ontinuance
of a Parliament;--a privilege which, by a stretch of generosity, is now
extended to new members who have been returned at a general election.
Sir James subsequently took part in the debate; not, as he carefully
assured his audience, "to supply any defects in the speech of his
honourable friend, for there were none that he could find, but
principally to absolve his own conscience." Indeed, Macaulay, addressing
himself to his task with an absence of pretension such as never fails
to conciliate the goodwill of the House towards a maiden speech,
put clearly and concisely enough the arguments in favour of the
bill;--arguments which, obvious, and almost common-place, as they appear
under his straightforward treatment, had yet to be repeated during a
space of six and thirty years before they commended themselves to the
judgment of our Upper Chamber.

"The power of which you deprive the Jew consists in maces, and gold
chains, and skins of parchment with pieces of wax dangling from their
edges. The power which you leave the Jew is the power of principal over
clerk, of master over servant, of landlord over tenant. As things now
stand, a Jew may be the richest man in England. He may possess the
means of raising this party and depressing that; of making East Indian
directors; of making members of Parliament. The influence of a Jew may
be of the first consequence in a war which shakes Europe to the centre.
His power may come into play in assisting or thwarting the greatest
plans of the greatest princes; and yet, with all this confessed,
acknowledged, undenied, you would have him deprived of power! Does not
wealth confer power? How are we to permit all the consequences of that
wealth but one? I cannot conceive the nature of an argument that is to
bear out such a position. If we were to be called on to revert to the
day when the warehouses of Jews were torn down and pillaged, the
theory would be comprehensible. But we have to do with a persecution so
delicate that there is no abstract rule for its guidance. You tell us
that the Jews have no legal right to power, and I am bound to admit it;
but in the same way, three hundred years ago they had no legal right to
be in England, and six hundred years ago they had no legal right to the
teeth in their heads. But, if it is the moral right we are to look at, I
hold that on every principle of moral obligation the Jew has a right to
political power."

He was on his legs once again,