No More Learning

If they differ, how can he conform to the sense
of both? The thing is as plain as a proposition in Euclid.

It is impossible for me to believe that considerations so obvious and so
important should not have occurred to the honourable and learned Member
for Dublin. Doubtless they have occurred to him; and therefore it
is that he shrinks from arguing the question here. Nay, even when he
harangues more credulous assemblies on the subject, he carefully avoids
precise explanations; and the hints which sometimes escape him are
not easily to be reconciled with each other. On one occasion, if
the newspapers are to be trusted, he declared that his object was to
establish a federal union between Great Britain and Ireland. A local
parliament, it seems, is to sit at Dublin, and to send deputies to an
imperial parliament which is to sit at Westminster. The honourable and
learned gentleman thinks, I suppose, that in this way he evades the
difficulties which I have pointed out. But he deceives himself.
If, indeed, his local legislature is to be subject to his imperial
legislature, if his local legislature is to be merely what the Assembly
of Antigua or Barbadoes is, or what the Irish Parliament was before
1782, the danger of collision is no doubt removed: but what, on the
honourable and learned gentleman's own principles, would Ireland gain by
such an arrangement? If, on the other hand, his local legislature is
to be for certain purposes independent, you have again the risk of
collision. Suppose that a difference of opinion should arise between the
Imperial Parliament and the Irish Parliament as to the limits of their
powers, who is to decide between them? A dispute between the House of
Commons and the House of Lords is bad enough. Yet in that case, the
Sovereign can, by a high exercise of his prerogative, produce harmony.
He can send us back to our constituents; and, if that expedient fails,
he can create more lords. When, in 1705, the dispute between the
Houses about the Aylesbury men ran high, Queen Anne restored concord by
dismissing the Parliament. Seven years later she put an end to another
conflict between the Houses by making twelve peers in one day. But who
is to arbitrate between two representative bodies chosen by different
constituent bodies? Look at what is now passing in America. Of all
federal constitutions that of the United States is the best. It was
framed by a convention which contained many wise and experienced men,
and over which Washington presided. Yet there is a debateable ground on
the frontier which separates the functions of Congress from those of
the state legislatures. A dispute as to the exact boundary has lately
arisen. Neither party seems disposed to yield: and, if both persist,
there can be no umpire but the sword.

For my part, Sir, I have no hesitation in saying that I should very
greatly prefer the total separation which the honourable and learned
gentleman professes to consider as a calamity, to the partial separation
which he has taught his countrymen to regard as a blessing. If, on a
fair trial, it be found that Great Britain and Ireland cannot exist
happily together as parts of one empire, in God's name let them
separate. I wish to see them joined as the limbs of a well formed body
are joined. In such a body the members assist each other: they are
nourished by the same food: if one member suffer, all suffer with it:
if one member rejoice, all rejoice with it. But I do not wish to see the
countries united, like those wretched twins from Siam who were exhibited
here a little while ago, by an unnatural ligament which made each the
constant plague of the other, always in each other's way, more helpless
than others because they had twice as many hands, slower than others
because they had twice as many legs, sympathising with each other only
in evil, not feeling each other's pleasures, not supported by each
other's aliments, but tormented by each other's infirmities, and certain
to perish miserably by each other's dissolution.

Ireland has undoubtedly just causes of complaint. We heard those causes
recapitulated last night by the honourable and learned Member, who tells
us that he represents not Dublin alone, but Ireland, and that he stands
between his country and civil war. I do not deny that most of the
grievances which he recounted exist, that they are serious, and that
they ought to be remedied as far as it is in the power of legislation to
remedy them. What I do deny is that they were caused by the Union, and
that the Repeal of the Union would remove them. I listened attentively
while the honourable and learned gentleman went through that long and
melancholy list: and I am confident that he did not mention a single
evil which was not a subject of bitter complaint while Ireland had a
domestic parliament. Is it fair, is it reasonable in the honourable
gentleman to impute to the Union evils which, as he knows better than
any other man in this house, existed long before the Union? Post hoc:
ergo, propter hoc is not always sound reasoning. But ante hoc: ergo,
non propter hoc is unanswerable. The old rustic who told Sir Thomas
More that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Godwin sands reasoned much
better than the honourable and learned gentleman. For it was not till
after Tenterden steeple was built that the frightful wrecks on the
Godwin sands were heard of. But the honourable and learned gentleman
would make Godwin sands the cause of Tenterden steeple. Some of the
Irish grievances which he ascribes to the Union are not only older than
the Union, but are not peculiarly Irish. They are common to England,
Scotland, and Ireland; and it was in order to get rid of them that we,
for the common benefit of England, Scotland, and Ireland, passed the
Reform Bill last year. Other grievances which the honourable and learned
gentleman mentioned are doubtless local; but is there to be a local
legislature wherever there is a local grievance? Wales has had local
grievances. We all remember the complaints which were made a few years
ago about the Welsh judicial system; but did anybody therefore propose
that Wales should have a distinct parliament? Cornwall has some local
grievances; but does anybody propose that Cornwall shall have its own
House of Lords and its own House of Commons? Leeds has local grievances.
The majority of my constituents distrust and dislike the municipal
government to which they are subject; they therefore call loudly on
us for corporation reform: but they do not ask us for a separate
legislature. Of this I am quite sure, that every argument which has been
urged for the purpose of showing that Great Britain and Ireland ought
to have two distinct parliaments may be urged with far greater force
for the purpose of showing that the north of Ireland and the south of
Ireland ought to have two distinct parliaments. The House of Commons of
the United Kingdom, it has been said, is chiefly elected by Protestants,
and therefore cannot be trusted to legislate for Catholic Ireland.
If this be so, how can an Irish House of Commons, chiefly elected
by Catholics, be trusted to legislate for Protestant Ulster? It is
perfectly notorious that theological antipathies are stronger in Ireland
than here. I appeal to the honourable and learned gentleman himself. He
has often declared that it is impossible for a Roman Catholic, whether
prosecutor or culprit, to obtain justice from a jury of Orangemen. It
is indeed certain that, in blood, religion, language, habits, character,
the population of some of the northern counties of Ireland has much
more in common with the population of England and Scotland than with the
population of Munster and Connaught. I defy the honourable and learned
Member, therefore, to find a reason for having a parliament at Dublin
which will not be just as good a reason for having another parliament at
Londonderry.

Sir, in showing, as I think I have shown, the absurdity of this cry for
Repeal, I have in a great measure vindicated myself from the charge of
inconsistency which has been brought against me by my honourable friend
the Member for Lincoln. It is very easy to bring a volume of Hansard to
the House, to read a few sentences of a speech made in very different
circumstances, and to say, "Last year you were for pacifying England by
concession: this year you are for pacifying Ireland by coercion. How can
you vindicate your consistency? " Surely my honourable friend cannot
but know that nothing is easier than to write a theme for severity, for
clemency, for order, for liberty, for a contemplative life, for a active
life, and so on. It was a common exercise in the ancient schools of
rhetoric to take an abstract question, and to harangue first on one side
and then on the other. The question, Ought popular discontents to be
quieted by concession or coercion? would have been a very good subject
for oratory of this kind. There is no lack of commonplaces on either
side. But when we come to the real business of life, the value of these
commonplaces depends entirely on the particular circumstances of the
case which we are discussing. Nothing is easier than to write a treatise
proving that it is lawful to resist extreme tyranny. Nothing is easier
than to write a treatise setting forth the wickedness of wantonly
bringing on a great society the miseries inseparable from revolution,
the bloodshed, the spoliation, the anarchy. Both treatises may contain
much that is true; but neither will enable us to decide whether a
particular insurrection is or is not justifiable without a close
examination of the facts. There is surely no inconsistency in speaking
with respect of the memory of Lord Russell and with horror of the crime
of Thistlewood; and, in my opinion, the conduct of Russell and the
conduct of Thistlewood did not differ more widely than the cry for
Parliamentary Reform and the cry for the Repeal of the Union. The Reform
Bill I believe to be a blessing to the nation. Repeal I know to be a
mere delusion. I know it to be impracticable: and I know that, if it
were practicable, it would be pernicious to every part of the empire,
and utterly ruinous to Ireland. Is it not then absurd to say that,
because I wished last year to quiet the English people by giving them
that which was beneficial to them, I am therefore bound in consistency
to quiet the Irish people this year by giving them that which will
be fatal to them? I utterly deny, too, that, in consenting to arm the
government with extraordinary powers for the purpose of repressing
disturbances in Ireland, I am guilty of the smallest inconsistency. On
what occasion did I ever refuse to support any government in repressing
disturbances? It is perfectly true that, in the debates on the Reform
Bill, I imputed the tumults and outrages of 1830 to misrule. But did I
ever say that those tumults and outrages ought to be tolerated? I did
attribute the Kentish riots, the Hampshire riots, the burning of corn
stacks, the destruction of threshing machines, to the obstinacy with
which the Ministers of the Crown had refused to listen to the demands
of the people. But did I ever say that the rioters ought not to be
imprisoned, that the incendiaries ought not to be hanged? I did ascribe
the disorders of Nottingham and the fearful sacking of Bristol to the
unwise rejection of the Reform Bill by the Lords. But did I ever say
that such excesses as were committed at Nottingham and Bristol ought not
to be put down, if necessary, by the sword?

I would act towards Ireland on the same principles on which I acted
towards England. In Ireland, as in England, I would remove every just
cause of complaint; and in Ireland, as in England, I would support the
Government in preserving the public peace. What is there inconsistent
in this? My honourable friend seems to think that no person who believes
that disturbances have been caused by maladministration can consistently
lend his help to put down those disturbances. If that be so, the
honourable and learned Member for Dublin is quite as inconsistent as
I am; indeed, much more so; for he thinks very much worse of the
Government than I do; and yet he declares himself willing to assist
the Government in quelling the tumults which, as he assures us, its own
misconduct is likely to produce. He told us yesterday that our harsh
policy might perhaps goad the unthinking populace of Ireland into
insurrection; and he added that, if there should be insurrection, he
should, while execrating us as the authors of all the mischief, be found
in our ranks, and should be ready to support us in everything that
might be necessary for the restoration of order. As to this part of the
subject, there is no difference in principle between the honourable and
learned gentleman and myself. In his opinion, it is probable that a time
may soon come when vigorous coercion may be necessary, and when it may
be the duty of every friend of Ireland to co-operate in the work of
coercion. In my opinion, that time has already come. The grievances of
Ireland are doubtless great, so great that I never would have connected
myself with a Government which I did not believe to be intent on
redressing those grievances. But am I, because the grievances of Ireland
are great, and ought to be redressed, to abstain from redressing the
worst grievance of all? Am I to look on quietly while the laws are
insulted by a furious rabble, while houses are plundered and burned,
while my peaceable fellow-subjects are butchered? The distribution of
Church property, you tell us, is unjust. Perhaps I agree with you.
But what then? To what purpose is it to talk about the distribution of
Church property, while no property is secure? Then you try to deter us
from putting down robbery, arson, and murder, by telling us that if we
resort to coercion we shall raise a civil war. We are past that fear.
Recollect that, in one county alone, there have been within a few
weeks sixty murders or assaults with intent to murder and six hundred
burglaries. Since we parted last summer the slaughter in Ireland has
exceeded the slaughter of a pitched battle: the destruction of property
has been as great as would have been caused by the storming of three or
four towns. Civil war, indeed! I would rather live in the midst of any
civil war that we have had in England during the last two hundred
years than in some parts of Ireland at the present moment. Rather, much
rather, would I have lived on the line of march of the Pretender's army
in 1745 than in Tipperary now. It is idle to threaten us with civil war;
for we have it already; and it is because we are resolved to put an
end to it that we are called base, and brutal, and bloody. Such are the
epithets which the honourable and learned Member for Dublin thinks
it becoming to pour forth against the party to which he owes every
political privilege that he enjoys. He need not fear that any member
of that party will be provoked into a conflict of scurrility. Use
makes even sensitive minds callous to invective: and, copious as his
vocabulary is, he will not easily find in it any foul name which has not
been many times applied to those who sit around me, on account of the
zeal and steadiness with which they supported the emancipation of
the Roman Catholics. His reproaches are not more stinging than the
reproaches which, in times not very remote, we endured unflinchingly in
his cause. I can assure him that men who faced the cry of No Popery are
not likely to be scared by the cry of Repeal. The time will come when
history will do justice to the Whigs of England, and will faithfully
relate how much they did and suffered for Ireland; how, for the sake of
Ireland, they quitted office in 1807; how, for the sake of Ireland, they
remained out of office more than twenty years, braving the frowns of
the Court, braving the hisses of the multitude, renouncing power,
and patronage, and salaries, and peerages, and garters, and yet not
obtaining in return even a little fleeting popularity. I see on the
benches near me men who might, by uttering one word against Catholic
Emancipation, nay, by merely abstaining from uttering a word in favour
of Catholic Emancipation, have been returned to this House without
difficulty or expense, and who, rather than wrong their Irish
fellow-subjects, were content to relinquish all the objects of their
honourable ambition, and to retire into private life with conscience
and fame untarnished. As to one eminent person, who seems to be regarded
with especial malevolence by those who ought never to mention his name
without reverence and gratitude, I will say only this: that the loudest
clamour which the honourable and learned gentleman can excite against
Lord Grey will be trifling when compared with the clamour which Lord
Grey withstood in order to place the honourable and learned gentleman
where he now sits. Though a young member of the Whig party, I will
venture to speak in the name of the whole body. I tell the honourable
and learned gentleman, that the same spirit which sustained us in a just
contest for him will sustain us in an equally just contest against him.
Calumny, abuse, royal displeasure, popular fury, exclusion from office,
exclusion from Parliament, we were ready to endure them all, rather than
that he should be less than a British subject. We never will suffer him
to be more.

I stand here, Sir, for the first time as the representative of a
new constituent body, one of the largest, most prosperous, and most
enlightened towns in the kingdom. The electors of Leeds, believing that
at this time the service of the people is not incompatible with the
service of the Crown, have sent me to this House charged, in the
language of His Majesty's writ, to do and consent, in their name and in
their behalf, to such things as shall be proposed in the great Council
of the nation. In the name, then, and on the behalf of my constituents,
I give my full assent to that part of the Address wherein the House
declares its resolution to maintain inviolate, by the help of God, the
connection between Great Britain and Ireland, and to intrust to the
Sovereign such powers as shall be necessary to secure property, to
restore order, and to preserve the integrity of the empire.

*****




JEWISH DISABILITIES. (APRIL 17, 1833) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN A COMMITTEE
OF THE WHOLE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE 17TH OF APRIL, 1833.

On the seventeenth of April, 1833, the House of Commons resolved itself
into a Committee to consider of the civil disabilities of the Jews.
Mr Warburton took the chair. Mr Robert Grant moved the following
resolution:--

"That it is the opinion of this Committee that it is expedient to remove
all civil disabilities at present existing with respect to His Majesty's
subjects professing the Jewish religion, with the like exceptions as
are provided with respect to His Majesty's subjects professing the Roman
Catholic religion. "

The resolution passed without a division, after a warm debate, in the
course of which the following Speech was made.

Mr Warburton,--I recollect, and my honourable friend the Member for
the University of Oxford will recollect, that when this subject was
discussed three years ago, it was remarked, by one whom we both loved
and whom we both regret, that the strength of the case of the Jews was a
serious inconvenience to their advocate, for that it was hardly possible
to make a speech for them without wearying the audience by repeating
truths which were universally admitted. If Sir James Mackintosh felt
this difficulty when the question was first brought forward in this
House, I may well despair of being able now to offer any arguments which
have a pretence to novelty.

My honourable friend, the Member for the University of Oxford, began his
speech by declaring that he had no intention of calling in question the
principles of religious liberty. He utterly disclaims persecution, that
is to say, persecution as defined by himself. It would, in his opinion,
be persecution to hang a Jew, or to flay him, or to draw his teeth,
or to imprison him, or to fine him; for every man who conducts himself
peaceably has a right to his life and his limbs, to his personal liberty
and his property. But it is not persecution, says my honourable friend,
to exclude any individual or any class from office; for nobody has a
right to office: in every country official appointments must be subject
to such regulations as the supreme authority may choose to make; nor can
any such regulations be reasonably complained of by any member of the
society as unjust. He who obtains an office obtains it, not as matter of
right, but as matter of favour. He who does not obtain an office is
not wronged; he is only in that situation in which the vast majority
of every community must necessarily be. There are in the United Kingdom
five and twenty million Christians without places; and, if they do not
complain, why should five and twenty thousand Jews complain of being in
the same case? In this way my honourable friend has convinced himself
that, as it would be most absurd in him and me to say that we are
wronged because we are not Secretaries of State, so it is most absurd
in the Jews to say that they are wronged, because they are, as a people,
excluded from public employment.

Now, surely my honourable friend cannot have considered to what
conclusions his reasoning leads. Those conclusions are so monstrous that
he would, I am certain, shrink from them. Does he really mean that it
would not be wrong in the legislature to enact that no man should be
a judge unless he weighed twelve stone, or that no man should sit in
parliament unless he were six feet high? We are about to bring in a bill
for the government of India. Suppose that we were to insert in that bill
a clause providing that no graduate of the University of Oxford
should be Governor General or Governor of any Presidency, would not my
honourable friend cry out against such a clause as most unjust to
the learned body which he represents? And would he think himself
sufficiently answered by being told, in his own words, that the
appointment to office is a mere matter of favour, and that to exclude
an individual or a class from office is no injury? Surely, on
consideration, he must admit that official appointments ought not to
be subject to regulations purely arbitrary, to regulations for which no
reason can be given but mere caprice, and that those who would exclude
any class from public employment are bound to show some special reason
for the exclusion.

My honourable friend has appealed to us as Christians. Let me then ask
him how he understands that great commandment which comprises the law
and the prophets. Can we be said to do unto others as we would that they
should do unto us if we wantonly inflict on them even the smallest
pain? As Christians, surely we are bound to consider, first, whether,
by excluding the Jews from all public trust, we give them pain; and,
secondly, whether it be necessary to give them that pain in order to
avert some greater evil. That by excluding them from public trust
we inflict pain on them my honourable friend will not dispute. As a
Christian, therefore, he is bound to relieve them from that pain, unless
he can show, what I am sure he has not yet shown, that it is necessary
to the general good that they should continue to suffer.

But where, he says, are you to stop, if once you admit into the House of
Commons people who deny the authority of the Gospels? Will you let in
a Mussulman? Will you let in a Parsee? Will you let in a Hindoo, who
worships a lump of stone with seven heads? I will answer my honourable
friend's question by another. Where does he mean to stop? Is he ready to
roast unbelievers at slow fires? If not, let him tell us why: and I
will engage to prove that his reason is just as decisive against the
intolerance which he thinks a duty, as against the intolerance which he
thinks a crime. Once admit that we are bound to inflict pain on a man
because he is not of our religion; and where are you to stop? Why stop
at the point fixed by my honourable friend rather than at the point
fixed by the honourable Member for Oldham (Mr Cobbett. ), who would make
the Jews incapable of holding land? And why stop at the point fixed by
the honourable Member for Oldham rather than at the point which would
have been fixed by a Spanish Inquisitor of the sixteenth century? When
once you enter on a course of persecution, I defy you to find any reason
for making a halt till you have reached the extreme point. When my
honourable friend tells us that he will allow the Jews to possess
property to any amount, but that he will not allow them to possess the
smallest political power, he holds contradictory language. Property
is power. The honourable Member for Oldham reasons better than my
honourable friend. The honourable Member for Oldham sees very clearly
that it is impossible to deprive a man of political power if you
suffer him to be the proprietor of half a county, and therefore very
consistently proposes to confiscate the landed estates of the Jews. But
even the honourable Member for Oldham does not go far enough. He has
not proposed to confiscate the personal property of the Jews. Yet it is
perfectly certain that any Jew who has a million may easily make himself
very important in the State. By such steps we pass from official power
to landed property, and from landed property to personal property, and
from property to liberty, and from liberty to life. In truth, those
persecutors who use the rack and the stake have much to say for
themselves. They are convinced that their end is good; and it must be
admitted that they employ means which are not unlikely to attain the
end. Religious dissent has repeatedly been put down by sanguinary
persecution. In that way the Albigenses were put down. In that way
Protestantism was suppressed in Spain and Italy, so that it has never
since reared its head. But I defy any body to produce an instance in
which disabilities such as we are now considering have produced any
other effect than that of making the sufferers angry and obstinate.
My honourable friend should either persecute to some purpose, or not
persecute at all. He dislikes the word persecution I know. He will not
admit that the Jews are persecuted. And yet I am confident that he would
rather be sent to the King's Bench Prison for three months, or be fined
a hundred pounds, than be subject to the disabilities under which the
Jews lie. How can he then say that to impose such disabilities is not
persecution, and that to fine and imprison is persecution? All his
reasoning consists in drawing arbitrary lines. What he does not wish to
inflict he calls persecution. What he does wish to inflict he will not
call persecution. What he takes from the Jews he calls political power.
What he is too good-natured to take from the Jews he will not call
political power. The Jew must not sit in Parliament: but he may be the
proprietor of all the ten pound houses in a borough. He may have more
fifty pound tenants than any peer in the kingdom. He may give the voters
treats to please their palates, and hire bands of gipsies to break their
heads, as if he were a Christian and a Marquess. All the rest of this
system is of a piece. The Jew may be a juryman, but not a judge. He
may decide issues of fact, but not issues of law. He may give a hundred
thousand pounds damages; but he may not in the most trivial case grant a
new trial. He may rule the money market: he may influence the
exchanges: he may be summoned to congresses of Emperors and Kings. Great
potentates, instead of negotiating a loan with him by tying him in a
chair and pulling out his grinders, may treat with him as with a great
potentate, and may postpone the declaring of war or the signing of a
treaty till they have conferred with him. All this is as it should
be: but he must not be a Privy Councillor. He must not be called Right
Honourable, for that is political power. And who is it that we are
trying to cheat in this way? Even Omniscience. Yes, Sir; we have been
gravely told that the Jews are under the divine displeasure, and that if
we give them political power God will visit us in judgment.
Do we then
think that God cannot distinguish between substance and form? Does not
He know that, while we withhold from the Jews the semblance and name
of political power, we suffer them to possess the substance? The plain
truth is that my honourable friend is drawn in one direction by his
opinions, and in a directly opposite direction by his excellent heart.
He halts between two opinions. He tries to make a compromise between
principles which admit of no compromise. He goes a certain way in
intolerance. Then he stops, without being able to give a reason for
stopping. But I know the reason. It is his humanity. Those who formerly
dragged the Jew at a horse's tail, and singed his beard with blazing
furzebushes, were much worse men than my honourable friend; but they
were more consistent than he.

It has been said that it would be monstrous to see a Jew judge try a man
for blasphemy. In my opinion it is monstrous to see any judge try a man
for blasphemy under the present law. But, if the law on that subject
were in a sound state, I do not see why a conscientious Jew might not
try a blasphemer. Every man, I think, ought to be at liberty to discuss
the evidences of religion; but no man ought to be at liberty to force on
the unwilling ears and eyes of others sounds and sights which must cause
annoyance and irritation. The distinction is clear. I think it wrong to
punish a man for selling Paine's Age of Reason in a back-shop to those
who choose to buy, or for delivering a Deistical lecture in a private
room to those who choose to listen. But if a man exhibits at a window
in the Strand a hideous caricature of that which is an object of awe
and adoration to nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of
people who pass up and down that great thoroughfare; if a man in a place
of public resort applies opprobrious epithets to names held in reverence
by all Christians; such a man ought, in my opinion, to be severely
punished, not for differing from us in opinion, but for committing a
nuisance which gives us pain and disgust. He is no more entitled to
outrage our feelings by obtruding his impiety on us, and to say that
he is exercising his right of discussion, than to establish a yard for
butchering horses close to our houses, and to say that he is exercising
his right of property, or to run naked up and down the public streets,
and to say that he is exercising his right of locomotion. He has a right
of discussion, no doubt, as he has a right of property and a right of
locomotion. But he must use all his rights so as not to infringe the
rights of others.

These, Sir, are the principles on which I would frame the law of
blasphemy; and if the law were so framed, I am at a loss to understand
why a Jew might not enforce it as well as a Christian. I am not a Roman
Catholic; but if I were a judge at Malta, I should have no scruple about
punishing a bigoted Protestant who should burn the Pope in effigy before
the eyes of thousands of Roman Catholics. I am not a Mussulman; but if
I were a judge in India, I should have no scruple about punishing a
Christian who should pollute a mosque. Why, then, should I doubt that
a Jew, raised by his ability, learning, and integrity to the judicial
bench, would deal properly with any person who, in a Christian country,
should insult the Christian religion?

But, says my honourable friend, it has been prophesied that the Jews are
to be wanderers on the face of the earth, and that they are not to mix
on terms of equality with the people of the countries in which they
sojourn. Now, Sir, I am confident that I can demonstrate that this is
not the sense of any prophecy which is part of Holy Writ. For it is an
undoubted fact that, in the United States of America, Jewish citizens do
possess all the privileges possessed by Christian citizens. Therefore,
if the prophecies mean that the Jews never shall, during their
wanderings, be admitted by other nations to equal participation of
political rights, the prophecies are false. But the prophecies are
certainly not false. Therefore their meaning cannot be that which is
attributed to them by my honourable friend.

Another objection which has been made to this motion is that the Jews
look forward to the coming of a great deliverer, to their return to
Palestine, to the rebuilding of their Temple, to the revival of their
ancient worship, and that therefore they will always consider England,
not their country, but merely as their place of exile. But, surely, Sir,
it would be the grossest ignorance of human nature to imagine that the
anticipation of an event which is to happen at some time altogether
indefinite, of an event which has been vainly expected during many
centuries, of an event which even those who confidently expect that it
will happen do not confidently expect that they or their children or
their grandchildren will see, can ever occupy the minds of men to such
a degree as to make them regardless of what is near and present and
certain. Indeed Christians, as well as Jews, believe that the existing
order of things will come to an end. Many Christians believe that Jesus
will visibly reign on earth during a thousand years. Expositors of
prophecy have gone so far as to fix the year when the Millennial period
is to commence. The prevailing opinion is, I think, in favour of the
year 1866; but, according to some commentators, the time is close at
hand. Are we to exclude all millennarians from Parliament and office, on
the ground that they are impatiently looking forward to the miraculous
monarchy which is to supersede the present dynasty and the present
constitution of England, and that therefore they cannot be heartily
loyal to King William?

In one important point, Sir, my honourable friend, the Member for the
University of Oxford, must acknowledge that the Jewish religion is
of all erroneous religions the least mischievous. There is not the
slightest chance that the Jewish religion will spread. The Jew does not
wish to make proselytes. He may be said to reject them. He thinks it
almost culpable in one who does not belong to his race to presume to
belong to his religion. It is therefore not strange that a conversion
from Christianity to Judaism should be a rarer occurrence than a total
eclipse of the sun. There was one distinguished convert in the last
century, Lord George Gordon; and the history of his conversion
deserves to be remembered. For if ever there was a proselyte of whom a
proselytising sect would have been proud, it was Lord George; not only
because he was a man of high birth and rank; not only because he
had been a member of the legislature; but also because he had been
distinguished by the intolerance, nay, the ferocity, of his zeal for his
own form of Christianity. But was he allured into the Synagogue? Was he
even welcomed to it? No, sir; he was coldly and reluctantly permitted
to share the reproach and suffering of the chosen people; but he was
sternly shut out from their privileges. He underwent the painful rite
which their law enjoins. But when, on his deathbed, he begged hard to
be buried among them according to their ceremonial, he was told that
his request could not be granted. I understand that cry of "Hear. " It
reminds me that one of the arguments against this motion is that the
Jews are an unsocial people, that they draw close to each other, and
stand aloof from strangers. Really, Sir, it is amusing to compare
the manner in which the question of Catholic emancipation was argued
formerly by some gentlemen with the manner in which the question of Jew
emancipation is argued by the same gentlemen now. When the question
was about Catholic emancipation, the cry was, "See how restless, how
versatile, how encroaching, how insinuating, is the spirit of the
Church of Rome. See how her priests compass earth and sea to make one
proselyte, how indefatigably they toil, how attentively they study the
weak and strong parts of every character, how skilfully they employ
literature, arts, sciences, as engines for the propagation of their
faith. You find them in every region and under every disguise, collating
manuscripts in the Bodleian, fixing telescopes in the observatory of
Pekin, teaching the use of the plough and the spinning-wheel to the
savages of Paraguay. Will you give power to the members of a Church so
busy, so aggressive, so insatiable? " Well, now the question is about
people who never try to seduce any stranger to join them, and who do not
wish anybody to be of their faith who is not also of their blood. And
now you exclaim, "Will you give power to the members of a sect which
remains sullenly apart from other sects, which does not invite, nay,
which hardly ever admits neophytes? " The truth is, that bigotry will
never want a pretence. Whatever the sect be which it is proposed
to tolerate, the peculiarities of that sect will, for the time, be
pronounced by intolerant men to be the most odious and dangerous that
can be conceived. As to the Jews, that they are unsocial as respects
religion is true; and so much the better: for, surely, as Christians,
we cannot wish that they should bestir themselves to pervert us from
our own faith. But that the Jews would be unsocial members of the civil
community, if the civil community did its duty by them, has never been
proved. My right honourable friend who made the motion which we are
discussing has produced a great body of evidence to show that they have
been grossly misrepresented; and that evidence has not been refuted by
my honourable friend the Member for the University of Oxford. But what
if it were true that the Jews are unsocial? What if it were true that
they do not regard England as their country? Would not the treatment
which they have undergone explain and excuse their antipathy to the
society in which they live? Has not similar antipathy often been felt
by persecuted Christians to the society which persecuted them? While
the bloody code of Elizabeth was enforced against the English Roman
Catholics, what was the patriotism of Roman Catholics? Oliver Cromwell
said that in his time they were Espaniolised. At a later period it
might have been said that they were Gallicised. It was the same with the
Calvinists. What more deadly enemies had France in the days of Louis
the Fourteenth than the persecuted Huguenots? But would any rational man
infer from these facts that either the Roman Catholic as such, or the
Calvinist as such, is incapable of loving the land of his birth? If
England were now invaded by Roman Catholics, how many English Roman
Catholics would go over to the invader? If France were now attacked by
a Protestant enemy, how many French Protestants would lend him help?
Why not try what effect would be produced on the Jews by that tolerant
policy which has made the English Roman Catholic a good Englishman, and
the French Calvinist a good Frenchman?

Another charge has been brought against the Jews, not by my honourable
friend the Member for the University of Oxford--he has too much learning
and too much good feeling to make such a charge--but by the honourable
Member for Oldham, who has, I am sorry to see, quitted his place. The
honourable Member for Oldham tells us that the Jews are naturally a mean
race, a sordid race, a money-getting race; that they are averse to all
honourable callings; that they neither sow nor reap; that they have
neither flocks nor herds; that usury is the only pursuit for which they
are fit; that they are destitute of all elevated and amiable sentiments.
Such, Sir, has in every age been the reasoning of bigots. They
never fail to plead in justification of persecution the vices which
persecution has engendered. England has been to the Jews less than half
a country; and we revile them because they do not feel for England more
than a half patriotism. We treat them as slaves, and wonder that they do
not regard us as brethren. We drive them to mean occupations, and then
reproach them for not embracing honourable professions. We long
forbade them to possess land; and we complain that they chiefly occupy
themselves in trade. We shut them out from all the paths of ambition;
and then we despise them for taking refuge in avarice. During many ages
we have, in all our dealings with them, abused our immense superiority
of force; and then we are disgusted because they have recourse to that
cunning which is the natural and universal defence of the weak against
the violence of the strong. But were they always a mere money-changing,
money-getting, money-hoarding race? Nobody knows better than my
honourable friend the Member for the University of Oxford that there is
nothing in their national character which unfits them for the highest
duties of citizens. He knows that, in the infancy of civilisation, when
our island was as savage as New Guinea, when letters and arts were
still unknown to Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on what
was afterwards the site of Rome, this contemned people had their
fenced cities and cedar palaces, their splendid Temple, their fleets of
merchant ships, their schools of sacred learning, their great statesmen
and soldiers, their natural philosophers, their historians and their
poets. What nation ever contended more manfully against overwhelming
odds for its independence and religion? What nation ever, in its last
agonies, gave such signal proofs of what may be accomplished by a
brave despair? And if, in the course of many centuries, the oppressed
descendants of warriors and sages have degenerated from the qualities of
their fathers, if, while excluded from the blessings of law, and bowed
down under the yoke of slavery, they have contracted some of the vices
of outlaws and of slaves, shall we consider this as matter of reproach
to them? Shall we not rather consider it as matter of shame and remorse
to ourselves? Let us do justice to them. Let us open to them the door of
the House of Commons. Let us open to them every career in which ability
and energy can be displayed. Till we have done this, let us not presume
to say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, no
heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees.

Sir, in supporting the motion of my honourable friend, I am, I firmly
believe, supporting the honour and the interests of the Christian
religion. I should think that I insulted that religion if I said that
it cannot stand unaided by intolerant laws. Without such laws it was
established, and without such laws it may be maintained. It triumphed
over the superstitions of the most refined and of the most savage
nations, over the graceful mythology of Greece and the bloody idolatry
of the Northern forests. It prevailed over the power and policy of
the Roman empire. It tamed the barbarians by whom that empire was
overthrown. But all these victories were gained not by the help of
intolerance, but in spite of the opposition of intolerance. The whole
history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from
persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally. May
she long continue to bless our country with her benignant influence,
strong in her sublime philosophy, strong in her spotless morality,
strong in those internal and external evidences to which the most
powerful and comprehensive of human intellects have yielded assent,
the last solace of those who have outlived every earthly hope, the last
restraint of those who are raised above every earthly fear! But let not
us, mistaking her character and her interests, fight the battle of truth
with the weapons of error, and endeavour to support by oppression that
religion which first taught the human race the great lesson of universal
charity.

*****




GOVERNMENT OF INDIA. (JULY 10, 1833) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 10TH OF JULY 1833.

On Wednesday, the tenth of July 1833, Mr Charles Grant, President of the
Board of Control, moved that the Bill for effecting an arrangement with
the India Company, and for the better government of His Majesty's
Indian territories, should be read a second time. The motion was carried
without a division, but not without a long debate, in the course of
which the following Speech was made.

Having, while this bill was in preparation, enjoyed the fullest and
kindest confidence of my right honourable friend, the President of the
Board of Control, agreeing with him completely in all those views which
on a former occasion he so luminously and eloquently developed, having
shared his anxieties, and feeling that in some degree I share his
responsibility, I am naturally desirous to obtain the attention of
the House while I attempt to defend the principles of the proposed
arrangement. I wish that I could promise to be very brief; but the
subject is so extensive that I will only promise to condense what I have
to say as much as I can.

I rejoice, Sir, that I am completely dispensed, by the turn which our
debates have taken, from the necessity of saying anything in favour
of one part of our plan, the opening of the China trade. No voice, I
believe, has yet been raised here in support of the monopoly. On that
subject all public men of all parties seem to be agreed. The resolution
proposed by the Ministers has received the unanimous assent of both
Houses, and the approbation of the whole kingdom. I will not, therefore,
Sir, detain you by vindicating what no gentleman has yet ventured to
attack, but will proceed to call your attention to those effects which
this great commercial revolution necessarily produced on the system of
Indian government and finance.

The China trade is to be opened. Reason requires this. Public opinion
requires it. The Government of the Duke of Wellington felt the necessity
as strongly as the Government of Lord Grey. No Minister, Whig or
Tory, could have been found to propose a renewal of the monopoly.
No parliament, reformed or unreformed, would have listened to such a
proposition. But though the opening of the trade was a matter concerning
which the public had long made up its mind, the political consequences
which must necessarily follow from the opening of the trade seem to me
to be even now little understood. The language which I have heard in
almost every circle where the subject was discussed was this: "Take away
the monopoly, and leave the government of India to the Company:" a
very short and convenient way of settling one of the most complicated
questions that ever a legislature had to consider. The honourable
Member for Sheffield (Mr Buckingham. ), though not disposed to retain the
Company as an organ of government, has repeatedly used language which
proves that he shares in the general misconception. The fact is that
the abolition of the monopoly rendered it absolutely necessary to make a
fundamental change in the constitution of that great Corporation.

The Company had united in itself two characters, the character of trader
and the character of sovereign. Between the trader and the sovereign
there was a long and complicated account, almost every item of which
furnished matter for litigation. While the monopoly continued, indeed,
litigation was averted. The effect of the monopoly was, to satisfy the
claims both of commerce and of territory, at the expense of a third
party, the English people: to secure at once funds for the dividend of
the stockholder and funds for the government of the Indian Empire, by
means of a heavy tax on the tea consumed in this country. But, when the
third party would no longer bear this charge, all the great financial
questions which had, at the cost of that third party, been kept in
abeyance, were opened in an instant. The connection between the Company
in its mercantile capacity, and the same Company in its political
capacity, was dissolved. Even if the Company were permitted, as has been
suggested, to govern India, and at the same time to trade with China,
no advances would be made from the profits of its Chinese trade for
the support of its Indian government. It was in consideration of the
exclusive privilege that the Company had hitherto been required to make
those advances; it was by the exclusive privilege that the Company had
been enabled to make them. When that privilege was taken away, it would
be unreasonable in the legislature to impose such an obligation, and
impossible for the Company to fulfil it. The whole system of loans from
commerce to territory, and repayments from territory to commerce, must
cease. Each party must rest altogether on its own resources. It was
therefore absolutely necessary to ascertain what resources each party
possessed, to bring the long and intricate account between them to a
close, and to assign to each a fair portion of assets and liabilities.
There was vast property. How much of that property was applicable to
purposes of state? How much was applicable to a dividend? There were
debts to the amount of many millions. Which of these were the debts of
the government that ruled at Calcutta? Which of the great mercantile
house that bought tea at Canton? Were the creditors to look to the
land revenues of India for their money? Or, were they entitled to put
executions into the warehouses behind Bishopsgate Street?

There were two ways of settling these questions--adjudication and
compromise. The difficulties of adjudication were great; I think
insuperable. Whatever acuteness and diligence could do has been done.
One person in particular, whose talents and industry peculiarly fitted
him for such investigations, and of whom I can never think without
regret, Mr Hyde Villiers, devoted himself to the examination with an
ardour and a perseverance, which, I believe, shortened a life most
valuable to his country and to his friends. The assistance of the most
skilful accountants has been called in. But the difficulties are such as
no accountant, however skilful, could possibly remove. The difficulties
are not arithmetical, but political. They arise from the constitution
of the Company, from the long and intimate union of the commercial and
imperial characters in one body. Suppose that the treasurer of a charity
were to mix up the money which he receives on account of the charity
with his own private rents and dividends, to pay the whole into his bank
to his own private account, to draw it out again by cheques in exactly
the same form when he wanted it for his private expenses, and when he
wanted it for the purposes of his public trust. Suppose that he were
to continue to act thus till he was himself ignorant whether he were
in advance or in arrear; and suppose that many years after his death a
question were to arise whether his estate were in debt to the charity
or the charity in debt to his estate. Such is the question which is
now before us, with this important difference; that the accounts of an
individual could not be in such a state unless he had been guilty of
fraud, or of that gross negligence which is scarcely less culpable than
fraud, and that the accounts of the Company were brought into this state
by circumstances of a very peculiar kind, by circumstances unparalleled
in the history of the world.

It is a mistake to suppose that the Company was a merely commercial body
till the middle of the last century. Commerce was its chief object; but
in order to enable it to pursue that object, it had been, like the other
Companies which were its rivals, like the Dutch India Company, like the
French India Company, invested from a very early period with political
functions. More than a hundred and twenty years ago, the Company was
in miniature precisely what it now is. It was intrusted with the very
highest prerogatives of sovereignty. It had its forts, and its white
captains, and its black sepoys; it had its civil and criminal tribunals;
it was authorised to proclaim martial law; it sent ambassadors to the
native governments, and concluded treaties with them; it was Zemindar of
several districts, and within those districts, like other Zemindars of
the first class, it exercised the powers of a sovereign, even to the
infliction of capital punishment on the Hindoos within its jurisdiction.
It is incorrect, therefore, to say, that the Company was at first a mere
trader, and has since become a sovereign. It was at first a great trader
and a petty prince. The political functions at first attracted little
notice, because they were merely auxiliary to the commercial functions.
By degrees, however, the political functions became more and more
important. The Zemindar became a great nabob, became sovereign of all
India; the two hundred sepoys became two hundred thousand. This change
was gradually wrought, and was not immediately comprehended. It was
natural that, while the political functions of the Company were merely
auxiliary to its commerce, the political accounts should have been mixed
up with the commercial accounts. It was equally natural that this mode
of keeping accounts, having once been established, should have remained
unaltered; and the more so, as the change in the situation of the
Company, though rapid, was not sudden. It is impossible to name any one
day, or any one year, as the day or the year when the Company became a
great potentate. It has been the fashion indeed to fix on the year 1765,
the year in which the Mogul issued a commission authorising the Company
to administer the revenues of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, as the precise
date of the accession of this singular body to sovereignty. I am utterly
at a loss to understand why this epoch should be selected. Long before
1765 the Company had the reality of political power. Long before that
year, they made a Nabob of Arcot; they made and unmade Nabobs of Bengal;
they humbled the Vizier of Oude; they braved the Emperor of Hindostan
himself; more than half the revenues of Bengal were, under one pretence
or another, administered by them. And after the grant, the Company was
not, in form and name, an independent power. It was merely a minister
of the Court of Delhi. Its coinage bore the name of Shah Alam. The
inscription which, down to the time of the Marquess of Hastings,
appeared on the seal of the Governor-General, declared that great
functionary to be the slave of the Mogul. Even to this day we have never
formally deposed the King of Delhi. The Company contents itself with
being Mayor of the Palace, while the Roi Faineant is suffered to play at
being a sovereign. In fact, it was considered, both by Lord Clive and
by Warren Hastings, as a point of policy to leave the character of
the Company thus undefined, in order that the English might treat the
princes in whose names they governed as realities or nonentities, just
as might be most convenient.

Thus the transformation of the Company from a trading body, which
possessed some sovereign prerogatives for the purposes of trade, into a
sovereign body, the trade of which was auxiliary to its sovereignty, was
effected by degrees and under disguise. It is not strange, therefore,
that the mercantile and political transactions of this great corporation
should be entangled together in inextricable complication. The
commercial investments have been purchased out of the revenues of the
empire. The expenses of war and government have been defrayed out of
the profits of the trade. Commerce and territory have contributed to
the improvement of the same spot of land, to the repairs of the same
building. Securities have been given in precisely the same form for
money which has been borrowed for purposes of State, and for money which
has been borrowed for purposes of traffic. It is easy, indeed,--and this
is a circumstance which has, I think, misled some gentlemen,--it is easy
to see what part of the assets of the Company appears in a commercial
form, and what part appears in a political or territorial form. But
this is not the question. Assets which are commercial in form may
be territorial as respects the right of property; assets which are
territorial in form may be commercial as respects the right of property.
A chest of tea is not necessarily commercial property; it may have
been bought out of the territorial revenue. A fort is not necessarily
territorial property; it may stand on ground which the Company bought a
hundred years ago out of their commercial profits. Adjudication, if by
adjudication be meant decision according to some known rule of law, was
out of the question. To leave matters like these to be determined by the
ordinary maxims of our civil jurisprudence would have been the height of
absurdity and injustice. For example, the home bond debt of the Company,
it is believed, was incurred partly for political and partly for
commercial purposes. But there is no evidence which would enable us to
assign to each branch its proper share.