Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/230

 216 History of the Radical Party in Parliament. [1827- by the minister, and as subsequently carried, was a wide, and on the whole, a wise one. It contained clauses, and was accompanied by other measures, which were neither just nor dignified ; but, as regarded its main object, it was bold and complete. It repealed those laws which placed Catholics, unless they took certain oaths, on a different footing from Protestants, even in regard to real property ; it provided for the admission of Catholics to Parliament on the same terms with Protestants ; and it admitted Catholics to all corporate offices, to the enjoyment of all municipal advantages, and to the administration of civil and criminal justice. The only offices from which Catholics were for the future to be excluded were those of Regent, of Lord Chancellor of England or of Ireland, of Viceroy of Ireland, and of all those connected with the Church, its universities, and its schools. They were also restricted from the exercise of Church patronage. What were called securities consisted in the provision of an oath in lieu of the oath of supremacy, whereby Catholics entering Par- liament bound themselves to support the existing institutions of the State, and not to injure those of the Church; in for- bidding the display of the insignia of office in any place of worship other than those of the Established Church ; and in requiring that communities bound by monastic vows should not be extended, and that the number of Jesuits in the country should not be increased. To all these so-called safeguards there was little to object, considering the state of opinion at the time, but there were other measures proposed of which the same cannot be said. The most contemptible proposal was that which refused to make the Act retrospective, the only object or possible effect of that being to prevent O'Connell from taking his seat with- out re-election. There was another provision, made by a separate measure which was carried on stage by stage with the Relief Bill, which was unjust and reactionary. This was a limitation of the county franchise in Ireland by the substitution of a ten-pound for a forty-shilling qualification. The restriction of the franchise is a direct inroad upon the