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Parliament—Jewish
Disabilities Bill.—In the House of Lords on the
26th June, the Earl of Carlisle, in moving the
second reading on this bill, spoke long and eloquent
in advocacy of the justice and expediency of the
measure, which he said was not, like that of last
session, simply confined to the admission of Jews to
Parliament, but went to amend and simplify the oaths
taken by members of other religious persuasions. The
Jews, he said, though admitted to municipal
privileges, were the only religious community
debarred of political rights. The noble lord then
combated, in detail, the various objections against
the measure, and, in conclusion, called upon their
lordships to act in the spirit of Christianity, by
doing unto others ass they would that others should
do unto them, in removing the last remnant of
intolerance from the statute book by admitting a
long-oppressed race to the sign and substance of
equality still denied them, and rendering thus a
just measure of reparation for all the wrongs and
woes of the past.
The Earl of Eglinton objected
to the bill, chiefly on religious grounds. The Jews
suffered no persecution in this country; but the
solemn duty of their lordships was not to permit
those who did not believe in Christ to legislate for
a Christian Church and nation. He moved that the
bill be read a second time that day three months.
The Duke of Cleveland thought,
after the Quakers, Moravians, and every class of
dissenters had been admitted to seats in Parliament,
would be a great hardship and injustice to exclude
Jews, being British-born subjects of her Majesty. He
supported the bill.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
believed that the effect of the bill would be to
lower the character and obligations of members of
parliament, by making it a matter of indifference
whether they belonged to the Christian communion.
The Archbishop of Dublin
supported the bill, as neither inconsistent with the
principles, nor repugnant to the genius of
Christianity; that there was no justification for
the continuing of the exclusion of the Jews; and
that their lordships must either retrace their
steps, and exclude from office all who did not
belong to the established church or they must, in
consistency, consent to the abrogation of this last
restriction.
The Bishop of Exeter opposed
the bill. He observed that in a republic all had an
equal right to admission to the offices of the
state; but ours was a monarchy, in which the
sovereign was bound by oath
<<326>>to maintain the laws of God, the true
profession of the Gospel, and more particularly the
Protestant reformed religion established in the
kingdom. Parliament was the great council of the
nation, the council of the Crown, and was sworn to
be the protector of the true religion; therefore
every one admitted to it must be ready and able to
give faithful advice to the Crown in the discharge
of its duties. Could a Jew be a faithful counsellor
of the crown in maintaining to the utmost the true
profession of the Gospel? This could not be admitted
for an instant. He had no wish to quote Scripture in
the heat of debate; but he felt no scruple in
telling noble lords that Parliament was bound, as
every individual was bound, to remember that
“whatever we do, whether in word or in deed,” we are
to do all “in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
The Earl of Shrewsbury
considered this more a political than a religious
measure. He could see in it nothing but the
necessary carrying out of the great principle of
civil and religions liberty, now so intimately
interwoven with the Constitution.
The Earl of Winchelsea
denounced the bill as one of an infidel and
unchristian character, calculated to draw down the
judgments of Almighty God upon a country which, like
two other Protestant countries, Holland and Sweden,
had stood secure amid the wreck and chaos of the
civilized world, solely because, in the midst of
their many sins, they had held fast the faith which
God had blessed, and put their hopes and confidence
in him.
The Duke of Argyle had heard
with great regret and some astonishment the noble
Earl (Winchelsea) stigmatize, as he had done, a
measure supported by a very large portion of that
House, and just advocated by a father of the
Christian Church.
The Earl of Dysart recognised
the Jews as fellow-citizens and fellowsubjects, but
could not acknowledge them as fellow-legislators,
and, therefore opposed the bill.
The Bishop of Oxford [Dr.
Wilberforce, son of William Wilberforce of the
slave-trade abolition memory,] professed the kindest
feelings toward the Jews, individually, but would
not admit them into Parliament; for, by so doing,
they would destroy the foundations of the greatness
of that Christian England, which had hitherto
afforded them an asylum.
Lord Brougham ridiculed the
alarms of the Right Reverend Prelate as the most
extravagant of all chimeras. Having accorded to
members of the Hebrew persuasion judicial functions,
official station, and the elective franchise, with
power to canvass and spend money at elections, it
was absurd attempting to draw an impassable line
between those <<327>>concessions and their admission
to seats in the Legislature. They had admitted the
Roman Catholics, he said, not because they did not
dare to exclude them, but because it was a wise,
honourable, and sound policy to admit them. But if
they now excluded the Jews only because they dared
to exclude them easily, then he would say that their
lordships would be casting a backward look upon
their past conduct, which would do the Jews less
harm than it would do their lordships discredit.
The Earl of Carlisle, in reply,
said, with reference to the Roman Catholic oath,
that he presumed it was not the wish of the House of
Commons to disturb the
settlement of 1829; but he
would take, with pleasure, any opportunity of
placing the Roman Catholics on a level with their
Protestant brethren, in this as well as in every
other respect.
The House then divided, and the
numbers were, content, 70; noncontent, 95; majority
against the reading, 25. The bill is, consequently,
lost.—N. Y. Tribune. |
