CO885(2-3) — Page 312

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.885

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step towards employment), without assigning any ground for refusal. This power is supposed to be exercised, and I conceive is, in fact, exercised, so as to exclude from orders improper persons, who if they once obtained orders are not so improper as to be legally excluded from employment,

But this safeguard would be destroyed if any foreign or Colonial orders which are obtainable (say by a Sierra Leone negro) without the con- ditions imposed by an English Bishop, were accepted as equivalent to English orders, which imply the satisfaction of those conditions.

What, then, is practically wanting in case of foreign ordination? Evidently to provide that clergy desiring to obtain English employment in virtue of foreign ordination should be subjected to all these practical tests of fitness without which they would not have obtained English ordination. And this is at once rendered possible by not allowing them to obtain any position in the English Establishment till they have satisfied the Bishop whose Diocese they desire to enter, us fully as they would have had to

satisfy him on applying for English Orders.

I would submit that there is no sufficient reason

why this simple rule should not be deemed sufficient in all cases whatever of foreign or Colonial ordina- tion.

In this case, if any person who had been ordained by the Bishop of Adelaide or of Rome was presented to an English Bishop for institution to an English

living, he would have to show that his orders were valid; he would have to satisfy the Bishop on all these points on which he would be called to satisfy the Bishop if presenting himself for ordination; he would have to take all the usual tests and pass all the usual examinations which were conditions of his prefer- ment. And these conditions being fulfilled, he would be admitted to the preferment, and would become capable of any further preferment in the English Church.

This is the principle of the Scottish Episcopalian Act of 26 and 27 Vict.

It appears to me that this principle might be applied to all ordinations other than those of English and Irish Diocesan Bishops. And, adopting the principle, it would probably be found convenient to adopt the provisions of the Act of 26 and 27 Vict.

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rather than raise discussion on any point of detail on which it might perhaps be thought capable of improvement.

This proposal, however, is evidently more than Colonial. If accepted, it would render possible the total repeal of a string of entangled and somewhat discordant Acts of Parliament on what I will call foreign ordinations, and would substitute a simple, intelligible, and (I submit) adequate system in lieu of what was cleared away.

If it is thought that this course is too sweeping for the occasion, and that legislation should be confined to the Colonial exigency which calls for it,

it would become necessary to extricate from the knot of laws on this subject, all that imposes disqualifi- cations on Colonially ordained Clergy; to repeal it either absolutely or so far as it regarded such Clergy, and to apply the provisions of the Scottish Episcopalian Act to Clergy ordained by Colonial Bishops.

The only objections to this course are, 1st, the extremely unworkmanlike character of the result, which can only be appreciated after a close study of the details of the existing Acts; and, 2ndly, the difficulty (which is one of substance not form) of detining a Colonial Bishop.

I suppose it would generally be intended to qualify for English preferment (subject to the above conditions) persons ordained by a duly consecrated Bishop, who is, or at any time has been, acknow- ledged as Diocesan in any of Her Majesty's Posses- sious abroad by any congregations of persons adhering to the doctrine and discipline of the Established Church of England and Ireland.

But I am afraid, however simple this may sound as a matter of common sense, that this or any other definition when embodied in an Act of Parliament will prove either unexpectedly lux or inconveniently rigid in its application to the unforeseen circum- stances which are sure to arise.

Of course an Act must be passed curing all the inadvertent irregularities which are brought to light

by the Natal Judgment, aud I should say that such

a law cannot be too sweeping.

Condensing the results of all this

paper, I would

submit that the best course, if practicable, would be

to cnuct as follows:-

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