§ On the Motion that the House on its rising do adjourn until Monday,
§ MR. HORSMANsaid, that he would detain the House for a very few moments; but the importance of the subject, and the advised decision which the House had come to on the question of the Vicarage of Frome, made him feel that he ought to take the earliest opportunity of intimating the course which he now thought it right to adopt. He thought it better that he should do this than that he should allow this Motion for the appointment of a Committee to be postponed from night to night, until at length it might appear that it had died a natural death, from the House having ceased to take any further interest in the question. But, from all that had passed since the House came to that vote, he must say that he found the public interest upon this subject not in the slightest degree abated, nor did he find on the part of those who voted in the majority on that occasion anything but an increasing desire 939 to give effect as much as possible to the vote of the House. The House must feel the difficulty which he had had in dealing with the nomination of the Committee. It had not been his fault that the discussion had come on, and the vote of the House had been arrived at, at so late a period of the Session. He brought the circumstances of the case before the House in the month of April. Seven weeks then elapsed, owing to circumstances over which he had no control, and it was not until the 8th of June the decision of the House was taken, late at night. On the following day he was in the House at twelve o'clock, and was actively engaged from that time until six o'clock in endeavouring to obtain the names of Gentlemen willing to serve on the Committee. He had succeeded in getting the names of thirteen Gentlemen, who had allowed him to place them on the Committee. The name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) had been placed on the Committee without asking his permission, because, considering the position which that right hon. Gentleman had occupied in the debate as the authorised representative of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, he (Mr. Horsman) had thought that the name of the right hon. Gentleman ought to be placed on the Committee, and that, in case he should have any objection to serve, he should state his reasons to the House, and not to himself (Mr. Horsman). The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the City of Oxford (Sir W. P. Wood) was the only one to whom he had applied who had refused to serve. Two of the Gentlemen whom he had named in his list had been struck out, and others substituted, by the Government. He stated these facts only to show that every pains had been taken by him to have the Committee nominated, and thus enable it to commence its inquiries. On the Thursday he moved the nomination of the Committee, when a difficulty was raised by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and his attempt to nominate the Committee was defeated. On the following Monday he brought down to the House a complete list of fifteen Gentlemen who had agreed to be nominated. He must say that from the Government he had experienced no difficulty. They had felt it their duty, in the first instance, to deprecate and resist the inquiry; but when it was given against them they had shown no disposition to offer further impediment. 940 A difficulty, however, had been interposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, who made a proposal that, when the Committee was nominated, he (Mr. Horsman) should be ordered by the House to lay upon the table certain articles of charges. Even after this notice the Government had been ready to allow him to proceed with the nomination of the Committee, provided there was no likelihood of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment leading to a long debate. But the right hon. Gentleman told the House that he should preface his Amendment by a long speech, and the Government were obliged to take their measures accordingly, and stated that they were prepared to agree to his (Mr. Horsman's) Motion, but that they were not prepared for the right hon. Gentleman's long speech. Consequently, that had been the impediment to the nomination of the Committee. He would now explain to the House why he could not agree to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman. His reason was that he felt it to be one which he had no right or power to assent to. The right hon. Gentleman well knew that there was no precedent for laying heads or articles of charges on the table of the House in any case where an impeachment was not intended. If that was the case, what did the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman amount to, but this—that his (Mr. Horsman's) Motion had been made, and the votes of the majority given, with the view to the impeachment of the Bishop of Bath and Wells? As regarded himself, it did not matter very much if the right hon. Gentleman put such a construction on his Motion or vote; but it was manifest that he (Mr. Horsman) had no right, by assenting to that suggestion, to connect the 156 Gentlemen who had voted along with him with the intention of an impeachment. Not a single Member of those 156 Gentlemen believed or intended that their vote should lead to an impeachment, and consequently he should act unbecomingly towards them if, knowing that there was no precedent on this subject, he had laid on the table heads or articles of an impeachment against the Bishop of Bath and Wells. He had thought that the right hon. Gentleman ought to state to the House his reasons for the Motion he wished to make; and whatever might be the decision of the House, to it he (Mr. Horsman) would cheerfully bow. As far as he was himself concerned, the drawing up of heads 941 of charges would have much facilitated his task; and, indeed, the moment that he learned the right hon. Gentleman's intention, he did draw up the heads of charges, which he brought to the House in his pocket; and if the House had decided that he should present them, he should have had no objection. But a second reason why he ought not to assent to the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion was, that it would have established a precedent which the House ought gravely to consider; be cause if it were once ruled that a complaint was not to he made against a Bishop, to be followed by an inquiry, without that inquiry being held to be tantamount to an impeachment, then it would come to this—that if in the next Parliamant some hon. Member brought a com plaint against the Bishop of Loudon or the Bishop of Exeter, or a third Bishop, in every one of these cases, if they once established this precedent, the question would arise whether they could proceed in any mode than by an impeachment. He (Mr. Horsman) had stated at first that if the Committee should be appointed, one whole week would have been sufficient to establish all the allegations he had made; but still at this late period of the Session he felt that the public business was in that position that there was no probability, within the next two or three days, of his obtaining an opportunity of nominating the Committee. He, therefore, thought it fair at once to state to the House, and to the right hon. Gentleman, that in consequence of the difficulties that had been thrown in his way, he did not now feel it his duty to proceed moving for this inquiry. But in making that announcement there was one explanation due to the Gentlemen who had voted with him in the majority. They had all been placed in a very false position with respect to the Bishop. The most serious allegation that he had made against the Bishop related to the animus with which he had acted towards the parishioners of Frome—namely, that they entered into a correspondence with the Bishop, and yet that the right rev. Prelate took his own measure to hurry on the institution of Mr. Bennett, and endeavoured to anticipate the parishioners, and defeated their lodging a caveat by anticipating them. That was the most palpable, and in his mind the most discreditable, part of the whole proceeding. The right hon. Gentleman below him (Mr. Gladstone), who had studied the law of the case well, and knew 942 all its points, took no legal objection to the statement which he (Mr. Horsman) made; and it was only later in the debate that the hon. and learned Member for the city of Oxford (Sir W. P. Wood) got up and made a statement of the law of the case which had a very powerful effect, and influenced the votes of many hon. Members. It was a statement which surprised him exceedingly at the time; but the House gave implicit credence to it. He (Mr. Horsman) would now show it was entirely erroneous. He was interested in showing this, because were it otherwise the allegations he had made would have been very unjust towards the Bishop of Hath and Wells, He personally knew nothing of the law on the subject; but before coming forward to state a case in which so large a number of legal questions were involved, he had taken the precaution of preparing himself with the opinions of two high authorities in Doctors' Commons, to which the House would bow, and he now held those legal opinions in his hand. But first he should observe that the statement of his hon. and learned Friend, which he would read in his own words, was as follows:—
Formerly bishops had five months allowed to inquire into the fitness of the cierk—that was a large portion of the six months—and according to the canons as they now stood the bishop had only twenty-eight days allowed for inquiry, and after that time he might be proceeded against by the patron for non-institution of the clerk. Now what were the facts of this case? The bishop did not institute until the twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh day. Then what became of the charge of indecent haste?Now, the impression that that statement had made upon the House was, that the Bishop was bound to institute Mr. Bennett within twenty-eight days after the presentation. He (Mr. Horsman) answered that the language of the 95th Canon was merely directory, and not prohibitory, and that it was held in the Arches Court, in the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter, that the Bishop was not bound to commence the examination of the candidate for institution within the canonical twenty-eight days, but simply that after the lapse of that interval he was called upon to assign his reasons for delay. The decision on that point was not impugned by the appeal to the Privy Council; and the only limit to the time allowed to the bishop for institution, according to the canonists, was six months; and that limit was put in order that the right of patronage might not 943 lapse. Now, the first opinion that he had taken, upon a case drawn up by himself, was that of Dr. Twiss. The case was as follows:—The late vicar of Frome died on the 26th of December, 1851; Mr. Bennett was presented (say) the 29th of December following. Was the Bishop bound to institute him so soon as the canonical twenty-eight days had run out?—Or, how long might he have lawfully delayed institution?Upon that case Dr. Twiss had pronunced the following opinion:—The Bishop is not bound to institute a presentee to a benefice as soon as the canonical twenty-eight days have run out. The canon is directory, and it was held by the Arches Court in the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter, (2 Robertson's Reports, p. 28), that the bishop is not bound to commence the examination of a candidate for institution within the canonical twenty-eight days, but that the meaning of the twenty-eight days in the 95th Canon is, that after that interval the bishop may be called upon to as sign a reason if he delays to institute. The decision of Sir Herbert Jenner Fust on this point was not impugned before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It is also settled law (Hobart's Reports, p. 317) that a bishop may take competent time to examine the sufficiency and fitness of a presentee to a benefice, and he is not bound to institute him until he is satisfied of his fitness. Six months is the only limit mentioned by canonists, within which the examination must be concluded, so that the right of patronage may not lapse. In the case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter the presentation took place on November 2, 1847, and Mr. Gorham formerly applied for institution on November 8; but the Bishop did not commence his examination of Mr. Gorham as a candidate for institution until the 17th day of December, after the canonical twenty-eight days had expired. The Court of Arches held, overruling Mr. Gorham's protest, that such delay was not improper on the part of the Bishop, although attended with inconvenience to Mr. Gorham. (Signed)TRAVERS TWISS.Doctors' Commons, June 16.The second opinion which he took on the same case was that of Dr. Phillimore. It was rather longer than the first, but he would read the last paragraph:—I am of opinion, however, that it is competent to the Bishop to institute the clerk at any time within the six months after the presentation so as to avoid a lapse; for the words of the 95th Canon are directory only, and not prohibitory, and have so been adjudged to be. And I conceive, in the event of a caveat having been entered, a bishop (although the common law takes notice of it) would not consider himself bound to institute within the twenty-eight days, if the proceedings consequent on the caveat commenced during the twenty-eight days extended beyond that period.ROBERT PHILLIMORE.Doctors' Commons, June 18, 1852.These were the opinions which he had taken, and which indeed he was told it was 944 scarcely necessary to take, so clear was the law upon the point. He (Mr. Hors-man) dwelt on this point the more, because having advisedly brought so strong and deliberate a charge against the Bishop, if it had been shown by his hon. and learned Friend that the Bishop was hound to institute within twenty-eight days, and that so far from showing indecent haste he had postponed the institution till the end of the twenty-eight days, he (Mr. Horsman) would in that case have been highly censurable for his ignorance of the law and for the statement he had made. The case of Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter was the most remarkable ecclesiastical case that had occurred of late years. It raised this very point; and as Sir H. J. Fust's first decision on the subject was so very clear, short, and unmistakeable, that even a child could understand it, he would read it to the House:—He apprehended that he was asked to pronounce that the Bishop had no right to commence his examination after the twenty-eight days; but it seemed to him quite impossible that he could so construe the canon. He apprehended that so far as the Bishop was concerned, the canon was directory. No prohibitory words confined him within the twenty-eight days, and he thought it would be contrary to reason that they should be so restricted. Being of that opinion, he must overrule the objection that the Bishop of Exeter had no right to enter into the inquiry after the twenty-eight days.He was, therefore, surprised that the hon. and learned Member for the City of Oxford, so high an authority as he was upon all legal questions, should have fallen into so manifest an error in the statement of the law of this case which he had made to the House. He (Mr. Horsman) had now only to state that he did not think that at present he ought to endeavour to pursue this inquiry. He certainly could not do so without expressing his sense not only of the intrinsic importance of the subject, but of the importance which had been given to it by the proceedings of that House, and by the vote which it had come to. He could only say that, taking the part which he felt it his duty to take on these ecclesiastical questions—being himself a member of that Church in which, along with the majority of that House, he had been educated and brought up, and from which he had never for a moment swerved either in his allegiance or his attachment—he could not but feel that it was impossible to overrate the importance of the vote which the House came to the other evening. The inquiry for the present might be defeated, 945 but the result of that vote it was impossible to defeat. It was an indication of the feeling of that House, and of the feeling of the country represented by that House, from which it was impossible to escape. The country had been told, in a manner not to be mistaken, that whatever abuses or offences there might be, however exalted the offender, there was a Parliamentary tribunal to take cognisance of, and to inquire into, them. This was amongst the last, and by far the most important, of the decisions which had been come to by the present Parliament. It was a judgment deliberately recorded, and bequeathed as a legacy to future Parliaments. It was a precedent established, which he thought succeeding Parliaments would bear in mind. He believed that few decisions of that House had been more considered by the country, or had given the country more satisfaction. He was sure that the attention of Parliament having been aroused to one great scandal in the Church, which had been increased and aggravated by the impunity which it had hitherto met with, that they had now given a promise to the country that that scandal would in future be redressed. They had now given warnings to others that that impunity would no longer be continued; and that whenever a case of grievance could be alleged, such as it had been his duty to bring before the House, it was now established by a vote of this Parliament, and would be confirmed, he trusted, by the votes of coming Parliaments, that there was a tribunal which would inquire into those grievances, and would redress them.
§ MR. GLADSTONESir, the "few minutes" which the hon. Gentleman announced as the limits of his observations have expanded in his hands into a speech of tolerable length, and a speech containing as much criminatory matter as the hon. Gentleman has found it convenient to introduce. The hon. Gentleman has referred to-night to as much of his charges against the Bishop of Bath and Wells as he thought would bear repetition. He has reminded us to-night that he charges the Bishop of Bath and Wells with having shown undue haste in instituting Mr. Bennet; but I must recall to the House and to the hon. Gentleman the full extent of those charges; for the hon. Gentleman did not merely charge the Bishop of Bath and Wells with undue haste in performing a legal act—he charged him with a deliberate violation of the law in not subjecting 946 Mr. Bennett to due examination, in receiving him without the usual certificate, and in instituting him with indecent haste and precipitancy, contrary to the usual method, for the purpose of defrauding the parishioners of their just and legal rights. What has been shown in reply? It has been shown that the Bishop did examine Mr. Bennett, and if he had not examined him he would not have broken the law; he might have been unwise in the exercise of his discretion, but he would not have broken the law, if he had not examined him. He, however, exercised his discretion wisely, and did examine him. [Mr. HORSMAN dissented.] The hon. Gentleman did receive the evidence of a Member of Parliament in his place, that the Bishop did examine him—he received that evidence of the fact. I made that statement, and I invite the hon. Gentleman to challenge it if he pleases. The Bishop did examine him—the Bishop did receive the usual certificate—the Bishop did use no undue haste. I leave it to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the City of Oxford to meet the point of law which the hon. Gentleman has raised. What I said was, that the proceedings of the Bishop, so far as time was concerned, were precisely in the usual course. That usual course is, that when all the papers are completed which are necessary for the presentation, the legal right of the presentee takes effect in the act of institution; and what I urged was this—that the Bishop of Bath and Wells, as a judge set and bound to administer the law, is not authorised to deny or delay those proceedings in consequence of any informal extrajudicial step that may be taken by parties opposed to the institution. What would you say of a Judge in Westminster Hall who, in consequence of private representations made to him by parties who declined to take upon them their just responsibility—suffered his acts in administering the law to deviate one hair's breadth from their ordinary path? Now, that is exactly the case of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Those letters that were addressed to the Bishop were no authorisation for him to alter or modify his course of action. The hon. Gentleman says that the Bishop played with the parishioners, in order to entangle them into a correspondence. He did no such thing. They sent a letter to him, requesting him to refuse institution, and he returned to them a plain answer, to say that he had satisfied his own mind 947 on the legal questions involved, and that therefore he positively declined to refuse institution. He did not evade the point. On the 15th of January he told them that he declined to accede to their petition. They did not choose to avail themselves of the means which the law afforded them; and the Bishop waited till the papers were completed which constituted the legal right of the presentee; and those papers having been completed, he felt that he had no more right to delay than he had to deny, and the institution went forward in the regular and legal course. But the hon. Gentleman is not satisfied with vindicating himself for withdrawing the nomination of his Committee, but he throws upon me the responsibility of interfering with that nomination; and I regret that he should have forced me to follow him through this discussion. For when he gives the House to understand that I impeded the nomination of the Committee by adopting an unusual and unprecedented proceeding, he compels me, under the circumstances, to say that my proceeding is not opposed to, hut, on the contrary, is conformable both with precedent and with justice; my endeavours were to confine the hon. Gentleman to a precise and definite statement of his charges against the Bishop. And this compels me to express my deep regret, partly on account of conformity with precedent, but still more on account of conformity with the plainest dictates of justice, that the hon. Gentleman unfortunately did not adopt the course that I suggested to him, or that, when he unfortunately did not adopt that course of his own accord, he did not adopt it on the suggestion of another. Let us consider for a moment the position of this House. Here we are in number between 650 and 660 Gentlemen, elected by some two or three hundred different constituencies—a body containing necessarily amongst ourselves the greatest variety of character, capacity, and sentiment—and there is not a single one of us who has not authority to make any charge whatsoever that he pleases against any subject of Her Majesty; he may make any charge he pleases, and lay it on the table of the House of Commons, without incurring any personal responsibility whatever. Now, I ask the House to consider what a tremendous power it is that we thus wield—what a power upon public opinion—what a power for the destruction of private character—and such a power of accusation totally unchecked by all those 948 legal checks and restraints which in all other cases curb and check those who are disposed to vituperate and calumniate. Now I want to know what there is to restrain us, unless it is the steady adherence to one invariable rule on the part of this House, that it will never entertain (and so far as I am able to discover it has ever, even in the worst times, refused to entertain) criminative charges, except upon the ground of some distinct and definite basis, so that the party, if he has no remedy from false accusation, has it at least in his power to point to something and say, "That it is of which I was charged—that it is of which I was acquitted." Now, what does the hon. Gentleman say? That he made a charge which he did not intend to be an impeachment. Let the House bear in mind the case which the hon. Gentleman says he did not intend as an impeachment. I say that if he felt that he could prove the charges, in his attempt to make good which he had broken down, then it was his duty to impeach the Bishop of Bath and Wells. And if he did not intend to impeach the Bishop, then it only shows that the hon. Gentleman did not understand his own charges, or that he did not understand the obligations which belong to him as a Member of this House. I say that if an individual in the position of a Bishop, a Peer of Parliament, and a great officer of State, wielding great spiritual and temporal power, and empowered to administer a jurisdiction and functions strictly judicial—for that is the constitutional aspect of the case—if such a person is charged with a distinct violation of the law, committed, as the hon. Gentleman has alleged, with the corrupt motive of depriving and defrauding the spiritual subjects over which he exercises spiritual oversight of their just and legal rights—Sir, if there be any case for impeachment, that is a case for impeachment. But the hon. Gentleman does not see the real position of this House. He says the House is a tribunal to take cognisance of abuses. Sir, what abuses? Why the hon. Gentleman entirely assumes that he has shown the existence of abuses; on the contrary, all his charges have vanished into thin air. He knows perfectly well that the case against the Bishop of Bath and Wells has utterly broken down. I tell the hon. Gentleman—what the people of England have not learnt for the first time from his mouth—what are the fundamental principles and practice of the House of Commons. It has not been reserved for 949 the year 1852 to teach the nation that this House is the great inquest for the grievances of the people; that this House is ever ready to entertain the complaints of the people against public functionaries and officers of State; and that it regards it as one of its most important privileges to entertain them in the manner which the constitution prescribes. That, Sir, is no now discovery. But I believe that the hon. Gentleman must have learnt that this House has never shown itself willing to entertain charges of this grave nature, made in a manner so irresponsible, and with such manifest indications of an inclination to avoid putting them forward in a definite shape: if it were ever to pursue such a course as that, this House must become the refuge for licensed libel and defamation, because we should relieve ourselves from that restraint which the wisdom of our ancestors and the constant practice of Parliaments have imposed, namely, that in whatever we do of a criminative character we must always proceed on a defined basis, so that the man who has been attacked and charged will know, and be able to let others know, of what he has been accused, whether he be found guilty or acquitted. Now the hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong when he says there is no similar case of articles being exhibited to this House except with the view to an impeachment. do not stand upon that alone. I find, from what he says, that he did not intend to prefer an impeachment. I say that he ought to have intended to prefer an impeachment, if he believed in the truth, as I must suppose he did, of the charges which he thought proper to make. But the hon. Gentleman is wrong. As he is wrong in his views of the principles of justice, so he is wrong in regard to the practice of this House. In the first place, I do not stand on the ground that whenever any Member makes a complaint against any public officer it is invariably his duty to produce definite articles, or beads of his charges; what I say is, that invariably, when any Member has brought forward charges of a criminative character, the House has always proceeded upon the definite basis of a written document. I believe, however, that there is one class of exceptions to that. I believe, if I recollect rightly, that in such a case as the accusation of the levying of ship-money in the reign of Charles I., where the matter of complaint was perfectly notorious, the House entertained the question, and very pro- 950 perly proceeded at once to an impeachment. But, barring the case where the facts are so notorious as that, the House always proceeds upon something of a defined and documentary character. Sometimes it proceeds upon a petition. If an hon. Gentleman presents a petition, I do not mean to say that he is always bound to exhibit articles of charge. Sometimes, again, criminal matter has arisen accidentally, and obiter on public questions. The Commissioners in the case of Sir Jonah Barrington reported to the House that they bad accidentally come across matter highly criminative with regard to him; and in the case of Lord Melville the conduct considered to deserve impeachment was disclosed in the course of the inquiry of a Commission. In these cases, Sir, the documents of the Commissions formed the basis of the charge. The House was in a condition to proceed upon something that was understood and known, and the party who was charged had at all events this security, that although he could not punish those who might think fit unjustly to accuse him, yet he could vindicate his own character, because he could point to the charge and say, "This was the charge made against me—this was the charge of which I was found not to be guilty." But the hon. Gentleman says that these charges have never been exhibited—and this is his great case—except where an impeachment is intended; and that therefore I, by making this unprecedented proposal, have interposed illegitimately an obstacle to the nomination of this Committee. Now, he is perfectly wrong, as far as the Journals of the House go. There are many cases where there is no evidence to show whether it was the intention of the House to impeach or not. That must depend on the course which the examination takes, and the evidence that is adduced in the course of it. It may end in an impeachment, but it does not follow that an impeachment has been contemplated from the beginning. Then, again, the hon. Gentleman is wrong, because he seems to think that an impeachment entirely depends upon the decision of an individual Member of this House. It is no such thing. I understand it is a resolution of the House of Commons that orders an impeachment; and if it is said that a private Member ever impeaches, it is only a vagueness and looseness of expression. An individual Member does not impeach—no; but what the House does is 951 this—it ties an individual Member's hands who brings a charge before it, and requires him to lay on the table of the House some form or other of a defined and written basis of what he means to charge. And although I have not got the Journals by heart, I will give the hon. Gentleman a clear proof that his doctrine is erroneous—that written charges are not given by a Member who has no intention to make an impeachment. I wish the hon. Gentleman to study the precedent I am about to quote, and to get it by rote before he brings forward his next case of this kind. I refer to the case of the Bishop of Worcester, which is reported in the fourteenth volume of the House of Commons' Journals, page 37. The House would judge whether or not it bears out my statement, which is this—that written charges ought to be exhibited, if no impeachment has been professed; or, as the hon. Gentleman says, that there is no precedent of written charges being given in unless where an impeachment was intended. [Mr. HORS-MAN was here understood to remark that evidence was taken at the bar in the case cited by the right hon. Gentleman.] The entry on the Journals in the case of the Bishop of Worcester in the year 1702 was as follows:—
CASE OF THE BISHOP OF WORCESTER. "Journals, xiv. 37.1. Nov. 2, 1702.—A complaint being made to the House by Sir J. Packington against the Lord Bishop of Worcester and Mr. Lloyd, his son, relating to the rights and privileges of the House of Commons: Resolved to consider the same on November 18.2. Nov. 18.—The House proceeded to take into consideration the complaint of Sir J. Packington.3. Then follows the charge in writing.4. Then witnesses examined at the bar.5. Resolutions:—1 and 2. Charge made out. 3. Conduct malicious, unchristian, arbitrary, in high violation of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of England. 4 and 5. Address to Her Majesty to remove the Bishop of Worcester from being Lord Almoner to Her Majesty.6. Nov. 20.—Answer: Agrees to do so.7. Thanks.When the charge against the Bishop was taken into consideration, Sir J. Packing-ton presented written articles, and there was not the slightest pretence or intention to impeach the Bishop. It did not end in an impeachment—the end of that case was that the House addressed the Crown, praying the Crown to remove the Bishop of Worcester from the office of Lord Almoner. [See Hansard, Parl. History, 952 vol. vi.] The hon. Gentleman says that evidence was taken at the bar. Certainly it was. And what in the world has that to do with the matter? Sometimes the House takes evidence at the bar in Committee of the whole House, and sometimes it delegates that duty to a Select Committee; but I want to know, how can that have any possible bearing on this question? Nay, more; I say that if it is necessary for this House, or if it is the practice of this House, to require written charges when evidence is to be taken at the bar, much more is it necessary to have written charges when, instead of taking evidence at the bar, the evidence is to be taken before a Select Committee. Because when taken at the bar of this House it is taken in the face of the world; and whatever happens to a man who is the object of the accusation, at least he has this security, that the attack made upon him is carried on and brought to an issue in public, and the Members of this House would be ready and able, if they thought fit, to do justice in such a case. But when you refer a case of this kind to a Select Committee, a small number of Members are chosen, and under the peculiar circumstances the House may be acting not in the face of the public. If this security is necessary, then, when the whole House acts, much more is it necessary when the proceeding is not taken before the bar of the House, but before a Select Committee. This, therefore, appears to me one of those mean, technical, and immaterial distinctions which does not in the slightest degree touch the principle involved—the principle that, whenever criminative matter is adduced against a party, the House refuses to proceed, except upon the basis of written documents, unless the facts are admittedly notorious. That is the principle which I lay down, and on which I challenge the hon. Gentleman to meet me. Under that principle, it is plain that I no more required the hon. Gentleman to proceed on the grounds of precedent than on the grounds of justice, when I proposed that he should write out the charges which he proposed to make. It is in vain for the hon. Gentleman to say that he does not intend impeachment. I say that the matter of his charge would warrant, would justify, would require impeachment; some other Member might have taken the case out of the hon. Gentleman's hands, and might have brought forward an impeachment; it was the hon. Gentleman's duty to proceed as if an im- 953 peachment would be the result. But, whether that be so or not, I have shown the House that even in former times, when the principles of liberty were far less understood than they are at the present moment, the practice has always been to afford an accused party this reasonable and moderate shelter: that though he has no remedy against an unjust and a cruel accusation brought against him in this House, yet he has this defence—that vague charges will not be allowed to go before a secret and select Committee for the purpose of fishing for information, for the purpose of keeping back that which it may be inconvenient to produce—that this House will not act upon a principle which, I tell the hon. Gentleman, is more worthy of other and more southern countries than of the free meridian of this country of England in which we live. I deeply regret that circumstances have prevented the hon. Gentleman from proposing his Committee, and me from bringing forward the Motion which I am certain the House would have adopted, and compelled him to exhibit articles of charge against the Bishop of Bath and Wells.
§ MR. HORSMANrose to explain. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to place great reliance on the case of the Bishop of Worcester. In that case Sir John Packington complained of the Bishop's interference at an election; and he, without having been ordered by the House stated that he had drawn up in writing those heads he undertook to prove at the bar. The term "articles of charge" was never mentioned throughout the case.
§ MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he would not quarrel with the hon. Gentleman about the words "articles of charge." The hon. Gentleman might call it whatever he pleased; but what he Mr. Gladstone) stood upon was this—the principle he had established was this, that a Member of this House accusing a great officer of State of an offence against the law was bound to put his accusation into a definite and written form—that that was the principle and practice of the House of Commons, and, he would venture to add, the principle of universal justice.
§ SIR WILLIAM PAGE WOODsaid, that as the hon. Member for Cockermouth had cast the grave imputation upon him of having made a statement regarding the law which he said had misled the House, perhaps the House would excuse him for a few moments while he explained what he 954 did state and what was the law of the case, as he intended at least to lay it down on the previous night, and as he thought he had laid it down. As they had been promised that this inquiry would be renewed in a future Session, he would not say a word on the main question, but would confine himself to this particular point. What he said was, that the Bishop of Bath and Wells would have subjected himself to a duplex querela if he had refused to institute Mr. Bennett after twenty-eight days; but he never said that the Bishop could not institute after the twenty-eight days had expired. He said that for twenty-eight days the Bishop was protected—that he was allowed that period to satisfy himself, by examination, as to the fitness of the clerk by the provisions of the canon—and that though the canon would not protect him from a quare impedit at common law, because the common law did not recognise the canon, yet even the common law allowed the Bishop a reasonable time for examination. But he also stated that so jealous was the law of the position of a Bishop as being both a Judge and a party interested—as having the power to present in case of lapse—that though two months were formerly allowed for inquiry and examination, yet that time was now circumscribed, and the canon allowed only twenty-eight days for the inquiry. He did not say that the Bishop could not institute after the twenty-eight days were expired. What he said was, that if he wished to protect himself from the costs of an action, he must institute within the twenty-eight days. If, indeed, the parties had exhibited a caveat, and thus taken the burden upon themselves, and relieved the Bishop, then the institution might have been delayed beyond the twenty-eight days at the responsibility of the parties. With regard to the common law, it was true that it did not recognise the canons; but, as he had said, a reasonable time was allowed for examination, and so early as the 14th year of Henry VII., when a complaint was made against an Ordinary, because he had commanded a clerk to come to him "afterwards" to be examined, the Ordinary being then engaged in other business, the opinion of the Court was that that was a good plea on the part of the Ordinary. It was, also, laid down in a case in Sir Henry Hobart's Reports that a Bishop must be allowed a competent time for the examination of a clerk. Therefore, the case stood thus, 955 that the common law allowed a reasonable time for examination, which the canons construed to mean twenty-eight days. But, no doubt, the common law as well as the canon law would require a reason for the Bishop delaying institution beyond the twenty-eight days. The parishioners might have protected the Bishop, if they had thought fit, by entering a caveat, which would have strengthened the Bishop's hands in the case. The Bishop had no reason to ask them to do this before the twenty-eight days had expired, because he was safe up to that time. A part of the hon. Member's charge against him was, that he had made a statement of law diametrically opposed to a judgment recently delivered and universally known. He had done nothing of the kind. There was not a word in the judgment referred to which militated against the statement he had made to the House. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the Gorham case. Now, in that case Mr. Gorham set up the plea—I have been examined, but my examination is a nullity, because I was examined after the twenty-eight days' were expired. Sir Herbert Jenner Fust characterised that plea as monstrous. He said that Mr. Gorham might have raised a duplex querela after the twenty-eight days were expired, to know why the Bishop had not examined him before; and the Bishop would then, no doubt, have set forth his plea that he had been engaged, circa curam pastoratam—about other public business. If, however, such an action had been raised against the Bishop of Bath and Wells he could not have pleaded that he had not had time to examine him; because he actually had examined him, and the only plea he could have urged would have been the charge of heresy, or some unsoundness of doctrine. He asked, then, what became of the charge of indecent haste against the Bishop? The whole subject-matter of his statement, then, was this: That the parties had no right to throw upon the Bishop a duty which was theirs—to force him to prove what they were bound to prove—to force him to litigate what they were bound to litigate—and that, too, in a manner that would have left him utterly defenceless in a duplex querela, and would have subjected him to the payment of all costs. That principle was laid clearly down in Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, vol. i., p. 162:—
If the cause alleged by the Bishop be not proved, the Judge pronounceth as before for his 956 own jurisdiction, and the Bishop is to be condemned in expenses.That was the position which he maintained throughout his observations on a former night. Now, in making these statements he had no complaint to bring against the hon. Gentleman. He had given him (Sir W. Page Wood) notice of the charge he meant to bring against him, and he was in the House to defend himself; but the Bishop was not present to defend himself, and therefore there was ground to complain as far as he was concerned. His hon. Friend said that the Bishop had amused his parishioners with correspondence, and had then snatched the institution before the parishioners could have time to apply for redress. Now, his hon. Friend had not produced a single letter in which the Bishop gave the parties the slightest hope that he would interfere. On the 15th of January, he explicitly told the parishioners he would not; and this was nine days before the institution. For his part, he believed that there was no intention on the part of any one to exhibit a caveat. If they had done so they would have found the consequences very unpleasant to themselves; and it appeared to him that what they wished was to throw those consequences upon the Bishop, which, he might add, in the Gorham case had cost the Bishop of Exeter between 3,000l. and 4.000l. He trusted the House would excuse this statement, as he had been called upon in a measure to do so by the imputations of the hon. Member for Cockermouth; and he challenged any hon. Gentleman in the House to dispute the principles of law he had laid down.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERI trust no hon. Gentleman will attempt to impugn the propositions of the hon. and learned Gentleman at least till the next Session of Parliament. There is no issue before the House; and though I could not attempt to interfere with this discussion before, because both the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. and learned Gentleman were, in respect of their constitutional and legal principles, so personally assailed by the hon. Member for Cocker-mouth, that it was but fair they should be heard; yet I hope the House will now support me in pressing upon hon. Gentlemen this fact—that the privilege of speaking on the Motion for adjournment is one which ought to be used with some delicacy. It is impossible for us to attempt to carry on the business of the House, in the present state of affairs, unless hon. Gentlemen will 957 consent to wave this privilege with respect to a question which has now gone by. I hope we shall now he allowed to proceed with the business of the day; but I must add, as it has been my somewhat painful duty to make this statement, I feel it also my duty to say that if the right hon. Gentleman's Motion had been brought forward, we should have felt it our duty on the principles of justice to give it our support. The hon. Member for Cockermouth has done ample justice to the conduct of the Ministry in constituting the Committee, and in the facilities we gave for the inquiry. It is now useless to refer to the past; but I may remind the House that the question of the law is still left in an unsatisfactory state, and that we shall consider it our duty to take into consideration, with a view to remedy, the grievances which are on all sides admitted to arise from the present state of the law relating to the institution of clerks to benefices.
§ SIR ALEXANDER COCKBURNwould be very sorry to stand in the way of the House proceeding to the business of the evening; but, on the other hand, it must not be understood that his silence gave consent to the state of the law as laid down by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the City of Oxford (Sir W. P. Wood). He dissented in toto from the construction which his hon. and learned Friend put upon the law; and, having said that, he would not add a word more.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEmust take this opportunity to clear up a misapprehension which prevailed widely with respect to the opinions of many of those who voted for the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Goulburn), upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Cocker-mouth, and on that account were held to have voted directly against all inquiry into the circumstances connected with the institution of Mr. Bennett to the vicarage of Frome, because they concurred with the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford in expressing approbation of the conduct of the Bishop of Bath and Wells for instituting Mr. Bennett; and they were represented most falsely as having refused inquiry, with a view to prevent any steps being taken by the Government, and for the purpose of defeating legislative action, for the prevention of such abuses as the institution of men of unsound opinions to benefices of the Church of England. He (Mr. Newdegate) begged distinctly to state 958 that he participated in the disapprobation of the institution of Mr. Bennett which had been expressed by the majority of the House; but he preferred the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge to the Motion of the hon. Member for Cocker-mouth, because he desired that the law respecting institution to benefices should be altered, which was the object of the Amendment, but not of the original Motion. In his opinion, the Bishop of Bath and Wells had exercised a most unwise discretion when he instituted the Rev. Mr. Bennett to the vicarage of Frome; but he knew that in so doing the Bishop had acted in accordance with the latitude of discretion allowed him by law, and was not therefore legally culpable; and he (Mr. Newdegate) voted for the Amendment with a view to amend the law, in preference to the original Motion; because, however sincerely he deprecated the manner in which the Bishop had exercised the discretion allowed him by law, he did not wish to see that House constitute itself a court of appeal in ecclesiastical cases, or arbitrarily interfere with the legal exercise of the discretion entrusted to bishops in such matters, which would be clearly exceeding the legitimate functions of the House.