A CLERCIAL M.P.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 804, 27 January 1910, Page 2

A CLERCIAL M.P.

Under an English Act of Parliament, passed in the reign of King George 111., it is declared that “no person having been ordained to the office of priest or deacon, or being a minister of the Church of Scotland, is capable of being elected ” to the House of Commons, and that should he sit or vote he is liable to forfeit ,£SOO for each day to anyone who may sue for the same. The Roman Catholic clergy were also excluded by the Act passed in the reign of George IV. There is no statutory provision, however, against a clergyman not belonging to one of the Churches specified sitting in Parliament, and therefore the election of the Reverend Silvester Horne for the Borough of Ipswich is not illegal, says the Christchurch Press. We cannot help thinking, however, that the principle underlying the Acts of Parliament we have cited is a sound one, and that it would be well if Its application were made more general, so as to exclude ministers of all denominations from a seat in the House. The increasing tendency to make the churches electioneering centres, and to convert the clergy into political agitators, is, in our opinion, not a good thing for politics, and is a very bad thing for religion.