Every discussion in eithe...
Every discussion in either House of Parliament, which touches the groand contested between the Catholics and their opponents, leaTes upon the mind a painful and awful impression . Lord LANSDOWN'S motion of Monday last came recommended by the strongest arguments of expe- rience, consistency, and prudence; it was still more power- fuily en-forced by a. division of sentiment among the Bishops, and by the frank admission of Lord LivmraooL, a decided anti-Catholic, that the grant of privileges not liable to abuse, would rescue the Government from the evil of "1 prolonging useless contests on immaterial points, which served no purpose but to render it Odious) with. " out any counterbalancing advantage." The motion was merely to place English Catholics on a level with the Irish -to deal out an equal measure of liberality to those who are few in number, affluent, enlightened, and incapable of effecting or meditating_ mischief against the State, as to those who are numierous, tsrbulent, ignorant, disaffected, L andinflamed agaisst the British Government by a course of real or imagined inijuries. The LORD CHANCELLORn took his usual prominentpartonquestionsof thisnature, andhetook it successfully,-in throwiing out Lor:dLANSDOWN'S bills. His Lordship seems to taink the Protstant asecndlency asinch enttied to protection as the abuses in Chancery. He yields I not an inch of either, but on extreme compulsion. The fact\ is, that the learned Lordl in all his discourses on Catholic I affairs. forgets one main element in the rationale of the: question-,-riz.1,he precedingrelaratio,s of the Popery laws, with the equal impossibility of recalling what we have al- ready given, and of remaining at that point to wlich those previous grants liave conducted us. With bigots, whether in religion or politics, all reasoning is undoubtedly thrown away: to their fears, however, we may address ourselves with some better chance of a hearing. Suppose six miUions of Irisli Catholics were in open rebellion, and a foreign enemy at the door, the speculative risks apprehended from -a sprinkling of Catholic Peers and country gentlemen in Parliament, would then, we imagine, be held of less mio- ment than they were on MIonday by,the Lords ELDON, C'OLCHIESTER, and their supporters.