CO885(2-3) — Page 113

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

LTC.O. 885

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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arrangement, for the Rectories are too extensive to admit of efficient control over the Curates; the Rectors will have ample employment in attending to their own immediate duties, and the Curates, like the Rectors, will be responsible to the Bishops." The Act was allowed. It was amended in some respects by Acts 3,383 of 11th December, 1841; 3,529, 31st December, 1842; and also by 3,604 of the 29th February, 1844; to which last Act only is it necessary to refer.

The purport of this last Act, and the objections to it, will be best gathered from the following portions of a despatch addressed by the Secretary of State to the Governor in reference to it :—

"I learn that the substitution by the present law of the power to grant a leave of absence to Rectors on half salary for the power to grant a retired allowance, charged on the rectory, is designed to obviate the danger of the permanent retirement of a clergyman whose illness and consequent incapacity might be but temp rary, and that the substitution of a fixed allowance for a moiety of the emoluments of the rectory is calculated to prevent embarrassing questions of account between the officiating ininister and the absentee. These appear to me good and valid reasons for the proposed changes, but 1 think that the leave of absence should be granted by the Governor and Council, on the recommendation of the Bishop, and not by the Bishop, as provided in the present law. I am also of opinion that some time should be fixed, beyond which no leave of absence should ever extend.

3604.

Lord Stanley to Lord Elgin, August 31, 1844.

"The present enactment takes from the Governor - the power of nominating the person to act in the room of the retiring Rector, and authorises such Rector to appoint his own locum tenens. This part of the law is open to the objection that it might possibly give rise to covert and fraudulent arrange- ments between the parties. I am of opinion that the locum tenens of the absentee should be nominated by the Bishop, and that after the lapse of a certain time, say two years, the absentee should be con- sidered as having vacated his benefice, and if any permanent provision should be charged upon it for his benefit, the amount of such provision should be regulated by the length of his service, but should never exceed a given sum, which should be granted

Mr. Taylor.

Lord Elgin, October 23, 1844.

3352.

3604.

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only with the express sanction of the Governor and Council.

"It may be further urged against the present enactment that its effect will be to place a Curate, instead of a Rector, in every church in which the Rector has obtained leave of absence, and that this substitution may, and often will, last as long as the Rector's life. This would appear to be a departure -from the church system.

'Finally, the introduction of the clause for giving effect to the Royal Charter of 28th November, 1843 (which is perfectly valid and effectual in itself), appears to have been an oversight. If not, it was a direct usurpation of the Royal authority.

"Her Majesty's decision on this enactment will be suspended until you shall have had an opportu- nity of reporting to me whether you are aware of any valid answer to the objections which I have pointed out. Should no answer be received from you before the 1st of December next, I shall then feel it my duty to advise the Queen to disallow it." In answer to the above despatch, the Governor forwarded an explanatory minute from the Bishop, adding that "as the Clergy Acts in force would expire in 1847, and the whole subject must come under the consideration of the Legislature before that period, he trusted that it would not be thought necessary to disallow the Act, the more so that this course would have the effect of reviving the opera- tion of an enactment which was still more open to the exceptions urged against it." On this explana- tion, the Act, though not confirmed, was tacitly allowed to remain in operation.

The following is the Bishop's memorandum : "The Clergy Act passed by the Legislature in 1840, by which the salaries of the Island Curates were increased, and provision made for twenty-two additional ministers, and the amending statute of 1844, from which the Royal Assent has been hitherto withheld, are the only laws affecting the ecclesiastical establishment at present in force in Jamaica.

'Greatly as the clergy are indebted to the former of these Acts, there were portions of the Act un- doubtedly liable to serious objection.

"Under Clause XL of the Act of 1840, it is