PARLIAMENTARY SPEECHES.

DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS.*

APRIL 5, 1830.

On Mr. Grant's motion for leave to bring in a Bill to Repeal the Civil Disabilities affecting British-born Subjects professing the Jewish Religion.

In spite of the parallel which my hon. friend the member for Oxford (Sir Robert Inglis) has attempted-I think in vain-to draw between this case and the Roman Catholic measure before the House during the last session of Parliament, I trust that we shall not have to forego the votes of many of those hon. gentlemen who in the last session were opposed to the concession of the Catholic claims. Indeed, many of those gentlemen will be precluded, by the course they then took, from offering any opposition to the present measure. The general principle of religious toleration was involved in the question of last year, as it is now; but most of those gentlemen who voted against the Roman Catholics declared in favour of this general principle, only they found that there were special circumstances which took the case of the Roman Catholics out of the pale of that principle. But, sir, there are no such circumstances here. In this instance, there is no foreign power to be feared. There is no divided allegiance threatening the state-there are no bullsthere are no indulgences-there are no dispensations; there is no priesthood exercising an absolute authority over the con

* This was Macaulay's maiden parliamentary speech.

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sciences of those who are under their spiritual control; there are no agitators rousing and exciting the people to a course contrary to all good government; there are no associations assembling, or charged with assembling, for the purpose of assuming a power which ought only to belong to legally-recognised functionaries; there are no mobs, disciplined to their task, and almost in the regular training of arms; there is no rent levied with the regularity of a tax. It was the fashion last year to declaim about a Government that yielded to clamour, opposition, or threats, having betrayed the sacredness of its office, but there can be none such here; for even those most opposed to the present measure cannot deny that the Jews have borne their deprivations long in silence, and are now complaining with mildness and decency.

As a contrast to this, the Roman Catholics were always described as an insinuating, restless, cunning, watchful sect, ever on the search how they might increase their power and the number of their sect, pressing for converts in every possible way, and only withheld by the want of power from following up their ancient persecutions. But the sect with which we now have to deal are even more prone to monopolise their religion than the others are to propagating the Catholic faith. Never has such a thing been heard of as an attempt on the part of the Jews to gain proselytes; and we may conclude that, with such rites and forms as belong to their faith, it could scarcely be expected by anyone that a scheme of proselytism could succeed with them. Be that, however, as it may, it is a thing at which they never appear to have aimed. On the contrary, they have always discouraged such an idea. Let the history of England be examined, and it will furnish topics enough against the Catholics. Those who have looked for such things have always found enough to talk about as to the crimes they have committed: the fires in Smithfield-the Gunpowder Plot-the Seven Bishops-have always afforded copious matter upon which to launch out in invective against the Catholics. But, with respect to the Jews, the history of England affords events exactly opposite: its pages, as to these people, are made up of wrongs suffered and injuries

endured by them, without a trace of any wrong or injury committed in return; they are made up, from the beginning to the end, of atrocious cruelties inflicted on the one hand, and grievous privations endured for conscience' sake on the other. With respect to all Christian sects, their changes of situation have always afforded scope for charges of mutual recrimination against one another; but everyone allows the side on which the balance between the Jew and the Christian is weighed down.

As to the opposition offered to this Bill by my hon. friend, I am at a loss to see on what he has grounded it, unless he takes the broad principle that no one who is not a Christian is to be intrusted with power as his rule of action: I am at a loss to see how he can refuse his assent or to oppose this measure without throwing himself open to the charge of inconsistency. If this Bill, like the Roman Catholic one of last session, is to be opposed, it is condemning the strong and the weak, the violent and the patient, the proselyting and the exclusive, the political and the religious. If this is the course that is to be taken for our guide, persecution will never want an excuse, and the wolf will ever be able to invent a pretence to bear down and destroy the lamb. If this is to be the maxim set up for our land-mark, it will soon appear that everything may be a reason with the aggressor, as everything is shown to be a crime in the aggressed. In all the opposition that was lately evinced against the Catholics, it was never once assumed or pretended that the opposition was religious; it was political, and nothing else. When the object was to excite ill blood and rancour in the country-when red-hot speeches and tub-sermons went forth on the subject, the people were told that the question was, whether they should be compelled to worship stocks and stones, instead of the true God? But this was a point of view never alluded to by the more distinguished and candid opponents of the Catholic claims. myself remember having heard the Earl of Eldon declare that it was not on religious but on political grounds that he was opposed to the measure. The question just at that time under consideration was that of Transubstantiation; and the noble and learned lord observed that it was not because the Catholics

believed in the real presence that they were objected to, but that being the test by which they were kept out, they were through that kept out, because they were not good subjects.

But now the whole case is changed. Political objection is fairly given up; and in its place religious persecution is avowed. In all that my hon. friend the member for Oxford has offered to the House I have traced but two political objections, and neither of them appears to me to be entitled to the weight which my hon. friend would give to them. The first political argument that my hon. friend has adduced against this measure is, that the Jews of this country are more attached to their nation-wandering and scattered as they are over the face of the earth-than they are to the people of England. The only answer that I shall offer to this is, that at all events it is exceedingly unfair to lay down this as an objection till we have tried the experiment whether, by making Englishmen of them, they will not become members of the community. Till that has been done, all we can say is, that as long as they are not Englishmen they are nothing but Jews. The other objection of my hon. friend appears to me to be more extraordinary still. He says that, if this measure be granted, the power of the Jews will be such that they will come into Parliament in a much greater number than is proportioned to their relative number in the country, and the consequence of this will be to destroy the present system of representation, which will be rendered odious to the people, and a reform in Parliament must ensue. All that I can see in this argument is, that the Jews will not get into Parliament, because we are labouring under a bad system of representation. At all events, the system that we have at present must be either good or bad. If the system is bad, it is evident that the sooner we get rid of it the better. If the system is good, why should we complain of that to which it naturally tends?

These objections seem to be the only political objections that my hon. friend has urged against the measure now before the House, and all the rest may be characterised as purely religious persecution. But even when my hon. friend has brought him