MOTION TO RESTORE ROMAN CATHOLIC PEERS TO THEIR SEATS IN PARLIAMENT.
On the 30th of April, Mr. Canning, “wishing perhaps to give éclat to his departure from the scene of his glory,” moved in the house of commons for leave to bring in a bill for restoring the right of sitting and voting in parliament to Roman Catholic peers. In his speech he asked; “Do you imagine it never occurred to the representatives of Europe, when contemplating the imposing spectacle of the coronation; that it never occurred to the ambassadors of Catholic Austria, of Catholic Fiance, or of states more bigoted, if there be any more bigoted, to the Catholic religion, to reflect, that the moment this solemn ceremony was over, the Duke of Norfolk would become disseized of the exercise of his privileges among his fellow peers? stripped of his robes of office, which were to be laid aside, and hung up, until the day, when the coronation of a successor to his present most gracious sovereign should again call him forth to assist at a similar solemnization? Thus after being exhibited to the peers and people of England, to the representatives of princes and nations of the world—the Duke of Norfolk, highest in rank among the peers—the Lord Clifford and others, like him, representing a long line of illustrious ancestors, appeared as if they had been called forth and furnished for the occasion, like the lustres and banners that flamed and glittered in the scene; and were to be, like them, thrown by as useless and temporary formalities. They might, indeed, bend the knee and kiss the hand; they might bear the train, or rear the canopy; they might perform the offices assigned by Roman pride to their barbarian forefathers—Purpurea tollant auloa Britanni—but with the pageantry of that hour their importance faded away. As their distinction vanished, their humiliation returned: and he who headed the procession of peers to-day, could not sit among them as their equal, to-morrow.” This motion was strongly opposed by Mr. Peel, who was unable to see any reason for exempting Roman Catholic peers from political restrictions to which a community professing the same tenets were by law subject. The bill, notwithstanding, passed the commons by a majority of five; but it was rejected by the lords.