclusive Church? Were they liberal elsewhere? How was it that these ultra liberals were themselves opposed to the foundation of constitutional liberty at Rome, the very centre, as it were, of their religion? How did it happen that those who considered constitutional liberty incompatible with religion at Rome—so exclusive would they have the dominion of their form of Christianity at its centre—appeared in that House as the advocates of a lax morality? He had risen, however, principally for the purpose of recalling to the recollection of the noble Lord the Member for London the words which he had used on the occasion of the introduction of this Bill. The noble Lord, on that occasion, had said that—
"On this subject he must again maintain that they had no right to exclude from that House any subjects of this realm who should be elected, except on the ground that some of their doctrines and opinions were such as to render them unfit to be Members of the House, or incompetent to discharge its duties."
Now at that time it occurred to his (Mr. Newdegate's) mind, that a learned Rabbi had lately been giving lectures at Birmingham, on the history and religion of the Jews. That lecturer (Dr. Raphall) after giving an account of all the early history

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of the Jews, proceeded to give also an account of the modern dogmas of the Jewish faith—of their dogmas which are based upon those traditions which we have the highest of all authorities for believing make the law of God of none effect. Dr. Raphall spoke of them thus:—
"But, with regard to the Talmud, if any man pretended to say it was a work of perfection, and contained nothing but what was perfectly good, believe him not. If any pretended to say that the Talmud was a work of utter reprobation, that it contained nothing but what was reprehensive, believe him not. If any man pretended to say that the doctrines which the Talmud inculcated—the doctrines which are received and acted upon, and have been received and acted upon for centuries by the house of Israel—are unsocial or immoral, tell him plainly it is not true; and if he should point out to some out of the way opinion, some unsocial expression, turn upon him and ask, him, 'Is this opinion received and recognised by the synagogue? Does it form part of the laws which the Jews obey, or is it merely recorded in the minutes as something that was said, as something that was done?' "
Now, it struck him (Mr. Newdegate) that that was a very careful reservation; and it led him to inquire what those doctrines were. It was not until lately that he had gained some insight into their real nature. It appeared that the religion of the Jews was not a mere religion of faith, but that it also contained within it a civil code, which, with the religion itself, Jews were equally bound to obey. It was a well known fact that no Jew ever appealed against a Jew to any of our tribunals. He would proceed, then, to trouble the House with a few passages extracted from the celebrated work Entdecktes Judenthum (unmasked Judaism), by Dr. Eisenmenger, Professor of the Oriental Languages and Literature at the university of Heidelberg:—
"1. The Jews are by law required to exact usury from the uncircumcised, or non-Jews, with whom they may happen to have money dealings; to do them all possible injury, and to lend them no helping hand in cases of need and emergency. This law of doing mischief to the non-Jew is as positive and binding to the non-Jew as that of abstaining from doing that to the Jew.—Maimondes, 'Sepher Hamizwoth' (Book of the Positive Laws), fol. 74 col. 4. Ibid. 'Yad Hazakah' (Powerful Hand), sect. Judges, chap. v.
"2. A non-Jew is not held as a competent witness in matters of any dispute or monetary transactions in a Jewish court.—' Choshen Mishpot' (Grand Code of Civil Law), fol. 40, sec. 19.
"3. The Jew is prohibited, by pain of excommunication, from bearing witness in a court of justice against a brother Jew who is sued by a non-Jew for the restoration of property or repayment of money lent.—' Shulchan Aaruch Choshen Mishpot' (Epitome of the Grand Code of Civil Law) sec. 25. Maimonides, Yad Hazakah,' part
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iv., chap. 26, sect. 1; ' Choshen Mishpot' (Grand Code of the Civil Law), No. 28, sect. 3.
"4. The marriage of a non-Jew is considered null and void, and no crime of adultery is therefore committed with the wife of the same.—' Tractat (Talmud) Sanhedrim (Senate),' fol. S2, col. 2. Rabbi Solomon Yarchi on Levit. xx. 10. Maimonides, 'Yad Hazakah' (sec. War and Kings), chap. 2.'"
Now, it might be said, these are the very anti-social and immoral dogmas of the Jewish creed, to which Dr. Raphall referred. True, they are dogmas of the Jewish religion, it might be said, hut are only accepted by the Jew, as interpreted and applied to ordinary life by the authority of the synagogue; or, it might be said, they are obsolete. But he (Mr. Newdegate) now came to two points of doctrine and practice to which such allegations could not apply. The first of these two was in accordance with Dr. Raphall's declaration as to the authority of the Rabbins, that is, of the synagogue of which they are the teachers; and the second was proved by the continued and present practice of the synagogue itself:—
" 5. There is a positive dogma laid down that more attention is to be paid by the Jews to the words of the rabbins, than to even those of the law (Moses), and that he who slights the former is not considered a Jew, and is sure to go to hell.—Tractat ' Baveh Meziah' (Law about Things Lost and Found, fol. 33, col. 1), Massechteh Sophrinoth (sec. Books and Authors, chap. 15, fol. 13): Tractat ' Eruvin' (Laws about the Eves of Festivals), fol. 21, col. 2; Tractat 'Haguayah' (Festivals), fol. 10, col. 1.
"6. On the eve of the grand fast festival, or atonement day, the congregation is solemnly absolved by the high priest and the elders, by a solemn prayer before the altar in the synagogue, from all vows, oaths, promises, &c., contracted by any member in the course of the year.—Vide the Jewish Prayer Book, service for that grand fast day; that prayer is called Kai Nudrei (All Vows, &c.)"
That prayer was repeated every year on the eve of that festival—that prayer is accepted and enforced by the Sanhedrim—that prayer is binding upon and applicable to the whole of the Jewish synagogue, and he would ask whether he had not pointed out a good reason for the opinion that, holding such tenets, the Jew was not fit to join in the legislation of a Christian land? He trusted the House would remember that he was not referring to anything antiquated; it was the constant practice, year by year, of this nation, to receive absolution from all the obligations imposed by oaths and promises contracted within that period. A nation like the Jews, bound to obey the elders, it might be easy to govern

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by the perpetual absolute authority of Jewish rulers, oven when absolved from specific and personal obligations by oath; but it was a serious matter to introduce into the government of this country, and that House, which, in the present laxity of its forms, trusted so much to the good faith of its subjects and of its Members, the professors of a religion which not only maintained the power of absolution, but extended to the whole congregation, year after year, a full absolution from all oaths and obligations. He stated this in answer to the observations of the noble Lord, and to show that there was nothing imaginary in the idea that there were tenets and practices of the Jewish religion which rendered its professors incapable of the due discharge of the duties of a legislator in a Christian country, and especially in a country like this, where we allowed the widest latitude of opinion in everything except the obligation and the meaning of an oath, and where everything depended on the good faith of each citizen as to the discharge of his duty to his country, and to his fellow citizens. He had heard it said that it was not proposed to introduce the infidel, but merely those who were bound by the first part of the law by which we ourselves were bound, although they repudiated the second, and, through Christ, salvific part. But he must ask, would it not be wiser to admit the infidel at once, rather than the professors of a religion who had not in common with us the tie of morality founded upon the Gospel, and the doctrines therein set forth, but who claimed the power of absolving themselves from the obligations of any oath to which they might have submitted? The Roman Catholic religion was the most exclusive religion that he knew; and he was greatly surprised to find that so many Members in the House of that persuasion should support the introduction of those who denied the blessed Founder of the Christian religion. He trusted that this arose from no sympathy with the power of dispensation vested in the Synagogue—a power which the Roman Catholics claimed for themselves. Whether this were so or not, he thought the Roman Catholic Members would not commend their cause to the country by supporting the introduction into Parliament of a sect whose religion they condemn, and in which there is nothing in common save this power of absolution. It appeared to him that the course taken by this House on this subject
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was very significant. It was but the other day that the House sanctioned the second reading of a Bill which imposed a new property qualification, and by which any Member who was insolvent, whether permanently so or not, should be at once ex-eluded. This bound the property qualification tighter upon the Members to an unknown amount. When it became a question of religious belief, as affecting the qualification of candidates for admission into this House—when it became a question of morality—when it became a question relating to the character of the House—when it became a question affecting the respect entertained for the House by the people of this country—there was a great talk of liberality; but, on the question of debtor and creditor, no enactment could be too stringent for these liberal Gentlemen. In his opinion, the construction of the House was favourable enough to the moneyed interest. Had the usury laws not been repealed? Had not the noble Lord, not long ago, sanctioned 8 per cent at the Bank as the minimum of interest? They did not need the assistance of Jewish colleagues to render the money qualification for Members more stringent, to assist the noble Lord in the encouragement of usury, or to import the principles of the Stock Exchange wholesale into Parliament. He could not deprecate any thing more strongly than that that qualification should be drawn tighter and tighter which excluded the poor, while the doors of Parliament were cast open to every infidel, no matter how offensively he might repudiate our religion. The perseverance of the noble Lord with this Bill seemed to him almost unnatural. The opinion of the other branch of the Legislature had been most plainly spoken last Session, and if that ought to have any weight, why did not the noble Lord yield to it? If the Upper House were a part of the constitution, the duty of which was to revise the decrees of the Lower House, the position of the noble Lord surely bound him to respect the voice of the House of Lords. At any rate it would have been more decent had he issued a writ and tested the opinions of the city of London before he again introduced this measure, after the emphatic decision of the House of Lords against it. He (Mr. Newdegate) was glad to say that the conduct of the House of Lords had met with a response throughout the realm. There was no clamour on the subject, but

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a deep feeling of approval pervaded the country. No act of their Lordships for years had so much raised them in the general estimation. He rejoiced that this debate was not to be suppressed, as those with reference to this subject on the two previous occasions had been. In one instance the debate was broken upon and interrupted; and in the second instance, when the House came to that stage of the Committee at which the noble Lord introduced his last alteration of his own oath, an hon. Member had thought fit to exclude the reporters, and the public were yet in total ignorance of the nature of the Bill; and the hon. and learned Member for the University of Cambridge had merely performed a strict duty by taking care the public should know what was proposed, and should see the extent to which the noble Lord's original proposal had been altered since the question had been submitted to the House. The noble Lord originally introduced into his oath terms which were the terms of the constitution, by which Members were called upon to repudiate the authority of any foreign prince, prelate, or potentate, in this realm, and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of any foreign prelate. But the noble Lord had thought fit to remove that portion of the present and of his proposed oath; and why? because the noble Lord declares it had merely been introduced to remove doubts with respect to the supremacy of the Crown in matters ecclesiastical. Those words were declared by Lord Eldon to be explanatory, and introduced for the purpose of removing and clearing up doubts? If there were doubts when those words were introduced, what had happened since to remove those doubts? Last Session the Duke of Wellington, in the other House of Parliament, proposed the addition of words to that very effect in the Diplomatic Relations with Rome Bill, because doubts had been conjured up by parties who wish to invade the supremacy of the Crown. The proposition of the noble Duke was sanctioned by Lord Lansdowne, and it was carried by the Ministry in that House; and yet the noble Lord now came down and told the House that the doubts he then admitted were now removed. He (Mr. Newdegate) could not conceive what extraordinary circumstances had happened in the interval to render this declaration then so necessary now so useless. He lamented that the noble Lord had adopted this course. The noble Lord appeared to him
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determined to limit the oath to the fewest possible words. That might be desirable; but last Session the noble Lord admitted here that there were doubts by supporting a declaratory enactment on this very point; but lately, after a very brief interval, those doubts appeared to have been removed, and the declaratory part of the oath was abandoned; but the noble Lord had never condescended to explain what occurred to remove these doubts. He (Mr. Newdegate) considered it an imperative duty solemnly to protest against this measure. It was a measure of miscalled liberality. It was a prostitution of the term in its true sense to call it liberality, for he believed that the Protestant religion was the foundation of all true liberality, indeed of all true liberty. He did not believe in the success of the constitutional forms of government established in Continental countries where the Roman Catholic religion, in its ultra-montane stringency, existed. Our Protestant faith was our only security for our liberties; and let the House mark how those liberties had grown up. First, the people of this country reformed their religion, and having done that gradually, by degrees, with only one lamentable interruption, our political liberties have been accommodated to our religion, and have grown out of it. It was because he respected the liberties of our country—it was because he prized the toleration of our religion—and because he wished to perpetuate them for ages, that he prayed the House to retain its Christian character, from which the country could never depart with safety. He trusted that they would never depart from the maxim of Blackstone, namely, that Christianity is part and parcel of the constitution. He would ask whether it was consistent with common sense that our laws could be Christian unless they were framed by Christian legislators, and in a Christian spirit. It was in vain to tell him that every assembly is Christian in which a majority are Christians. He saw many assemblies in which the majority were Christians, not acting in a Christian manner; and therefore he prized the Christian character of that House, because if it acted otherwise than as a Christian assembly it would forfeit its position in the eyes of the country, and be liable to the reproach of having departed from a fundamental principle of its constitution. He should vote for the Amendment, because if they passed the measure,

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he felt it would be acting at variance with the first principle of the constitution, and betraying the confidence of the people of this country.
MR. CROWDERsaid, that it was not his intention to have addressed the House, and he would not have done so had it not been for the remarkable statement made by the hon. Member who had just resumed his seat. Until he heard the quotations of the hon. Member from those documents which he had searched, in order to ascertain the laws by which the Jewish body were guided, he (Mr. Crowder) confessed he was utterly ignorant of the fact that the Jews held themselves absolved from the performance of any obligations into which they might have entered. And he was the more astonished that this doctrine should have been broached by an hon. Member who opposed the omission from the Parliamentary oath of the words "upon the true faith of a Christian," because he believed those words to be efficacious in excluding the Jews from Parliament. Was it to be believed that a body of persons whose conscientious scruples had prevented them from entering that House, because they would not take the prescribed oath, in which was language that they were unable to utter, being contrary to their conscience—was it to be believed that the Jews, as a body, or any honest, conscientious, or upright Jew, so doing, would hold themselves absolved from the obligation of an oath? It was the first time he had ever heard that doctrine; and it certainly appeared to him so inconsistent with the conduct of men who had abstained from taking an oath by which they might have held their seats in that House, that he could not believe they recognised it. The ground upon which he (Mr. Crowder) should give his vote in favour of this measure was, that in his opinion it was most unjust, and inconsistent with the general principles of the constitution, that any man, or set of men, should be excluded from the enjoyment of civil rights and political privileges on account of peculiar religious opinions. It was upon that ground that he should give his vote in favour of the Bill, because it appeared to him that, unless those religious opinions were such that those who entertained them were induced, in conformity with those opinions, to act in a manner inconsistent with the well-being of the State, it was contrary to the principles of the British constitution that they should be either proscribed
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or excluded from any right or privilege enjoyed by any other British subject. The hon. and learned Member for the University of Cambridge seemed to have rested almost the whole of his argument upon the ground of the Jews having been formerly considered in the nature of aliens, and that it was not until a comparatively recent time that they had ceased to be persecuted. But was that, he would ask, any rational ground why, at the present time, if the Jews entertained no religious opinions which rendered them incompetent to discharge all the social duties which devolved upon other British subjects, they should be prevented from the enjoyment of the full rights which belonged to them as British subjects? Was the fact of their having been hunted, tortured, and persecuted in former ages, any ground for refusing now to give them tardy justice? And yet, if the principle of the hon. Member opposite were agreed to, they would continue the same spirit of persecution which had prevailed in former times. There were really but two arguments which he had heard used against this Bill—one, that the Jews had been considered in the light of aliens; the other, that by introducing them into Parliament they would unchristianise the Legislature. With regard to the first ground of objection, that had been effectually disposed of by the hon. and learned Member for Athlone, who had asked in what manner a British Jew would be treated if found in the ranks of an enemy fighting against this country. If, in such a case, he would be treated as a British subject, and punished accordingly, he ought not to be excluded from the full enjoyment of all the rights and privileges belonging to British subjects. With respect to the second objection, that the admission of Jews would unchristianise the Legislature, he confessed that he was unable to understand that objection. If by it were meant merely that the Legislature, which, before the introduction of Jews, was Christian, would be, after their admission, not Christian, because of the Jews being admitted, there really was not, in his opinion, anything in the objection. It was no argument to say, that because there would be some Jews in the House, they would unchristanise the the Legislature. It had not been even attempted to be shown in what manner the Jews would legislate differently from the present Legislature. Would they attempt to overthrow the religion of the country? There was probably no class of men who

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were less given to proselytising than the Jews, and they certainly would not interfere injuriously with respect to the existing religion. Indeed he had never heard of any such attempts; and neither had he ever heard of Christians who had adopted the Jewish faith. Again, it was said that if that Bill were passed, a Jewish Member might vote on Church questions. But why should not a Jewish Member vote on those questions if he should think proper to do so? All the Members of that House did not profess the doctrines of the Established Church; nor were they all oven Protestants; and a Jew would be as competent to give an impartial vote on church questions as any other Member who dissented from the Church. He would go further, and express his belief in the statement of the Bishop of St. David's, that a Jew would be likely to display less hostility to the Church than a Christian Dissenter. That right rev. Prelate had used the following language in the course of the last Session:—
" I must say, that if any question affecting the interests of the Church is to be discussed in the other House of Parliament, I, for one, should greatly prefer that it should be submitted to the decision of a Jew rather than a Dissenter. On a common principle of human nature, I conceive that a Dissenter must be subject to a much stronger bias on such a question, and must be much more hostilely disposed towards the Church of England than a Jew can possibly be."
He (Mr. Crowder) agreed with the right rev. Prelate; he believed that in all matters of church government a Jew would feel much less interested than a Dissenter, unless, therefore, it could be shown that the Jew would legislate differently or more injuriously than the existing Legislature, there could not be any weight attached to an objection of this nature. He had never known of a Jew acting improperly in the discharge of his duty as a juryman. As alderman of a municipal corporation the Jew became a species of legislator, for he legislated for the corporation; and he was not aware that it had ever been objected to a Jew that he was not as good an alderman for the administration of the law as a Christian. Then, again, although he was prevented sitting as a Member of that House, he could be elected, and could act as an elector himself. He had yet to learn that Jews, in the situation of jurymen, aldermen, or voters, did not discharge those respective duties as honourably and correctly as Christians. Formerly others, besides Jews, were for a long time excluded from sitting in Parlia-
1398
ment; but the restrictions had been gradually relaxed, and it did not appear that any harm had arisen. If they regarded the principle of the measure, he thought by the Bill of 1829, for emancipating the Roman Catholics, it had been admitted by the Legislature that there should be no further exclusion from office or that House solely on the ground of religious faith. It appeared to him that the same arguments which were urged against the Jews on the present occasion had been adduced against the admission of the Catholics in 1829 and in previous years. They were now told that a candidate should not only be qualified by the possession of 300 l. a year, but it was an essential part of the qualification that he should be a Christian. Previous to the Bill of 1829, they were told that a Member of that House must be a Protestant, as an essential part of his qualification. An hon. Gentleman opposite said, if they admitted a Jew, they excluded a Christian; by the same rule, if they admitted a Catholic, they excluded a Protestant. In conclusion, he would only add that he should give his cordial support to the Bill.
MR. GORINGsaid, it appeared to him that hon. Gentlemen showed they knew nothing of the habits of the Jews by the arguments they had used in favour of the Bill. If a Jew came to the table of that House to take the oaths, and took it on the faith of a Christian, he would be held up to contempt before other hon. Members. They had been told that the circumstance of admitting' Jews to the franchise was a strong argument for the measure; but this was answered by the Bill itself; for it only proposed to do away with a portion of the oath for Members of Parliament, and it did not allow them accession to higher offices. It had been said that the Jews were only excluded accidentally: this might be a very fair argument for special pleading, but there was no reasonable ground for such an assumption. They had been told a great deal about Christian charity and toleration; but he conceived there was a duty he owed to God before that which he owed to his neighbour. He believed, by passing this Bill, they were doing an act by which they dishonoured God and our Saviour; he, therefore, should oppose its further progress.
MR. SADLEIRwas in favour of the Bill, not, however, from the desire to work out the conversion of the Jews, which appeared to be the feeling which inspired the

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hon. Member for St. Albans. His own feeling was, that the Jews had been excluded from Parliament more from accidental circumstances than from any other cause. For his own part, he did not regard the oath taken by Members as containing any profession of faith. If an Englishman took an oath in China with a saucer on his head, it could not be contended that by that act he pledged himself to the faith of Confucius. It was idle to pretend that the admission of the Jew would unchristianise that assembly. There were in this empire no less than 40,000 Jews; and was there any one who would be so rash as to assert that their residence in this country deprived the land of its Christian character? If the Jews were admitted into that House tomorrow. Parliament would be still Christian, in the same sense that the country which it professed to represent was Christian. There was a time when the Roman Catholic was stigmatised in that House as an idolatrous Papist and an anti-Christian, and on the pretext of that false representation he had been for years excluded from Parliament. The spirit of the times, however, had imperatively required his admission; and so, too, did it now demand the admission of the Jew, notwithstanding that an effort was made to exclude him on the plea that he was a non-Christian. The Catholic had been denounced as an idolater, and it was argued that his admission would be fatal to the Christian character of the House; but surely there was no rational man who was prepared now to contend that the course of legislation in that House, since the admission of the Catholic in 1829, had been less Christian in its character or less philanthropic in its operation than it had been before that epoch. Much misapprehension prevailed as to the rules and maxims which guided and controlled the moral conduct of the Jew. The fact was, that very many of the rules and maxims which governed the actions of the Israelites, were precisely identical with those which governed the actions of the Christian, for they were derived from the same source, the Old Testament. It was most unaccountable how any man of sense, who had devoted any attention to the course of legislation in that House for the last twenty years, could now hesitate to grant to the Jew the last right which was yet wanted to place him in the full enjoyment of the privileges of free citizenship. The Pagans did not hesitate to recognise the right of the Jew to Roman citizenship; and
1400
would Christian legislators, in this enlightened age, be less tolerant and less high-minded than the worshippers of Jupiter? It had been urged, that the great desire and aim of the Jews was to return to Palestine; and that, therefore, they were not influenced as subjects of this realm by those ties which ought to bind them to the land of their birth and adoption. But he thought the conduct of Jews in this country did not justify that assumption, for they were daily acquiring every description of property likely to induce them to remain in the kingdom. It had been said, that the Jews expected a full restoration; but surely the prevalence amongst them of such an opinion formed no reason why they should be excluded from the Legislature. There were many Christians who believed that the second coming of Christ was not now very far distant; and, doubtless, there were many believers in the Millenium in this country; hut that formed no objection to such persons sitting in Parliament. To him it appeared that the claims of the Jews were irresistible. If it could be shown that the admission of the Jew would not lower the Christian character of that assembly, surely it would not be on any head contended that the Legislature would be justified in withholding from him that right, to which, on social and political considerations, he was indisputably as much entitled as the member of any other creed in the community. Questions involving the interest of the Church, and matters of ecclesiastical discipline, were of rare occurrence in that House. Their numerical proportion to other questions, on which the capacity of the Jew legislator could not be questioned, was exceedingly insignificant. No one would dispute the capacity of the Jew to deliberate on questions of finance—on questions relating to the improvement of the moral and physical condition of the people—on questions of foreign policy, or colonial management. On questions of that character, the Jew, notwithstanding his peculiar religious tenets, was as well qualified to deliberate as any other subject of the realm; and there was no reason whatever for apprehending that when, at rare intervals, questions of church discipline might arise, he would, if admitted into Parliament, pursue a course less decorous, less manly, or less independent, than that pursued by any other Member of that House. If the Jew were incompetent to legislate on questions connected with church discipline, in what light would

1401
they regard the deliberations and legislative efforts of that denomination of Christians called Quakers? The hon. Member for Manchester was not disqualified to consider the military estimates in that House, and yet it was one of the religious tenets of the hon. Gentleman that war was sinful and unlawful. He attached no credit whatever to the assertion which had been so recklessly made, that the whole spirit and tendency of the national mind in this kingdom were hostile to this measure. That the great majority of the English people were favourable to the principle of the Bill, was sufficiently attested by the number of their Parliamentary representatives who had already recorded their votes in its favour. But whatever might be the case with respect to the English people, he could take upon him to assert, without fear of being confuted, that the Irish people were most friendly to the measure. Notwithstanding their present prostrate condition, the Irish people felt a deep interest in the maintenance of the great doctrines which were reflected in this Bill; and they looked forward with unaffected anxiety to the gradual growth and progressive development of those principles of civil and religious liberty for which they had themselves, in bygone years, endured merciless persecution; for which they had fought; for which they had bled, and for which they had so long struggled against all the vicissitudes of adverse fortune. They would hail with heartfelt joy the consummation of a measure which would confer on the English Jew the privilege of entering that House; and their gratification would be the greater from the reflection that in the day of their tribulation they had no more munificent benefactor than the very gentleman who now sought admission within its walls. That noble effort of voluntary charity which eventuated in the institution of the British Association, was promoted, and, indeed, originated, by the man who now stood at the portals of that House, which, by an accident, he was precluded from entering; and having alluded to the subject, he would here take occasion to observe, that that most estimable gentleman, not content with instituting that association, and enriching it most munificently, had, in a spirit of unostentatious benevolence, made it his business to search out, in the remotest and most unexplored recesses of Ireland, objects on whom to confer the most valuable evidences of his sympathy
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and commiseration. He thought it was greatly to be deplored that they should be deprived, in their deliberations, of the wise and humane counsels of such men; and he should, therefore, have great pleasure in voting in favour of the third reading.
MR. SPOONERsaid, if his vote were to be regulated by the respect in which he held many gentlemen belonging to the Jewish nation—if it were to be regulated by the deep sense which he entertained of the liberality and even munificence of such men as the hon. Gentleman alluded to, or Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmidt, and Sir Moses Montefiore—if he gave his vote according to the high estimation in which those gentlemen were generally held, he must necessarily support the measure of the noble Lord at the head of the Government. If this vote were to be regulated by the interest which he felt, and which every Bible reader must feel, not only in the past history but in the future prospect of the Jews—if that were to guide his vote, he should certainly support the Bill; but such, he thought, were not the principles which ought to guide that House. He could not concur with the hon. Member for Carlow in the opinion that the religious questions which arose in that House were insignificant as compared with questions of a different character. [Mr. SADLEIR explained. He had not said so. He had said they were numerically insignificant.] They might be so; but their importance immeasurably transcended that of all other questions. By the coronation oath the Sovereign was bound to maintain not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant faith, as laid down by the doctrines of the Established Church. The same duty devolved on the Legislature; and was he to be told that a man who was so circumstanced as to find it impossible to vote conscientiously in favour of Christianity and Protestantism, ought to be admitted into that House, simply because he might be qualified to legislate well on a question of finance or colonial government? The hon. Member for Carlow had begged the question when he said the Jew ought to be admitted, if it could be done without lowering the Christian character of that House. It was precisely at that point they were at issue. He (Mr. Spooner) most emphatically denied that the Jew could be admitted without such a result. The hon. and learned Member for Liskeard had tauntingly asked what was meant by saying the House would be unchristianised?

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Surely, if there was anything in this world which would derogate from the Christian character of that assembly, it must he the admission to its membership of a man who, if he be an honest and conscientious Jew, must regard Christianity as a fable, and our Lord and Master as an impostor. If Jews be conscientious and single-hearted, they must act on Jewish principles, and not on Christian principles; and admitting men into that House who were inexorably coerced by a conscientious conviction not to act on Christian principles, was doing that which he would call "unchristianising the House." He did not think it was at all true that the feeling of the national mind was favourable to the present measure. The fact of a measure being adopted by that House, did not invariably imply that it was approved by public opinion. No less than 1,300,000 persons petitioned that House against any addition to the Maynooth grant, and yet the Bill authorising an addition had become the law of the land. Petitions on the subject had been so completely disregarded in that House, that he had been told by the people who signed them that they would never waste their parchment and their time by petitioning the House again. He warned them against believing that the country was indifferent on this question; there was a sullen feeling abroad, because they despaired of success; but the people did not feel the less strongly because they were silent. It did not follow as of logical consequence that because the Roman Catholics and Dissenters had been admitted, Jews ought not to he excluded. There was the greatest possible difference between the two cases. True, they had admitted Roman Catholics and Dissenters, but up to the present time they had invariably required at least an open profession of Christianity from every Member, no matter to what class of religionists he might belong, before he was allowed to take his seat. But they now proposed to abolish that profession, and virtually to declare that Christianity was no longer to be the groundwork of the principles on which Members of that House was called upon to take their seats. In the year 1829 he was favourable to the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, and chiefly on this ground—that Mr. Canning called the attention of the House to this, that inasmuch as an oath excluded the Roman Catholics from Parliament, so an oath would regulate their conduct when admitted to seats
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in the Legislature; he, though not in Parliament, supported out of doors the measure of 1829, believing in the promises then given; but he regretted to observe that those promises had not been kept; and now, looking at the consequences of the measure, he did not hesitate to say that the result had not answered his expectations. The course that had been pursued with reference to this Bill, was a most unprecedented one. The Minister came down, and without prelude or ceremony proceeded to release the Members from the oath of supremacy. He knew that there were persons who were decidedly for maintaining the oath of supremacy, yet felt that they could not conscientiously take that oath which called upon them to assert that no foreign prince, &c, had any supremacy in this country, because they thought that by former Acts of Parliament such supremacy had been recognised; but he thought it too much that, in order to dissipate unfounded doubts in the minds of some Members of the other House of Parliament, the whole nation should be released from the oath of supremacy. He believed himself that no foreign prince had any power in this country. Such a power might he assumed; but to "have" it, meant that it could be enforced by some process of law, and the Pope could not by any legal proceedings enforce his authority over Roman Catholics in this country. He contended that no foreign prince or power had any spiritual or ecclesiastical supremacy in this country; and he, for one, could not give his consent to the abolition of the oath to that effect, which he considered one of the safeguards of the Throne and constitution. He would ask the noble Lord why he had given up the oath in Committee? No one appeared to he aware that the oath in the Bill was merely an oath of allegiance, and that the oath of supremacy was abolished. He believed it was not known in the country that the noble Lord had withdrawn the oath of supremacy, because it was done at a period when, by a very ill-advised Motion, the usual organs of information to the public were excluded from the House. He contended there was nothing in the Bill which prevented, a Roman Catholic from taking the Protestant oath at the table. The loss of his seat attached to the Roman Catholic so acting, but no evidence could be given that a man was a Roman Catholic. Attending a Roman Catholic chapel, from curiosity, was not a

1405
profession of the Roman Catholic religion. He cautioned them to remember that it might be expedient to continue the oath of supremacy, for there might be those who would wish to establish in this country an ecclesiastical dominion to overthrow the spiritual supremacy of the Sovereign. It struck him when he read the Bill, that the question was left in a very doubtful manner. There was nothing, as he before said, to prevent a Roman Catholic taking the Protestant oath, and there were no means of knowing what his profession was. Any Member coming to the table might take whichever oath he pleased, and a Roman Catholic might take the Protestant oath or not, just as he wished. He had great respect for Roman Catholics individually, but, at the same time, he knew that they were bound to oppose and extinguish Protestantism by any means in their power. He would ask, were there not persons in that House already who ought not to be relieved from this test? He believed there were some who thought that the Sovereign ought not to be supreme in Church matters. There might be a readiness in other quarters also to challenge the spiritual supremacy of the Sovereign. At present the oath taken by Protestants was so framed that Roman Catholics could not take it, and therefore they took the Roman Catholic oath, which was an act of profession that the party taking it was a Roman Catholic. Ought they to suffer any person to come into that House under the cloak and character of a Protestant, when he was a Roman Catholic? And yet he feared this would be the case if the oath of supremacy were abolished. What was proposed would remove the control which the present Roman Catholic oath imposed on Catholics, and so remove the only barrier interposed between them and their assaults upon the Established Church. It had been said once by a noble Lord that the Roman Catholics never would rest satisfied until they had extinguished Protestantism, and established the Roman Catholic religion. He hoped the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government would bestow some consideration upon the point which he had raised respecting the possibility of a Roman Catholic taking the Protestant oath. He trusted he would put the matter out of doubt, and take care that one of the great safeguards of the Act of 1829 should not he taken away. He would ask, if they took the Protestant oath, would they not then be set
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free from the obligation intended to be imposed on them by the Act of 1829, and exposed to the full influence of their religious feelings as Roman Catholics? With these views, then, he was opposed to the measure of the noble "Lord, and he still hoped that both the House and Her Majesty's Ministers would pause before they removed one of the greatest safeguards which protected our constitutional freedom. In his opinion freedom was never safe under Roman Catholic dominion. He implored the House to look at the state of the Continent, plunged as it was in the horrors of war, while we were blessed with peace and happiness. He attributed the tranquillity of this country, in a great extent, to its Protestant institutions, and he hoped that the Legislature would not, in an ill-advised moment, be induced to abandon those safeguards through which, by the mercy of Providence, we had been spared the infliction of those disasters which had fallen upon Continental countries. Holding these sentiments, and believing that if this Bill were passed, the consequences would be fraught with peril, he would be compelled to give it a firm and unflinching opposition.
MR. SHEIL: Sir, the title of this Bill refutes the allegations of the hon. Member for Warwickshire. It is "a Bill to alter the Oaths to be taken by Members of the two Houses of Parliament, not professing the Roman Catholic Religion." The sixth section of the Bill especially provides that nothing in the Act contained shall be applicable to Roman Catholics. It runs thus:—
" That nothing in this Act contained shall extend or be applicable to any Peer or Member of the House of Commons, professing the Roman Catholic religion, or be held to alter or affect the provisions of an Act passed in the tenth year of King George the Fourth, intituled ' An Act for the Relief of His Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects,' requiring the oath thereby appointed and set forth to be taken and subscribed by a Peer, or Member of the House of Commons, professing the Roman Catholic religion, as a qualification for sitting and voting in either House of Parliament, or the penalties, forfeitures, and disabilities to which any person professing the Roman Catholic religion sitting or voting in either House of Parliament without taking and subscribing such oath is by such Act made subject."
If a Roman Catholic came to the table of the House and took the oath prescribed for Protestants, it would be a virtual recantation of his religion, because he would take an oath which a Roman Catholic was forbidden from taking, and by taking the Pro-

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testant oath, he at once conformed to the Protestant faith. He found by this Act that the oath to be taken by all other classes of Her Majesty's subjects was simple and plain. It was most usefully disencumbered of a great deal of superfluous phraseology and useless acerbation. The Roman Catholic oath remains uninterpreted and untouched. I am sorry that the field for angry controversy and calumnious imputation remains unclosed. At the same time, I cannot fail to feel that a liberal construction or modification of that oath would enhance the difficulties that beset this measure, and interfere with the permanent object of this Bill, which, as a Roman Catholic, I have much at heart. I am, thank God, unlike the hon. Member for St. Albans. In that pure and disinterested borough, I am glad to learn from the hon. Member, that Mammon is not an object of adoration. With that class of my fellow-citizens and fellow-subjects who are subject to the disabilities by which I was once myself affected, I deeply sympathise; I have not forgotten the pressure of those galling shackles which I have ceased to bear. I consider an exclusion from this House a great grievance, and I shall be pardoned for adding, that in that opinion several of the most prominent among the antagonists of this measure, who are indebted to Parliament for their signal successes in public and official life, ought to coincide. The exclusion of the Jew is grounded on an allegation of its necessity; but we should beware of the plea which in Seville and at Geneva was disastrously familiar. So far from this assumed necessity being proved, the very contrary is established. With our present denials, our past concessions are inconsistent. The Jew sheriff, by whom a jury may be empannelled to try the first Christian commoner in England for his reputation or his life, cannot sit in the House of Commons. A Jew may hold the high and authoritative office of Recorder of the city of London. The hon. and learned representative of the University of Cambridge is invested with that municipal dignity, and however eminent his position in this House, I cannot help thinking that the Member of Parliament is merged in the Recorder. A Jew can vote for the worst Christian, and a Christian cannot vote for the best Jew. The anomalies do not stop here. You exclude the least formidable of all Dissenters, who cares as little as Gallic for your ecclesiastical institutions, and who is equally indifferent
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to the deepest-dyed Catholicism and to Protestantism of the most variegated kind; while you admit the Catholic, whose Church you overthrew, and the Presbyterian, by whom your Church was overthrown. We are told that the Christian character of this House would be affected by this measure, as if the Christian character of the House did not depend on the Christian character of the English people. As well might you tell us that England was not a Christian country, because Jews have not been expelled from England, as they were driven from the countries in which avowed infidelity, flagitious immorality, and merciless intolerance were combined. Will the hon. Member for Warwickshire contend that the Congress of the United States, in which Jews are admitted, is less Christian than the Congress of Mexico, where Jews are excluded? There were four Jews in the late Constituent Assembly of France—M. Cremieux, M. Goudchaux, M. Fould, and M. Serpent. Did an irreligious sentiment ever escape their lips, or did they expostulate against the celebration of those august ceremonies of Catholicism, which happily indicate a restoration of that faith, of which, in the opinion of all its statesmen, France stands so much in need? Will any man maintain that if a Jew were admitted into this House, he would abuse his trust, and insult the religious feelings of those by whom he was surrounded, or those that sent him here? So much for the alleged necessity for the exclusion of the Jew. I will not notice the sanctimonious sophistications of the men by whom we are informed that we should make ourselves the auxiliaries of Omnipotence, and lend our aid to the Almighty in the fulfilment of the prophecies, by shutting the Rothschilds and the Goldsmidts and the Montefiores out of the House of Commons. Their assertion deserves almost as little regard who tell us that into a genuine Englishman you cannot turn a Jew; enough to say that the Jews are good citizens and good subjects—loyal to their Sovereign, and attached to their country, lovers of order and obedient to the laws—and that many of them are eminent for their virtues, and distinguished by their almost boundless charity—that upon misery in every form, whether it be Jew or whether it be Christian, they look with an eye of indiscriminately munificent commiseration. By the inhabitants of this great metropolis, who have the best and nearest cognisance

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of their conduct, they are enthusiastically sustained. Not only has the City, properly so called, returned a Rothschild to Parliament, but by the representatives of the multitudinous metropolitan constituencies, this Bill is zealously supported. It will not be said that 2,000,000 of Englishmen are indifferent to the interests of Christianity, In no city on the face of the earth is Christianity more prized and reverenced; from the summit of that majestic temple, dedicated by England to the name of that famous Jew who so essentially contributed to disseminate the religion of charity through the world—over the vast expanse of wealth and of greatness, of grandeur and of power, in which so many of the glories of Imperial England are assembled—the cross appropriately ascends. It is the memorial of a great sin, but it is the symbol of a measureless mercy—it is the type of a religion, with which penalties for the sake of its propagation are incompatible. The cause of Christianity and the cause of toleration are identified; they are highly and holily the same. The victory of the one is the triumph of the other; and as for the achievement of that victory, and the consummation of that triumph, I fervently pray, so in that achievement and in that consummation I most trustfully confide.
MR. GOULBURNwas not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House, from which he had been himself some time excluded, should sympathise with those who, under differ-ent circumstances, were placed in a similar situation. But the right hon. Gentleman would give him leave to say, that he presumed the noble Lord who introduced this Bill was anxious to give him the benefit of a continued sympathy, as he had carefully omitted from his Bill the elevation of the excluded class to an official position in the country. He retained the obstruction which prevented the admission of Jews to office; and, therefore, when he gave the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity of rejoicing at their admission into Parliament, he left him the greater blessing of sympathising with their afflictions in their exclusion from office. He (Mr. Goulburn) was prepared to resist this measure as one which altered the character of Parliament, and, therefore, affected the hold which Parliament had on the affections of the country. That was the great objection which he felt to the Bill before the House. But he knew that other object-
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tions might be raised to the circumstances under which this Bill had been brought forward, and to the manner in which the noble Lord intended to effect the object which he had in view. For what were the circumstances under which they were called upon to legislate in this matter? There was no general call from the country for the admission of Jews to Parliament. But a single constituency, powerful from its position in the metropolis, and powerful also from its wealth, had thought fit, in defiance of the existing principles of the constitution, and the practice of the Legislature, to send as a representative to the House a person who was unfit to execute those duties which as a representative he was bound to perform; and they then called upon the House to violate, by a retrospective measure, those principles which had hitherto guided the formation of that assembly. If it were the duty of Parliament to take care that in no case it should relax the authority of the law, or induce the belief that by frequent and multitudinous applications it could be induced to relax that authority, that House was bound to refuse its sanction to a measure which was attempted to be forced upon it by the mere power of numbers and by wealth. If, then, there were no other reasons for refusing to assent to the Bill, these would be ample. But there next came the consideration of the manner in which it had been introduced. He did not pretend to say, that his hon. Friend the Member for Warwickshire was perfectly accurate in his assertion of the legal objections to the measure. He was not lawyer enough to attempt to add any weight by his opinion to the objections of his hon. Friend. But he should say, that there was great weight in his hon. Friend's arguments, and that they had not been shaken, nor his objections removed, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvon. The Bill said, that the Roman Catholic should still take the oaths required by the Roman Catholic Relief Bill; but there was no compulsory provision, either in the first or sixth clause, by which Roman Catholics could be compelled to take the more stringent oath enacted for them, in preference to the one about to be provided for Protestants. They knew that a Protestant Member of the House had preferred taking the Roman Catholic oath to the Protestant one; but, under the great change about to be effected by this Bill, they did not know that that oath would not be entirely abrogated.

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It abrogated, so far as regarded the Protestant Members, the oath of supremacy. And what was the object of that oath? It was to prevent the admission, by any class of Her Majesty's subjects, of the right of any foreign Power, Prince, or Potentate, to exercise any ecclesiastical supremacy within these realms. The Roman Catholic oath distinctly denied the right of any foreign Power to exercise any temporal or civil jurisdiction, thereby admitting the exercise of eeclesiastical authority in the case of Roman Catholics. But now they were called upon to do away with the oath of supremacy for the sake of admitting Jews, and, consequently, to do the very thing which they refused to do for the Roman Catholics or the Dissenters. That which they had refused to do for those who professed Christianity only in a different form from themselves, they were about to do for those who, unlike the Roman Catholics or Dissenters, were opposed, not only to the Established Church, but were at enmity with the Christian religion itself. He wished next to make some observations upon an argument used by the hon. Member for Liskeard, who said that it was the right of every honest British subject to have a seat in Parliament. If the hon. Gentleman meant to say, that that was the law at present, he (Mr. Goulburn) should beg leave to differ with him entirely. There wore many honest British subjects, who had no qualification to entitle them to sit in that House. There were many who exercised professions, and others who held offices, which disentitled them—which excluded them from Parliament. That was, therefore, not a conclusive argument in favour of the admission of Jews to Parliament. If the House of Commons were confined purely to the discussion of the civil affairs of the country; if they never interfered with religious matters, or if Government were quite separated from religious concerns, he could understand the propriety of admitting Members into Parliament who entertained views entirely hostile to the Christian religion; but whilst the House asserted a right to deal, not only with the temporalities of the Church, but with the essential interests of Christianity, he could not assent to the admission of such persons. He had heard the hon. Member for Oldham say, that he, though a Dissenter, would not be debarred from interfering with the temporalities of the Established
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Church, and the sentiment was received with general approbation from those who usually acted with the hon. Gentleman. One hon. Gentleman, indeed, had quoted the opinion of the Bishop of St. David's in favour of the Bill. But he (Mr. Goulburn) would quote from another Prelate, the Archbishop of Dublin (Dr. Whately), than whom there was no more strenuous supporter of the admission of Jews to Parliament. That most reverend Prelate had published a corrected report of a speech which he had delivered some years ago in the House of Lords, and in that speech he said that it was asserted that persons who vilified the Great Author of the Christian religion ought not to be admitted to a share in the councils of the country. And on that point arose a question to which it was very hard to reply. For whoever was admitted to a seat in the Legislature was admitted to a share in the government, not of the State only, but of the Church; and that not merely in the case of its temporalities, but of its purely ecclesiastical affairs. If, therefore, it were asked of him what right Jews had to legislate for a Christian Church, he knew not what answer could be given. That was the opinion of Dr. Whately. But it had been insinuated, rather than asserted, in that House, that the belief of the Jews being founded upon a portion of the sacred Scriptures, it was not so very different from the Christian belief as some people asserted or imagined. He had even heard one hon. and learned Gentleman in that House say—and it was with great surprise he listened to the assertion—that he considered the Jew to be only an imperfect Christian. He (Mr. Goulburn) knew not who amongst that assembly could claim the title of a perfect Christian. Would to God that any of them could! They were all, at best, hut imperfect Christians; and if they viewed the Jews only as imperfect Christians also, what was there to prevent the hon. and learned Member from attending the synagogue, or Jews from holding office in the Christian Church? But could any man who knew the two professions of belief, assert that the difference between the Christian and the Jew was slight, whilst the Christian viewed as an object of adoration One whom the Jew looked upon as an object of abhorrence—that there was little difference between believing in a Saviour already come, and looking for one as yet unborn—between trusting in the mercies of him as God, who

1413
was considered by those others as an impostor? It was most dangerous to assert such a principle. It had been said by the supporters of the Bill, that there was no intention when the words "on the true faith of a Christian" were first introduced into the oath, to exclude the Jews thereby. The hon. and learned Recorder of the city of London had exposed that fallacy. There certainly was no such intention entertained at the time, for the Jews were then in such a situation that they were not recognised at all. But if they were to tell him (Mr. Goulburn) that it was not afterwards intended to exclude them by continuing those words, he should say that the assertion was contrary to the manifest intention of the Legislature, and to the whole practice of the constitution. In the reign of James the First, the oath was directed to be taken upon the holy evangelists. The 1st William and Mary introduced a new oath, and the words "upon the true faith of a Christian" were certainly omitted from it. But then it provided that the now oath should be taken like the old, upon the holy evangelists; and subsequently the words were reintroduced. By the 10th Geo. I., when it was thought advisable to admit Jews to certain offices in the colonies, it was provided, that the latter words of the oath of abjuration, "which prevented Jews from taking the oath," should be omitted in the instances mentioned, thereby showing that whatever might have been the intention of the original oath, the words were accepted by Parliament as excluding the Jews. But the question, after all, was, whether the principle of the constitution was not that Jews should be excluded from the Legislature; and that such was the principle of the constitution was evident from the general practice from the earliest period. It had been the practice from the earliest time to bind up every action of the Legislature with a religious ceremony. When the Queen was called to the Throne, the Members of both Houses attended in Westminster Abbey, and the services of the Church were performed. The very daily business of the House commenced with prayer, showing that it was the intention of the constitution that the Legislature should be Christian. Was not the object evidently to unite all the Members in a common prayer—in a prayer in which all Christians could unite, so as to obtain that blessing from united prayer which might not be granted to individual and divided supplication. This
1414
was a distinct indication of what was the intent of the constitution—that the common prayers should be offered up by all through one Mediator. Now, could the Jew join in that prayer? Could he, who disbelieved in the Author of the Christian faith, join in Christian worship? Suppose a Jew to be elected to the Chair, could there be anything more painful than for the chaplain to be offering up prayers in which the Speaker could not conscientiously join? And supposing the other House of Parliament to be thrown open for the admission of Israelites, what an humiliating sight would it be to see a Jewish rabbi sit side by side with a bishop of the Established Church discussing ecclesiastical affairs? It had, indeed, been argued, that they were bound by their duty of charity, as Christians, to extend to the Jews the same privileges as they themselves enjoyed. He admitted that every man, whether Pagan, Jew, or Christian, was equally entitled to their good offices—to receive at their hands relief in his necessities, and instruction in that which he had not previously had the means of learning. But charity did not extend to such a case as the present. Charity had not ceased, but self-protection necessarily came into consideration. He had charity for the man who intended to rob him; but he would not, therefore, give him the power and the opportunity of doing so. He had charity for the Jew, who differed from him in religious belief; but he did not see why he should give him the power of injuring the religion which he (Mr. Goulburn) professed. But then they were told that they were bound to extend the privilege now proposed, because the Jews were particular objects of the Almighty's favour, and would hereafter be restored to Palestine. He looked forward with pleasurable anticipations to the period when the Jew would become a Believer in the Saviour; but he could not in the intermediate time overlook their errors, nor could he peril the institutions of the country by admitting them to seats in the Legislature before that happy consummation arrived. He believed that the passing of this Act would cripple the power of the Legislature for doing general good; it would increase the feeling of distrust in the minds of many who looked with apprehension upon the interference of Parliament with religious matters. It was said that it met with universal concurrence out of doors. Those who said so, little knew what was going on amongst the most use-

1415
ful and religious people in the country—amongst people who did not appear upon the hustings at elections, nor at public meetings, but who silently and quietly went amongst the lower classes of the population, promoting amongst them respect for the laws and love of religion. To those people the passing of this Bill would be a severe blow and a heavy discouragement. It would not relax their exertions or disturb their loyalty, but it would enable those amongst whom they went to cast a reproach upon them, and to tell them that the Legislature upon which they relied so strongly was no longer a Christian one. Those people would not consider the number of Jews in Parliament; they would merely observe that access was freely given to them; and the effect would necessarily be to weaken the power of those religious persons to whom he referred, of doing good amongst the masses of the population. It was impossible to conceal from themselves that ever since the passing of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill and the Reform Bill there had been growing up in the country a continually increasing distrust in the fitness of Parliament to deal with ecclesiastical affairs, and a desire in the minds of many of the most respectable and influential classes to see a separation between the powers conducting the affairs of the Church and the State. The learned Archbishop, to whom he had before alluded, had expressed his opinion that Jews ought not to be allowed to legislate in matters purely ecclesiastical; others likewise leaned to the opinion that the power of legislating for the Church should be withdrawn from them if they were admitted to seats in the Legislature. He (Mr. Goulburn) should be extremely sorry to see the power withdrawn from any Member of Parliament, or that the struggles between the antagonistic doctrines of Jews and Christians should strengthen the opinion in the country that a separation between Church and State ought to be effected. He should consider few evils greater at the present time than that the Church should be insulated in her position. He strongly felt the importance of not separating the ecclesiastical from the civil authority of Parliament in either branch of the Legislature; and had an additional reason, in view of the civil and religious tranquillity of the country, for opposing a measure that would have that effect, and which, moreover, would have a tendency to destroy the real influence of
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Parliament over a large and extensive religious body in the country, and to disable the Legislature from fulfilling some of its most important duties.
MR. ROEBUCKhoped the House would be kind enough to excuse him if he entered into the discussion of this question on the third reading of the Bill before the House. The example had been set him by Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House; and, in consequence of that example, he would also enter into this discussion now. However, if this had been a measure of what was called a democratic character, such as a question brought in by the hon. Member for Montrose, respecting the alteration of the constitution of that House, and had been negatived once, and its supporters were again twice, or even thrice, to bring it before the House for discussion, he thought they would very soon have been met by hon. Gentlemen opposite saying—" Why, we have discussed this matter already—it has already occupied the attention of Parliament once this Session—why should you want us to discuss it over again, when this House has already deliberately considered and rejected it? "Such an argument as that would have been very forcibly used if the question had been such an one as he had just supposed. But though the House had, he believed, already discussed this question three times, hon. Gentlemen opposite were not satisfied, but dug up their old arguments, and attempted to galvanise them with new life, with the view, he imagined, of influencing the decision of the other House of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge had spoken of the fate of this Bill in the other House, which he had been pleased to describe as composed of persons more likely to listen to arguments drawn from religious considerations, and as an assembly in which questions of theology and religious belief could be more authoritatively stated than they could be in this House, giving them altogether to understand that the House of Lords could better judge of what was fitted for the religious government of this country than could the representatives of the people. He (Mr. Roebuck) had every possible respect for the other House of Parliament, but could not concur in thinking it composed of a class whose religious character or ability was superior to that of any other section of the community. In his experience it was not in that class

1417
that he found the peculiar devotion which distinguished and characterised the people of this country; and if he were to seek for these virtues, it would be amongst that modest middle class which had given its distinctive character to England, and in all things good and great made her stand before the world in the position she now occupied. But the observations that he also should offer, would be made with the view of influencing the future fate of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had also made another remark, which he (Mr. Roebuck) could not overlook. He had appealed from the decision of this House to the decision of the people out of doors, and had said that this House was not the body which should be referred to on questions like the present. Now, in the course of the debate a few nights ago on the constitution of this House, one of the great arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had been, that this House distinctly and accurately represented the feelings of the country. Well, he (Mr. Roebuck) would accept this argument for one thing as well as for another, and hold that if the House represented the feelings of the country with regard to the constitution of this House, then it also represented the feelings of the country on a question of this kind. It had been declared by large majorities of this House that this Bill should pass, and he would assume that it was the liberal feeling of the people of England that this Bill ought to become law. But, further, his (Mr. Roebuck's) memory somehow or other travelled back to a few years ago, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University Cambridge was sitting on that (the Opposition) side of the House, but on the right had of the Speaker—in 1828, when the right hon. Gentleman did argue exactly as he had argued that night with respect to the Catholics; and if they struck out of the speech he had just delivered the word "Jew," and put in its place the word "Catholic," and substituted for the word "Christian," the word "Protestant," they would have exactly the whole of the right hon. Gentleman's argument repeated and reinsisted upon; and if the same event were now to happen that happened in the year 1828, they would have precisely the same result. The right hon. Gentleman would then find an admirable reason next year for giving up all his terror and alarm, and would suddenly discover that there was
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no ground for supposing that this House would be un-Christianised by the admission of a few Jews. He (Mr. Roebuck) was unfortunately old enough to recollect what the right hon. Gentleman had said in 1828, and what he had done in 1829; and when the right hon. Gentleman told them that there was danger to the Church of England from admitting a few Jews to this House, must he not recollect how the right hon. Gentleman had formerly proclaimed danger to the united Protestant Church of England and Ireland when vast numbers of Roman Catholics were admitted to the Legislature? If the right hon. Gentleman had stuck to his text, and nailed his colours to the mast, resolved to fight under them as long as he existed, then he (Mr. Roebuck) would never have addressed this argument to him, because he might have declared, "Aye, but I was never a consenting party to the admission of the Catholics." That, however, had not been the right hon. Gentleman's conduct; for he saw reason in 1829—not, indeed, to admit some three or four Jews into this House, but to throw open its doors to possibly something more than 100 Roman Catholics to join in their deliberations. And was not the right hon. Gentleman answered by his own argument? He had distinctly stated that by the Catholic Emancipation Act and the Reform Bill, and by the admission of large numbers of Dissenters into Parliament, the character of this House had greatly changed with regard to the Church of England, and that danger had thereby arisen to the connexion of the Church with the State. But the right hon. Gentleman himself was one of the consenting parties to some of those measures; and why had he not stood out against his leader, then at his right hand, but now in opposition to him. He did not wish to speak offensively by using a soldierlike phrase, hut why did not the right hon. Gentleman oppose his commander then—as he did now? But he had said that the House was now about to be un-Christianised. In 1828 he said it was about to be un-Protestantised; and he (Mr. Roebuck) was anxious to know what was meant by the term "the House was to be un-Christianised?" Why, they were about to admit certain gentlemen amongst them who openly professed the Jewish religion. Were they sure they had none in that House who did not profess the Christian religion at the present time. Had that never occurred to them? Surely

1419
the right hon. Gentleman was sufficiently well read to know that once, aye, and twice, in the history of England, those sat in that House who openly abjured belief in the whole doctrines of Christianity. [Mr. GOULBURN dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman, he could perceive, shook his head at this, and pointed to the table, meaning, he (Mr. Roebuck) supposed, to refer to the oath—that cobweb by which they caught the honest man, but which was totally impotent against the person who did not care what or how many oaths they imposed upon him. Did they think that the admission of half-a-dozen infidels (he would use the word at once), in spite of themselves, would un-Christianise the House? Or did they flatter themselves that its un-Christianisation would be prevented by their swallowing an oath about which they cared nothing? But the right hon. Gentleman said, the Bill was dangerous in another way, because they were about to admit Catholics who took this short oath. But what was to happen then? He had been obliged, he had said, to introduce, as a species of safeguard to the Church, in order to conciliate opposition and to soften down the bigotry of his countrymen, a clause in the oath taken by the Catholics; and on the repeal of the Test Act the Dissenters had to bind themselves not to injure the Established Church. The same Catholic oath, nearly, had been administered down to this day; and what was the result? Why, he thought, one Catholic had been pricked in his conscience about the oath—scarcely more than one. He (Mr. Roebuck) had seen Catholics most properly legislating, voting, speaking, and doing all they possibly could, as Members of Parliament, to alter the revenues of the Established Church. Had Catholics and Dissenters legislated on the Church of England just the same as if there had been no such clause? And where then was the use of an idle oath, by which only one conscience was pricked—an oath that, like a flimsy web, could not catch the strong flies, but sometimes entangled the wings of a weak one. The hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Warwickshire, with the reckless bigotry that distinguished the class to which he belonged, had dipped—that was the literary phrase—had dipped into the Talmud and the Jewish Prayer Book, and produced extracts to show that the Jewish Rabbis gave dispensations to their follow-
1420
ers from all oaths interfering with their religion. Now, for whom and why were they now legislating? Why, because there were gentlemen of the Jewish persuasion who had so nice a sense of what an oath was, that they refused to come into that House on any pretext whatsoever, or in any manner whatsoever, that would impeach their honour, their morality, or their religion. They were actually now legislating for tender consciences; and yet the hon. Gentleman came down to the House with that species of hardihood and cruel bigotry of intention that distinguished the class of gentlemen to which he belonged, and took it upon him to stigmatise a class of his fellow-subjects—aye, or fellow-men —with an utter absence of all honour or honesty, as to profess a religion that relieved them from the strongest ties which men had agreed to make between one another, and to which they attributed the strongest sanction that the fears of mankind could manufacture. Yes, the hon. Gentleman had come down there, and thought fit to impute to them an utter disregard of the most sacred ties and obligations, from some garbled extracts taken from a book that he had looked into for the first time when he made the extracts—extracts which he (Mr. Roebuck) was certain, from the way in which the hon. Gentleman read them, he did not understand, because all he gathered from them was an imputation against the honour and honesty of the persons of whom he was speaking. Of the nature of the extracts themselves—of what they led to—and how they bore upon the religion of the Jews—the hon. Gentleman was as ignorant now as he had been six months ago; and six months ago he had not seen the book. Yet the hon. Gentleman had had the courage—that was not the right word by-the-by—the courage to say of men quite as honourable as himself in every relation of life, that they were utterly regardless of an oath. But what was the value of his argument. He had said, the Jews received from their leaders and Rabbis annually, at stated times, a dispensation relieving them from the obligation of an oath. Did the hon. Member derive this aspersion from the Old Testament, the great book of authority with the Jew? [Mr. NEWDEGATE: From the Jewish Prayer-book.] No, he found it in the Jewish Prayer-books. Why, he (Mr, Roebuck) could bring writers of every class of Christians, giving exceedingly strange and rather twisting reasons, too, full of obliquity, and

1421
by no means straightforward or honest, to relieve men from many grave and sacred obligations. But should be feel himself justified on that account in saying that Christians had an utter disregard of Christian duty? The celebrated Pascal, with regard to the Provincial Letters, did not think of attacking the whole of the Christian commentators, because certain Jesuitical writers twisted, to suit their purpose, the grave obligations of religion. No, Pascal was too ingenuous for that: he attacked the writer of the book individually, and not all Christians whatsoever. And he (Mr. Roebuek) was bound to believe that they who said the Bible was the great hook of their law, had as strong a sanction to an oath as any that the Christian took, and that the hon. Member for Warwickshire had no more right to impute carelessness to them in taking an oath, than he (Mr. Roebuck) had to cast the same aspersion on the hon. Gentleman himself; and let him tell the hon. Gentleman that it was no slight offence to charge any man on insufficient evidence with an utter disregard of solemn obligations. He maintained that it was unjust and unfair towards those people, who were not there to defend themselves, for the hon. Gentleman to come down there and blast the character of a whole sect by an imputation entirely groundless, for it was not supported by their belief. They were as sincere, as honest in the belief of their religion, as upright in all their dealings as any Christian man, or sot of men; and therefore he had a right to suppose that in all the transactions of life they were guided by the sanctions that affected ourselves, and that among those sanctions that of an oath was one to which they attached particular obligations. Therefore it was totally unjust to refuse a right of this kind to any class of Her Majesty's subjects on grounds of this character. They were fully qualified in point either of instruction or of money; they believed and adhered to the faith in which they were born, the same as we did ourselves; in all the ordinary transactions of life they were perfectly honourable and honest; and, therefore, the onus rested with the other side to show why one of the great privileges of freemen, which he had shown belonged to them á priori, could fairly be taken away from the Jews. True it had been said that they were sometimes aliens; but the grandfather of the Solicitor General himself had been an alien; and yet that was
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not considered a reason why the Solicitor General should be excluded. Therefore, a better argument than that the grandfather of a Jew was an alien, must be found to justify his exclusion from that House. But the right hon. Gentleman said that the oath on the holy evangelists was imposed when they were not aliens, and, therefore, that the oath was designedly made. But there were two Gentlemen of the Quaker persuasion in that House who did not take the oath on the holy evangelists. He recollected that when Mr. Pease came to the table of that House he refused to swear. What did the House do? They altered the form, and Mr. Pease did not take the oath upon the holy evangelists, but made a solemn declaration. That disposed of the argument with respect to the holy evangelists. Why no Gentleman would say that there was any Act of Parliament to admit Quakers into that House; but what the Act did say was that, under certain circumstances, an affirmative might be taken instead of an oath from Quakers. And, moreover, an Act had lately passed enabling all parties in courts of justice to take oaths in that manner which should be considered binding upon them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montgomeryshire, in the debate on the admission of Quakers to that House, referred to an Act of Parliament enabling the affirmation of Quakers to be taken in courts of justice and other places, and said that there could be no doubt that the two Houses of Parliament had superior rights and privileges which could not be limited by implication. He asked them whether it was not a fact that the House of Lords, sitting in its judicial character, would not examine a Quaker upon his affirmation, and upon that examination decide upon the expediency or inexpediency of a measure? Upon that reasoning Quakers were admitted to that House, and he (Mr. Roebuck) now asked whether or not the House of Lords, sitting in their judicial capacity, would not take the evidence of a Jew in a way that was considered binding upon him? And if so, he contended that if the House of Commons could change the form of oath with respect to the Quakers, it had the same power to change it with respect to the Jews. The hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford had declared that Unitarians were not Christians, and yet there were Unitarians in that House; and an Unitarian might, perchance, occupy the Speaker's

1423
chair. The right hon. Gentleman had endeavoured to terrify the House by saying that a Jew might become the Speaker of the House of Commons. But it should not be forgotten that a Jew, not long since, had officiated as sheriff—that a Jew was at this moment an alderman of the city of London, and that it was not impossible he might become a Lord Mayor. By the fact of his being Lord Mayor he would become a Privy Councillor. [Mr. LAW: NO, no.] At all events, on the demise of the Crown he would appear at the first meeting of the Privy Council. He denied that any mischief could accrue from the election of a Jew to Parliament, the choice of whom was the deliberate act of his fellow-countrymen. Was not the choice of the people a sufficient guarantee that the selection was a sound one? If the people sent unworthy representatives, they must take the consequences. No law which could be passed would prevent the people from making such a choice as they deemed expedient. But he had sufficient faith in his countrymen to believe that they would not make an unworthy choice. The story which the hon. and learned Recorder for London told of a man who said that he voted for Baron Rothschild because Jews were excluded from Parliament, and that he would not vote for him if they were admissible to the Legislature, proved that the man in question voted from principle, and not, as the hon. and learned Gentleman more than insinuated, from a spirit of subserviency to a wealthy man. Baron Rothschild was recommended to that man by your pernicious law. He voted not for Baron Rothschild the millionaire, but for Baron Rothschild the representative of the great principle of religious freedom. The right hon. Gentleman had said that this Bill had been forced upon Parliament by the contumaciousness of the people of London. But he could not call the exercise of a free choice contumacy. He thought that the manner in which this debate had been conducted was worthy of the people of England. All that the people had in view was the principle which the Bill contained. It was not the question of the election of Baron Rothschild or anybody else; it was the great question of religious principle at the bottom of the Bill which the people cared about. It was on account of that principle that he, and he believed people out of doors, supported, the Bill, that the people were excited upon it. [Mr. PLUMPTRE: No, no!] The hon. Member
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for East Kent seemed to think there could be no excitement but on the bigoted side. Reference had been made to the petitions on this subject. But were there not people who felt strongly upon the question, and who did not petition? He remembered the time when petitions crowded the table of the House; but the people had ceased to adopt that mode of redress. He felt firmly convinced that no one who advocated this measure would have reason to regret what he had done before any of the large constituencies. He knew more than one large constituency from personal observation, and he knew that large constituencies thought only of maintaining the great principle of religious liberty, regardless whether the question affected a large or a small number. It was because he perceived a great living principle in the Bill that he gave it his support; and he trusted when the Bill should have reached its last stage that the noble persons of whom mention had been made would pay that deference to the freely and constitutionally expressed opinion of the Christian people of England which they had paid before, and that they would not refuse to give their sanction to the expressed will of the people, namely, to have this great principle of religious freedom passed into a law.
MR. NAPIERfully agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down that the question ought not to be decided on personal grounds. He thought, however, that the hon. and learned Gentleman had proved too much; for if his argument was good for anything, it went to show that oaths ought to be totally abolished, and pecuniary qualification also, if it was to rest merely on the opinion of a large constituency who were fit to be Members of that House. The real question before them was, whether Christianity was the basis of the constitution? and if it were so, he would ask where was the man who would deny the fairness of excluding from the House persons opposed to that principle of religion? The Bill of the present Session was different to that of last year; and though the noble Lord at the head of the Government had omitted the oath of supremacy with regard to the Catholics, he had retained in the oath, "on the true faith of a Christian:" now, if the noble Lord did not think it necessary that Christianity should be the basis on which parties were admitted to that House, why were those words retained? Supposing a

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Deist were to be returned to that House, was he to be excluded while the Jew was admitted? He maintained that Christianity was the basis on which the British constitution was founded; and that they were, therefore, bound to exclude from the councils of the State all parties not believing in the Gospel of Christ. It was not because he had personal objections to any man or body of men that he maintained these opinions, but because he conceived he was bound by his religion to support the principle he had just laid down. He had knelt by the side of Roman Catholics and prayed with them; but then they joined in prayer to a common Saviour, and it was only men that did so that he considered ought to be admitted to that House; and if he stood alone, he would raise his voice in opposition to this Bill on that ground. He had heard the noble Lord who introduced the Bill use an argument in its support which he thought unworthy of him. He said that if the Jews were powerful, the House would not venture to oppose their Bill, but that it was owing to the want of power on the part of the Jews that it could be opposed with safety. He denied that such was the reason for the opposition to the Bill. It was because it was considered that this was the last badge of the Christianity of the House—it was because he considered that a faith which had stood for more than 1,800 years was put on its trial before a small sect—and because he thought it essential to preserve that faith in its purity and integrity, that he would give his humble vote against the Bill.
MR. W. P. WOODsaid, that the hon. and learned Member who had just sat down, had protested against this measure as being one by which they were about to part with the last badge of Christianity; but he (Mr. Wood), on the contrary, hailed the measure with the hope that he was for the last time entering his protest against the last badge of an unchristian and persecuting spirit. He would enter upon the subject by saying, that it was as a Christian, no less than as a politician, he gave his decided support to the measure before the House. Hon. Gentlemen opposite delighted in these oaths and declarations, and would probably be pleased to hear the facts he was about to mention. By the Act that repealed the Test and Corporation Acts, every person holding office under the Crown was obliged to make a declaration that he would not use that
1426
office to subvert the Church as by law established. He (Mr. Wood) confessed that he had been heartily ashamed to find the extraordinary care of the Court of Queen's Bench in looking after the interests of the Church according to that Act, and the number of declarations that there were made in consequence of it. The holders of the various offices he was about to name had taken the declaration that by virtue of those offices, or the influence conferred by them, they would not seek to subvert the Established Church. He had taken the roll as it was made up at the accession of His late Majesty King William IV. There were admirals, bishops, and others, who very properly, perhaps, declared that they did not intend to use the influence conferred by their offices to subvert the Established Church; but mingled with them he found the following officers—the master of the King's band, the conductor of the same, the King's principal porter, the housekeeper at Hampton-court Palace, then the state pages, then the King's gentlemen porters, and the trumpeter of the household; and then the watermen, the barge-master, the King's swan-keeper, the Topassier to the household—he did not know what the office was, but that was the way it was spelled—and last, not least, his Majesty's rat-killer, who had to make this declaration—" 1 will not use my office of His Majesty's rat-killer to subvert the Established Church as by law established." The roll would not have stopped there but for the discretion of the officer who had the management of this matter. The King's chimney-sweep presented himself; but as the officer thought the matter was going too far, the chimneysweeper did not appear on the roll. It was disgraceful to continue such a practice; let fit men be appointed, and no declaration will be necessary; and if an unfit man made a thousand declarations he would not be the better for it. If they looked to the Church of England, and saw what had been done since the Test Act was repealed, as compared with what was done before—1,500 churches having been built within the last 15 years, more than 50 times the number built in the 50 years preceding—he thought it would be found that it was not on declarations or such miserable legislation, the Church of England need depend. The best thing they could do was to take the earliest and rapidest steps to get rid of this last remnant of the system.
MR. PLUMPTREsaid, in reference to the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield and others, that it did appear to him to be a very questionable way for any man to show his love for the great Author of our religion, by endeavouring to introduce parties into that House who said that he was a deceiver and an impostor. The hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, too, had used the strong expression, that there was excitement prevalent among the people of this country, in favour of this Bill. He (Mr. Plumptre) begged, however, to say, in contradiction of that statement, that the people were not excited at all upon the subject; and that the hon. and learned Member had given them no proof of anything of the sort. It was true, that a portion of the citizens of London had returned a gentleman of the Jewish persuasion, as one of their representatives; but, if that circumstance was to be held forth as a proof that the people of this country were in favour of this measure, he must deny it altogether, and maintain, that the desire of the people for this Bill, was not shown by their petitions to that House. He asserted, without fear of contradiction, that the most reflecting and sober-minded of the people of this country, were exceedingly opposed to this measure, and considered that it would be an injury to Christianity, if Jews were admitted to Parliament, and, that those who proposed and passed such measures as these, were undertaking a very deep and serious responsibility.
LORD J. RUSSELLsaid: Before this House goes to a division upon this last occasion upon which they will have to divide on this Bill, I wish to take notice of some of the arguments that have been used in this debate. In the first place, I should notice that which does not concern the admission of the Jews, but was used as an argument by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge, that if this Bill passed, Roman Catholics would take advantage of that part of it which allowed another oath to which they had no objection to be taken, and would not take the oath prescribed by law for Roman Catholics. I cannot believe that such would be the case. In the first place, you have, according to this Bill, all the penalties entailed on those who, professing the Roman Catholic religion, should omit to take the oath prescribed for those who are Roman Catholics, and your penalties will subject
1428
them to the loss of their seats, and, in the next place, to large pecuniary penalties, for every vote they give in this House. But, suppose there is any difficulty in enforcing those penalties, it is impossible for me to believe, that any person, professing the Roman Catholic religion, knowing that in the Act of Parliament there was an oath, which all those who professed the Roman Catholic religion were bound to take, would resort to the subterfuge of taking another oath, and not the oath intended by the Legislature for them, concealing their character as Roman Catholics, and endeavouring to pass off for that which they were not. I say, that if men would be guilty of such equivocation, what security would you have, in the present oath, that they had no intention to subvert the Church? So that, your security, as to those who are professed Roman Catholics, remains, I conceive, exactly the same as that which you have now. But the chief of the arguments addressed to the House against this Bill, refer to the clause of it by which Jews are to be admitted, and, as those arguments, however ably urged, have very little in them different from those urged on former occasions, I certainly do not think it necessary to detain the House upon that part of the subject. The hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin says, that the value of this declaration is not that which is passing in every man's mind, not the individual obligation which rests upon every man, but the general obligation with respect to his conduct in this House. Now, it appears to me, that unless you have the first obligation, which the hon. and learned Gentlemen says this oath is not intended to secure, you have not, in fact, any security for the Christianity of the House of Commons. The hon. and learned Gentleman admits, that the oath cannot secure that individual responsibility, and yet if you cannot secure that—[Mr. NAPIER: I said, it does not secure personal religion.] So I understood the hon. and learned Gentleman to say—that the oath does not secure the personal religion of the person who takes it. But if this does not secure it, and we know perfectly well that, although, as the hon. and learned Gentleman says, the oath was intended to exclude Deists, yet the author of a work of great fame, advocating those principles, was for a long time a Member of this House, is not the personal religion of all the Members of

1429
this House a much better security for the Christian conduct of the whole House, than any obligation you can impose by oath upon external conduct? Well, then, if you have not obtained, by this oath, any security for the personal religion of Members of this House, what is the security you obtain with regard to their external conduct? The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge has argued to-night, that unless you have some security of this kind, there is danger that Members of this House, not belonging to a Christian community, and yet being called upon to legislate for the ecclesiastical as well as civil concerns of these kingdoms, may disregard their duties in that respect. But that is a danger which you have incurred long ago. With respect to the maintenance of the Church,—with respect to debates relating to the doctrines of the Church, you have allowed a far greater number of Members to legislate who do not belong to the Church, and many of whom are hostile to it, than you could possibly admit by the admission of Jews. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the university of Dublin says, that I argued for the admission of Jews, because they were not a powerful body; and, therefore, might be admitted. That is not exactly a correct representation of what I said. What I said was this—the majority of this House are told that a certain number of persons who wished to come into this House were knocking at the door; they have very considerable influence, and say it would be very injurious to you if you do not admit them; and you admit them at once. Then there is another set of persons knocking at the door still more loudly—they say they are coming in by force of arms, and will break open the doors. You say open them at once—let them come in. Upon the third occasion you are told, "Here is a small number of persous—^very few—they come on the same grounds as the other two bodies have been admitted upon. They say they are perfectly qualified as civil members of this community, and nothing but their religious differences prevent them from coming into this House." The only answer is, that this is a small number, and therefore it is perfectly safe to refuse them admission. I say, there is no magnanimity, no justice, in this. One hon. Gentleman appealed to me on the ground that many persons of great
1430
respectability, and no doubt very conscientious, thought it would be injurious to Christianity if Jews were admitted to this House. I am very sorry to differ from persons of such character, whose sincerity I respect, but I take a totally opposite view. My opinion is, that it is because we are a Christian House of Parliament, and feel the obligations of Christians, that we ought to do away with all religious disabilities. I hold that religious disqualifications of every kind are, above all things, opposed to the spirit of the constitution; and upon this ground I ask this House to agree to the Bill now before us. I cannot, of course, answer for the fate the Bill may have in the other House of Parliament; but it is true, as was stated by the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, that there are many persons, and certainly many of my constituents, who do feel a very deep interest in this subject. They feel a deep interest in it, not as being in any way connected with Jews, not as being particularly desirous that Jews should be admitted into Parliament, but because they do feel it is a question of religious liberty, and that the character of the country is concerned in making that religious liberty full and complete. It is upon these grounds that I ask the House to agree to this Bill, and I trust it will be in this sense that it ought to become an Act of Parliament.
Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
The House divided:—Ayes 272; Noes 206: Majority 66.

List of the AYES.

Abdy, T. N.

Boyle, hon. Col.

Adair, H. E.

Brand, T.

Adair, R. A. S.

Bright, J.

Alcock, T.

Broeklehurst, J.

Anderson, A.

Brotherton, J.

Armstrong, Sir A.

Brown, W.

Armstrong, R. B.

Browne, R. D.

Arundel and Surrey, Earl of

Bulkeley, SirR. B.W.

Bunbury, E. H.

Bagshaw, J.

Burke, Sir T. J.

Baines, M. T.

Buxton, Sir E. N.

Baring, rt. hon. Sir F.T.

Callaghan, D.

Baring, hon. F.

Cardwell, E.

Barnard, E. G.

Carter, J. B.

Bass, M. T.

Caulfleld, J. M.

Bellow, R. M.

Cavendish, hon. C. C.

Berkeley, hon. Capt.

Cavendish, hon. G. H.

Berkeley, C. L. G.

Cayley, E. S.

Bernai, R.

Cholmeley, Sir M.

Birch, Sir T. B.

Clay, J.

Blackall, S. W.

Clements, hon. C. S.

Blake, M. J.

Clerk, rt. hon. Sir G.

Blewitt, R. J.

Cobdcn, R.

Bouverie, hon. E. P.

Cockburn, A. J. E.

Coke, hon. E. K.

Hindley, C.

Colebrooke, Sir T. E.

Hobhouse, rt. hon. Sir J.

Collins, W.

Hobhouse, T. B.

Cowan, C.

Hodges, T. L.

Cowper, hon. W. F.

Hodges, T. T.

Craig, W. G.

Hogg, Sir J. W.

Crowdor, R. B.

Hollond, R.

Cubitt, W.

Horsman, E.

Currie, R.

Howard, Lord E.

Dalrymple, Capt.

Howard, hon. C. W. G.

Dashwood, G. H.

Howard, hon. E. G. G.

Davie, Sir H. E. F.

llowai-d. Sir R.

Dawson, hon. T. V.

Hume, J.

Denison, W. J.

Humphery, Ald.

Devereux, J. T.

Hutt, W.

D'Eyncourt, rt.hn. CT.

Jackson, W.

Disraeli, B.

Jermyn, Earl

Divett, E.

Jervis, Sir J.

Duff, G. S.

Johnstone, Sir J.

Duncan, Visct.

Keogh, W.

Duncan, G.

Keppel, hon. G. T.

Dundas, Adm.

Ker, R.

Dundas, SirD.

Kershaw, J.

Ebrington, Visct.

Kildare, Marq. of

Ellice, E.

King, hon. P. J. L.

Ellis, J.

Labouchero, rt. hon. H.

Enfield, Visct.

Langsten, J. H.

Evans, W.

Lascelles, hon. W. S.

Fagan, W.

Lawless, hon. C.

Fagan, J.

Lemon, Sir C.

Fergus, J.

Lewis, G. C.

Ferguson, Col.

Lincoln, Earl of

Ferguson, Sir R. A.

Loch, J.

Fitzroy, hon. H.

Locke, J.

Fitzwilliam, hon. G. W.

Lushington, C.

Foley, J. H. H.

M'Cullagh, W. T.

Fordyce, A. D.

M'Gregor, J.

Forster, M.

Meagher, T.

Fortescue, C.

Maitland, T.

Fortescue, hon. J. W.

Mangles, R. D.

Fox, R. M.

Marshall, W.

Fox, W. J.

Martin, S.

Freestun, Col.

Mathcson, A.

French, F.

Matheson, J.

Gaskell, J. M.

Mathcson, Col.

Gibson, rt. hon. T. M.

Maule, rt. hon. F.

Gladstone, rt. hn.W. E.

Melgund, Visct.

Glyn, G. C.

Milner, W. M. E.

Grace, O. D. J.

Mitchell, T. A.

Graham, rt. hon. Sir J.

Molesworth, Sir W.

Granger, T. C.

Monsell, W.

Grattan, H.

Morison, Sir W.

Greene, J.

Morris, D.

Grenfell, C. P.

Mostyn, hon. E. M. L.

Grcnfell, C. W.

Mowatt, F.

Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.

Mulgrave, Earl of

Grey, R. W.

Nicholl, rt. hon. J.

Grosvcnor, Lord R.

Norreys, Lord

Hallyburton, Lord J. F.

Norreys, Sir D. J.

Harcourt, G. G.

Nugent, Lord

Hardcastle, J. A.

Nugent, Sir P.

Hastie, A.

O'Connell, J.

Hastie, A.

O'Connell, M.

Hawcs, B.

O'Connell, M. J.

Hay, Lord J.

O'Connor, F.

Haytcr, rt. hon. W. G.

O'Flaherty, A.

Headlam, T. E.

Ogle, S. C. H.

Heathcoat, J.

Ord, W.

Heneage, E.

Osborne, R.

Henry, A.

Oswald, A.

Herbert, H. A.

Owen, Sir J.

lleywood, J.

Paget, Lord A.

Heyworth, L.

Paget, Lord G.

1432

Palmerston, Visct.

Smith, J. B.

Parker, J.

Somers, J. P.

Pearson, C.

Somerville, rt. hn.Sir W.

Pcchell, Capt.

Spearman, H. J.

Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.

Stansfield, W. R. C.

Peel, F.

Stanton, W. H.

Perfect, R.

Strickland, Sir G.

Peto, S. M.

Stuart, LordD.

Philips, Sir G. R.

Sutton, J. H, M.

Pigott, F.

Talbot, O. R. M.

Pilkington, J.

Talfourd, Serj.

Pinney, W.

Tancred, H. W.

Price, Sir R.

Tennent, R. J.

Pryse, P.

Thicknesse, R. A.

Pusey, P.

Thompson, Col.

Reynolds, J.

Thompson, G.

Ricardo, J. L.

Thornely, T.

Ricardo, O.

Tollemache, hon. F. J.

Rice, E. R.

Townshend, Capt.

Rich, H.

Trelawny, J. S.

Rehartes, T. J. A.

Tynte, Col.C. J. K.

Roebuck, J. A.

Vane, Lord H.

Romilly, Sir J.

Verney, Sir H.

Russell, Lord J.

Villiers, hon. C.

Russell, hon. E. S.

Vivian, J. H.

Russell, F. C. H.

Wall, C. B.

Rutherfurd, A.

Watkins, Col. L.

Sadleir, J.

Wawn, J. T.

Salwey, Col.

Westhead, J. P.

Sandars, J.

WiUcox, B. M.

Scholefield, W.

Williams, J.

Scrope, G, P.

Willyams, H.

Scully, F.

Williamson, Sir H.

Seymour, Sir H.

Wilson, J.

Shafto, R. p.

Wood, rt. hon. Sir G.

Shell, rt. hon. R. L.

Wood, W. P.

Sheridan, R. B.

Wrightson, W. B.

Slaney, R. A.

Wyvill, M.

Smith, rt. hon. R. V.

TELLERS.

Smith, J. A.

Tufnell, H.

Smith, M. T.

Hill, Lord M.

List of the NOES.

Acland, Sir T. D.

Bromley, R.

Adderloy, C. B.

Brooke, Lord

Arbuthnott, hon. H.

Brooke, Sir A. B.

Archdali, Capt. M.

Bruce, C. L. C.

Arkwright, G.

Buck, L. W.

Ashley, Lord

Buller, Sir J. Y.

Bagge, W.

Bunbury, W. M.

Eagot, hon. W.

Burghley, Lord

Bailey, J.

Burrell, Sir C. M.

Bailey, J. Jun.

Burroughes, H. N.

Baillie, H. J.

Campbell, hon. W. F.

Baldock, E. H.

Garew, W. H. P.

Bankes, G.

Chandos, Marq. of

Barrington, Visct.

Chichester, Lord J. L.

Bateson, T.

Christopher, R. A.

Bennet, P.

Christy, S.

Bentinck, Loi-d H.

Clive, H. B. H.

Beresford, W.

Clive, hon. R. H.

Bernard, Visct.

Cobbold, J. C.

Blackstone, W. S.

Cocks, T. S.

Blakemore, R.

Codrington, Sir W.

Blandford, Marq. of

Cole, hon. H. A.

Boldero, H. G.

Coles, H. B.

Bowles, Adm.

Colvile, C. R.

Brackley, Visct.

Compton, H. C.

Bramston, T. W.

Conolly, T.

Bremridge, R.

Corry, rt. hon. H. L.

Brisco, M.

Cotton, hon. W. H. S.

Broadley, H.

Davies, D. A. S.

Deedes, W.

Lowther, H.

Dick, Q.

Lygon, hon. Gen.

Dod, J. W.

Mackenzie, W. F.

Drummond, H.

Macnagbten, Sir E.

Duckworth, Sir J. T.B.

Mahon, Visct.

Duncombe, hon. A.

Manners, Lord C. S.

Duncombe, hon. O.

Manners, Lord G.

Duncuft, J.

March, Earl of

Dundas, G.

Masterman, J.

Du Pre, C. G.

Maunsell, T. P.

East, Sir J. B.

Maxwell, hon. J. P.

Egerton, Sir P.

Meux, Sir H.

Egerton, W. T.

Miles, P. W. S.

Estcourt, J. B. B.

Miles, W.

Farnham, E. B.

Moody, C. A.

Farrer, J.

Moore, G. H.

Fellowes, E.

Morgan, O.

Filmer, Sir E.

Mullings, J. R.

Floyer, J.

Mundy, W.

Forester, hon. G. C. W.

Napier, J.

Fox, S. W. L.

Neeld, J.

Frewen, C. H.

Neeld, J.

Fuller, A. E.

Newdegate, C. N.

Galway, Visct.

Noel, hon. G. J.

Goddard, A. L.

Ossulston, Lord

Godson, R.

Packe, C. W.

Gooch, E. S.

Pakington, Sir J.

Gordon, Adm.

Palmer, R.

Gore, W. O.

Peel, Col.

Goring, C.

Pennent, hon. Col.

Goulburn, rt. hon. H.

Plowden, W. H. C.

Granby, Marq. of

Plumptre, J. P.

Greene, T.

Portai, M.

Grogan, E.

Prime, R.

Grosvenor, Earl

Reid, Col.

Guernsey, Lord

Repton, G. W. J.

Gwyn, H.

Richards, R.

Haie, R. B.

Rushout, Capt.

Halford, Sir H.

St. George, C.

Hall, Col.

Sandars, J.

Halsey, T. P.

Scott, hon. F.

Hamilton, G. A.

Sibtborp, Col.

Hamilton, J. H.

Simeon, J.

Harris, hon. Capt.

Smyth, J. G.

Heald, J.

Smollett, A.

Heneage, G. H. W.

Somerset, Capt.

Henley, J. W.

Spooner, R.

Heryey, Lord A.

Stafford, A.

Hildyard, R. C.

Stanley, E.

Hildyard, T. B. T.

Stanley, hon. E. H.

Hill, Lord E.

Stephenson, R.

Hodgson, W. N.

Stuart, H.

Hood, Sir A.

Stuart, J.

Hope, A.

Sturt, H. G.

Hornby, J.

Taylor, T. E.

Hotham, Lord

Thesiger, Sir F.

Inglis, Sir R. H.

Tbornbill, G.

Jolliffe, Sir W. G. H.

Tollemacbe, J.

Jones, Capt.

Trollope, Sir J.

Kerrison, Sir E.

Turner, G. J.

Knight, F. W.

Tyrell, Sir J. T.

Knightley, Sir C.

Verner, Sir W.

Knox, Col.

Vesey, hon. T.

Lacy, H. C.

Villiers, Visct.

Legh, G. C.

Villiers, hon. F. W. C.

Lennox, Lord H. G.

Vyse, R. H. R. H.

Lewisham, Visct.

Waddington, H. S.

Lindsay, hon. Col.

Walpole, S. H.

Lockhart, A. E.

Walsh, Sir J. B.

Lockhart, W.

Welby, G. E.

Long, W.

Wellesley, Lord C.

Lopes, Sir R.

"Whitmore, T. C.

Lowther, hon. Col.

Williams, T. P.

Willoughby, Sir H.

Worcester, Marq. of

TELLERS.

Raphael, A.

Law, C. E.

Main Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read 3o, and passed.

PALACE COURT (WESTMINSTER) BILL.
LORD DUDLEY STUARTmoved for leave to bring in a Bill for giving a person sued in the Palace Court, Westminster, a right of election to he sued in the county court of the district in which he resided. The evils of the Palace Court were so notorious, that it would be unnecessary for him to make more than a few observations in order to point them out to the House. He hoped it was not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to offer any opposition to this Motion. If there were any any benefit greater than another which a Government could confer on the inhabitants of a country, it was that of bringing cheap justice home to every man's door. Now, the Palace Court prevented that from being done. It exposed those who were engaged in litigation to enormous and most disastrous consequences. The fees which were charged in that court were ten times as large as those charged in any other of the courts that took cognisance of similar causes. The consequence was, that being a court for adjudication of cases in whtch the demands were of small amount, those wretched persons who were dragged into it, were frequently reduced to absolute ruin. It was quite enough for a plaintiff to bring his cause into the Palace Court to insure to himself a verdict. The defendant had only to consent at once to what was demanded of him; because it was notorious that the verdict was always in favour of the plaintiff. So much was this known to be the case, that the court was commonly called "The Plaintiffs' Court." The public had been made familiar with the case of the celebrated writer Jacob Omnium, who in a case with a horse-dealer involving a sum of only 2l. 17 s. had to pay a bill of costs amounting to 21 l. He would ask if this was not oppression that demanded instant redress? In the Palace Court a person was not at liberty to choose his own attorney, but must employ one of a few enjoying a monopoly of the business of the court; and there could be little doubt that the attorneys enjoying this monopoly paid others in the shape of agency to induce suitors to bring cases nto tnat court. In the county

1435
courts the process was simple, and the costs small; and he therefore thought liberty should be given to persons sued in the Palace Court to transfer their cases to the county courts. As he understood that the hon. and learned Attorney General did not intend to oppose the Motion, he would simply move for leave to bring in a Bill.
The ATTORNEY GENERALwould not oppose the introduction of the Bill. He did not deny the grievance of which the noble Lord complained; but there were difficulties in the way of a settlement. There were six attorneys, four counsel, a judge, and sundry officers who had purchased their places at a considerable price, and to whom compensation, in the event of the court being abolished, would require to be given. He had had the circumstances connected with this court under consideration, and it was his intention to bring in a Bill to meet the exigencies of the case, but hitherto he had not found time or opportunity to do so. The best course would be to abolish the court. That was the object he had in view, but he had not yet been able to overcome the difficulties that lay in the way.
MR. B. OSBORNEsaid, he wondered that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General was not aware that under the 7th and 8th of Victoria, cap. 106, compensation had been already given to the parties to whom he had alluded. Many of these persons had already received much larger sums than they had paid for their privileges. The House had already paid 5,000 l. in compensation to that court, and he held in his hand a return that had been laid before the other House of Parliament, from which it appeared that one of the at
1436
torneys of that court had been paid 3,000 l. odd as compensation. But he could prove that the court had been illegal from its origin. It was established in the 16th of Charles II., and it had, he believed, ever since continued to tax the people by fees without the sanction of Parliament. He thought that it would be better not to bring in a Bill at all, but to withdraw the patent under which the court was held.
The ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that the Palace Court had been recognised in a variety of Acts of Parliament, and it might be urged that Parliament should not, therefore, treat it now as an illegal institution.
MR. REYNOLDSrejoiced that his noble Friend had taken up this question, and he hoped that the House would also consent to abolish the twin sister of this court—he meant the Record Court in Dublin, and that the public would not hear of any unjust provisions for giving compensation to parties connected with it. There could be no nuisance abolished at the present day without an outcry being raised for giving some parties or other compensation.
MR. HENRY DRUMMONDsaid, he apprehended that courts of justice were not established for the benefit of judges and attorneys, but for the benefit of the public.
SIR G. GREYhoped that it would be understood that his hon. and learned Friend had not alluded to the subject of compensation as a matter of right towards these parties.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Lord Dudley Stuart and Mr. Osborne.
House adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Passengers.
2a Incumbered Estates (Ireland).
3a Defects in Leases.
PETITIONS PRESENTED. By the Bishop of Norwich, from Horsford, Horsham, and several other Places, for the Suppression of Seduction and Prostitution; also from Bristol, against the Granting of any New Licenses to Beer Shops—From Haddington, for a Reduction of the National Expenditure.—By the Marquess of Westminster, from Shaftesbury, for Extending the Jurisdiction of County Courts; also from St. Paneras, that Boards of Guardians may be Empowered to grant Superannuation
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Allowances to Poor Law Officers.—From Hexham, for a Repeal of the Window Tax.—By the Earl of St. Germans, from Mr. G. Gurney, for Inquiry into the Subject of Fire-Damp Explosions.

VENTILATION OF COAL MINES.
The EARL of ST. GERMANSrose to present a petition from Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney, on the subject of the ventilation of coal mines. The noble Earl observed, that he need not dwell upon the interest and importance of the subject. All of their Lordships must be sensible how essential it was to the wealth and the power of this country, as well as to the comfort of its inhabitants, that coal should be obtained with the least possible waste, and at the least possible cost. Neither of these conditions were, however, attained under the present system of colliery management, in consequence, principally, of the frequent explosions which took place from the accumulation of noxious gases; and the question then was, whether there was any mode of preventing the occurrence of these melancholy catastrophes. The petitioner stated that in 1847 there had been 623 persons killed by mine explosions, and 196 seriously wounded; while, in 1848, there had been 191 explosions, in which 446 persons were killed, and 158 disabled for life. To this melancholy list must be added the victims, amounting to between 30 and 40, of a recent explosion in Yorkshire. This subject had already attracted the attention of the Legislature. In 1835, a Committee of the House of Commons had been appointed to inquire into the occurrence of accidents in coal mines, and to devise and consider the remedies best calculated to secure the lives of the 'persons employed in them. This Committee collected a large body of valuable information from the scientific and practical men whom they examined as witnesses; but they did not recommend any specific remedial measure. The petitioner, Mr. Gurney, gave evidence before that Committee, and explained to them a plan by which he proposed to ensure the perfect ventilation of coal mines. The Committee recommended the attentive consideration of those proposals, and expressed a hope that now, as the attention of the public had been called to the matter, some remedial measure would be adopted. No such steps, however, were taken, and matters remained as they were until 1839, when a terrible explosion took place near South Shields, a meeting was held, and a committee of scientific and practical men re-

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siding in the neighbourhood was appointed to investigate the whole subject. This committee sat, at different times, for a period of three years, considering and discussing various measures for the prevention and remedy of such disasters. He then held in his hand their report, and a more valuable document, in his opinion, never was published. He would not read it to their Lordships, hut would merely state that it contained a very graphic description of the scenes of misery which one of these terrible catastrophes occasioned. The members of that committee had taken great pains in examining and analysing the different species of gases, and in describing the operation of the choke-damp, the after-damp, and the various other incidents which exposed the miner to greater dangers than any other set of workmen engaged in industrial pursuits. They had also examined the different means employed for the protection of the life of the miner, and described the different safety-lamps which were now used in different mines. They showed that the best lamps were insufficient for the purposes for which they were intended, and in certain conditions of the atmosphere increased rather than diminished the danger. They then proceeded to point out for adoption the plan for the ventilation of mines which Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney had described minutely in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1835. The South Shields committee called upon that gentleman for further explanation, which he most readily afforded; and the conclusion that committee arrived at, after full and mature consideration, was, that Mr. Gurney's plan was perfectly efficient for the purposes it professed to accomplish. The noble Lord quoted a passage from the report of the Committee, stating that the plan of ventilating coal mines by high-pressure steam was peculiarly adapted for its purpose, at a small expense, and without interfering with the ordinary working of the mines, while it swept the galleries almost with the violence of a hurricane; but under perfect control, and that it seemed to be one of the most perfect inventions of modern times. Notwithstanding these recommendations, nothing was done till last year, when Sir Henry Delabeche and Dr. Playfair were sent by Government to inquire into the causes of some accidents that had taken place in a coal mine in the north; but the only practical recommendation they made was, that there should be
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some improvement in the system of ventilation. Last year, a gentleman connected with the Seaton Delaval Colliery in the north, namely, Mr. Foster, official viewer in that mine, happened to he in London, and, visiting the Polytechnic Institution, he saw some experiments made there with high-pressure steam, which struck him as being applicable to the ventilation of coal mines and buildings. The professor of the Polytechnic Institution referred him to Mr. Gurney, who furnished him with all the necessary information, and Mr. Foster soon afterwards had the necessary apparatus erected in Seaton Delaval. After eighteen months' experience of its results, Mr. Foster published a letter in the Gateshead Observer, in which he stated that the apparatus had performed its work most successfully; but he claimed no credit for its introduction beyond making the first trial, because he had acted upon the instructions of Mr. Gurney throughout, and he hoped that others would adopt the same system. That, their Lordships would observe, was the opinion of a practical man. Mr. Foster spoke of an increase in the ventilation of the mine to the extent of 50 per cent, as contrasted with the ventilation under the old system; and he believed that the ventilation might be increased to an indefinite extent at a very small cost. There was an incidental advantage obtained by this discovery, which he believed its inventor did not contemplate. A mine in the neighbourhood of Manchester was lately discovered to he on fire, which their Lordships all knew was a terrible calamity, not only causing a complete stoppage of labour for the time, but was a cause of groat expense; for at that time there was no mode of extinguishing it but by pumping water in in great quantity, and pumping it out again afterwards. Mr. Darlington, the owner of this coal mine, having heard of the successful experiments of Mr. Foster, wrote to Mr. Gurney to know if he could devise any means for extinguishing the fire. Mr. Gurney proceeded to the spot, and after examining into the subject, expressed no doubt that by the high-pressure application of steam, such a quantity of carbonic acid gas might be driven through the mine as would extinguish the fire. He held in his hand a letter from Mr. Darlington, in which the whole process was described. He would not trouble their Lordships with reading it—suffice it to say, that the experiment was attended with the most perfect and

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unqualified success, and that Mr. Darlington ended his letter by saying, that the fire was extinguished at a cost of fewer pence than it would have cost pounds, under the old system, by the introduction of water, and that the mine was now in a perfect condition. So much for the success which had attended the invention of Mr. Gurney. He would not have said another word on the subject if he had not heard that some individuals of high scientific acquirements, having, no doubt, been misled themselves, had represented to Her Majesty's Government that Mr. Gurney was a visionary and an enthusiast. He (the Earl of St. Germans) had known Mr. Gurney for several years, and had the greatest respect for him as a scientific man. He had no doubt he was an enthusiast, for he believed no man had ever made any scientific discovery who was not an enthusiast; but as to his being a visionary, he knew no man who was more rational. Mr. Gurney had been brought up to the medical profession, and being connected with one of the scientific institutions of the metropolis, he was engaged for some time making experiments on gases—especially those gases which were peculiar to coal mines. His experiments satisfied him that there was great insecurity in the use of the present safety-lamps; and that, under certain conditions, they even increased the danger connected with coal mines. He then directed his attention towards the framing of a blowpipe, by which these gases might be consumed, and in the course of his experiments he discovered that light, which was commonly called the Drummond light. He knew that that had been doubted, and he did not wish to go into an argument on the subject; but it would be sufficient to say, that a Committee of the House of Commons, which sat in 1842, reported that Mr. Gurney was now universally acknowledged to be the inventor of the Drummond Light. Mr. Gurney was subsequently employed by the masters of the Trinity House to apply this invention to lighthouses, when he discovered another and still more brilliant light, which, to distinguish it from the Drummond, he named, from the place of his residence in Cornwall, the Bude Light. That light was now-used in the House of Commons, to the satisfaction, he believed, of everybody in the House, and it was attended with a great saving of public money. He mentioned these things to show that Mr. Gur-
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ney was not a mere visionary and enthusiast. Mr. Gurney had also been engaged in the study of the nature and properties of steam, and the world was indebted to him for the application of the high-pressure system to the locomotive railway engine, which he communicated to Mr. Stephenson, and which at once raised the velocity of the locomotive from nine miles an hour, which was the speed on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, to thirty miles an hour, 'which was at once attained on the Manchester and Liverpool by the high-pressure system. On these grounds he ventured to request that their Lordships would give the petition their favourable consideration, and to express a hope that Her Majesty's Government would take the matter in hand; for it was a disgrace to the country that accidents should be continually occurring, when there were means existing to prevent them. He ventured to suggest that two or more eminent engineers should be appointed to inquire, not into the general subject, but into the means of cure suggested by Mr. Gurney, and the propriety of its application to coal mines. He was bound to say, that other experiments tried, not by Mr. Gurney, had failed, owing, he believed, to the conditions which Mr. Gurney had prescribed not being complied with, and his instructions not followed out. In particular, low-pressure steam had been used in some instances instead of high-pressure, which was most essential to its success. He ventured, therefore, to hope that Her Majesty's Government would take the matter in hand; and if the inquiry should turn out to be satisfactory, he trusted the Government would, without hesitation, take measures for the compulsory adoption of a system which promised to he as much for the interests of humanity as for the material wealth of the country.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, this subject was certainly of the very greatest importance, when they saw such frightful accidents constantly taking place, for even since his noble Friend had given notice of his intention to present this petition thirty-three lives had been lost at Hebhurn Colliery, and only one person out of thirty-four had escaped unhurt. When they saw such dreadful calamities happening to such an extent that a statistical calculation could be made of a loss of life taking place on the average of years to the extent of 700 or 800 a year, and the same number maimed—and let him remind their Lordships, that to a poor person, especially in

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the condition of a collier, maiming was almost a sentence of starvation—when they saw such fatal accidents happening from fire-damp, and when they saw, further, that it was utterly impossible, after the long experience they had liad, to make the workmen attend to their own safety by using the safety-lamp—when they saw all this, he was sure that nothing need be said to prove the high importance that attached to an inquiry of this description. He wished his noble Friend had moved for a Committee of their Lordships' House, that evidence might be taken upon this subject, though perhaps the course he had adopted would amount to the same thing in the end. If they had a declaration, by competent and official authority, that there was a complete safeguard against the explosion of fire-damp, he would not like to be the mineowner against whom it could be proved that he had not adopted it, if an explosion took place in his mine, and parties were killed; for in addition to the heavy damages that would, no doubt, be given in such a case, his opinion was, that the mine-owner would be criminally responsible for the deaths of these individuals. Without pretending to much knowledge on the subject, he must say, that he differed from his noble Friend on one point—which was not at all material to this question—whether Mr. Gurney was the inventor of the Drum-mond Light. He might be the inventor of the Bude Light; but his lamented friend, the late Mr. Drummond, had showed him the Drummond Light in operation at the house of Mr. Bellenden Ker, long, long before the period to which the report of the other House referred; and, therefore, he utterly denied that Mr. Gurney was the discoverer of the Drummond Light, except, perhaps, in this way—in which he believed several discoveries had taken place—that both discovered it at the same time, each ignorant of the proceedings of the other. With regard to the fire-damp, he might allude to an anecdote of the most illustrious of modern engineers, who had changed the face of the world more than any man ever did before or was likely to do again—he meant the late Mr. Watt, who, in a conversation with him (Lord Brougham), related the following singular anecdote: He said he was anxious to inquire into the nature of the fire-damp; and as he found that no trust could be placed in the accounts of those persons who had seen it—for the survivors were naturally so alarmed at what had happened that they could give
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no intelligible account of it—he determined to go down a coal mine where there there was fire-damp; for he knew that the hydrogen gas of which fire-damp was composed was eight or nine times lighter than common atmospheric air—that it went up to the roof of the gallery, and lodged there till a considerable quantity had accumulated. Mr. Watt accordingly went into a gallery in a mine where the fire-damp was known to be, and was put into a niche in the gallery. The air in the gallery was then considerably agitated, after which a man went to the further end, proceeding with great caution, and set fire to it. Mr. Watt stated to him (Lord Brougham) that he saw the light go first in one direction and then in the opposite one, and that then it burst with an enormous explosion up the shaft of the mine. From thence Mr. Watt drew the conclusion that the only way of remedying the fire-damp was by artificial ventilation, which proved the sagacity of that great man; for it appeared that Heb-burn Colliery, where the late explosion took place, was one of the best naturally ventilated mines in the kingdom. Perhaps it might turn out that even artificial ventilation would not do; but on that point, certainly, Mr. Poster would be an impartial witness, though it was impossible, with the experience of a year and a half, and only in one mine, they could come to any practical conclusion; but he would fain hope that this inquiry would lead to the great good of ultimately destroying firedamp. There would still remain the choke-damp; but that was of a very different nature, as it sunk down to the bottom of the gallery, instead of rising to the top; and there never had been more than one or two lives lost by its operation, instead of the scores of lives that were lost by the explosion of fire-damp.
The EARL of ST. GERMANSexplained, that he rested his statement regarding the Drummond Light upon the report of the Committee of the House of Commons,
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEwas very glad to have this opportunity of saying, that Mr. Gurney's unquestioned merits wore sufficiently known to the public, without claiming for him honours of which there was any doubt. With respect to the particular question which the noble Earl had brought before them, he felt satisfied that experiments of a very successful nature had been made by Mr. Gurney, both in this metropolis and in some mines in the north; and he was not aware that any seri-

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ous or practical objection had been discovered to the application of his principle, which professed to save the lives of a large and valuable class of Her Majesty's subjects. Under these circumstances he agreed that it was most desirable that some inquiry should be made to ascertain whether this principle could be carried into practical effect.
LORD WHARNCLIFFEthought the noble Earl, in bringing forward this petition, had stated strong grounds for the presumption that this artificial system of ventilation would be successful; but whatever might he the actual merits of the system, he thought it was well worth the while of Her Majesty's Government to consider whether some inspection ought not to be established into the state and condition of coal mines. Up to a very recent period he had himself entertained strong doubts as to the propriety of establishing such an inspection, because he thought that if such an inspection were established the inspectors would require to be continually present, and must be responsible for the operation of the whole system. But he had lately had cause to alter his opinion. He found that in Belgium a system of Government inspection over mines had been established for several years past—that it was conducted by able and competent persons, whose business it was not to interfere with the operations of the proprietors, but to assist them with their advice, and so endeavour by every means to prevent the recurrence of such frightful catastrophes as had been but too much incident to coal mines. What had been the result? It was stated, on the authority of Mr. Seymour Tremen-heere, who had been appointed inspector of mines under the Act prohibiting females from working in coal mines, and who had been over in Belgium making inquiries on this subject—it was stated by him, that though there had been an increase of 20 per cent on the amount of coal raised, and an increase of 17 per cent on the number of the population employed in the mines, yet there had been a decrease of 20 per cent in the amount of fatal accidents. Now, however effectual the plan of Mr. Gurney might be for its own especial purpose, namely, in creating a mechanical process for the ventilation of mines, it was obvious they could not dispense with the additional security of inspectors in order to ascertain that it was properly applied to all mines. He had
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been told that at a public meeting in Newcastle a decided opinion was expressed in favour of such a system of inspection. He trusted this subject would meet with the attention of Government; and with regard to the question immediately before them, he was satisfied that any system which promised to diminish the chance of accidents was well worth the attention of the House.

INCUMBERED ESTATES (IRELAND) BILL.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
LORD CAMPBELLconfessed that he had noticed with some dismay the symptoms that he had observed in more than one quarter of their Lordships' House of strong hostility to this Bill, as he had entertained the hope that the measure would have met with the almost unanimous approbation of their Lordships, as it had in the other House of Parliament. The Bill was one of the very greatest importance. He allowed that it was one of an arbitrary nature, which nothing could justify except the lamentable condition of that unfortunate country to which the measure was intended to apply. The situation of landed property in Ireland was such, that, in his humble opinion, unless such a measure as this met with the approbation of the Legislature, it would go on from bad to worse, until inevitable ruin overtook every class of the community. The object of this Bill was, as the title expressed," to facilitate the sale of Incumbered Estates in Ireland." Unfortunately a great portion of the surface of Ireland came within the description of incumbered estates. Some persons supposed, probably without any foundation, that this state of things arose from the imprudence of those who were in possession of the land in that part of the united kingdom. He believed that it was more probably a defect in the law of real property which had led to these most lamentable results. Their Lordships were aware that in England, when money was raised on the security of an estate, the proceeding was by a mortgage. The owner of an estate proposed to borrow a certain sum of money on the security of his property, and his title being examined and approved of, a specific sum of money was advanced on the security of specific land, which land alone was burdened with the liability, and remained permanently affected until the debt was paid. The owner remained in possession of the property,

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with power to let it and manage it as he thought proper, the relations between landlord and tenant remaining as if no debt had been incurred. But in Ireland the mode of proceeding was quite different. There money might be raised by a proprietor of land on a judgment, which offered a great temptation to inconsiderate and reckless persons to get into debt, and to contract liabilities with money-lenders. On confessing the judgment, it was lodged in one of the Courts in Dublin, and the judgment then stood as a security, not on any particular land, but on all the property possessed by the borrower, or that might come into his possession at any future time. By another provision, which it had been thought would prove most beneficial to the landed interests in Ireland, it was arranged that judgment might be assigned to other parties by the holders; and thus, in the course of time, nobody could tell who was the actual owner of any particular judgment, or to whom an application was to be made in case an incumbrance was to be paid off. The result of this state of the law was, that when an estate once became incumbered, it became almost inevitably ruined. In Ireland they had what, he believed, might be made a most admirable institution, and what he hoped before he died to sec established in England, and that was a registry of deeds. He was happy to perceive that there was a growing opinion in favour of a general registry, and he hoped soon to see it the law of England; but it was much better to have no registry at all than a bad registry; and from what he had seen of Irish titles, he could undertake to say that the existing registry had been a curse to Ireland. Instead of a deed being enrolled in the registry, there was merely an intimation that such and such a deed existed between such and such parties, and this was told in such a way that it not merely afforded no valuable information, but absolutely often gave a wrong impression, and opened the means of misrepresentation and fraud. With regard to Scotland, he might say that they had a registry there which stood on a most excellent arrangement, and which had conferred the greatest benefit on that part of the united kingdom. But with regard to Ireland, whatever the cause might be with regard to registration, there could be no doubt but that the number of incumbered estates in that country was most lamentably largo. This evil, indeed, had become so great that the Court of Chancery was quite
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unable to cope with it. When his learned and most able friend Sir Edward Sugden first went as Lord Chancellor to Ireland, he found that if there was an incumbered estate brought into the Court of Chancery, it soon melted away in the expenses which were incurred. He remembered a graphic account which Sir Edward Sugden once gave him of a scene which he witnessed when sitting as Chancellor of Ireland. When a case was called in the Court of Chancery respecting an incumbered estate, every judgment creditor who had a supposed lien on the estate, and all his representatives, were entitled to have notice to appear and be a party to the proceeding; and the practice was, that when the case was called, each gentleman at the bar who had a brief rose and said, "I appear for so and so," and threw the brief towards the Chancellor; and Sir Edward Sugden said, that so many briefs were thrown before him that it actually resembled the bombarding of a town. These briefs were all very large, with very large fees marked on the back of them, all of which came out of the estate in the end. That able and enlightened Judge did all in his power to mitigate the evils of the system, and he did mitigate them to a certain degree; but still he was unable to cope with them entirely; and he might mention a fact to demonstrate how rapidly the evil had gone on increasing. By the law in Ireland, as soon as an incumbrancer got a judgment, he might have a receiver—so that almost all Ireland was under receivers, and the only thriving trade was that of a receiver. Well, so rapidly had the evil increased, that although in 1807 the annual amount collected by receivers was only 200,000/., it was now upwards of 2,000,000 l. That being so, what was called the Encumbered Estates Bill of last Session was passed into law. That measure was but an experiment, which it was proposed to follow with more stringent measures if necessary. He confessed that he was never very sanguine with regard to the Bill of last Session; and he had been just reminded by a noble Friend near him that the Master of the Rolls, Lord Langdale, had stated it as his opinion at the time, that that Bill would be found insufficient, and that something else should be done, and that a new tribunal, independent of the Court of Chancery, should be formed. That view of the Master of the Rolls had been borne out by the opinions of other competent authorities; and the result was,

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that the Bill now before their Lordships was prepared. Of that Bill he was most sanguine, as he anticipated the most beneficial results from it. He did not think that it would, like the last Bill, remain a dead letter; hut he hoped to see it brought promptly into operation, and attended by the most salutary results. The principle of the Bill, about which his noble Friend (Lord Monteagle) expressed such anxiety, was this. It was proposed to appoint commissioners, in whom great confidence would be placed. A most grave responsibility would rest with the Government in the selection which they would make of those commissioners, because on that selection would depend the whole success of the Bill. If the selection were good, he anticipated the best results from the measure; but if the selection were bad—which Heaven forbid!—then he felt that the measure must fail. It was proposed that the commissioners should be three in number. He was not aware that any objection had been expressed in any quarter with regard to that number. There was no qualification set forth as being necessary; and their Lordships would not, he was sure, object to the omission of a provision that they should be barristers of six years' standing. The whole responsibility would fall upon the Government of making a proper selection of persons to be invested with these important powers; for these commissioners were to have all the power of the Court of Chancery with regard to those estates, but without its delays, without its expenses, and without its formalities.
LORD BROUGHAM: And without its appeals.
LORD CAMPBELL: Yes; they would exercise their powers without appeal, except by consent.
LORD BROUGHAM: The consent of themselves.
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, that his noble and learned Friend must be fully aware that the principle was not a novel one; as, for instance, in trials for felony, or high treason, no appeal could take place without the consent of the Attorney General. The commissioners would be persons in whom full confidence would be imposed; and there could be no danger of their refusing an appeal in any case where a ground existed for questioning their decision. The commissioners being so appointed, a power was given either to the owner or to the incumbrancer of an incumbered estate to apply for their interfe-
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rence. It was very important that this should be given to the owner of property; because, as the law now stood, he could not sell without the consent of the mortgagee, unless, indeed, he paid off the mortgage and the other incumbrances in the first instance. He considered this provision as most important, because, under the present law, all parties suffered. The owner found his estate encumbered by judgments for mortgages raised by himself or his ancestors, and by dowries and settlements. Even before the late calamity in Ireland, he was only nominally the proprietor, but since the Irish famine and the imposition of the poor-law, his situation had become much more deplorable; because he was still obliged to pay the whole of the jointures, the whole of the portions, the whole of the mortgage money, and, in addition, the moiety of the poor-law for the whole of the estate. This all fell entirely on him; and it, therefore, became of the last importance that he should have power of calling for a sale to pay off all these incumbrances. But the mortgagee was also in a deplorable state; because, from the bad management of property, the rents were no longer able to be paid, and his money had consequently been allowed to run into arrear. The tenants were, likewise, in a deplorable position; because the estates being all under the management of receivers, and the receiver not having any power by law to enter into any arrangements for draining, or inclosing, or manuring, or improving the land in any respect, it invariably followed that estates under the management of receivers went from bad to worse. In this country, when a house was dilapidated, persons were in the habit of saying that it was in Chancery; and the same symptoms attended the appearance of estates in a similar predicament. The commissioners would inquire into the right of selling the estate, and into all the co-interests that existed; and having decided on a sale, they were enabled to give a good title, at once, to the purchaser. Their Lordships were aware that the great difficulty now was, not so much to make out a good title, as to put the purchaser in possession. Claims were made by persons having interests, or pretending to have interests, and nobody could tell whether these claims were well founded or not without most tedious proceedings. But the commissioners would have the power to compel those parties to come forward and show what their inter-

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ests were; and in the meantime their sale was good, and they would be enabled to give the purchaser a Parliamentary, title, who would then know that he had a fee-simple against all the world. These few lines would give him an irrevocable title; and at the same time a conveyance was handed to the sheriff, who at once put him in possession. The great object was to procure purchasers. Purchasers must be encouraged to come forward, and must know what it was that they would pay down their money for; and the commissioners would give them an estate on which they could at once sit down and lay out their money in improvements. The conveyance would be conclusive evidence that everything had been done that the Act of Parliament required, and no question could ever arise afterwards with regard to the validity of the conveyance. With regard to the appeal to which his noble and learned Friend had referred, the commissioners were to lay down rules, and these rules would have to be approved of by the Privy Council of Ireland, to whom also an appeal would lie in case any ground existed that rendered it necessary. His noble and learned Friend would, however, see that if unlimited power of appeal were given, attorneys might induce their clients, from interested motives, to appeal on frivolous pretexts, and that the Bill would thus be rendered wholly nugatory, and, instead of being useful, would become absolutely mischievous. To meet this, it was provided that the Lord Lieutenant should appoint a judicial Committee of the Council, to hear and report on the appeal, and the order of the Privy Council on the appeal would be final. With regard to the objections that had been raised to the Bill, the first he had heard was, that it superseded the Court of Chancery; but then it did so only for a particular purpose, and in a matter in which that court had been found to be entirely inefficient. He had also authority for saying that the Lord Chancellor of Ireland highly approved of this Bill, and he was not aware that any of the Judges had expressed any disapprobation of it. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland was most desirous that it should become the law of the land; and if he did not believe that it would be beneficial to the country, he would, no doubt, have been the first person to have disapproved of it. The Court of Chancery was a most excellent tribunal for particular purposes, but for the sale of encumbered estates it
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had been found most inefficient. In the next place, it was said that the Bill was too extensive, and that it should have been confined in its operation to particular parts of Ireland. But it would be impossible to carry out such a plan. These encumbered estates were scattered over all parts of Ireland; they were perhaps more numerous in the west than elsewhere; but the Bill would be found most beneficial in every part of the country, and it would be impossible to point out what particular part of Ireland should come under its operation, and what should be exempted from it. He had only heard one other objection, and that was the supposed hardship with regard to mortgagers. But he would maintain that the debtors were the persons who derived most benefit from the Bill. The measure would be undoubtedly beneficial to the holders of mortgages, and to the tenants, but it would be, above all, of benefit to the debtors. At present, all parties might be willing to sell, but there were no purchasers. Under this Bill, plenty of purchasers would be forthcoming. He believed that when a satisfactory title could be given at once, that purchasers would be found willing to buy; but he admitted that in this he might be wrong. At present, it could not be expected that purchasers would come forward when they did not know what sort of title they might receive. But he could show their Lordships that the owner would be benefited. This Act gave no new power to the creditors. At present, every Irish mortgage was accompanied by a power of sale; or, if there were no such power, an application to the Court of Chancery would secure it. The mortgagee did not, therefore, require new powers to enable him to sell; but the facilities for sale given by this Bill would be highly advantageous to the owner. He would, in the first place, be certain to secure a much higher price; but he would also avoid the ruinous expenses incurred by a sale in the Court of Chancery, pre-coded by the shower of briefs of which he had before spoken, and the fees on which would be the utter ruin of the unfortunate individual, as all the expenses of the suit would have to he paid by the owner of the property. Under this commission there would be no fees, and when copies of deeds might be applied for, they would be furnished at the mere cost of making the copy. From the first application to the commissioners to the sale of the property, the whole expense would be a mere trifle.

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That would be all a saving to the owner of the property, because all expenses at present were borne by him, and by him alone. He would be a gainer therefrom, not only for the increased price obtained for the land, but the decreased expenses of the sale. He hoped, under these circumstances, that their Lordships would agree with the other House of Parliament in thinking that this Bill ought to become the law of the land. He hoped that before long a measure would be introduced by Government to put an end to the assignment of judgments; and he also hoped that another Session would not pass over without having an efficient registry of deeds established in Ireland, with a reform in the law affecting judgments, to which he had just alluded. Without such improvements the whole operation of the Bill now before their Lordships would be neutralised; for, though the purchasers of the present incumbered estates would start afresh, free, and unincumbered, they would soon be reduced to the same position as the old owners were now in. By the passing of this measure, and of the others to which he had alluded, he thought the regeneration of Ireland might be confidently anticipated. Having thus briefly stated the objects of the Bill, he trusted that he had said enough to induce their Lordships to agree with him in thinking that it ought to be road a second time.
LORD BROUGHAMadmitted that his noble and learned Friend had very briefly, very clearly, and very ably stated the objects of this most important Bill. He was not about to offer it an unreflecting or ill-considered opposition, but he wished, before their Lordships gave their high sanction to the principle of the measure, to throw out one or two considerations, which very forcibly impressed themselves upon his mind, with respect to its nature and tendency. First, however, he begged to say, that he entirely approved of what appeared to he the intention of the Government, to apply themselves, without more than necessary delay, to reform the Irish law, with respect to judgments, to the appointment of receivers, and to the registry. He could not help feeling, however, that those measures ought to have preceded the one they were now called upon to discuss, and that they were taking the measures in an undue order, on illogical series. In differing from his noble and learned Friend on this matter, he stood in a peculiar position, for he had the honour
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of presiding over the Society for the Amendment of the Law, whose labours had been very much directed to this subject, and whose reports and publications had the merit of suggesting a principle of this nature, and propagating the knowledge of it. He had been referred to their periodical work, the Law Review, as to short conveyances being a boon to purchasers under an order for sale, and to the fact of this principle having been adopted by the commission of his noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Devon), though in that case it was confined to leases. Though approving of that, he did not sec the present subject in the same light as his colleagues, who, he believed, entirely approved of it. Much, however, of what he might have urged in support of his own views, regarding this Bill, had been rendered unnecessary, by the admission of his noble and learned Friend, that this was an arbitrary measure. If it were true that it contained no new powers—that it called into existence no novel force—that nobody would be enabled to sell, by virtue of the Bill, who was not able to sell already, he could not adopt the somewhat dislogistic language of his noble and learned Friend, and call this an arbitrary measure. It could not be said to be arbitrary, if it only gave a more convenient mode of exercising powers already in existence. But he thought it was not correct to affirm that the force existed already, or that no new power was called into being by the Bill. Very extraordinary powers were given by it provisions. Three commissioners were to be appointed by the Crown, who might or might not be lawyers, and they were to have the power, at the desire of the owner of an estate in fee-simple, or an estate tail, or even of a life estate, or at the desire of a mortgagee, or of a judgment creditor, or of any other person having an incumbrance as defined in the interpretation clause, to order such estate to he brought to sale, and to be sold, whatever might be the state of the money market or the land market. This was a very large power to give to those commissioners. And if it were said there was no power given to them which did not exist already, because the Court of Chancery had a power of sale, there was this material difference, that at present you could not sell without paying off every incumbrancer. Was it meant to sell without paying off the mortgagee? [Lord CAMPBELL: No!] Certainly not. If

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that was the case, he could understand why Irish Gentlemen elsewhere were so enamoured of this measure—why they wished their estates to be put, not into Chancery, hut under commissioners, who, appointed by the Crown and removable by the Crown, had the power of selling whatever estates they chose, upon the application of the owner. He was afraid, however, these landowners would find themselves mistaken if anybody had practised upon them to the extent of inducing them to believe they would have the power of selling and pocketing the money without paying off judgment creditors and mortgagees. He would now tell the House what might be done under this Bill. Here was an estate, worth, five years ago, twenty or twenty-one years' purchase, mortgaged for 10,000 l.; but it would then bear another mortgage for 5,000 l. There were thus two incumbrancers, the primary mortgagee and the puisne mortgagee. The estate at that time was able to bear both these burthens. But then came this Bill, with its three commissioners, duly installed with clerks, messengers, mace, and insignia; and they were applied to by the first mortgagee, who cared no more for the second than he cared for any mortgagee in Japan, or in the moon. All he wanted was his 10,000 l., and he had no more regard for the puisne, who wanted his 5,000 l., than a chief justice had for a puisne judge, whose decision he had overruled. He did not even inform the second mortgagee, but at once he went before the commissioners and said, "May it please your worships, will you allow me to sell this estate?" The commissioners said to him, "Well, what case have you?" Then he made out his case, and they made an order to sell the estate. But, by this time, the estate, instead of being worth twenty or twenty-one years' purchase, was worth only twelve years' purchase; so that the first mortgagee got his 10,000 l., and the second not one penny of his 5,000 l.
LORD CAMPBELLwas understood to say, that this might be the case in the present state of the law.
LORD BROUGHAM, in continuation, said, the first mortgagee could not do it at present, unless the second mortgagee had notice.
LORD CAMPBELLobserved, that he might by a power of sale.
LORD BROUGHAM: By a power of sale? That was one cause of the peculiar state of Irish property, A judg-
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ment creditor having the power of appointing a receiver was not the custom in this country;, it was rare if he even had the power of sale, and it was not acted upon in modern mortgages; but, as he understood, the power of sale given by this Bill enabled the first mortgagee to sell without paying a farthing to the second mortgagee. The owner, he supposed, might in the same way sell to pay off the first mortgagee, without paying off the second. [Lord CAMPBELL: No!] But, according to the Bill, the owner of the estate might apply to the commissioners. Was there any provision requiring the commissioners to see that all the charges upon the estate were paid?
LORD CAMPBELLreplied, that when an estate was sold, the purchase-money would be applied by the commissioners according to priority of charge. The first mortgagee would be paid first; the second, second; and so on.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, that just answered his description of the Bill. At present, nobody in Ireland could sell an estate, without paying off the second mortgagee; but, according to this Bill, there was a new, an extraordinary, a monstrous power called into existence, enabling the owner to sell without paying off the puisne encumbrancer, by going to the commissioners, and the commissioners empowering him to sell. "Oh," but said his noble and learned Friend, "no harm will be done, because the purchase money is paid into court, and the court will pay off first the 10,000 l., then the 5,000 l., and hand over the residue to the owner." That might be; but if it so happened that since the second mortgage had been laid on, land had come down from twenty or twenty-one years' purchase to twelve years' purchase, what became of the second mortgage of 5,0001? What if the estate came down to 10,000 l.? That, according to his noble and learned Friend, was to be paid into court, and all given to the first mortgagee. The first mortgagee thus got the whole, whilst the second lost both principal and interest. Such was the explanation of this Bill by his noble and learned Friend; and it led him to perceive pretty clearly how some owners came to wish for it. For he could imagine a strong desire on the part of an owner to join the first mortgagee, by way of ousting the puisne mortgagee, to sell the estate; he could also imagine that a friend might be found, very likely a relation of the

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owner, or of the first mortgagee, to find money for the present twelve years' purchase. The owner, by means of such a fictitious sale, became possessed of his estate with an encumbrance of 10,000 l., and free from the encumbrance of the second mortgage. This would be the inevitable consequence, and, as the Bill stood, he could not see how any commissioners, however well selected, could avoid it.
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, the owner would still be liable to the second mortgagee.
LORD BROUGHAMhighly approved of the interruptions of his noble and learned Friend, because they enabled him to discover accurately one after another the defects of the measure. His noble and learned Friend, however, had not answered the objection. He assumed there was a fictitious sale and a buying in by a friend or relation of the owner. How were the commissioners to discover whether the buyer was a separate and independent person, or merely the friend and trustee of the owner? Had they any arbitrary means of compelling the purchaser to disclose whether he hold as purchaser for a valuable consideration, on his own behalf, or for behoof of the nominal seller? There was no such power whatever, and the buyer might continue to hold the estate nominally year after year, privately paying over to the owner all the rents and profits. It was quite true the owner was to continue liable. But, then, they must get at his property, his goods, or his estate. How could they, when they were held by a cousin, a brother, or a son, for he could not imagine there would be any provision in the Bill to limit the biddings to strangers in blood; and even if there wore so grotesque a provision, a friend, no relative, might lend his aid. The Bill enabled the commissioners to exercise their powers practically without appeal. "No," said his noble and learned Friend, "these orders may be appealed against. But he (Lord Brougham) found no appeal was given without leave of the commissioners themselves. Now, he could very well conceive commissioners who would make it a rule never to grant an appeal, and who would not wish to have their decisions revised. But these commissioners were to have another and a most extraordinary power; they were to have the high and transcendental power of making rules and regulations for the whole course of their proceedings—not only rules and regulations for the government of their
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own proceedings, but for the government of proceedings upon all the subjects and matters coming within their office and jurisdiction—they were to make rules and regulations for the sale and transfer of the rights and equities of parties—they were to make them subject to no appeal except to the Privy Council, which meant the Minister for the time being. This was not the right course to be taken in judicial proceedings. It was neither more nor less than a supersedeas of the functions of the Court of Chancery, which cost the country 40,000 l. a year, whilst this commission would cost 10,000 l. more, the Court of Chancery continuing just as costly as it now was. But these rules and regulations were to he laid before Parliament. How? Merely to satisfy their Lordships' curiosity, for they were to have no power of checking them whatever. He had seen Acts of Parliament passed, and he had introduced some of them himself, giving the Judges at common law and in equity the power of making rules of practice. But as he felt this was conferring legislative power upon those Judges without the assent of Lords and Commons, he always provided that the rules should be void if either House of Parliament, within six months, passed a resolution against them. No such care had been taken in this Bill; and the commissioners' rules and regulations were at once to have the force of statutes of the realm. Thus, in so many words, it was enacted that three commissioners appointed by the Crown were to have the same powers as the Legislature of making statute law. Well might his noble and learned Friend say that rather arbitrary powers were given by the Bill. "We want," said his noble and learned Friend, "bidders for land in Ireland." No doubt they did—no doubt this was just what owners and mortgagees wanted. "Pass this Bill," added his noble and learned Friend, "and I will answer for it you will have plenty of bidders." But why were there not bidders now? It was vain to say it was the encumbrances upon property; it was vain to say it was the Court of Chancery. Agitation was the reason there were no bidders for Irish estates. A bad poor-law was another reason; but above all, the unpeaceful state of the country was the cause. If the country was as pacified in the south and west as it was in the north, there would be no lack of bidders for Irish property, provided fair terms were offered; and there would

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be bidders if this Bill enabled commissioners to sell land at twelve years' purchase, because it would be a good investment; but if they acted more for the benefit of the puisne incumbrancers than that would imply, he was sure they would have none. He would tell the House why. The gist of his noble and learned Friend's case was, "there are no bidders upon account of the delays in the Court of Chancery, the state of the law as to judgment debts, the powers of sale by mortgagees, and the practice of appointing a receiver under every judgment." This was the only reason for the Bill: these wore all the difficulties the Bill professed to alter: this was the gist of the argument of his noble and learned Friend. Now, he met his noble and learned Friend thus. Were there no unincumbered estates in Ireland? There were not so many as he could wish; but would any one say there were none? He was happy to believe there were many. Bring a parcel of incumbered estates into the market, and you would have no bidders. For it was perfectly notorious, and he himself (Lord Brougham) knew the very estates, that for land wholly unincumbered, either with mortgages or infants, no bidders came forward at present. But how could it be said that this Bill would furnish bidders, when after incumbrances had been so got rid of, there would be no bidders where there were no incumbrances? He had thought it but fair and right to state, in the first instance, these difficulties which had occurred to him. Then, as to authority, he was sure it must be a strong case to make his noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor agree to this measure; but he was quite certain that his noble and learned Friend who preceded and succeeded him on the woolsack (Lord Lyndhurst), had expressed no opinion in favour of it. He was, however, told that the Irish Chancellor had expressed a very strong opinion in favour of the Bill. When he looked at the great inroad it was to make into the business of the Irish Chancellor, without effecting any diminution in his patronage and emoluments—when he found it would relieve him of the great bulk of his duties for the next three years, he could easily imagine that that learned person would have no great indisposition to listen to such a proposal. He was, however, informed, upon authority which implicitly governed his opinion, that the Irish Lord Chancellor stood pretty much alone in his opinion. His right hon.
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Friend the Master of the Rolls in Ireland was coming over, and he (Lord Brougham) should wish for an opportunity of conferring with him upon the subject in a Committee of that House. Another most learned lawyer. Master Brooke, was also on his way here; and their Lordships, he hoped, would have the benefit of his opinion. He (Lord Brougham) knew that some of the chief Judges in Ireland were most hostile to the measure. He had indeed been informed that every one of them, more or less, was opposed to it; but he would not take upon himself to make that statement. At all events he was certain that the bulk of opinion among the Irish Judges at common law was against the measure; and he was equally sure that much more information would be obtained in relation to it if their Lordships heard their opinions. Such were the impressions the Bill had made on his mind. He was not prepared to say he should offer any very serious resistance to its further progress if he found that Irish proprietors, Irish lawyers, and Irish Judges were in favour of it; but he had felt it his duty as an English lawyer, having occupied a high place among English Judges upon questions intimately connected with the subject-matter of this Bill, to state his opinion, however imperfectly it might have been formed. Many of his objections might be removed in Committee. He would mention one. Suppose, instead of giving an unlimited power to an owner or incumbrancer upon an estate having a puisne incumbrance to apply for a sale, the power should be confined to cases where there was a certain proportion between the rent and the incumbrance. If half or two-thirds the clear rent was eaten up by the interest upon the mortgages, let the right to apply be given, that was to say, an estate of 1,000 l. a year might be brought to sale by the commissioners or within their jurisdiction, provided that 500 l., 600 l., or 700 l. of the rent were absorbed by the interest. It would be expedient, he thought, to introduce some such limitation. The rules and regulations of the commissioners should be laid before Parliament, with a right to object to them; the power of sale should be limited; and bearing in mind his objection as to collusive sales and purchases, the commissioners should not be empowered to sell under a certain number of years' purchase. But one objection he had, which he believed could neither be met nor received. An Act of Parliament title, as against all

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the world, was given to a purchaser; and yet the party selling might have no title whatever to the estate sold. An heir at law knowing there was a devisee alone entitled, might sell, and then the devisee was for ever shut out.
The EARL of WICKLOWobserved, that as to leases they would vary.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, other rules might he applied to leaseholds. What he wanted was to curb and check the unlimited and uncontrolled power which seemed to he given to the commissioners. These changes might he made without touching the principle of the Bill; and they would make great difference in his sentiments respecting it. But the objection he had last stated seemed insuperable.
The EARL of GLENGALLwas never more astonished in his life than on seeing a Bill of this kind introduced to the House; and he could not but wonder that any man should have had the hardihood to propose so downright a confiscation of property for their adoption. It was true that very great misfortunes had fallen upon the property of Ireland, but he could not imagine any set of circumstances that would call for such a measure as the present. It involved a principle of communism and socialism of the deepest degree—one that they might have expected to see proposed in the late National Assembly of France, but only in such an assembly as that. It was founded on the principle of those sects to which he had alluded, and if it was to be carried into effect he would recommend Her Majesty's Government to invite Louis Blanc, Considerant, and Proudhon to become the first commissioners. Ireland had not been thrown into its present state by the con-duet of Irish proprietors. Its evils were owing to a system of misgovernment for five hundred years on the part of this country. From the hour Henry II., in the year 1172, set his foot in Ireland, down to the reign of William III., property had been insecure, in consequence of the frequent confiscations which had been made during the interval. Elizabeth, so great in many things, and so great in the esteem of her subjects—Elizabeth was as great a confiscator as any of her predecessors, who interfered with the property of Ireland; for, having determined to provide for the captains of her train-bauds, she proceeded to the removal of the previous owners with that view, and that view alone, for there was no other
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reason for the confiscation of those magnificent estates with which she readily dealt. Then came James I., and after him Cromwell, whose commissions were issued endowing the commissioners with the very powers which the Government now proposed conferring by this Act, and against which it was his intention to give his vote. William III., although strictly bound by the treaty of Limerick, proceeded to confiscate the estates of all those who had fought for King James at the Boyne, in direct contravention of the treaties which he had signed. Was it wonderful, then, after this series of confiscation and spoliation of estates for so great a number of years, that a feeling of insecurity should grow up, and men should be unwilling to become purchasers? For his part, it was no wonder to him that men had not laid out their money, as owners did in this country and elsewhere, in the improvement and high cultivation of their estates. There was no degree of security attaching to the possession of landed property in Ireland, at least down to the year 1782. Down to that period, the Legislature of this country was employed in passing every species of laws which had for its object the destruction of all trade, manufactures, and agriculture in Ireland. Such was the object, and such the course which this country persevered in towards Ireland, and it was not till the year 1782—when 80,000 volunteers took their stand upon their country's rights, that this Legislature was induced to review their course and to repeal the Acts the cause of so much mischief to Ireland. Up to that year the Legislature had heard the manufacturers, and farmers, and landlords of this country state, that the trade, and the manufactures, and the agriculture of Ireland, were detrimental to the interests of this country, and they had listened to their petitions. Was it wonderful, he asked, if a country placed in circumstances like these, for a period of five hundred years, did not find herself, in the course of another fifty years, in a state of prosperity, even if the course pursued towards her had been reversed? Another system which had been pertinaciously pursued with regard to that country, were the penal laws which affected the Roman Catholic population. The laws passed in regard to them rendered their property precarious and insecure, giving to the Protestant branch of the family the rights of ownership over the family estate until the

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legal heir should recant his religion. Such laws as these, and the laws made against trade, these were the causes—the main causes of the evils which had fallen upon Ireland; and, when such were the laws dealt out to her by the Legislature of this country for many hundreds of years, he said the evils now complained of were to be laid to the fault more of the Legislature than to the landlords or to any other party. During the last few years, they had been active in legislating for Ireland —they had granted her a poor-law; yes, but not for the purpose of benefiting the country. No, it was for the purpose of preventing the Irish poor from coming over to this country to burden its rates. And now, after enacting that law against the opinion of the majority, they were about to give the final blow by the Act which was now under consideration, which was the completion of the whole system. At one time, Government gave themselves no trouble about Ireland. Now, they troubled themselves very much about her, lest more money should be wanted from the treasury for the support of her starving population. In this state of things, they were now attributing the cause to the weakest party—they were about to visit upon the Irish landlords the evils which had been accumulated, and to deal destruction to them, merely because the Government did not choose to advance money from the treasury to save the poor from the ravages of famine, and the effects of the infamous system of legislation, which, for many years, had been persevered in towards the country. He said, he never expected to have heard in their Lordships' House a proposal to supersede the equity courts in Ireland; as if, moreover, the learned Judges who sat in them were incompetent. He hoped there was no man bold enough to say so; and, for his part, he must say, that a more able and learned bench of Judges was not anywhere to be found. But, whatever they might choose to give as a reason for the course they were now to pursue, he would tell them, that it was the legislation which they meted out to Ireland, which had drawn the enormous masses of property in Ireland, bit by bit, into these courts. Formerly, the transfer of property was easy; but then came what was called "Pigot's Act," which had operated most injuriously, and he attributed a greater complication of evils to its operations than had before existed in the country. It
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had affected for the worse the system previously existing of judgment debts. Inconsequence of that Act, small claims of 50 l. as easily as large claims for 10,000 l. could be made, and judgment signed on them against the estate of the debtor; and the 50 l. judgment affected not one estate only, but every estate of the possessor—it might run over four or five estates in so many different counties. This was one mischievous effect of the Act, that however small the claim, it went over every portion of the property possessed by the owner, wherever it might be situated, whether in Cork, Mayo, or Dublin, or all of them together. The consequence was, that when these claims came to be reviewed for satisfaction, the complication was frightful, and it was next to impossible to satisfy these petty judgments. The parties who had signed them had perhaps failed, or they were not to be found, or they were dead; and, on the other hand, purchasers in these circumstances, desirous of getting out of the bargain, availed themselves of the state of the law to create difficulties and delays, keeping the bargain open for two or three years, and so they were often able to get out of the purchase. In Ireland it had been very much the practice, unfortunately, for parties when they had paid a petty judgment, not to take any measure to have the judgment formally satisfied. Either owners were not aware of the steps necessary, or they did not take them if known, and the consequence was the greatest difficulty in disposing of their property because of the number of these seemingly unsatisfied judgments which remained. He said some measure ought to be introduced which would limit the time during which a judgment would be of effect, and beyond which it should cease to be of power to create a debt. But Pigot's Act had had a most injurious effect in another point of view, which no noble Lord in his hearing had adverted to. Previous to that Act, when a suit of foreclosure was begun by a mortgagee, the suit was confined to the parties immediately concerned, and the losses too; and when judgment was obtained, the next encumbrancer received notice of the intended sale, and then it was that he came in on the surplus for the payment of his claim. But after the passing of this measure, there was a clause in the Bill which enacted that a mortgagee, when he instituted a foreclosure suit, must make all the encumbrancers parties to the suit. He

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was obliged accordingly to bring into court all the judgment creditors, who were obliged to be served with notice of the suit, and the consequence was enormous expenses and a harvest to the lawyers. He knew a case in which there were 140 defendants brought into court, and all of them were obliged to appear by counsel. The law previous to this gave these parties certain rights, and the court having the power to administer the law only was unable to change it. Sir Edward Sugden, seeing the evils which were in existence, endeavoured to save the parties the enormous amount of expenses; but unfortunately the good intention of Sir Edward failed. That was one of many points upon which more sensible legislation would cure many of the evils now pressing upon the property of Ireland, and on which it would be desirable to bring back the law to the state it was in previous to the passing of Pigot's Act. But he wished to draw the attention of their Lordships to another point in the legislation of this country for Ireland—he alluded to the system of receivers. He did not mean to say that receiverships were not of old standing in Ireland; but this he did say, that till a late period very little of the property of the country was under receivers. Until O'Loghlen's Act, but little property was in the hands of receivers; but since the passing of it, the quantity of landed property brought into court was enormous—solvents' estates quite as much as insolvents'. He believed, with the exception, perhaps, of one or two of their Lordships, they were not aware of the nature and effects of that Act. That Act gave power to any judgment creditor, whether for 20 l. or for 10,000 l., to appoint a receiver over the estate after ten days' notice. Now, how was that power used? When a man was appointed receiver over an estate, he got five per cent upon the rents collected. That was a very good thing for himself. If an estate yielding 15,000 l. a year was placed in the hands of the court, it was an excellent thing to be appointed a receiver; and now there were a sot of attorneys in Dublin who made that a distinct trade. Ever since the passing of O'Loghlen's Act, this was a new trade which had been started. It was the easiest thing in the world to get estates put into the hands of a receiver. An attorney, either directly by his own means, or by persuading a friend to put forward his claim against an estate, obtained a judgment against it.
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The attorney said to his friend, "You will put in against Johnson, and I will go shares with you; I will be receiver at 1,000 l. a year, and I'll give you 300 l. a year, you, of course, giving me the receivership." Nothing more, after judgment obtained, than the service of the ten days' notice, and it was only necessary to serve that at the house of the proprietor. It was not necessary to serve it on him personally, but merely at his house, where it might fall into the hands of an ignorant servant girl.
LORD CAMPBELL: At the place of his last abode.
The EARL of GLENGALL: Well, at the place of his last abode it might be taken in by a servant girl, who in all likelihood lighted the fire with it; and, in the meantime, the proprietor being quite ignorant of the procedure, the estates had passed into the hands of a receiver, and there was no means of getting out of that. He was only detailing to their Lordships a process which had been done again and again, and he could give them twenty cases in illustration of it. Nay, more, he believed that where the notice had been left at the owner's house, to the chances of reaching his hand, that in nine cases out of every ten that never happened, and the first notice which the proprietor had of the change effected in his position, was probably the letter giving him intimation that an attorney was to enter as receiver. In many cases notice had never been served at all by the attorney, who found it as easy to get men to swear his case, ruffians whom they would not believe at quarter-sessions—such persons were always skulking about, needy and ready to swear the service of a notice which they had never seen. He know one case of a gentleman who for the time was resident in England, in which notice was left in the terms of the Act at the last place of his abode; but in his absence and his ignorance, his property, not large indeed, yielding about 300 l or 400 l. was taken away from him; he was obliged to sell his commission, and he (the Earl of Glengall) was sorry to say he was now in a workhouse. To the attorney it was the finest thing in the world to be appointed a receiver, because the whole estates were entirely under his management. Probably, on the estate there were many tenants, both great and small, from whom, if they did not pay their rents, he likely took a bill at two months, or issued process of law. In the

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case of Ms issuing process, he made upon that 2l. 10 s. for expenses, which, though put upon the tenant, passed all into the pocket of the attorney. A short time after this process was issued, the expenses would become 17 l. or 20 l. He knew a case of some property in the south of Ireland, where seventy-five such processes were served in one day, upon every one of which so served the attorney realised a profit of 17 l. or 20 l. Why, it was a man's fortune to be appointed a receiver. Considering the terrible destruction to property which was ensuing from this system in Ireland, the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls determined that attorneys should no longer be capable of being appointed as receivers. But the attorneys, never without a shift, found substitutes who acted nominally as receivers, and under whom they appeared in the courts as attorneys for the cause. But, again, all rents were left in the hands of the receiver, and he was not obliged to account for them till fifteen months after. Not a farthing did he pay away to creditors—no account did he give till fifteen months after the collection of the rents, and until the Master in Chancery adjudicated that such and such sums must be distributed. All these evils of the receiver system had accrued in consequence of Pigot's Act, and he believed they could not do a better thing than repeal that Act, and place parties again in the position which they occupied previous to it with regard to judgments. Let them do those two things, and they would confer great benefit upon Ireland. The Master of the Rolls was aware of the evil to which he had been adverting, but he could do nothing to alleviate it. In a recent judgment pronounced by that learned Judge, he said—
"In conformity with the decision of Sir Edward Sugden, he should comply with the prayer of the petition, and grant a receiver over the defendant's property. The Act in question had worked great injustice, but he hoped it would be the last case in which he would be called upon to appoint a receiver."
He said it was necessary further, that they should do something in regard to registry searches. No one would believe the amount which was necessary to pay for these expensive requirements. It was necessary, in some cases, to search for negative searches to the time of Edward III. And he knew one man who had enough, as he thought, to pay off the charges upon his estate; but when he had to pay for those searches,
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the sum left him was not nearly sufficient. He should suggest, instead of appointing a commission, with astounding powers, the Government should appoint some commissioners for the express purpose of aiding the Master of the Rolls, and the Masters in Chancery, the latter of whom held an office much more administrative now than judicial, in consequence of the immense mass of property, all the accounts of which and details they had to take, and review and regulate; that was now thrown into their office. It would be easy, indeed, with consideration, to effect a change in the present system of things, and then they would have no occasion for those triumvirs for confiscation of property, or for the superseding of the courts of equity. While he suggested, however, the appointment of a commission, he did not wish to see it endowed with the astounding powers which they proposed conferring on those to be appointed under this Bill. But he asked, how were those commissioners to sit—with closed doors? Were the public to be excluded? Was the press not even to be admitted? Was nothing to be heard of their proceedings till the decree was fulminated, and the notice of sale appeared in the Dublin Gazette? Again, as judgments in Ireland were so very different from what they were in this country, he was desirous of knowing whether these triumvirs were to inquire into the validity of the judgment, whether any money passed at all under it. In this country, if no money passed, if it had not been paid in hard cash, the judgment was not worth a farthing; in Ireland, however, it was different. No money whatever was necessary to have passed, or but one-half of the 1,0002. said to be raised under it may have been received. Nothing was more common than such cases, and especially in times like these; when people did not receive their rents, they went and consented to anything helter skelter, and signed judgment to the terms of the lender without objection. He did not hesitate to assert that in the case of half the estates in the country on which judgments had been obtained, not half the money had been received, for unfortunately the state of the law was such that as soon as the borrower had approved of the judgment, he was for ever after deprived of again opening the case. The attorneys, moreover, knew right well how to drive parties into such difficulties as compelled the borrower to submit to any terms which might be im-

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posed upon him by the lender. Another effect of O'Loghlen's Act was, that the puisne creditor for perhaps 20 l., although twenty other creditors were before him in point of time, and before him in point of importance, if he happened to be the first to apply, took precedence of the first mortgagee, and got his money before him. The Master of the Rolls had commented upon this feature of the Act twenty times, and over and over again had said it was most unjust, but that he must administer the law such as it was. The consequence of the junior creditor having gone into the court with this preference in his favour was, that the mortgagee commenced a suit for the foreclosure of the mortgage, notwithstanding that just before he might have been perfectly satisfied to let it remain; but now that things were altered by the entrance of the junior creditor, he was compelled to commence a suit of foreclosure, and the effect was ruin to the owner. This measure had struck principally against the incumbered estates in the west of Ireland. The state of things there, in consequence of the failure of the potato crop, had introduced evils to an accumulated degree, and parties, he had been told, had induced the Government to bring forward this measure. He understood, but he knew not whether it was true, that a set of speculators in Manchester and Norwich said, "Get their titles at whatever price the market runs; we will purchase them, and we will commence a new state of things." He did not believe that they would realise six or eight years' purchase; and he did not think that those who purchased these estates would be very well pleased with their bargains. Some said that these estates in the west only wanted capital, skill, and labour to cause them to yield remunerative return. He had himself no property in that district, but he knew the state of things there, and he was satisfied that the great bulk of lands in the far west were not fit for cultivation, and that not all the skill, capital, or labour that could be bestowed upon these estates could cause them to produce crops fit for human food. He had seen men of money and enterprise who had purchased estates there ruined by their expenditure upon them. All that could be done with the lands in the far west, was to graze them with small kinds of cattle, as was done by the moors in Scotland. That was the opinion of the late Mr. O'Connell, who understood the subject well. These specu-
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lators, who expected large profits, would lose their money; and they deserved it, because they did not come honestly, but designed under the mask of patriotism and philanthropy to do with this waste land what they did with their patriotism and philanthropy—"buy it in the cheapest market, and sell it in the dearest." He hoped the House would not allow this Bill to pass in anything like its present shape. He had his fears upon it; but so surely as they did, there would be an end of the Union. There would be scarcely a man in Ireland who, when the Bill should be understood, would not then throw up his cap for repeal, and cry out for a Parliament in College-green.
LORD BROUGHAMwished to know how the commissioners under the Act were to take testimony—whether by affidavit or viva voce, or whether there was to be any restraint upon them in that respect?
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, it was left entirely to their discretion, to proceed viva voce or by affidavit.
LORD BROUGHAMwished to ask another question. Let him suppose he was a claimant to an estate of which another person was in possession, who, conscious of the infirmity of his title, sold it at once, while he did not come forward with his title. His estate would thus be sold to a purchaser who, under this Bill, could thus show a good title as against him. He saw no rule in the Bill applicable to such a case, or to reserved biddings. If, for instance, the estate was sold for only five years' purchase, he saw no means in the Bill of rescinding that sale. Could there be a reserved bidding, or could the parties buy in? and if they bought in, out of what funds were they enabled to do so?
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, there were no rules in the Bill, but it gave the commissioners power to lay down rules which would be submitted to the Privy Council of Ireland. The commissioners were armed with the most ample powers, and they could refer any question that might arise to a court of law, and direct issues to be tried by a jury.
LORD BROUGHAM: Suppose no claimant appeared before the commissioner?
LORD CAMPBELLsaid, that notice would be given to all the world to come in, and their claims, if they had any, would be heard.
LORD MONTEAGLEsaid, that the

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noble Earl (the Earl of Glengall) had made an irresistible case; and the replies of the noble and learned Lord to the questions of his noble and learned Friend furnished him (Lord Monteagle) with a reasonable distrust of the Bill. That the object of the Bill was a desirable one, he fully and entirely admitted; and if the Bill would give greater facilities for the transfer of property in Ireland, no one could be more friendly to it than he was. He contended, however, that the remedy it provided for the existing difficulty of transfer would be imperfect. When the Encumbered Estates Bill was under discussion last year, he urged upon his noble and learned Friend the acceptance of a short form of conveyance. And what was the answer he received? Why, his noble and learned Friend said—
"No, never go into the question of a Parliamentary form of deed. You once set out a form of recognisance in the case of election inquiries, and a departure from that form was held to be fatal, and the recognisance good for nothing. If you were to set out a Parliamentary form of conveyance, it would be exactly the same."
He (Lord Monteagle) bowed to the superior authority of his noble and learned Friend; but he now found that he had, in the Bill before their Lordships, adopted the very suggestion which at that time he rejected. Again, the House must bear in mind that this Bill was not to be taken alone, but must be considered in connexion with another Bill. If they took the Bill as it stood, it would appear that it merely gave a simpler, cheaper, and more expeditious means of attaining the same object as, without such a measure, was now attained only by a more circuitous and expensive process. But it was not so. It did another thing. There were, practically, new principles laid down, deduced from Acts of Parliament, which were passed with another intent, and were never intended or perceived until this year to involve such results as he would explain; which principles engrafted themselves-upon this Bill, and necessarily formed a part of it. The Bill to which he alluded, and in connexion with which the present measure was to be viewed, was the Bill for the amendment of the new poor-law. And he begged to call the especial attention of their Lordships to the few facts upon which he was about to dwell. In Ireland a power existed, at the discretion of the Crown, to appoint vice-guardians for the purpose of administering the poor-law. These vice-guardians were not
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necessarily connected with any part of the district over which they were to act: they were not responsible to any ratepayers, and they had an unlimited and uncontrolled discretion to impose on that district any amount of rate they might think fit. By the exercise of that power, they might create any amount of debt upon any estate or upon any district; and by a clause in the Bill to which he referred, power was given to recover the rates by proceedings in the superior courts in Dublin. This clause met with no opposition in their Lordships' House. It was stated in its support, that there were cases in which the decision of a superior court would be required; and he was of opinion that such cases might arise, and that a power of resorting to a superior court was necessary. It was also suggested that there might be cases in which the influence and authority of persons in Ireland would be such as to enable them to exercise a power over the inferior courts that would make those courts liable to be distrusted. But within the last year it had been discovered by an equity lawyer, that, as an incident to the power of going to the superior courts, there was the power of entering a judgment in all those cases; and upon the judgment so entered, it was considered that there was a power given to sell the freehold estate that might be subject to that judgment—a power which had never before been dreamt of in respect to the recovery of such taxation. Now, he put it to his noble Friend who had charge of that Bill in its passage through their Lordships' House, if Her Majesty's Government contemplated at the time of taking this power to recover in the superior court, that there was to be an incident connected with it which would lead to the sale of such freehold estates? They never did. He would answer the question for them. But further propositions are now made, which will accelerate the arrival of the incidental result he had described. For by a Bill now in progress through Parliament, they enabled proceedings to be taken in the inferior courts upon short notice at an expense of 4s. or 5s; they enabled the decree of this inferior court, represented by the assistant barrister, to be certified to the court in Dublin, and to be made a matter of entered judgment in Dublin; and then, under the Bill now before the House, they took a power of selling the estate upon that judgment. His noble Friend had had

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the candour to admit that amongst the causes of the present depreciation of the value of land in Ireland, was the existing poor-law. And there were at this moment miles upon miles of country which were utterly uncultivated; not by any fault of the landlord, but solely by the default of the tenants, who did not pay their rates. The first step that was taken was to make the landlord responsible for the whole of the rates, which were a debt not of his own, but solely of another's contracting. Then summary proceedings were taken against him before the local court, whose decree being certified to the superior court in Dublin, judgment would thereupon be entered. Then came the Encumbered Estates Bill, under the operation of which the estate might be sold; and this, not for the debt of the owner, be it remembered, but for the debt of the tenant, who, having first defrauded his landlord of his rent, in the end took as his accomplice the Legislature of the United Kingdom for the purpose of defrauding him of his estates. The noble Lord then suggested that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, and recommended the introduction of a clause providing a cheap and expeditious method of dividing lands between persons who might now hold in common. Many estates were at the present moment held by two or three proprietors in common, and very frequently when two out of the three (being men of enterprise and capital) were anxious to improve the land, they were prevented from doing so by the joint title of the third, who was opposed to taking the steps which were necessary for that purpose. It was impossible for any one conversant with the proceedings of the Court of Chancery in Ireland, to doubt the propriety of leaving the landlords as free as possible to do the utmost for the improvement of their estates. By a return in reference to 1841, it appeared there were then certain causes in Chancery, in Ireland, affecting estates which, when the receivers were appointed, owed 39,000 l. arrears; and, according to the last account, the arrears had increased to 347,000 l. Thus, when they saw ruin and devastation in some parts of Ireland, and the neglect of every duty which landlords ought to perform, and which the Irish landlords were sometimes indiscriminately stigmatised for not performing, those evils might be traced to the superintending authority of the supreme court of equity in that country; and if they
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were left unredressed. Parliament would be held responsible for them. With respect to the time chosen for the introduction of this Bill, he thought it was open to objection. There was never a period in the history of that country in which its property was reduced to such a state of wretchedness and misery as at this moment, and more especially the land of the smaller proprietors. A case was mentioned in the last set of papers laid upon their Lordships' table of an unfortunate lady who was in the possession of property which amounted to 400 l. or 500 l. a year. For several years she had not received a 6d. from the land; the tenants absconded, and at length she was reduced to the necessity of applying to the poor-law officer for relief. The estate of which she was the owner was encumbered with an arrear of poor's-rate (not due from her, but from her tenants), amounting to upwards of 170 l.; and what would be the result? Why, that by the Bill now under consideration that poor woman's property would be confiscated. They ought not, he said, to enable their own officers to heap debts upon estates, and then to enter judgment upon the properties of those who had not contracted any debt. These were evils that only required exposure, and he was sure they would not be sanctioned by their Lordships. He called upon them not to pass Bills which would declare legislative war against a class that was now the most suffering in Ireland, and that, too, a class on which the administration of those laws depended. He did not mean to say that a change in some possessors of property in Ireland might not be desirable; for it was impossible that land in Ireland could continue in its present position, for instance, looking to those classes engaged in the actual cultivation of the soil, it was impossible to find farmers to sow, because they did not know that they should reap. But he also said that, in seeking for new purchasers, they might find it difficult to procure them. The ordinary motives of mankind would govern in this as in other cases; and individuals would not be found to invest their capital where it was, from vicious legislation, neither safe nor profitable.
The EARL of WICKLOWbelieved that many of the arguments which had been used in the course of the present debate, might more properly have been used in the Committee on the Bill, when the details came under consideration; for he had not

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heard a single argument advanced against the principle of the measure. The present Bill did nothing but establish the machinery for carrying into operation the Act of last year; the only point with respect to which the Bill under consideration went further than the Bill of last year being that which related to the transference of powers from the Court of Chancery to the Commission; and he certainly had a strong impression that the three commissioners, being chosen from among the most able lawyers in the country, would be infinitely more competent to direct their energies to this particular matter than the Court of Chancery, with a vast accumulation of business constantly before it. He found an argument favourable to this provision of the Bill in what had fallen from the noble Lord who had last spoken, in reference to the state of property under the Court of Chancery. He had heard nothing to justify the suggestion that the present Bill should be sent to a Committee upstairs, for he thought it might be just as well considered in a Committee of the whole House; and with reference to the reason urged for a Select Committee, that their Lordships might there have the assistance of Irish lawyers, he must say that, though he had the highest respect for the present Irish Master of the Rolls, and would readily take his opinion on the construction of an Act of Parliament, yet he did not want that learned individual's assistance as a legislator. He believed that their Lordships, and the Members of the House of Commons, were as competent to frame laws as any lawyers, and he regretted that there prevailed too much a practice of leaving to lawyers the consideration of these matters. The noble Lord who spoke last objected to the particular time at which the present measure had been introduced, and had mentioned a certain case in support of his objection. He (the Earl of Wicklow) thought, however, that that case constituted no argument against the time at which the measure had been introduced, because, if many individuals wore in the same unfortunate condition as the lady referred to, it would be an advantage to them to have an easy mode provided by Parliament, enabling them to obtain something, where they had now nothing, by disposing of their property. Having stated thus much, he must admit that he was by no moans sanguine as to the probability of any great effects being produced by the measure. He be-
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lieved that such was the state of property in Ireland, and such the existing panic, that no class of purchasers would be found from one end of the country to the other. But it might be said that English capitalists would invest money in the purchase of land in Ireland; still he conceived that such would not be the case; for, in his opinion, nothing more calculated to deter English capitalists from investing money in the purchase of Irish land could have been adopted than the Rate in Aid Bill; consequently, for the first two years after the passing of the present measure, he believed that the commissioners would be sitting at their desks receiving their salaries, and doing nothing else. This was, however, no reason why their Lordships should not amend the law which had been already established; and as au Irish proprietor he expressed his candid opinion in favour of the principle of the Bill.
Bill read 2a
LORD BROUGHAMthen suggested that it should be referred to a Select Committee.
LORD CAMPBELLhad no objection to accede to the suggestion if he were assured that the Select Committee was not asked for with a view to create unnecessary delay, or from hostile feelings towards the measure.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he should endeavour to amend those parts of the Bill which he considered objectionable; but he assured his noble and learned Friend that he would make no captious objections to the Bill in Committee, the main object of which, he admitted, had been sanctioned by the House.
The MARQUESS of LANSDOWNEsaid, what had been just stated by the noble and learned Lord confirmed him in his resolution to encourage his noble and learned Friend (Lord Campbell) to accede to the proposition of appointing a Select Committee. But he wished it to be distinctly understood that, in granting that Committee, the Government did not admit the right of the Committee to alter in any way the principle of the Bill as it had been stated by his noble and learned Friend; that principle being not only to facilitate the transfer of landed property in Ireland, but to do so by moans of commissioners, to whom the powers of the Court of Chancery should be intrusted; for, unless the House were prepared to go that length, it

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would be better to stop proceeding with the Bill altogether. It was upon that understanding alone that he gave his assent to the proposition of a Select Committee.
LORD STANLEYassured the noble Marquess, so far as he was concerned, and he believed he might say the same for those who had taken a part in opposing some of the more important details of the Bill that night, that if appointed members of the Committee they would go into it frankly, admitting the principle upon which the noble Marquess had said he would grant the Committee—that was to say, that the proposed Committee should deal with the Bill upon the assumption that now machinery should be formed, to which the power of selling encumbered estates should be transferred, and that the object of going into the Committee was for the purpose of considering in what manner that power might be more beneficially granted, and where it might be advantageously curtailed and guarded from abuse. He hoped too it would not be considered as going beyond the limits of the Committee if they considered in what manner that power might be extended to objects of a similar nature to those contemplated by the Bill. He did not desire, however, to bind himself, and he was not prepared to bind any other noble Lord, with respect to the course which they would pursue on the third reading of the Bill, when the Bill should have come out of the Committee, and when they should be able to consider it as a whole; but he could assure the noble Marquess that there was no desire either to frustrate the Bill by delay or to alter its principle. Their only desire was, that, being a Bill of a most extraordinary and exceptional character, it should not be carried further than the exceptional nature of the case required, and that the arbitrary and despotic powers which it was proposed to place in the hands of the commissioners, should not be more despotic and arbitrary than was absolutely necessary for the purpose of preventing greater evils—that, in short, the Bill should be made to work as effectively as possible, and as little injuriously as possible for the object in view. At the same time, he must say that he thought there were many clauses in the Bill which required the most serious consideration.
Bill to be referred to a Select Committee.
House adjourned till To-morrow.