§ MR. MUNDYsaid, he would beg to ask the right hon. Member for Cambridge University, Whether the consent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, under their common seal, was previously obtained for the substitution of the Bishop of St. Asaph for the Bishop of Bangor, as President of the Hospital of Christ at Ruthin, in the county of Denbigh, as ordered by the Board of Charity Commission, on January 24th, 1860, pursuant to Section 2 of 21 & 22 Vict. c. 71, commonly designated "The Bishops' Trust Substitution Act of Session 1858;"whether the like consent for the substitution of the Bishop of Oxford for the Bishop of Lincoln, as trustee of Lady Conyngham's Charities for the benefit of poor Clergymen in county of Bucks, and of certain poor persons in parish of Hitchenden or Hayenden, in same county, by order of such Charity Commission, dated August 7th, I860, as disclosed in the Return ordered to be printed on 1st of March last (No. 84 of present Session); and, whether he considers that these two solitary instances in 445 a period of seven years are sufficient to justify the statement made by the Bishop of Oxford as promoter of this enactment, and of himself when taking up the conduct of this measure, as Her Majesty's Secretary of State, and now publicly recorded on the pages of the Statutes at Large, in the following words:—"Whereas it frequently happens that a Bishop of a diocese, &c,"in the preamble, section 1 of said enactment?
§ MR. WALPOLEreplied, that the object of the Bishops' Trust Substitution Act was simply this: that when a diocese had been altered in which the former Bishop, by virtue of his office was trustee of a charity, then the trust was transferred to the Bishop of the new diocese in which the charity would be from the time when the alteration was made. This was to be done by the Charity Commissioners, except where a right of patronage or any other ecclesiastical matter was involved. Now, the first two questions of his hon. Friend did not relate to cases of ecclesiastical patronage or to anything of the kind, and, therefore, the consent of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was not needed; for then the change was made by order of the Charity Commissioners, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had nothing to do with it. With regard to the third question—whether the Bishop of Oxford, as promoter of the enactment, and of himself when taking up the conduct of this measure, as Her Majesty's Secretary of State, were justified in the use of certain words in the preamble of the Statute? he had only to say, that he knew nothing of any statement made by the Bishop; but he believed that there were other cases besides those to which his hon. Friend had referred, and the word "frequently" would apply to such cases, as well as to the other two, and then the inference would be very different from that which the questor assumed.