TUTTI I
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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Legislatures and the extent of the Royal Prerogative had undergone much modification, that the Govern- ment was advised by its Law Officers that the powers of jurisdiction which had received such high sanction were illegally given. Their opinion was substantially affirmed, and that of the earlier Law Officers and Parliaments negatived: first, in 1857 by the Judgment of the Queen's Bench in the case of the Queen v. Eton College, in which, however, it is stated that the Court "do not question the power of the Queen to create a Bishopric in any part of her dominions, except when, as in Scotland, such an exercise of her prerogative is forbidden;" and after- wards in 1863 by the Judicial Committee in the case of Long . the Bishop of Cape Town, in which, however, the character of the Bishop of Cape Town as a Diocesan Bishop was not brought into question, The present decision, therefore, which denies that Diocesan character must be looked upon as one which the Executive and Ecclesiastical authorities were not called upon to expect, and from the consequences of which the Colonial Church has very strong claim to
be relieved, even, if necessary, by Act of Parliament.
III. What is required for this purpose appears to
be-
1. So far to establish the diocesan character of the present Colonial Bishops as to enable them and their dioceses to enjoy the advantages derived from such instruments of endowment, and such Acts and Ordinances of Colonial Legislatures, as have been made and passed in their favour, and to give legal effect to all pecuniary or other transactions (not involving the exercise of jurisdiction) to which the Bishops have been parties in their diocesan cha-
racter.
2. To enable the dioceses to retain these ad- vantages by providing for the Diocesan succession.
3. To define the positions of Colonial Bishops and clergy ordained by them in respect to their ministrations beyond the diocese for which they were consecrated or ordained.
All this might be effected by an Act of Parlia- ment enacting that the law should be and should be deemed to have been what it has hitherto been supposed to be in respect to the Royal power of founding Dioceses, and giving to the past and future ordinations of Colonial Diocesans such
Annexure 1. p. 21.
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effect as they would have had if the Diocesans had possessed "Episcopal jurisdiction" within the mean- ing of 59 Geo. III, cap. 60, sec. 4.
But it may be questioned whether the assistance of Parliament should, under the circumstances, be invoked for the mere purpose of establishing the Colonial Dioceses in the position which they were supposed to occupy previously to the present Judg-
ment.
For, first, the relation of the Crown to these Bishops in the larger Colonies, except Canada, is highly and increasingly anomalous.
lu some of them there is a certain amount of "State aid" given to religion, in which, of course,
the Church of England shares. But neither the Imperial nor the Colonial Government contributes to the endowment of the Bishoprics; nor, as it now appears, can the Crown confer even a "sphere of action," much less jurisdiction, on the Bishops. What it does confer are, first, the title of "Lord ;", secondly, a certain precedence among the public officers of the Colony, a class to which the Bishop
can scarcely now be said to belong; and, thirdly, a corporate character. The title and precedence, which latter is already beginning to occasion some murmuring in our democratic Colonies, might, perhaps, be advantageously dropped in dioceses, and the corporate character is a privilege granted equally by the Crown to banking and other companies which carry on business in the Colonies
most
in connexion with an English centre, and there- fore hardly justifying the Royal right of appointing Bishops, which has now been abandoned in Canada, and, on obvious grounds of equity, is becoming subject, in its exercise, to unascertained usages and understandings in favour of those who pay for or profit by the Bishops' ministrations.
Meanwhile, the majority of the Colonists
appear
to be becoming more and more indisposed to any sub- stantial interference in their ecclesiastical affairs on the part of the Home Government; the Churchmen, perhaps, from their growing habits of self-govern- ment in civil affairs, and others from their strong jealousy of anything which savours of "establish- ment," and, therefore, of religious inequality.
If on these accounts it is thought desirable, in Colonies where Bishops are not paid from public
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and