23 MAY 1829, Page 8

THE MEMBER FOR CLARE.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE general feeling in Mr. O'CONNELL'S case seems to be, that he has stooped to conquer—that he has risen to higher estimation by being relegated to the bar of the House, than he would have done had he been allowed to take his seat without notice. We cannot say that the House has come out of the dispute with the same increase of fame. We are exceedingly unwilling to see the dignity of the popular branch of the Legislature in any degree lowered, or its hold over the affec- tions of the people weakened. The Lords have their ancestral honours to support them ; they are strong, if not in themselves, at least in the " quce non feceruzzt ipsi ;" but the Commons exist in popular opinion —" it is as the air they breathe ; when taken from them they die." Hated at all times by the Ultra Liberals, and recently deserted by the Ultra Tories, the Honourable House has in this instance, we fear, lost the respect of the only party of consideration in the country that was left to support it.

We shall not stop to consider the technicalities of O'CONNELL 'S case. It may be that by the strict letter of the late law he is ex- cluded. Be it so. Who are the proper and appointed interpreters of the law ? Assuredly not the House of Commons. We have indeed heard of the House sitting in a judicial capacity, but we confess we know not of ally judicial capacity that belongs to it—most certainly none that it can worthily exercise, according to its own expressed con- viction, or why was the Grenville Act passed?

But it is not by petty appeals to legal quibbles that the case is to be settled. What was the scope and intention of the Relief Bill? Was it not to abrogate those laws which placed the Catholics in a worse condition than the Protestants ? to abrogate them in regard to all Catholics? How then could the circumstance of Mr. O'CoNNELL's being in a position which gave him a much stronger interest in the Relief Bill than any other man in the empire, disable him from bene- fiting by it ? Statutes which take away something are generahy framed so that those who are in possession shall not have that which they possess taken from them. The uti possidetis is a most just prin- ciple in abstracting laws. But who ever heard of a law conferring privileges which gave every advantage to those that had nothing, and refused the least to those who required none but the least to place

them on an equality with their brethren ? Any Roman Catholic can enter the House of Commons, who, in addition to the small prelimi- nary of getting himself elected by a borough or county, is content to take a couple of oaths; but he who has already got over the prelimi- nary step must—so says the House—take all these, or go hack to his constituents!

There is another view of the case which tells even more strongly for O'CONNELL. The Supremacy Oath has been spoken of as abrogated

only to the Catholics, but this is a mistake. It is abrogated, and for

ever, to all men. It is true, a Protestant may take it if he please; but neither the Clerk nor • the Speaker has any right to ask whether he is a Protestant or not. The obligation, therefore, of taking the Supremacy Oath was laid on Daniel O'Connell after the Parliament had solemnly resolved that it should never be laid on another.

The circumstance, however, which we are most grieved at, is the suppressio veri apparent in the whole history of this transaction.

Why was the clause of which such paltry advantage has been taken introduced ? Why was it allowed to stand? To what party or indi- vidual in the state was O'CONNELL sacrificed ? If to the Devil, as

the Chronicle charitably suggests,Ito what devil ? If it was resolved that the only Catholic in the empire who, instead of receiving benefit from the bill, was to be exposed in consequence to much inconve- nience, should be the great Agitator, why was he not manfully named? Why was not the cause manfully avowed ?

We who stand before the curtain can but guess at these mysteries ; but that there are mysteries is evident, both from the conduct of O'CoNsraLn's opponents and from that of his advocates. It has been said that the vote of the Commons disables him, by virtue of some act of Parliament of Elizabeth, from sitting during the present Parliament : not so—expulsion is not disqualification ; WILKES'S case settled that point.