WHAT MUST BE DONE WITH O'CONNELL ?
TOPICS OF THE DAY.
" A DANIEL has come to judgment ;" and the best possible instruc- tors are puzzled in what way to dispose of him. Some would
have us believe that nothing is more facile. The Speaker, accord- ing to one, is gifted with a most convenient obliquity of vision, which enables him to look a man in the face at two yards' distance.
without perceiving whethernature have furnished him with a head at the end of his neck, or whether he carry that (for the most part superfluous) appendage to humanity under his arm. Until Mr.
Dysog, or Mr. Somebody else, by a nod or a whisper, inform him that ,certain ceremonies have been complied with, and until some two members, whom the Speaker can see, have led up the candi- date for his notice to the Chair, and introduced him in form, that gentleman, from the happy obliquity aforesaid, remains, it is as- serted, as unconscious of the candidate's presence as a young lady does of her lover's meaning when he first puts the interesting ques- tion. The conclusion is obvious; such a member may as %yell ex- pect to catch a swallow by the tail, as catch the eye of the right honourable gentleman '° in fine frenzy rolling ;" and since he can neither speak nor act under such circumstances, his only all ernative is to take his hat and shuffle out of the house as he best can.
• Another journal tells us, that until the oaths are taken at the table, and the ceremony of introduction gone through, the candidate is no better than an intruder. If he creep into a corner, make him- self as little as possible, say nothing, and do less, he may be tole- rated, on the old rule de non apparentibus et de non existentibas cadent ea ratio ; but if he attempt to rise, or to speak though but in a whisper, he will be instantly removed by the hands of Mr. PRATT the doorkeeper, or one of his assistants. We confess we are not altogether convinced by these statements of our excellent contemporaries, the Morning. Journal and Morning Herald; and we rather suspect that the judgment to which DANIEL is come will not be so summary in its character. Gentle reader, have you ever been in the House of Commons ? If not —which we suppose to be the case with many—we shall first of all introduce you above the bar ; and when you have looked round, state our reasons for differing from the diurnal authorities we have just referred to.
Entering Westminster Hall by the great door that opens on New Palace-yard—we shall show you in by the easiest way—and groping your twilight path by the line of elegant sheds that decorate the south side of that noblest room, you will arrive in due time at a flight of steps, very much resembling those by which the sights at Bartholomew fair are approached. When past this first barrier, you. will see a second a few yards in advance, through which push boldly, and then you will find yourself in the passage to the House. Turn to the left—pass the folding doors, and walk forward until the wall of St. Stephens arrest you. Two paces (take care, we beseech you, of . the steps), to the lett again, bring you to another door on your right, which is generally patent—enter it, and you are in the LoolT ; at the foot of which, with a little sentry-box on each side of it, you behold the gate that leads into the inner court of the temple. Press down the latch, and walk in—along this narrow passage— through this wicket—and now you are fairly within the veil. Look around ; —in that canopied seat.below the window sits the Speaker, so called beconse he don't speak ; immediately in front of him, at the head of tliat small square table, sit the Clerks of the House;— on those benches which you perceive on each side, raised one above the other, and arranged horse-shoe fashion, sit the members of the House ;—those on the right hand of the Speaker are occupied by his Majesty's Ministers and their friends ; those on the left by his Majesty's Opposition and their friends ; the very small num-
ber who are friends to neither, or to both, sit at the end next the bar of the benches on either side : but this is not a constant nor a necessary practice. Casting your regards upwards—you will see long galleries on each side ; these are set apart for members who cannot find seats below on crowded nights, and for the elderly and the idlers on all nights. That gallery facing the Speaker—which can hold, when properly crammed, 'about one hundred and fifty individuals—is destined for the gods; and were you standing where we have now placed you on Thursday afternoon, you would find them quite as uproarious as they are in any other theatre in town.
Having thus beitowed our tediousness on one comfortable listener in lescribing the still parts of the picture, we shall now describe mote generally the living portions of it to our readers at large.
When a member comes to take his seat, he gives in to the pro- per officer he proofs required by statute of his qualification ; and
takes the oath of allegiance, as it is called, in one of the outer clerks' offices. This oath merely states that he who takes it " will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty: These preliminary matters settled, the member is at liberty to enter the Souse:; which he must do between nine and four o'clock, as no member can take the oaths before the one hour or after the other*. In' opening the House, the following is the form observed. The Speaker being robed, takes his stand on the right at the head of the table, and the Chaplain takes his on the left, for the purpose of reading the customary prayers. When these are over, the Speaker proceeds to count the members already in the House, and the rest as they enter, until he has numbered forty. If there be not so many present at four, he adjourns the House till next day ; if there be, he immediately takes his seat. At the commencement of a new Parliament, the Lord Steward administers the oath of allegiance to a sufficient number of members, generally sixty or seventy ; and the members administer the other oaths to each other, until a Speaker-is elected ; when they are, by his direction, administered by the Clerk of the House. In ordinary cases, the Speaker, on noticing or on being informed that there is a new member in the House, gives intimation—" if there be any member in the House who has not taken the oaths, he may come up to the table and take theni." The intimation is ,quite general ; the members are not named or designated in Any way ; there is no announcement of penalty or consequence if the invitation be not accepted. Mem- bers, on first entering the House, generally sit on what we have termed the Neutral benches, that is close to the bar,—out of mo- desty perhaps ; but this is neither a uniform nor a necessary practice. When they have taken the oaths, they are commonly introduced by two friends to the Speaker, who shakes hands with them, and congratulates them on their election ; but this also is a mere piece of courtesy. The House has indeed a rule,'made so far back as February 1688, that a new member shall be intro- duced by two members, " who shall bring him up from the bar, he making three obeisances," but this, it must be observed, is " that the memb4r may be known to the House t," not for the purpose of remedying that obliquity in the Speaker's vision of which so much has. been made ; and it is done, not after the oaths have been administered—for these must be administered at the table $, and of course after the member has been brought from the bar, and, by the appointed introduction and obeisances, "made known to the House." There is therefore not the slightest ground for supposing that a member demurring to the oaths, or refusing to take them, can be removed from the House as a stranger. The standing rule respecting strangers is curious. No one is by that rule permitted to enter the House but members, and the servants of the House : all others are absolutely excluded. Such persons are in consequence supposed to have got in by stealth or violence ; and any member may call for their removal, or the Speaker may order them out without ceremony: or discussion. This is always the case in divisions ; but the order may be enforced during whole debates, as was the case in the inquiry into the Wal- cheren expedition. But the removal of a member is not to be so summarily gone about ; the oaths are not imposed by a rule of the House, but an enactment of the Legislature. 'the case of a Quaker member, which has been quoted, is not at all in point; for he had not taken nor could he take the oath of allegi- ance, and he had no right to enter the House until he took that oath. Now Mr. O'CONNELL will tyke the oath of allegiance ; he will be led from the bar by two meMbers ; he will make his three obeisances, and thus " be made known to the House ;" and the question is, when he is so made known, how is the House to get rid of his acquaintance ? The oaths which every member must take at the table, and between the hours of nineoand four, (for the act is very minute), are the oath of abjuration and supremacy and the declaration against transubstantiation, which the member must both swear to and sign. The abjuration clause O'CONNELL will probably take ; no Catholic now at least will hesitate to abjure, " as impious and heretical, the damnable doctrine and position, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any au- thority of the see of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects or any other whatsoever ;" but the next clause- " that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or au- thority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within these realms," he will not take, because he asserts that the Pope has such jurisdiction, (and this, we suppose, few will deny, although honourable mem- bers are content to swear he has not), and he believes he ought to have. At this point, then, O'CONNELL ceases and the House be- gins to act. The Clerk may report his refusal; though we are not aware that he is called on to do so, or to make any report con- cerning the taking of the oaths at all. If a member exercise the functions of a legislator without due qualification, he is amenable, not to the House, but to the country; and the penalty must be recovered, or the misdemeanour proceeded against, in the ordinary way. The oaths are obligations imposed on the deputies of the people individually, not corporately ; and therefore they are not to be judged of or regulated as if they were matters of privilege. The only way, therefore, in which Mr. O'CONNELL can be removed, is by motion. There is no doubt but in this way any member can be taken out of the House, or ex- pelled, if the majority so will it, for good cause or for no cause : the House is amenable to no law—it can be prorogued or dissolved, but it cannot be punished. Will the House adopt that method ? The answer to this question would lead us to discuss the law of the case ; which we confess ourselves incompetent to pronounce upon. The authorities on the side of the Roman Catholics are * la mamma III. cap. 6. 4 10. Hstsell, vol. II lit Si, 4to ed. 3 13 Willi III, cap, 6, § 10, Mr. CHARLES BUTLER, one of the ablest conveyancers in England, a Roman Catholic, and a very old man, perhaps biassed, neces- sarily somewhat weaker than he once was; Mr. BLARE, who is not a lawyer of sufficient eminence to give much weight to his opi- nion , • and Mr. O'CONNELL himself, who, although a sound law- yer, a party, and therefore open to the quod volumus avdinalia objection. Another authority, if we may is it so, weighs. mueh more with us than all of these—and that is Lord ELDON, whose principal objection to the Test and Corporation Act Repeal Bilk was, that the repeal would allow the Catholics to come into power:. Now Lord ELDON is a most eminent lawyer, and a most cautious man ; and therefore we can hardly suppose he would use a false or a mere ad occasionem argument, at least when there was no favourite purpose to be gained, and on so grave and important a. subject. We have heard also that Sir NICHOLAS TINDAL is of opinion that the whole of the acts are so loosely worded that they may be broken through 'without difficulty. That no penalty cars be levied on Mr. O'CONNELL, seems pretty generally admitted ;, inasmuch as the last act—the act Of Union—which directs the. taking of the oaths, does not re-enact the penal clauses ; and by no. interpretation of our laws can a penalty be inferred—it must be stated in express terms, not alluded to.
The question altogether is not to be lightly or briefly got rid of ; it must be met in a proper spirit, and answered, not eluded. The numerous Cabinet councils which have taken place within these few days, we have reason to believe, have not been inattentive to a subject which is in fact the most important'by far that Mi- nisters have yet had to meet ; for it is not one which they can go by, or leave to others ; it is not one where the vie inertice in which Cabinets are always strong, can aid them ; they are called on to act, and that speedily. Whatever may be the virtues. of oblivion, they are altogether inapplicable here. If then what we have stated be at all sound,—and we believe it to be so in all points,—Mr.'O'CoNNNELL may sit, and speak, and vote, in the same way as any member of the House, although he refuse to take the oaths at the table, unless, on regular motion, duly de- bated and decided, he be made to withdraw ; and if he incur any pains or penalties by sitting, speaking, or voting, they must be sought from him where he is allowed by all to be capable of speaking glibly enough, and convincingly also—in a regular court of law.
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