CO885(2-3) — Page 308

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference -

LLC.O.885

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religious organization moved and extended itself. Having been outgrown, it pinches; and the more it is outgrown the more it will pinch. The sense of this practical inconvenience (sharpened by recent decisions of the Judicial Committee) has, I believe, been for some time in course of overpowering—and must, sooner or later, have overpowered-the senti- ment of Royal protection, and the vague apprehen- sion of being removed from beneath its shadow.

In this state of things it is that the anomalous prerogative is declared by the Privy Council not to exist. It appears to me that this prerogative could hardly be supported except on the ground of its existence. And this ground being taken away, 1 cannot imagine it possible to reconstruct it with any permanence in opposition to a feeling of dissatisfac- tion which is, I believe, likely to be constantly stronger and more explicit among the most active of those who are affected by it. The New Zealand Bishops, it is to be remembered, have already peti- tioned to be allowed to surrender what remains of their Crown character.

The third proposal renders certain in each Colony the contrast between a Crown Episcopate and a voluntary Episcopate; the former, however, no longer appearing as a living institution capable of growth, but as a species of crystallization imbedded in a working and growing system of a different character. It is open, though in a very mitigated shape, to the objection of interfering with Colonial independence. It would, it appears to me, merely resuscitate for a time in Australia and South Africa an unmeaning form, which has been superseded in Canada, and must be superseded by the mere force of events clsewhere. In order to be harmless the plan must be so adjusted as to render possible the multiplication of voluntary dioceses out of the Crown dioceses, and the gradual transfer of the appointment from the Crown to the Church, which is sure to be claimed sooner or later. All this would give rise to some jealousy and discussion, both in the passing of the necessary Act of Parlia- ment and subsequently; but if properly effected the main objection to this plan would be its feebleness.

All these plans are alike in that they restore to the Dioceses the character of Crown Dioceses, on the faith of which their endowments were given.

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The fourth proposal does not offect this, and is accordingly objected to by certain persons, whom Lord St. Leonards represents in the House of Lords, on the ground (concisely stated) that they would pervert to the use of a voluntary Episcopate moneys which were given to a Crown Episcopate.

It is undoubtedly the fact that those who have adhered to or have endowed these Bishoprics did

so supposing that they were not exactly what they have turned out to be. The question of equity is,

was the error material ?

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It must be supposed that some of the donors or adherents were actualed almost exclusively by motives of a religious or spiritual character, that is, they desired to obtain for themselves, or to give to others, certain definite moral and spiritual advan- tages which an Anglican Community is supposed to derive from the authority and ministrations of an Auglican Bishop. Others may have been more or less largely influenced by motives of a legal or political character; that is, they may have desired that these spiritual advantages should be given by persons bearing a certain peculiar connection with the Crown of England. What is the reality and peculiarity of this connection it is not very easy to define. It is not that the Crown is supreme over all persons and causes, &c., for that it is over Roman Catholics and Wesleyans, except so far as their causes are settled by voluntary agreement among themselves, which voluntary agreement may, according to the Judicial Committee (Long's case), be equally made in Colonial churches; it is not that the Crown endows, for that has long ceased to be the case; it is not that the Crown gives any jurisdiction, for that notion was destroyed long ago; it is not that the Crown selects the Bishop, for that has ceased to be the case in Canada; it is not that Anglican Bishops are corporations, for that in North America the Roman Catholic Bishops are also; it is not that the present system enables the Government of the day to prevent the erection of a voluntary Protestant Episcopate in the Colonies, for this is not the case. Such an Episcopate might be set up by Scottish or American Bishops; or, as it now appears, by the Colonial Bishops themselves. The essence

of the matter appears to be that the forms of Epis- copal appointments are carried through certain

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