CO885(2-3) — Page 79

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference :--

• 885

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

40

Her Majesty may continue to retain her two great prerogatives as head of the Church, viz: the appoint- ment of Bishops, and the final adjudication upon appeal of all Ecclesiastical causes. In these particulars there is not in Victoria, nor, I believe, in Australia, any sympathy with the sentiments expressed by the Legislature of Canada. I cannot but suspect that the feeling of the clergy and laity of the Church in Canada is to be attributed altogether to recent circumstances, and will prove transient only. Upon this, however, I have no business to express any opinion of the feeling in Victoria I can speak with the most perfect confidence.

As I am shortly about to return to my diocese, you will greatly oblige me if you can inform me at

an early period of the views of the Government.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

C. MELBOURNE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

41

To the Right Honourable Henry Labouchere, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs.

The Memorial of the Right Reverend Charles

Loid Bishop of Melbourne,

Sheweth,

THAT your memorialist desires to call the atten- tion of Her Majesty's Government to the subject of a Bill passed in the year 1854 by the Legislative Council of the Colony of Victoria, entitled “An "Act to enable the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity "of the United Church of England and Ireland "in Victoria to provide for the regulation of "the affairs of the said Church," which Bill has been reserved by his Excellency the Lieutenant- Governor, Sir Charles Hotham, for Her Majesty's approval, and is now under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.

That the Bill was, in the month of May last, referred by the Government to the Law Officers of the Crown, who gave their opinion thereon on the 17th August following.

pro-

That it appears from such opinion, which was kindly communicated to your memorialist by the late Sir William Molesworth, then Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, that the Law Officers considered that the Bill, in “ posing to constitute an Elective General Assembly of Clerical and Lay deputies or representatives in- vested with general authority over all the affairs of the Church, which Assembly was to provide for the calling of future Assemblies, and to establish an Ecclesiastical Commission Court for the trial of

[346]

B