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bill, as being concerned in the Alliance Insurance Company; but it was decided that they were "not so interested as to preclude their voting for the repeal of a public act." The qualifying expression, however, shows that an increased degree of interest would have been considered as justifying the disallowance of their votes, even in the case of a Public General Act. On the 10th of March, 1825, an attempt was made to enlarge this principle materially. The entry in the Journals stands thus: "A motion was made, and the question was proposed, that it is the opinion of this House, "❝that no member should vote for or against any question in which he has a direct pecuniary in"terest;' and the previous question being put, "that that question be now put, it passed in the negative." Now, to advert specially to the case of Mr. Grenfell. Here is a precedent of a member of parliament being disqualified for voting on a public local bill, on the ground of interest. Here is an admitted defeasance of that presumed perfection of parliamentary competency to vote, which may be pleaded as an inseparable adjunct to the character of a representative of the people. The constituents of Mr. Grenfell may have been as much aggrieved by his disqualification in this instance, as the Roman Catholic constituents of any Roman Catholic member of parliament may feel themselves to be, under his disqualification for voting on the interests of the religion of the state. But, if eith

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party be dissatisfied, their dissatisfaction must be directed towards the usage of parliament, and not towards any new legislation. When circumstances, involving an interest calculated to prejudice the public good, by its possible influence on the mind of a member, are shown to exist, the grievance of disqualification (if grievance it be) is thrown back upon the practice of parliament, and upon our representative system. What may be done in the case of a single member of parliament may be done in the case of many, under a fair and unforced analogy of circumstances; but, as the propriety of disqualification rests upon the degree of interest, which may vary in each special case, parliament has wisely resisted (as appears from the entry of March, 1825, already quoted) the enactment of any general disqualifying measure, with respect to parties having a direct pecuniary interest in any question. This resistance, however, does not affect the case of the Roman Catholic. A member may have a direct pecuniary interest in a question, and yet not such a degree as makes it necessary to disqualify him but, in the case of the Roman Catholic, the minimum of interest which he, as a Roman Catholic, may be presumed to feel, may not unfairly be considered as rendering him more or less challengeable as a voter upon points substantially conThe

nected with the Protestant Establishment.

proposed disqualification, therefore, would rest on

the strongest grounds of expediency, provided that the alarm which has been felt at the proposal of his admission into Parliament, would be removed by this suggestion, more than by any other which can be brought forward..

It may, however, be observed, that these prece dents do not involve a sufficiently strict analogy, inasmuch as they turn only upon pecuniary interest, and the Roman Catholic (it may be argued) has no pecuniary interest which should disqualify him for voting in cases affecting the Protestant Church. To this objection I answer, that the principle involved in these instances is, that the state should not suffer in consequence of the existence of private interest and feeling. The quotations in the Appendix distinctly show that apprehensions are entertained, that the state will suffer from the private interest of Roman Catholics in relation to the Protestant religion; and, consequently, the defeasance of their power of voting on questions substantially affecting the interests of that religion, is justifiable on the ground of public interest. I have, therefore, cited these instances of defeasance in the two Houses of Parliament, not as direct analogical precedents, but as evidence of a constitutional power of defeasance of the right of voting in certain cases.

Lord Kenyon lays it down, in his communica tion to his late Majesty, that "either of tho

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Houses of Parliament may, if

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they think proper, pass a bill, up to the extent of the most "unreasonable requisition that can be made; "and, provided sound policy and a sense of "the duty they owe to the established religion "of the country, do not operate on their minds, so as to prevent their doing what is improper, "there is no statute law to prevent their entertaining and passing such bill, to abolish the supremacy and the whole of the government and I discipline of the Church of England, as now by "law established."

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How far it might be constitutional for a king, who has taken the Coronation Oath, to assent to such a bill, is a question with respect to which I do not pause to inquire; but the admission of so extensive a principle appears to me to afford an additional argument in favour of the proposed disqualification: for, if it be abstractedly competent, without reference to the spirit of the constitution, for members of the two houses of parliament to proceed in so summary a manner, it is, at least, not unconstitutional, that Roman Catholics should be prevented from assisting in such a proceeding.

With reference, however, to the analogies of the retirement of the bishops in cases of blood, and of the challenge of a vote in consequence of private interest, I beg it to be understood that I bring them forward, not as direct precedents, but to show that

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the principle of contingent defeasance of the right of voting is not foreign to the spirit and practice of the constitution. If, therefore, it be maintained, that there is no direct constitutional precedent for such a disqualification embodied in a statute, I cannot be brought to acknowledge the absence of such precedent as a reason for resisting the introduction of such a clause in an act of legislation; and I justify this opinion upon the general maxim, also repeated by Lord Kenyon, that the supreme power of a state cannot limit itself. In fact, what limitation of that supreme power could be more inconvenient, than that which would be involved in the doctrine, that, although the admission of a certain class of persons into the legislature, subject to a restriction of the right of voting on one particular subject, might probably, or at least possibly, produce the greatest public advantage, yet the legislature was precluded from sanctioning such admission, because no restriction precisely analogous could be shewn in our constitutional history? If this proposed disqualification could by possibility operate as a precedent in other cases, I should admit it to be dangerous; but I contend that this is the only disqualification which could or ought to form part of Parliamentary law, inasmuch as there is no subject, except that of the Protestant religion, taken generally, with respect to which the Roman Catholic