OCR Text |
Show ASQliini'S STRONG APPEAL British Prime Minister Opposed to Iniquitous Iniquit-ous Oath Wants Form of Declaration Changed Catholic Peers Disfranchised Until Relief Act in 1829 Duke of York Exempt Origin of Declaration Oath ', ' ' Providing for a New Heir Catholic Peers Deprived of Legislative Powers. ; I ask leave to introduce a bill which in form is of the Amplest. It consists practically of only a single clause, and after it has been duly considered and : I hope that no hasty conclusion will be formed :', with regard to i t it may, I am sanguine enough to , . believe, be regarded in most quarters of the Ilmise as uncoiitroversial in its character. It is a bill, i ihe object of which is described by its title "to alter the form of the Declaration required to ba made by the Sovereign on Accession." I must say -. ., a word first as to the history of that Declaration. Curiously enough, in its inception, and, indeed, for many years after it had taken its place on the Statute Stat-ute Book, it had nothing whatever to do with the Accession to the Throne, and. indeed, the Sovereign '.. was not required to take it. It came into existence in the year 1(178. when Parliament and the great mass of the population of this country were in a , state that may almost be described as om of panic in consequence of the revelations, or supposed reve- . " lations, of the existence and ramifications of the ',!', Popish Plot, and in the state of panic for it was . panic, as all historians now admit which at that moment prevailed, this enactment passed through i- ., both Houses of Parliament. It was described in its title as "an Act for the more effectual preserv ing of the King's personal government by disabling ! . Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament." Parlia-ment." That was the purview and object of tho , Act. The Delcaration which it contained was a Declaration to be taken by all members of both ' Houses of Parliament and by those who were described de-scribed by the Act as sworn servants of the Soy- ' ereign, I think nobody else, and its practical purpose pur-pose and effect was simply this: that Roman Catholic Peers who up to that time had not been subject, as members of this House were, to what is called the Oath of Supremacy, and who continued , to sit in the House cf Lords and to exercise tha ' ordinary functions of that Assembly, were deprived of their legislative powers, and were never abla to exercise them again until the Relief Act wa ; passed in 1829. It is curious to add that the con- ; , eluding section. Section 9, provides that "nothing ! ' in the Act shall extend to the Duke of York," the very person against whom, if the Accession to the Throne had been in question, it would have been primarily directed. The Declaration contained in ' ''r the Act, when it is analyzed, consists of three parts. In the first place, the person making it declares that he does not believe or. rather, that he does ': believe that. there is not any transubstantiation of the elements in the Holy Communion. Xext he goes on to declare that the Invocation or Adoration ' ; of the Virgin Mary or any other saint and the sacrifice sac-rifice of the Mass as now used in the Church of Rome are superstitious and idolatrous. Finally, he adds that he makes the preceding Declaration in ; the plain, ordinary sense of the words as they are ; . -commonly understood by English Protestants with- t - ,. out any dispensation, or hope of dispensation, from ,: ' y the Pope or any other authority. ; ' Let us in this matter not be unjust to our an- I cestors. This Declaration was framed in a time of great popular excitement, under the belief the sincere though ill-founded belief that a great con- spiracy. was being hatched to murder the Sovereign, : f ; to subvert the Protestant religion, and to destroy 'the liberties of our people. Those were not days , in which mealy-mouthedness in language was the : : fashion, and I do not think any Roman Catholic student will deny that the language of the Declaration, Declara-tion, although it grates, and grates, I think, justly, j . on our ear, can be paralleled by similar language to 1 be found in the Thirty-nine Articles and in other ! passages of the Prayer Book, and I am-not sure ' -that even the Church of Rome herself has not in the course of her history enjoined the use of lan- , ;' guage equally strong on her own children and cer- , . tainly on converts to her faith in abjuration and ' , ; denunciation of Protestant doctrine. All those things should be remembered from the point of .' view of historic justice. How came it that this Declaration, . originally imposed only on members of Parliament and servants of the Crown, was ex- tended to 'the Crown itself? That extension did ; i not take place until the passing of the Bill of Rights.. The preamble of that statute explains j how it was that the obligation of taking this Dec- : ' i! laration was for the first time cast on the occu- ' pant of the Throne. The preamble recites that the late King James II, by the assistance of divers evil ; counsellors, judges and Ministers, did endeavor to :. subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion and c the laws and liberties of this Kingdom, and it is 'i;- in pursuanop of that recital and grounded on it i that the stahite provides thai every Sovereign sue- ; '; ceeding to the Throne shall, on the day of the meet- ing of the first Parliament after his Accession or at his Coronation, make the Declaration mentioned in the statute of Charles II. Some years later, in 1700, in consequence of the failure of heirs, it was necessary to provide for the succession to the Throne by settlement of the descendants of the i Electress Sophia. That provision in the Bill of ; Rights was by Section of the Act of Settlement; repeated in regard to any persons who should thereafter, there-after, under the limitation of that Act. succeed to the Crown. So that the House will observe that the Declaration origindly framed for a diffeiMit purpose, pur-pose, and intended for an entirely different class of persons Declaration intended, indeed, to pityt . Continued on Page ASQUITH'S STRONG APPEAL. (Continued from page 1.) the Crown against evil counsellors was in course of time, and only in course of time, extended to the Crown itself. That was in the year 1700. No candid person will deny that the circumstances circum-stances in all material respects have vitally changed since that time. What has happened in the interval? inter-val? The Roman Catholic citizens of this country have been admitted to all civil and practically all political rights. There are still, I regret to say, one or two offices from which their faith excludes them, and I trust that that liberal relic of past times will before long be obliterated. With that com- paratively insignificant exception, our Roman Cath olic fellow-subjects stand before the law as regards the exercise of all political privileges and the holding hold-ing of political offices on exactly the same footing as any Protestant among us. Further, those Roman Catholic subjects of the Crown have grown enormously enor-mously in number, and, if I may say so, in importance. impor-tance. They have spread over the length and breadth of the British Empire. They are said to amount, and I have no reason to question the estimate, esti-mate, to 12,000,000 in number. In these days no one doubts their loyalty or supposes that that loyalty requires to be hedged round by sufficient safeguards. safe-guards. Further, the whole system of religious tests, which looked and which was so formidable in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has fullen into discredit and has been undermined in every direction. You can have no more remarkable proof of that than that this very Declaration, framed in the circumstances and for the purpose which I have just described, is now required to be taken by no one throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire but by the Sovereign himself. him-self. I must add that language which seemed nat ural ana even normal in tne seventeentn century falls with a very different accent on modern ears, and in this case I do not hesitate to say and I believe I am echoing the opinion of the majority of this House as well as that of the people outside it is needless and wanton offence. Nor do I believe be-lieve that the objections of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects to this Declaration which is taken by the Sovereign, and by the Sovereign alone, at the beginning of his reign, at the solemn moment when he is entering upon the discharge of duties which require him to appeal to the loyalty and affection af-fection of all his subjects without distinction of creed or race I can conceive that the objection of our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects to the Declaration Dec-laration is not confined to precise language and to the use of particular vituperative epithets it extends, ex-tends, and I think justly extends, to singling out a special and to them a sacred and most highly cherished cher-ished doctrine, as though from some peculiar obliquity ob-liquity of their own they require what no other form of religious heresy or religious dissent does require, special repudiation by the Sovereign as soon as he enters upon the performance of his duties. (To be continued.) |