NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MR. PEEL (having been returned to the House of Commons as Member for a small borough in Wiltshire) on Thursday, after the Call of the House, rose in his place, "in the spirit of peace, to propose the adjustment of the Roman Catholic question—that question which has so long and so painfully occupied the attention of Parliament, and which has distracted the Councils of the King for the last thirty years." He moved for a Committee of the whole House, "with a view to consider the Laws imposing civil disabilities on his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects ;" and the motion was, after two nights' debate, triumphantly carried, by a majority of 188 members-348 to 160. Two bills, founded on this vote, will be brought in on Monday, and read a first time, we believe without -opposition, and read a second time on the Monday following. The fundamental principle of the measure developed in Mr. PEEL'S speech, is "the abolition of civil disabilities, and the equalization of political rights," in England, Ireland, and Scotland. In particular, Roman Catholics are to be admitted into both Houses of Parliament without restriction of numbers or modification of privilege. They may hold all offices in the State, except those of Lord Chancellor and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The existing penal laws affecting Roman Catholics are to be repealed. Roman Catholics are to be put with respect to property on a footing with Dissenters. The declaration against Transubstantiation is to be abolished. The oath of Supremacy is to be retained for Protestants; but for Roman Catholics the following oath is to be substituted.
-"I, A.13., do declare that I profess the Roman Catholic religion. I, A. B., do solemnly promise and swear, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George the Fourth, and will defend him to the utmost of my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatever which shall be made against his person, crown, or dignity, and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against him or them. And I do faithfully promise to maintain, support, and defend, to the utmost of my power, the succession to the crown, hereby utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or allegiance unto any other person claiming or pretending a right to the cr3wn of these realms. And I do further declare, that it is not an article of my' faith; and that I do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion that princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or by any person whatsoever. And I do declare, that I do not believe that the Pope of Rome or any other foreign prince, prelate, person, state, or potentate, bath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm. I do swear, that I will defend to the utmost of my power the settlement of the property within this realm as established by the laws : and I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church Establishment, as settled by the law within this realm : and I do solemnly swear that I will never exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled to disturb or weaken the Pr-itestant religion or Protestant government in this kingdom : and I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, that I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever."
With regard to Ecclesiastical securities, the Roman Catholics are to be put on the footing of all other Dissenters. There is to be no veto; no pensioning of the Catholic priests ; no interference with the intercourse in spiritual matters between the Roman Catholic Church and the See of Rome. The Catholics are not to hold places belonging to the Established Church, the Ecclesiastical Courts, or Ecclesiastical foundations ; nor any office in the Universities, the Colleges of Eton, Winchester, and Westminster ; nor any school of ecclesiastical foundation. The laws relative to Roman Catholic right to prenntations are to be retained. In cans where any Roman Catholic shall hold an office with which Church patronage is connected, the Crown is to have the power of transferring the patronage. No Roman Catholic is to advise the CrOWB Ii the appointment of offices connected with the Established Church. The Episcopal titles now in use in the Church of Eneintal Ireland are not to be assumed by the members of the -Roman Catholic Church. When Roman Catholics are admitted to corporate and other offices, the insignia of such offices are in no caso be taken to any other place of worship than a place of worsiii!) the Established Church. No robes of office are to be known in ally otherthanthe Established Church. The Communities bound by religious or monastic vows are not to be extended, and provision is 10 be made against the future entrance into this country of mend. , s of the order of Jesuits: those already here are to be repsistered.
Such is the substance of the Emancipation Bill. It. is pro:)osed by a second bill to limit and regulate the elective franchise in Ireland, with a view to diminish fictitious votes, and raise a mere independent yeomanry. The freehold qualification is to be raise" from forty shillings to ten pounds: freeholds are to be reisliT:.:!, and the registry is to be taken before the Assistant-Barrister of 1.!1!t Irish counties, with the power of an appeal in certain cases to a higher tribunal.
Mr. PEEL founded his case for the Government on this inl proposition—that the time had come when it was iaoro dangerous to leave the Catholic question unsettled, than to set if! if by granting the claims.
For himself, he acted on his honest conviction, and gave his conscientious and best advice according to his oath of office. Th conviction had been growing upon him for several years ; had proved Ins sincerity by offering to retire in 1825, an i !ten! I .which he relinquished only out ofpersonal regard to Lord Lm vu o It was not for him to maintain the struggle with inadequate nmateiais and insufficient instruments. He was unsupported inthe House evoit by the speeches of those who were now so clamorous ; muJ in the country the state of opinion was shown, through its lejtimate organ the representation, to be favourable to the cause whieh he had so unavailinglyopposed. To prove this, he analyzed the n;, liamentary divisions, and the votes 'of members fOt ,fifteim of 111,• most populous counties and twenty of the largest towns in 'Enland. In Ireland the case was even stronger. How would all tko evils of our situation be aggravated in the event of war ?
The statement of Mr. PEEL was received wit h the v;;!.-olle cheering perhaps ever heard in the House of Commons. II IV:IS fiercely assailed by a few leaders of the minority; bid:their spe ej.:11 es present hardly any materials either fOr analysis or extract.
Mr. BANKES took the lead. Mr. O'NEILL followed, and will: great perseverance quoted Mr. Peel's own speeches a;:saill:;1, Sir ROBERT INGLIS appealed to the Constitution of 168U. Ile • called upon the House . . to look back with him at the history of Ireland, and to point out any period in which the,unhappy inhabitants of that country were not living in a state of misery and actual war under every form of government. At all times, before the distinctive names of Catholic and Protestaitt were known there—before even the rule of England was felt in the country, thePeople were discontented and turbulent, and party spirit and private dissension produced misery and crime. In later times, and referring to those periods more immediately within the memory of those he addressed, were there not Peep of Day Boys, and Defenders, and United Irishmen,and Shanavests and Rockites,and various other parties of insurrectionists,disturbing the peace and checking the prosperity of Ireland, not upon any question of concession or not concession, but upon the same general principles of lawless violence and habitual turbulence. The noble duke at the head of his Majesty's Government, who had been so much in tho habit of wielding with skill the energies of brute force, did not seem to him to display so much skill in conceiving the power or directing the force which arises from public opinion. (Hear.) Sir GEORGE MURRAY spoke with much animation in reply to Sir Robert :— It had been his good fortune to pass the greater part of his life in the army, and he had there learned to free his mind from prejudices Which he was sorry to find existed in civil society. In the army there were no religious distinctions; Catholics and Protestants lived in harmony in the same tent, marched in the same ranks ; and the only compaition between them was, which should serve their country with the greatest vigour and fidelity. They cherished the same hopes of a future life, anti placed their reliance upon the same Redeemer. In the course of his sm. vice in Ireland, he had been a witness of the state of its society, and of the effect of brute force there ; and he lamented to see that, whilst under military leaders, there was harmony-and tranquillity, under the civil magistrates, and the ministers of peace, the population had been arrayed against one another, and roused to combat. It is an argunient much relied upon by the opponents of the proposed measure of concession, that the present proposal of Government is an infringement on the Constitution of 1688. But, Sir, I will not consent to date the Constitution of this country from the year 1688. I hold that at that period the best principles of the Constitution were upheld, improved, and amended. But the Constitution itself is referred to a much earlier date—to the laws and institutions which had been established by Catholic hands, and cemented by Catholic blood. It had been argued that at some remote period disturbance has prevailed in Ireland; that dissension now prevails there, and, therefore, that disturbances shall continueSo then we are to infer from that, that discord is to be the perpetual destiny of Ireland, in all future, as it has been in all past periods of her existence. Is it that there is any thing in the peculiar climate of Ireland, or in the brave and generous character of her inhabitants, that should render her impregnable to improvement, and incapable of that tranquillity and civilization, which England enjoys, and which Ireland has an equal right to, and possesses equal means to arrive at the enjoyment of ? I see nothing in the state of Ireland which should exclude her from
, the full possession of those advantages which my own country (Scotland) has recently reaped from the advances which she has made in the cultivation of the arts of civilization."
Some had talked of "Protestant Ascendancy;" and others complained of being taken by surprise by the Government. To both of these topics, Mr. NORTH addressed himself:— " I will ask any Irish gentleman, where Protestant ascendancy, about which they talk so much, has been to be found for the last fifteen years? Let them ask the merchant whether it is to be found on the Exchange ; let them ask the lawyer whether it is to be found in the Four Courts ; let them ask the country gentlemen whether it is to be found on the hustings'? I answer for them—nol The Protestant ascendancy, which those Protestant gentlemen worship so devoutly, is, in fact, a visionary being —without substance—impalpable—and of no account : it is like the ghost of one long since in the grave ; or if it does exist, it exists only to distract the judgment, to deceive the heart, and to astound the imagination. I ask, boldly, was there ever in this House a measure that went on from stage to stage, and from session to session, every now and then making new grounds on the feelings of the Parliament, and I will even say on the feelings of the country, giving every body an opportunity of watching its progress ? Let me also request the House to remember that the whole of this progress was continually marked by such particular events as ought to have prevented its escaping the memory of any man. In one
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year it happens that one gentleman who had heretofore been strenuous in his opposition to the measure, passes over to the other side and declares his strong conviction of something being done in favour of the Catholics ; in another year the division was changed from a majority against the Catholics, to a majority in their favour—an event which one may well suppose could not have happened without being strongly impressed on the minds of those who thought that the majority had changed for the worse ; and, last of all, let the House recollect what was the warnina° conveyed toit in the course of the last Session, -when that great measure for the relief of the Dissenters passed through Parliament. If that was not a warning, Sir—if honourable gentlemen did not then see what the signs of the times were, I can only say, that they appear to me to be like that stiff-necked generation, described to us, that would not have believed, even if one had risen from the dead. In my opinion, Sir, the honourable gentlemen have had abundance of time ; but if they had had more, could they, I will ask, have acted with more zeal or activity ? liave they not established their Brunswick Clubs in Ireland ? Are they not as numerous as they are violent ? Have they not approached nearer to the confines of sedition and tumult than any other body or collection of men ? Will they then now tell us that they have had no warning of the proposal of this measure ? At least I think that if they wanted any further, they might have obtained it from a survey of their owl' condition. (Laughter.) It seems to me that the well-known story of Mrs. Thrale's, about the Three Warnings, is very applicable to the opponents of the Catholic claims just now: the House of course knows that, in the story to which I have just alluded, old Dobson complains that death has no business with him, because he has not received the three warnings that had been promised him—quite forgetting that at that very moment he was without the use of his limbs, had lost his sight, and was as deaf as a post. So it was with these honourable gentlemen : here they are complaining that they have had no warning; but! assure them that the case of old Dobson is very much in point—and that they are so like old men, that they must depart without any further warning." (Excessive Laughter.) It was objected that the " securitieswere worth nothing. Mr. CIIA.RLEs GRANT showed that the best securities were to be found in the healing nature of the measure ; in the spirit of the English people, clergy, and nobles ; and in the interests of the Irish.
Mr. IhtouGitam made the shortest speech: it related chiefly to the second bill—the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders.
He had opposed the measure for the disfranchisement of the fortyshilling freeholders in 1825 • and he would not disguise it, that, for his own part, to that measure he had all but an invincible repuga.nce. Even had lie been one of those who supported that measure, he might with perfect consistency oppose this, which was one of a much more extensive character. But lie looked not to these measures separately—he considered them as a whole. " If the question is put to me, Do you mean to vote for the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders ?—if this question he put to me separately, singly, and apart from all other considerations, as an abstract proposition to he weighed and determined on its own grounds, and on its own grounds answered, my answer is at once and simply, No! But that is not the question to be answered, for it rests on other grounds, and is a much more difficult and complex question; and if I he practically called on to say whether or not I shall take upon myself the responsibility, shall I dare to take to myself even the smallest share of the awful and tremendous responsibility of saying to Ireland, 'Your last chance of tranquillity, good order, and safety is gone, from the adoption of these two measures, which are inseparably connected ?' —from that responsibility—even from my small share of that responsihility—i_lemestly confess I do shrink; and 1 ant not ashamed to confess that! do, for it is a responsibility that not only will appal the stoutest heart, but shake the soundest judgment. I therefore agree to the dis. franchisement as the price—as the high pricn—as the all but extravagant price, of this inestimable good."
