8 FEBRUARY 1851, Page 10

POSTSCRIPT.

SATURDAY.

In the House of Commons; last night, Lord Toter RUSSELL moved for leave to bring in a bill "to prevent the assumption of certain ecclesiastical titles in respect of places in the 'United Kingdom." His speech consisted of historical deductions justifying his measure, a brief explanation of the legal frame of his bill, and a peroration.

In the first division of his speech, he traversed Europe and its history, commencing with modern events in Ireland, Sardinia, and Belgium; then by reference to the history of France, ascending to the struggles waged between the civil and ecclesiastical powers in the middle ages ; thence through the history of Austria and Portugal, in both ancient and modern times. In his Irish references, he mentioned how three learned Irish divines, chosen by the local ecclesiastics and presented to the Pope, had been passed over, and Dr. Cullen, a man who knew more of the proceedings of the Roman court than of the feelings of the Irish people was appointed Irish Primate by the Pope ;. he referred to the ()ended of the Synod of Thurles in condemning-the collegiate system established under the sanction of an Imperial act of Parliament: these were two instances of priestly foreign intervention, and of ecclesiastical control over temporal affairs between man and man, the. sovereign and the subject. In Sardini.a the struggle on the Siceardl laws, in Belgium that on the education of the people, were parallel illustrations of the same dangerous spirit. In France, the struggles of Philip the Fair with the Pope, and the constitutional disquisitions of M. lupin the President of the Assembly, afforded arguments. M. Dupin declares, that however the philosophers may argue in theory, they have been disregarded by the people in practice : the people have ever been subject to some religious rule, and experience shows that it is in vain to meet that substantive rule with abstractions; you must meet it by a power—by positive law enforced under the civil authority. The result of the wide survey taken is, that no power in Europe could have been similarly insulted in the manner this country has been insulted by the recent Papal measure. In every other country there would have been a treaty to prevent, or a refusal to tolerate, the introduction of such a document as came to this country from Rome, and the Court of Rome would have desisted. Lord John ridiculed the idea that Rome never retracts : she has ever retracted, and he hints that he will make her retract now.

In reference to the story concerning Lord Minto, he stated, that certainly the Pope said at one interview, "pointing to a table in the room, 'There is something there that regards you' ; but Lord Mintz did not look at the paper or make any observation whatever on the subject." "Neither the Pope nor any other person said, 'Here is a paper that we would wish you to take and peruse, and submit it to your Government ' ; if anything was said at all, it was only That is a project that concerns you.'" When a private individual of the Roman Cathohe persuasion told Lord John himself that there was such a project, he said he should "not approve of it," and said nothing more ; and he did not dream of the possibility of what has happened. "I did not believe that it could be intended so to insult the Queen. (Great cheering.) I may have been like the foolish Italian shepherd, who said

" Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Melihme, putavi, Stultus ego huic nostro similem";-

I may have thought most trustingly and imprudently that the Court of Rome would observe such relations, such discretion such .courtesy in her conduct with the state of England, as all other states that are friendly observe towards each other, and as she herself has observed towards every other state in Europe." The first step taken by the Government on having attention drawn to the letters was to consult the Law-officers. Those officers advised them, that with reference to the assumption of titles, under the present state of the law they did not think the assumption of those titles could be prosecuted with efibet. The introduction of the letters apostolic is an offence, and subject to a penalty; but the law is obsolete, and from its long disuse would probably cause any prosecution to fail. The Government might have passed a general lsiv against the introduction of every bull from Rome likely to be prejudiciano the King and country,—a course objectionable from its vagueness; or have provided that the Secretary of State should have the power of refusing his sanction to the introduction of every document he disappraved,—a course objectionable, from the liability to the harsh imputations against such Minister to which his course on every occasion would sabject him. "In the present state of affairs, with the great uncertainty which still prevails as to what was the intention of the measure that has been taken by R' ome, whether it is the prelude to further measures, or whether it is merely a blunder committed on the sudden, which will be retracted or amended,— in this state of uncertainty, I think it far better on the one side not to relax any power which you can now maintain by law, and on the other not to propose any substitute which would of itself be the cause of further debate."

The measure which the Government proposes is founded on a clause in the Boman Catholic Relief Act, which was passed without objection on the part of the Roman Catholics themselves. The change of the Vicars Apostolic to Bishops is believed to be intended to give greater control over all the endowments which are in the hands of certain Roman Catholics as trustees. "Now, I propose to introduce a clause which shall enact that all gifts to persons under those titles shall be null and void; that any act done by them with those titles shall be null and void; and that property bequeathed or given for such purposes shall pass at once to the Crown' with power to the Crown either to create a trust for purposes similar to those for which the original trust had been created, or for other purposes, as shall seem best to the Crown. I do not think a power less extensive than that would enable us to reach the justice of the ease. I am aware that in several eases there has been a transfer of property from those who have hitherto held it to other persons who have been named by authority either from Rome or by persons assuming to act as Bishops under the See of Rome. I was told the other day, that a priest living near the seacoast was deprived of an income which he had hitherto held, being informed by ecclesiastical authority that it was found that such property, and such an income, could be more usefully employed for other purposes. Now I think we should do all in our power to defend the Roman Catholic laity sgainst such acts of usurpation. The clause which I propose to introduce will in a great degree do so. If it should be necessary to introduce other provisions for this purpose in the bill that my honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General will introduce with regard to charitable trusts, it can be done, and further security can be taken to guard the Catholic laity from that which purports to be a transfer of their property to hands which were not intended nor had any right to be possessed of it. "There is a more difficult question which perhaps the honourable Member for Youghal may raise, with regard to the means by which the transfer of this property is obtained—those means being a spiritual censure against the priests of the Roman Catholic community. That is a far more difficult question, and one which can hardly be reached, unless by the spirit of some of those ancient laws to which I have referred. In the present bill I do not propose to introduce any provision of the kind contained in those laws."

The provision against the assumption of titles is in conformity with a proposition made by the Bishop of London, and comes up to the desire expressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In his peroration Lord John made a pointed personal allusion to Dr. Wiseman, who was present under the gallery. "If he has been given by the Pope a title which belongs to the Government of Rome to confer, and has been honoured by an election which has placed him in the band of the Sacred College, I should think that if he has any regard for the welfare of this country—if he has any regard for the peace and stability of the Roman Catholic community—the beat course he can take will be to renounce the title which he has assumed in this country, and rather do that 'which I believe it was his original intention to do, and which he assured me it was his original intention to do—namely, reside at Rome. (Cheers and laughter.) But if other counsels should prevail, and if he should be able to instil notions of conquest, of ambition, or of revenge, into the Court of Rome, we may then, probably, thongh we can well know the end, look for a long and arduous struggle."

Mr. ROEBUCK assumed, and maintained throughout a speech of considerable length, a tone of sarcasm and contempt for the measure propounded. "Was there ever such a meagre finale to such an overgrown commencement?"

Why not have said at the beginning, all that is proposed is the prevention of Catholic Prelates from using certain titles, and there an end ? But indeed, would there be an end at this point ? "The Roman Catholic Arch

bishop of Tuam had called himself so for many years. Suppose he and his brother Prelates were to say, 'We have enjoyed our titles for a long time, and we will not surrender them at your bidding; we will resist, and test your law and your machinery for enforcing it.' Suppose the Archbishop of Tuam were to write a letter to the Lord-Lieutenant, signed by his title, and say that he did so on purpose in order to try the law. How would you deal with that ease, in a country where nine persons out of ten are Catholics ?" And suppose the .priest who has excommunicated is punished, and he says, "I will not absolve," what is then to be done ? It is not from the law that the pried derives his power, nor by the law that you can put him down. His power over the weak, miserable, and ignorant, IS the power to damn the soul. You cannot reach the power of damnation by act of Parliament. America is the only country where the Pope is met with the right weapon : there the Roman Catholic is looked upon in the same light with every other professor of religion. America alone looks without fear on the Pope.

Mr. Jonx O'Cossenim recalled Lord John Russell's declaration in 1834, that it was "a foolish prohibition" to provide by statute that Roman Catholic Bishops should not be allowed to style themselves by the name of the diocese over which they preside ; and left Lord John to reconcile lie words which he uttered on that occasion with the declaration he had

node tonight.

, Mr. HENRY DRUMMOND made one of his characteristic speechestrewd, pointed, and amusing. He said that the real gist of the aggres. n is the clutching of all Roman Catholic trust-funds—" the money's t

thing."

tl i , e doubted whether we should not be obliged to have a great ninny more a} of Parliament to make this question fit in with the present framework ! oficiety. He doubted whether the Government could beat back the Papal agession by anything of the kind now proposed. The priests, he feared, 'weld slip through their fingers, and carry their measures in spite of them. :V. E. B. ROCHE reinstated that the Dublin Cemeteries Act virtually reps the Act of Supremacy so far as Archbishop Murray and his suchsors are concerned. Mr. Memo called in vain for "details" of the teasure, and threw sarcasm on "one weak, washy, everlasting Ito% of scurrility and cant with which the souls of men have been drenled on this question—a long dreary drizgle, from which oppression ' would be a relief and persecution a shelter. He commeniacd tie posterousness of her Majesty's protest in her coronation-oath against the " ' religion of one-third of her people, and reinforced Mr. Roebuck's allusion to America as the only case analogous to our own ; contrasting the opposite Government policy in the two countries, and pointing to the natural effects. Mr. %DOILY criticized the absence from the Queen's Speech of any reference to the more threatening danger within the Church of England, to which Lord John Russell's letter had given so much prominence above the aggression from without—en that his letter threw contempt. Mr. Bright inveighed against " ascendancy " either in Dissent or in the Church.

I Mr. DISRAELI would not oppose the introduction of a measure which he thought the severest condemnation of the conduct which has been pursued during the last three months. "Some Roman Catholic priests are to be prevented from taking titles which hitherto they have been prevented by the law that existed from taking, to a considerable extent ; the only difference being that they are now prevented from taking territorial titles, which have not been assumed by Prelates of' the national Church, and that by a penalty of what amount-40s. perhaps-is not stated. But a penalty of that amount would, in my opinion' be worthy of the occasion. Is this all ? Is a piece of petty persecution the only weapon we can devise on a solemn political exigency of this vast importance? At the best, it is a great political exigency met by a remedy purely technical. Not a single principle has been asserted or vindicated, and uo substantial evil will be remedied."

"Was it for this that the Lord Chancellor of England trampled on a Car, dinal's hat amidst the patriotic acclamations of a Metropolitan Municipality? Was it for this that the First Minister' with more reserve and , delicacy, intimated to the assembled Judges that there had been occasions when perhaps even greater dangers were at hand, and when the shadow of the Armada threatened the seas of England ? Was it for this that all the

• counties and corporations of England met—that all the learned and religious societies assembled at a period most inconvenient, in order, as they thouoht, to respond to the appeal of their Sovereign, and lose no time in assuring;her Majesty that they would guard her authority and supremacy ; that the riiversifies of Oxford and Cambridge, that the great City of London itself, went in solemn procession to offer at the foot of the Throne the assurance of their devotion • that the electric telegraph brought her Majesty's responses to those addresses, that not an instant might be lost in reassuring the courage of the inhabitants of the Metropolis ?"

"Time course taken by the Government was not only very unsatisfactory

i

for the present, but extremely perilous for the future. It s a_great evi4 after all, that has occurred to baulk the feelings of the nation. But that is a minor evil compared with the prospect held out by the noble Lord this evening of ulterior measures and future legislation. The noble Lord seems to have chalked out an almost illimitable career, which commences with petty persecution, perhaps to terminate with national disaster. But he will never accomplish a solution, worthy of is statesman, of a great political difficulty. What is the prospect before us ? Suppose there is another Papal aggression—and with the encouragement it has received I think we may reasonably count upon ono—there is to be another measure adapted to the new assault upon the supremacy of the Sovereign ; party passions still more ; embittered ; public prejudices still more excited ; rancour, hatred, malice, and the odium thoologwum, prevailing everywhere. A new measure will produce another aggression ; another blunder of a sudden,' and this der of a sudden' will be made year after year,. to be met with some law of h sudden, though I am afraid not so sudden in the result. Thus we shall have the Whigs governing England by a continual Popish plot, which is never to be brought to an end."

On the motion of Mr. REYNOLDS, the debate was adjourned till Tuesday next.

The other business in the House of Commons was of secondary importance. Mr. DLSILABLI announced that his motion on agricultural distress will be in the following form-

" That the severe distress which continues to exist in the United Kingdom

• among that important class of her Majesty's subjects the owners and occupiers of land, and which is justly lamented in her Majesty's Speech, renders it the duty of her Majesty's Ministers to introduce without delay such measures as may be most effectual for the relief thereof."

Mr. DISRAELI obtained from Mr. CAYLEY the postponement of a motion respecting the Malt-tax, in favour of the larger motion on agricultural distress.

IIn the House of Peers, Lord BROUGUAM moved the second reading of a bill to amend the Law of Evidence, which is intended to complete and apply the principle of the bill carried by Lord Denman last year, and enact that in every case the parties to suits shall be competent witneasts in the suits in which they are engaged. Ho also moved the first reading of a bill to transfer the business in Bankruptcy to the jurisdiction of the County independent ndependent provincial jurisdiction in Bankruptcy was created because the County Courts were not then conceded ; they arc now conceded, and are the best of all engines for administering the Bankruptcy law. The saving would be sonic 40,000/. a year.

The Evidence Bill was read a second time, and the other bill a first time ; after favourable speeches by the LORD CHANCELLOR, Lord CAMPBELL, and Lord CRANWOETII.