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we believe , than the people of England ; and , if we are to judge by acts , in a much larger proportion than the Christians of England . The new and distinctive commandments of the Christians are , to love God with all tkeir heart , and to love one another ; and the practical rule of Christian morality is , to do unto others as you would be done by . Judged by these tests , the House of Commons does not represent the Christians of England any more than the neonle .
and never did it show its Christian character less than in the debate on Jewish disabilities last week . Not only would Sir Frederick Thesiger refuse admission to the House of Commons to " the fool who has said in his heart that there is no God , " but he expressly declares that " Jews , Deists , " and other persons not agreeing with Sir Frederick , we presume , are not entitled to " the privileges of a citizen ! " We can understand one reason for keeping away " the fool" aforesaidlest his belief in the non-existence of a God
should be confirmed by the extraordinary hardihood and irreverence with which men like Sir Frederick talk about a God . After proposing to exclude conscientious Deists , lest they should seem " indifferent to religion , " men come in like Mr . Newdegate with puling pleas , that , if others than Christians are admitted , Hosa and Francesco Madiai , in their prison , may be taunted by priests , who will say that Englishmen " make no difference between Protestantism and Infidelity . " Here is a reason for keeping the Jews out of Parliament !
In fact , the only sensible man of the party is Mr . Drummond , who " denies point-blank that any man has a right to worship God in the way he likes best . " Mr . Drummond especially attacks the idolatry of the Stock Exchange . " It is now , " he said , " not credo , I believe—everything ; but credit , he believes , nothing ; " and Mr . Henry Drummond would drive the moneychangers out of the Temple . For he declares that money has quite usurped the place of God , and has become " the universal centre . " Tried
by this test , again we may declare the House of Commons not to be a Christian House , since of all places it is the one where that idol of the Stock Exchange is the most powerful . It can maintain in the House of Commons its Juggernaut of the railway interest . It can maintain a certain kind of monied abstraction called Stock , against the interests of 150 , 000 , 000 British subjects in India . Judged by its acts , then , you may say that the House of Commons , has not excluded " the fool wlio in his heart has said
that there is no God ; but that it has opened wide the door for any given number of such fools , so long as they are sanctified by the idol whom Mr . Drummond denounces in the midst of its worshippers , or hold to their mischievous faces the hypocrite ' s mask of the world ' s masquerade .
Ihero are three godly virtues , Faith , Hope , and Charity , but tho greatest of them all is charity ; and inspired , we havo no doubt , by that special Christian virtue , Mr . Henry Drummond assorts that " tho rabble of London , partly out of the lovo of mischief , partly from contempt of the House of Commons , and partly from a desire to give a slap in tho face to Christianity , elected a Jew ! " Such is tho judgment of tho Christian city by tho Christian member . It is a
pretty piece of Christian business altogether ; and wo , not Bearing in Sir . Robert Tnglin ' s lovo of hypocrisy—not sharing in Mr . Drummond ' s peculiar lights , nor in Mr . Newdegato's hatred of Jowh , nor in Mr . Hoiiloy ' B terror of Mahomodans , may still ask with him , not what would become 01 tho common Christianity of tho House of Commons if Jews were admitted , but what has become of its common Christianity P It appears to us that tho House has become-an asylum for non-Christians , who can riot in their
intolerant ammoBiticH without check , and without rebuke can do thoir host to justify the blasphemous presumption in tho heart of tho fool . Inasmuch aH tho Jews wore tho progomtors of Christians , —inasmuch as tho most earnest ami truly religious moil of tho House , because tho most tolerant , are labouring to restore good will , oven amongst Membors of Parliament , perhaps when the paroxysm of theological dissension is abated , the non-ohristian , tho non-religious llouso of ComniotiH , may bo converted to a inoro godly . fooling ; and , tuniultuncouHly with tho Jowh , somo spirit of Christianity may outer and extend itself even to those who Haook to carry Toryism into heaven . \
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CORRUPTION , ACCORDING TO TILK CONSTITUTION . TirAT things aro getting no bettor very fast , as a Yankee man of lettors recently phrased it , is an observation singularly truo us touching tho state of our representation just at present . Conservatism , or corruption , conservation of corruption , that is to nay , is evidently in a most flourishing condition , thanks partly to tho evident passivity of the present Government and partly also to tho despondency of the Itadicals themselves . Tho Committees ure glorified from day to day because they havo not . rendered themselves utterly infamous , but , like Fielding ' s " Black George , tho Gamekeeper , " havo been conscientious in cases where , had they played the public faleo , they
must inevitably have been found out ; and Mr . Thomas Duncombe , the aristocratic tribune , receives the cheers of the House when he states that the only way to ensure purity of election is to have no constituency of less than twenty thousand . Not only is there corruption everywhere , and no seat , according to Mr . Brown , maintainable if petitioned against ; but , according to Duncombe , there is no hope of purity till impurity be rendered impossible . A vote , it seems , is a saleable commodity , and till the market ia glutted , and it becomes worthless , there is no reason to hope that it will not be sold .
It is positively horrifying to see the assent which such opinions , so broadly expressed , receive on all hands , to know it admitted that political morality is at as great a discount out or the House as within it . But how can we doubt that such is the case ? The Norwich enquiry leaves no escape from our melancholy conclusion . We begin to " thank God we have a House of Lords , " not in a state of habitual hypocrisy , when we find the Commons , without exception , the false creatures of a Coppock and a Brown . We begin to
have faith in primogeniture and the peerage when we find the lower House indebted in its origin not to the people whom it professes to represent , but to the agents whom it has to pay . To feel that in pigeon-holes in the Carlton and Ueform lie the death-warrants of England ' s representative rights ; to confess that " we must have poverty in the candidates before we can hope for purity in the election ; " these are points at which we could scarcely have expected the nation so soon , or so patiently , to arrive . However , there is no doubt about them . Lord John
Russell may hesitate as to the cure , but his lordship cannot persuade himself that his operations are not watched , and that others besides the patients are not fully conscious of the disease . The result of the Norwich inquiry admirably illustrates our position as regards the proceedings of the committee . The report there , as in every other case , tells of evil done , unintentionally ; blames the consequence , but finds no fault with those to whom we owe the cause . Every day the room had been crowded , every day the newspaper reports had been full . Tke tribunal must have been utterly irresponsible , or hopelessly
mad , if it had not done something in such a case . Accordingly , being neither quite the one , nor wholly the other , it arrives at the conclusion , that Mr . Brown has perhaps fallen into a mistake , but that if so , his motives have been pure ; and coolly tells us , apparently expecting our belief , that unlike that solicitor , whose doings we recently had to chronicle , and who " sunk his politics in his profession , " the estimable Brown has fallen into just the opposite error of sinking his profession in liis politics . That unbusiness-like gentleman has been hurried into an indiscretion by the warmth of hia affection for his party , according to the charitable construction of tho committee
—according to Colonel Dickson , —who is not so delicate , though perhaps more perspicuous in his phraseology—he has been " induced to withdraw the petition , and throw him over , by . Forbes Mackenzie , Colonel Forester , and Co . " —Forbes Mackenzie , an eminent Protestant gentleman , now an M . I * , by virtue of bis piety , Forester , and the mysterious Co . being tho steady employers of tho indiscreet and ardent culprit whom the committee thus luniUy commiserate and gently chide .
Loud has been the howl , and lon ^ , which greeted tho farcical election that made tho prosent ruler of France her Emperor . Who , and how elected , are the present rulers of . Kngland / We do not look to the throne , a respectable ceremony , nor to the House of Lords , a decaying sooiiil anomaly , for our repl y : we point to tho Lower Chamber , and approach it . At its portals we meet Coppock and Brown , and those men wo have to hail as the reptile Emperors of our glorious constitution . There is nobody they cannot turn
out ; there is nobody they cannot get in ; adolescent Overstones may buy their way into tho science and practice of legislation , through the ngqncy of these gentlemen ; septennial Parliament !) will make it worth their while . Do they doubt the security of the return for their outlay r Let them wait for the Prince Consort ' s next grand . design . Another , as magnificent , ( and we trust as uhcIuI ) HN the Exhibition will need another courteous millionaire . Let him fix upon the titlo of his barony , and trust tho rest to the Fountain of Honour . Tho "highest quarter" *
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YET ARE THEY HONOURA B LE ? Evebt Member of Parliament is , by his right of place , Honourable ; but the term must be considered solely to havo a local acceptation ; like some kinds of promotion in the army , which carry with them only Indian or colonial rank . As a mere colonel anywhere else may be a majorgeneral in Bombay , so a man may be Honourable in the House , and have no right to the title out of doors . The rules of the House of
Commons are very peculiar , and cannot be regarded as applicable anywhere else . It is usually considered necessary for an honourable man to make his engagements frankly and to fulfil them honestly ; but such does not appear to be the Parliamentary view ; and what is more , the general opinion within Parliament sanctions the departures from strict truthfulness . For example , every Member of Parliament , except the Scotch Members , is required to have a qualification in property of a certain kind ; and a Member has been turned out lately on the ostensible ground that he bad " no qualification . "
Now , it is notorious that there are several in the House of Commons equally without qualifications—several might be named in that predicament : but how do they remain there P By keeping up a better evasion than Mr . Carter , of Tavistock ; by vamping up the counterfeit of a qualification ; by maintaining a more consistent he . Having a qualification , the Member presents himself to the electors , and it is directed by law that he shall not bribe them nor treat them ; yet it is notorious that bribery and treating are continued with such perseverance that the successive laws and penalties of the House of Commons fail to client it . If Members would not suffer
bribery ; if they would not support agents : if they would not accept the votes of the lowest class of electors , these things would not be . But Honourable Members are glad to accept the most honourable support . This is carried to such an extent , that Mr . Coppock , the " Liberal " Agent , lias promised a list of boroughs which may be managed . Mr . Brown , the Tory Agent , is always surprised when a petition against a
Member fails ; For he thinks he could succeed in a petition against any Member . By the connivance of the House , new plans of shuffling election petitions have been invented . The election agents of the two sides meet , compare the petitions which they have against Members ; and then agree amongst each other to strike petitions from their lists by way of balance . A leading member of the Carlton Club and the House seems to
have occupied a " dark room ' in the Club , foi the purpose of carrying on that kind of business with Mr . Brown . Employing agents , therefore , of such a kind ; accepting low votes ; evading the rules ; sitting by help of tho sufferance of Coppock or Brown , the House still negatively resists all attempts to correct tho franchise by swamping these corrupt electors with tho real English people . The head man of the last Government , and leading man of the present , is exerting himself greatly to procure tho emancipation of tho Jews
by admitting them to Parliament . It would be a much more patriotic ; course to emancipate tho English people by admitting them to the franchise ; and we will venture to say , that if the English people were permitted to give their votes , they would not deludo Members , like tho eolourmen of Canterbury , or the family retainers of Bridgonorth : if they gave votes , they would give them heartily ; and Members deriving their seats from that certain suffrage would stand in no fear of their agents . They might then bo truly called Honourable Members .
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March 19 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 279
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Leader (1850-1860), March 19, 1853, page 279, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1978/page/15/
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