PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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PLLC.O.
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2 PUBLIC
RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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Chapels of the United Church of England and Ireland," in case we should be of opinion that its provisions have any bearing on these questions.
In obedience to your commands we have the honour to report, that we are of opinion that the provisions of the Act will acquire legal validity if the assent of the Crown were given thereto; and that neither members of the licensed clergy and laity meeting in assembly in the manner provided by Section 1 of the Act, nor the Bishop presiding thereat, would be liable to any legal penalty.
We are further of opinion that if any Commission established under Section 3 of the Act were to impose the penalty of suspension from a benefice under Section 3, the clergyman so suspended would not have any legal remedy against the members of the Commission or the Bishop on account of the invalidity of the Act.
(Signed)
J. D. HARDING.
A. E. COCKBURN. RICHARD BETHELL.
Copy of a DESPATCH from the Right Honourable
H. LABOUCHERE to Governor-General Sir Edmund
HEAD, Bart.
(No. 39.) SIR,
Downing Street, February 15, 1856. WITH reference to Sir William Molesworth's despatch of the 24th September last, transmitting to you copy of a letter from the Law Advisers of the Crown, explaining the obstacles which exist to compliance with the prayer of the Address of the Legislative Council and Assembly of Canada, that a measure may be introduced into the Imperial Parlia- ment to remove all obstructions that may exist, or be supposed to exist, under any statute now in force in Great Britain to prevent the meeting of the Bishops, clergy and laity, of the United Church of England and Ireland in Canada, in Synod, for the purposes therein specified; I wish now to commuu- nicate to you the result of the further deliberations of Her Majesty's Government on this important and difficult subject.
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2. It is undoubtedly plain, from the opinion already communicated to you, that it would be impossible to effect, in a literal manner, the whole of what is prayed for by the address, without the assistance of Parliament. Nevertheless, Her Majesty's Government have a strong feeling that the difficulties raised by that opinion against adopt-
ing the entire recommendation of the Canadian Legislature ought not to be permitted to interfere with the meeting of the clergy and laity, by repre- sentative bodies, for the purpose of making rules for the management of Church affairs, not having legal force, or in the nature of canons, nor contra- vening any known law of the Church; but binding on those who make them, in the same, manner as similar rules, generally speaking, in com munities of Christians not established by law. And they are by no means satisfied that, for purposes so simple, any statitable aid is necessary.
3. But there are strong reasons for thinking that,
if Parliamentary legislation is not strictly necessary,
it is highly inexpedient. On the one hand, all parties,
as it appears, are anxious to preserve the unity of the Church of England. Even those who most desire the removal of the restrictions under which they conceive themselves to labour, seem to entertain no thought of separation as the final result; and yet it would not be easy to frame a measure, and perhaps still more difficult to obtain the assent of Parliament to such a measure unaltered, which should satisfy the wishes of the Canadian Legislature, and realise the objects contemplated by that body, without effecting, at least, a partial separation of the colonial
and mother Church, and encroaching on that supre- macy of the Crown which is at present the substan-
tial bond of union. Unless I have altogether mistaken the spirit by which the members of the Anglican Church in C'anada are animated, I greatly doubt whether they would not regret even the accomplishment of their own immediate wishes, if attended with such a permanent result.
4. On the other hand, it would be perhaps hardly less difficult to frame such a measure, éven of the merest enabling character, without in some degree compromising the principle which regards