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CONFIDENTIAL.

Sir,

Torquay, January 4, 1856.

REFERRING to the conversation which I had the honour to have with you on Friday last upon the Victoria Church of England Act, and the best mode of removing the objections which prevent the Government from immediately advising Her Majesty to give Her assent to that Act, I may be permitted to submit to your consideration the two following reasons, which make me desirous, in the event of the Government determining to apply for the sanc- tion of Parliament, that that application should be made in the form of a separate Bill for the parti- cular purpose, rather than a clause appended to a general measure for removing the disabilities of the Church of England in the Colonies.

I am advised that by the constitutional Act_of the Imperial Parliament under which the Bill has been passed (see 5 and 6 Vic., cap. 76, sect. 33, incorporated in 13 and 14 Vict., cap. 59), the Bill will become absolutely null and void unless Her Majesty's assent shall have been given to it within .. two years from the day on which it was presented to the Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony, namely, from the 30th November, 1854. Consequently, if the Bill is to have the sanction of the Imperial Par- liament at all, that sanction must be given in this next Session. But I conceive that a Bill for the simple purpose of confirming the decision of a Colo- nial Legislature in respect of a certain definite scheme, would have a better prospect of success than a clause of a more general measure, inasmuch as the former might obtain the

of support some, and escape the opposition of others, who would be adverse

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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to the general measure from a feeling of uncer. tainty as to the mode in which it might be carried out.

Again, it appears to me to be deserving of the consideration of the Government whether, on the one hand, the peculiar position and claims of the Melbourne Bill do not justify the separate treatment of that case, and whether, on the other hand, as a question of policy, the passing of that Bill as a distinct and independent measure might not be useful by affording means, in the observation of its results, for hereafter framing a general scheme of church legislation for other portions of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions.

In leaving England for my Diocese, I would take this last opportunity of expressing my earnest hope that Her Majesty's present Government will not disappoint the expectations of the members of the Church of England in Victoria, who look with con- fidence to them for that common justice which is all that the Church asks for, and which it is certainly entitled to receive.

I have, &c. (Signed) C. MELBOURNE.

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