CO885-(2-3) — Page 305

Colonial Episcopate.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

LILLICO.885

THE Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided, in the case of the Bishop of Natal, that the Queen cannot, in virtue of her prerogative, assign

'a sphere of action" to a Bishop, or, in other words, establish a diocese in a Colony in which she has created an independent Legislature.

This decision does not touch Crown Colonies, in which the Crown has not created such a Legislature, nor the West Indian Colonies, in which she has the power of constituting dioceses by Act of Parliament. It can hardly be said to touch Canada, in which local Acts appear to give the Church all the power it requires for its proper government.

The Churches more or less affected are those of South Africa, the Australian, including New Zealand, but except Western Australia and some of those in North America;-the Churches, that is, of the Colonies of Cape of Good Hope, Natal, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Queens- land, New Zealand, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, British Columbia, and Bermudas.

The following statement must be understood as exclusively relating to these Churches.

Broadly speaking, the Judgment raises two classes of questions:-

I. One relates to the position, prospective and retrospective, of Colonial Bishops, who are thus left, legally speaking, without a diocesan character.

II. The second to the position, prospective and retrospective, of the Clergy ordained by them, who, by 59 Geo. III, cap. 60, and other Acts of Parlis- ment, are disabled from holding preferment in Her Majesty's dominions, or officiating as Ministers of the Established Church.

I. With regard to Bishops, the first question [384]

B

6

3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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