Commons Sitting of 24 July 1856

MINUTE.
NEW MEMBER SWORN.—For Dorchester, Charles Napier Sturt, esq.

BISHOPS OF LONDON AND DURHAM RETIREMENT BILL.
Order for Committee read.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
MR. HADFIELDsaid, he rose to move that the House resolve itself into Committee that day three months. He belonged to a class of Her Majesty's subjects who had no temporal interest in the Church of England, except so far as the temporalities of that Church were contrary to the spirit of true religion. It seemed to him as if Parliament was monopolised by one denomination of Christians. Nobody appeared to bear in mind that the Church of England comprised only one-third of the population of the United Kingdom. Of the 27,000,000 of inhabitants 9,000,000 only were members of the Established Church; the remaining 18,000,000 consisted of Roman Catholics, Nonconformists, and the established Presbyterians of Scotland. Yet there was this peculiarity, that while Parliament was constantly engaged in discussing questions concerning the temporalities of the Church of England, the remaining 18,000,000 of the people never troubled Parliament in any way respecting pecuniary assistance except in two very insignificant cases. The days were gone by when the character of a Bishop of this realm was not to be made the subject of public discussion. The halo which it had been attempted to throw around Bishops and the sanctity with which the State had sought to invest them, excited in him no sympathy whatever. When, therefore, the Bishop of London came before the House, the only light in which he (Mr. Hadfield) contemplated the right rev. Prelate was
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that of a fellow citizen and a fellow Christian subject. He apprehended that the right rev. Prelate did not stand so high in the estimation of the English people as some hon. Gentlemen would represent. Neither as a scholar, as a divine, or as a public teacher, did he stand on equal terms of competition with many Ministers of the various denominations into which the other two-thirds of the people were divided. The general opinion was, that the right rev. Prelate carried his High Church principles and his bigotry to an extent which rendered him unacceptable to a large number of persons. He believed it was a fact that many of the votes given yesterday in support of the Bill were for the purpose of relieving the diocese of that right rev. Prelate's supervision, replacing him by an abler and a better man. By a recent Act of Parliament, it was settled that the salary of the Bishop of London should be £10,000 a year, whereas the real amount had been stated, on good authority, to be £22,000 a year. Now, this was suffered to take place in a Church to which belonged 10,000 clergymen, whose annual incomes did not exceed, upon the average, £100 per annum. This right rev. Prelate was formerly a schoolmaster. He (Mr. Hadfield) mentioned it to his honour. Every man who raised himself by his industry, integrity, and abilities was entitled to respect; but surely such a gentleman was not to be allowed, after having had the administration of the vast territorial revenue of £22,000 a year, to retain on his retirement a pension of £6,000. Why, the President of the United States only received a salary of £5,000 a year. The noble Lord at the head of the Government had only £5,000 a year. What had the public done for that noble Lord, in a pecuniary point of view, whose services to the country were infinitely superior compared with those of any of the Bishops. The Pope of Rome received for his personal expenditure only £1,500 a year. The Cardinals of Rome received but £400 a year, and the Roman Catholic Bishops in this country, who worked in a way that no English Bishop worked, received but £300 a year. Notwithstanding that, this right rev. Gentleman, who was now in possession of such a territory and in the receipt of such an income as he had just stated, called upon the House to stipulate with him that he should receive £6,000 a year as a retiring pension. The right rev. Gentleman once held the bishopric of Chester,

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the income of which was £3,000 a year. He held it for four years, and was then translated to the see of London, which he had held for twenty-eight years. Four years at £3,000 would make £12,000, and twenty-eight years at £22,000 would make £616,000, amounting together to the sum of £628,000. That was the sum which had been given to the Bishop of London, beside the patronage he enjoyed, consisting of no less than ninety-seven livings, and which were reported to be worth £70,000 a year. He wished particularly to call the attention of the House to this fact, that all this worldly wealth was at the disposal of a disciple of Christ—the Divine Minister of Mercy, who came into the world ushered in a manger, and who died on the cross—who wrought miracles to raise tribute money, and whose great disciple Paul worked with his own hands, that he might not be a charge to any man. With respect to the Bishop of Durham, he had enjoyed an income of £5,000 a year as Bishop of Chichester for five years; and his present income was £16,000 a year. He had held his see for twenty years, so that he had received altogether a sum of £345,000. The Act of Parliament relating to the incomes of the Bishops fixed the amount of the Bishop of Durham at £8,000; but, in fact, the receipts of that right rev. Prelate had, by some unexplained means, doubled that amount. These two Bishops had together received a sum of £973,000 besides the patronage attached to their bishoprics. Such an enormous sum was an amount unparalleled in the history of the world. These two Bishops had received nearly £1,000,000 of the revenue of the Church, while there were 10,000 clergymen of that very Church each receiving a sum not exceeding £100 per annum. Now, he would ask was such a state of things to be endured by the House of Commons or by the people of this country? But besides such large incomes and the immense amount of patronage, the Bishops were allowed a seat in the House of Peers. That he conceived to be an injustice to the country. Not only did those Bishops exercise their own rights as Members of the House of Lords, but the acted, by virtue of their spiritual character, as a most influential power over the minds of the lay Lords in that assembly. It was, therefore, wrong and unjust that Bishops should have a seat in that House. Those were serious matters for the House to consider. Did the House suppose that their debates were
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not read? Did they not believe that the charge of simony would be believed in by millions of Her Majesty's subjects? Would not the fact of these two right rev. Prelates, after having received nearly £1,000,000 from the State, and coming to the House and asking for retiring pensions to the amount of £10,500 a year, be canvassed in every pothouse in the country, and be made the subject of the song of the scoffer and the mockery of the drunkard? It was a happiness to know that there were men, even in the Church itself, who lamented such a state of things; while there were men, without the Church, of the largest minds and who had ever trod in the footsteps of their Divine Master, labouring for a pittance, before whom those two right rev. Prelates would be made to bow their diminished heads. Was either of those two Prelates to be compared with Robert Hall, with Dr. Pye Smith, or with Dr. Robert Newton? He could not allow the Bill to pass without expressing to the House what he believed to be a strong prevailing sentiment on the part of a vast majority of the people, and he warned the House to be prepared for the time when that sentiment would be enforced by much abler men than himself. He begged to record his opinion against a measure which he deemed odious; which he believed to be injurious to the country, to strike at the very root of all religious sentiment, and calculated to destroy the Church itself. To the honour of the Colonies of this kingdom, he could say that no one of them had followed the example of this country in forming a Church Establishment; and it was time that the Church should set its affairs in order, for such was the force of public opinion on this question that it would be impossible for that Church to stand against it.
MR. NEWDEGATE, in seconding the Amendment, said, he very much regretted that such severe remarks should have been indulged in by the hon. Member for Sheffield. He considered that the Bishop of London had dispensed his revenue with a most liberal hand. It was, however, with much pain that he (Mr. Newdegate) voted against the second reading of the Bill, but he did so conscientiously, feeling that if the measure passed it would establish a precedent which would work the greatest possible detriment to the Church of England. The Bishops of this country ought not to be left in such a position as either to be obliged to retain their bishoprics

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after the state of their health made it irksome to them to discharge their duties; or to make a bargain with the Prime Minister for the time being in order to secure them from being left destitute. It was the general feeling among churchmen that that state of things rendered the Bishops subservient to the Minister of the day. Either the present Bill ought to be made an exceptional measure, or it ought to be a precedent for future legislation. He would, therefore, ask the noble Lord whether it was his intention in the course of the next Session to introduce a Bill of a general nature to provide for all retiring Bishops who were incapacitated by infirmity or age? His opinion was, that there ought to be a legal provision made for the retirement of the Bishops, which they might claim after proving before a competent tribunal that they were incapacitated from discharging their duties.
Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House will, upon this day three months, resolve itself into the said Committee," instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORDsaid, he was most anxious to impress upon the noble Lord at the head of the Government the immense importance of acceding to the suggestion of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate)—to give a pledge that in the next Session a general measure on the subject should be introduced—because he could not conceive anything more prejudicial to the interests of the Church, or more calculated to discredit the character of the episcopate, than that upon every occasion of the retirement of a Bishop it should be necessary to pass a special measure. No one rejoiced more than himself in the connection between Church and State, but he thought that so close a political relationship with the State was really humiliating to the Church; and, seeing how aspersions had been cast in the course of the discussion on the characters and the acts of the Bishops of London and Durham, he could not suppose that, henceforth, any Prelate, however anxious he might be to surrender the responsibilities and the duties of his office, would venture to face the difficulties and annoyances incidental to special legislation. He supported the second reading of the Bill because
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the disadvantages of not passing it were greater, in his opinion, than those of passing it. It was impossible the diocese of London could continue in its present state, and the appointment of suffragans or coadjutors would not, he apprehended, meet the necessities of the case. Parliament had fixed the income of the future Bishop of London at £10,000 per annum for the entire performance of the duties; and if the measure now before the House did not pass they would leave a prelate in the see enjoying £18,000 or £20,000 a year, incapable of performing any of the duties. He regarded that as a conclusive argument in favour of the Bill. It had also been remarked that, after payment of the retiring pension, there would be a gain of £5,000 a year. The anomalous position of Church property might not be recollected. Parliament had sanctioned a mode of dealing with leases by enfranchisement, whereby the value of Church estates might be doubled. But the action rested with prelates and dignitaries, who were debarred, by their incomes being fixed, from obtaining any advantage from enfranchisement. Upon a vacancy in the see of London the estates would be transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who were interested in promoting enfranchisement, and the effect of the Bill would really be to give a much larger increase than £5,000 a year to the funds of the Commissioners. An appeal which he had made on a former occasion to the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) to put in force the Act of Henry VIII. might, at first sight, appear inconsistent with his support of the Bill now under consideration, but the two courses were perfectly compatible, because there might be cases for absolute retirement, as in this matter of the Bishops of London and Durham, and cases of Bishops, in full possession of health and strength, so overburdened with work as to be extremely glad to obtain the assistance of suffragans. He still, however, retained his opinion that great advantage would be gained from putting in force the Act of Henry VIII. It would not supersede a measure of retirement, and a measure of retirement would not supersede it. He hoped the present measure would be the prelude to a general one, and that the noble Lord would employ the recess in preparing a scheme which should be applicable to the general wants of the Church, and for ever set at rest this most important question.
MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he also wished to add his appeal to that of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, that the noble Lord would pledge Her Majesty's Government, if they should continue in office, to introduce a general measure on the subject in the next Session. A great deal had been said as to whether the Bill before them should form a precedent or not. In one respect he hoped it would. In other respects he hoped it would not. It was a valuable precedent, inasmuch as for three centuries since the Reformation there had been no instance of the resignation of a Bishop; but at the same time he must confess that he did not wish to see the details followed in a general measure. He did not complain of the amount of the retiring pensions, because, when they looked at the amount of the incomes those Bishops had enjoyed, it was nothing more than reasonable that their retiring pensions should in some degree accord with their previous incomes. If a general measure had been brought in, the bishoprics of London and Durham must have been dealt with as exceptional instances. That, therefore, was an answer to any complaint for not bringing in a general measure in the present Session; but, with regard to any general measure in a future Session, he hoped it would not be such as they might expect from the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham), who regarded the present state of the diocese of Durham, part of the duties of which were peformed by the Bishop of Manchester, as "satisfactory." [Sir J. GRAHAM: I said tolerably satisfactory.] He thought, however, that the right hon. Baronet would not be disposed to describe the condition of the diocese of Durham as tolerably satisfactory, if, on his return to his constituents, he visited Durham and some of the more distant parts of Northumberland. He did not wish to reflect upon the imperfect superintendence of a Prelate bowed down by age and infirmities, but the argument of the right hon. Baronet was, he considered, extremely dangerous to the Church. It was now only eight years since Parliament created the see of Manchester. [Sir J. GRAHAM: Thirty years.] He thought the see was appointed in 1848, but however that might be, Parliament had assigned an income of between £4,000 and £5,000 a year to the see of Manchester, and was entitled to expect that the Bishop would devote the whole of his time to discharge the duties of his own diocese.
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To say that the Bishop of Manchester had time to place at the disposition of the Bishop of Durham was, without doubt, one of the strongest arguments which could be used against episcopacy. That such would be the general feature of any measure the right hon. Baronet might introduce was apparent from the fact, that the right hon. Baronet had pointed out how, in the dead and torpid state of the Church which prevailed in the reign of George I., a Bishop of Rochester administered, without scandal or inconvenience, the see of London; and how, in 1843, the Bishop of Salisbury performed the duties of the diocese of Bath and Wells during the incapacity of Bishop Law. They were told that at the present time several other Prelates were incapacitated by illness, and the inference from the cases cited was, that the healthy Bishops were to perform the duties between them. No argument, he asserted, could be more dangerous to the Church or inconsistent in itself. The hon. Baronet the Member for the Univerity of Oxford (Sir W. Heathcote) said the relations between a Bishop and his clergy should be of a close, intimate, affectionate, and personal character; but how could that be expected if his duties were performed in the most rapid and perfunctory manner possible by a Bishop coming for the purpose from a distant diocese. He trusted, therefore, whatever the measure might be which Her Majesty's Ministers would introduce, it would not be founded on the views of the right hon. Baronet (Sir J. Graham). He hoped that the question of the subdivision of the bishoprics would not be overlooked. He believed there had been a recommendation, on authority, that subdivision should take place in both these dioceses. He had only that morning formed one of a deputation which waited on the noble Lord at the head of the Government to urge the subdivision of the diocese of London. He hoped that when bringing in a general measure for the retirement of Bishops, the Government would introduce some other measure for the extension of the episcopate, and he inferred that, there was some such intention from the concluding clause of the Bill under consideration, which provided that the new Bishop of London and the new Bishop of Durham should take their sees subject to any arrangement Parliament might make during the next three years relative to those dioceses. He must express his astonishment at the opposition which had sprung up against the Bill, and,

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although he had listened with attention to the arguments which came from right hon. Gentlemen exercising great authority in that House, those arguments appeared to him to be extremely technical. The opposition of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) was more reasonable, because he was opposed to episcopacy altogether, but, without following the hon. Gentleman into the lengthened disquisition by which he intended to show that there were Nonconformist divines with whom the divines of the Church of England could not compare, he would express his earnest desire that the House would support Her Majesty's Ministers in applying a practical remedy to a gross and glaring evil.
SIR JOHN FITZGERALDsaid, he was opposed to the Bill, considering it one of exclusion. It granted retiring pensions to two right rev. Prelates, both of whom were in receipt of immense incomes quite adequate to provide for themselves and their families. It appeared these two right rev. Prelates had sent a statement to the effect that from age and infirmities they were rendered incapable of performing their duties, and therefore on receiving a certain amount of annuities they were willing to retire. But, he would ask, were not the working clergy equally liable to various infirmities as the two right rev. Prelates? yet not one word was mentioned of providing retiring pensions for them—certainly the most laborious body in the Church. Another objection to the Bill was the very nature of it—a proposition coming from the two right rev. Prelates, stating on what terms they were willing to retire and give up their bishoprics; and what was the construction placed on such a proposal? Several of the learned Members of the House, during the debate, had declared that they considered such a mode of proceeding as amounting to simony; and he, therefore, hoped the noble Lord the First Minister of the Crown would pause and not persevere in attempting to pass the Bill. They had heard much of the "faith of a Christian" lately in that House, and they ought also, he thought, to bear in mind Christian charity, and not make such a Bill as the one now proposed an exclusive one, but have a regular scale of retiring pensions for all classes of the clergy drawn out—which, he was certain, would not only give general satisfaction to the country, but would also be of real service to the Church of England.
MR. HILDYARDsaid, great wealth
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appertained to the See of Durham, and he recollected that much discontent was occasioned when a portion of that wealth was appropriated to the legitimate purpose of increasing small livings. The suggestion of the hon. Member (Mr. Mowbray), if carried out, would bring back that wealth, and, therefore, persons interested in the diocese had strong motives for urging the appointment of two or three more Bishops. The present Bill provided pensions out of the Ecclesiastical Common Fund, without injury to that fund; but as soon as those lives fell in that would not be the case, and he must protest against trenching upon the "Common Fund" for the retiring pensions of Bishops, because it was at present wholly inadequate to provide for the working clergy. He would remind the House what had occurred with respect to the retirement of Irish Judges. There was no class of functionaries looked upon with so much consideration as the Judges. But it was not so with the Bishops. Religious prejudices and animosities were excited and made imperative the utmost precautions, so that on the one hand, they should not cling to place after they ought to resign for the purpose of throwing the patronage of appointing their successors into the hands of their political friends; and, on the other, that an unscrupulous minority should not be enabled to compel them to resign when they were fully equal to the discharge of their duties. He hoped Parliament would not be considered as represented by the small number of persons now present, and that when a general measure was introduced they might be allowed to freely discuss it upon its own merits. Although he disapproved of the Bill, and should be glad to throw it out, he would suggest that, after the strong expression of the opinion of the House in the division yesterday, the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) would do no good by persevering with his Amendment.
MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he must beg to explain that he wished the see of Durham to be so divided as to give a Bishop to Northumberland, with which county he had no connection or interest. He was in favour of the appointment of two or three more Bishops for the whole of England.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he was very well aware that the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) was a most determined enemy to the Church Establishment, and, as the hon. Member was of opinion

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that this Bill would be most detrimental to the interests of the Established Church, he thought he might, on the hon. Gentleman's own showing, claim his support. If the hon. Member really thought the Bill would have the effect which he ascribed to it he ought to divide with the Government in its favour, and vote against his own Amendment. He could not express himself in clearer terms than those of the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Mowbray) upon the point, that even if a general measure had been proposed they must have had a clause making exceptional provision for these two sees in question, because it was only fair and just that the proportion of retiring allowance should be calculated, not according to the reduced incomes which those Prelates had never received, but according to the incomes which they had been in the receipt of. Any general rule must therefore be subject to those exceptions. As to what might be the intentions of Her Majesty's Government with regard to a general measure he was not at the present moment prepared to state them, but he was quite prepared to say that if the Government proposed a general measure next Session they would do it upon their own responsibility, and that nothing which had passed in the course of the debates would preclude hon. Gentlemen from considering the measure upon its own merits. At the same time, with respect to the topic on which the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Hildyard) had dwelt—namely, his objection to any arrangement by which retiring allowances were placed on the "Common Fund," because he considered that fund ought to be devoted to the general interests of the Church by the increase of small livings. Now, the interests of the Church lay in more directions than one, and although it might be the interest of the Church to give adequate stipends to parochial clergymen, yet, it undoubtedly was greatly to the interest of the Church that the duties of the episcopacy should be effectively performed, and in the case in which a Bishop by age or infirmity was unable to perform those duties it was the interest of the Church to supply his place by an active and efficient Bishop. He only mentioned that to show that much could be said both ways, and that the House might not run off with the conclusion that no answer could be made to the argument of the hon. and learned Member. With regard to the method of supplying the places of infirm Bishops, he
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had no hesitation in stating that his own opinion was very much the same as the hon. Gentleman's (Mr. Mowbray's), that the arrangement of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham) would not be a good one. His opinion was—subject, of course, to the better opinion of the House—that if they were obliged by peculiar circumstances to relieve from duty an aged and infirm Bishop, it would be a bad arrangement to place under or over him, but in the diocese with him, an episcopal office, not having all that weight and authority which belonged to the actual possessor of the see. In his opinion, in that case they ought to get a clear see and appoint another Bishop, on whom the responsibility would be undivided, just as if a vacancy had occurred. He quite agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Hildyard) that retirement ought not to depend either upon the simple will of the Bishop or upon the discretion of the Government of the day. They ought to endeavour to find some independent authority which, having the interests of the Church at heart, and not being connected with the Government of the day, should determine in the two cases whether the Bishop wishing to retire was really by physical infirmities incompetent, or whether the Bishop, unwilling to retire, but evidently incompetent by physical infirmities, should not be obliged to retire. He thought it was quite right that that decision should not rest with the Government of the day, because any arrangement they might make would certainly be open to animadversion and the imputation of motives, to which, although persons who understood the political affairs of the country knew the Government were not really liable, yet it was undesirable the Government should be exposed. He therefore thought that, if there were a general measure, some such arrangement as he had suggested ought to be adopted. He was willing to admit that these partial measures were objectionable, because they raised discussion upon personal questions connected with dignitaries of the Church, to which it was unfair to expose them; but, without giving any pledge that the Government would be able to frame a fit measure, if they did propose any general measure it must be considered as the measure of the Government, and no one would be committed to approval of it by anything which might pass on the present occasion.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he thought that the answer of the noble Lord threw some light on the course which the Government would probably take next Session on this subject. He congratulated the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General on the task which he had undertaken, to form some kind of tribunal to decide on some general principle as to the claims of right rev. Prelates wishing to retire. The noble Lord had made up his mind so far, that he thought when the Bishop became unfit for duty he should be removed. He was quite of opinion with the noble Lord that it would be inconvenient to leave the decision of such matters to the Government for the time being. The noble Lord seemed also to have made up his mind as to the insufficiency of appointing suffragan Bishops. The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Mowbray) had commented on the strange course which had been taken in opposition to the Bill by Members who had always been regarded as the friends of the Church. But he would call the attention of the hon. Member to the fact, that the Bill proposed a novel mode of dealing with Church dignitaries, and that they who had opposed it were desirous of adhering to the established rules of the Church. He agreed with the noble Lord, that episcopal wants ought to be supplied as well as parochial wants. The noble Lord had commented on the observations of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Hildyard), who had entered his protest against trenching on the "Common Fund" to supply retiring allowances to Bishops; but the noble Lord seemed to forget that there was no "Common Fund" for the parochial clergyman to fall back upon if he became unfit for duty, either for a retiring allowance or for the support of a curate. If they were to act on a general principle, he saw no justice in providing for the pensions of Bishops out of the "Common Fund," while the parochial clergyman was left to support himself out of his own means. He was glad to hear that the noble Lord did not consider any one pledged as to future legislation on the subject.
MR.KINNAIRDsaid, that although he was not favourable to excessive episcopal incomes, and though he had objected to many things the Bishop of London had done, he could not let the criticisms of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) pass without notice. He believed Dr. Blomfield had administered the revenues of the see with great liberality.
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During his episcopacy he had consecrated not fewer than 200 new churches; and he had built and endowed one of them entirely at his own cost.
MR. PELLATTsaid, that, though a Nonconformist, he had voted for the second reading of the Bill, because it was a question of State, and he felt it his duty to support the Government in doing what was best to be done under the circumstances. He hoped that in framing any general measure the noble Lord would not overlook the propriety of removing the Bishops from the House of Lords.
MR. HADFIELDsaid, he would withdraw his Amendment.
Preamble postponed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question put, and agreed to.
House in Committee.
Clause 1.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that, retaining all his objections to the Bill, and deeming it to be highly indecent that the House should be called upon within five or six days to pass the measure, yet, judging from the division of last night, that the House would not concur with him in that matter, he should confine himself on the present occasion to proposing an Amendment, with a view of embodying his protest against what he conceived to be the objectionable nature of the Bill. The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Mowbray) had expressed great astonishment with regard to the course which had been taken by hon. Gentlemen who had opposed the Bill. The hon. Gentleman said that they ought to have done directly the reverse. His hon. Friend, no doubt, had arrived, with great satisfaction to himself, at that conclusion; but when he had devoted to public business as many years as those who had at present given four, five, six, and seven times as many years to the business of the public as he had, he would perhaps be less ready to express his surprise at the course which had been pursued. His hon. Friend had said that nothing but technical objections had been taken; but he (Mr. Gladstone) must tell his hon. Friend that one of the great dangers of the period in which they lived, and the most besetting sin of that House, was a disposition to live, in respect to legislation, from hand to mouth, and to make provisions for the moment and the hour, and then to call that practical legislation. When they were invited to direct their attention either to the general principles of the law, or to remote

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and ulterior consequences, they were told that these were mere technical objections. Now, he would ask hon. Members if it was a mere technical objection to consider the terms on which the resignation of a bishopric or of a benefice was made—whether it was made in connection with some emolument or not? However, his present object was to move an Amendment, for the purpose of recording his objection to this pecuniary bargain, which he considered to run counter to the common law of all Christendom. No answer had been given to the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Napier), that the resignation of a spiritual office on a bargain for the receipt of money, as an essential condition for resigning, was simony. He challenged contradiction to that proposition, and he felt bolder in so doing in consequence of the able arguments of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It was the bargain of the individual, it was the making the receipt of money a condition of resigning a spiritual office, which constituted the offence of simony. His opinion was, that no general measure would have given a sanction to any particular bargain; but it would have been perfectly easy to avoid any difficulty on that point. He entertained strong objections to making a particular bargain, and he believed his noble Friend at the head of the Government had fairly admitted, to a certain extent, those objections. He should, therefore, move that, instead of the words, "accept the resignation of his see by the said Charles James Lord Bishop of London," there be inserted, "accept the resignation of his see by any Bishop of his province."
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, the object of his right hon. Friend was to make the Act a general Act, instead of it being a particular Act, confined to two cases only. The first objection to such a proposition was, that no measure of the kind could be passed during the present Session. If his right hon. Friend enforced his Amendment, it would in fact negative the Bill.
MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he was sorry to have incurred the censure of his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford. He certainly thought that when the Bishops of London and Durham were about to surrender two-thirds of their income, they were setting an example of which no one could disapprove. He considered it to be an act of great disinterestedness on the part of those right rev. Prelates, and that no corrupt motive could be
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assigned to them. He therefore did think that the argument concerning simony was of a strictly technical character, and he still remained of that opinion.
SIR JAMES GRAHAMsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord at the head of the Government whether the letter from the Bishop of Durham, bearing date the 21st of June, was the first communication which had passed between that Prelate and the Government? It was known that the Bishop of Durham first intimated to the Government in November last, his intention to resign upon terms which had reference to the amount of income to be provided for him on his resignation. He therefore wished to ask whether the letter of the 21st of June, 1856, in which the Bishop stipulated for an annual allowance of £4,500, was the first communication that had passed between him and the Government with reference to the amount to be allowed to him on his retirement? His reasons for putting the question so distinctly was, that he wished to know whether the Bishop of Durham had not in the first instance required a larger sum, and whether the Government did not object to propose to Parliament a larger sum, and whether, after much communication with regard to the amount, this letter of the 21st of June was ultimately the result of frequent communications between the Bishop and the Government, and that the Government at last consented to recommend £4,500 as the maximum amount to be provided for the Bishop?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I beg, Sir, to say that I shall feel very glad to answer the question of my right hon. Friend since it has been put, though I must say that this is the first time I have heard of the circumstances which have been referred to. It is perfectly true that in the course of last autumn, or rather shortly before the Christmas holidays, I was informed verbally that the Bishop of Durham wished to resign. I took those steps upon that communication which I thought to be necessary, having then an intention of bringing forward a measure relating to these cases. But after a certain period I was informed, from the same quarter, that the Bishop of Durham no longer wished to resign; therefore the matter dropped. The first communication made to me by the Bishop was by letter. It may be, and very possibly was, the fact, that some days before that letter was actually written a verbal communication was

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made to me on the point; but this I do state—that at no time was any larger sum proposed than what has been mentioned, nor was there any communication or negotiation such as has been talked of, or any objection made by me to any larger sum than that which is mentioned in the Bill.
SIR JOHN SHELLEYsaid, that with regard to the Bishop of London, information from a source which he knew to be correct had reached him, that on the part of that right rev. Prelate no proposition of any kind had been made by him, except what was contained in the correspondence.
MR. EVELYN DENISONsaid, he very much regretted, now that they had got into Committee, that their attention should have been directed to matters not strictly before them. With respect to the Amendment, he doubted whether, if the proposed words were introduced, it would not be necessary to recast the whole Bill. He thought it would be impossible to transform the present Bill into a general measure, and he should therefore vote against the Amendment.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he did not think the words proposed to be left out would by any means have the effect of making the Bill a general Bill; nor did he believe that, if the Amendment were agreed to, the other clauses of the Bill would require recasting. The only effect of the Amendment would be that no special cause of resignation would be shown.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the hon. Member for Malton (Mr. E. Denison) was quite mistaken in supposing that the adoption of the Amendment would make it necessary to change the other clauses of the Bill. The principle he wished to lay down was, that the law of resignation should be a general law. The Bill did not authorise resignation, it only recognised resignation.
MR. NAPIERsaid, the Bill, if amended as proposed, would not give the two Bishops any new power to resign which they did not already possess by law; and a great portion of his objection to the measure would therefore be removed. The Bill would be simply a measure to make a pecuniary provision for two Bishops who had unconditionally surrendered their sees.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, in consequence of indisposition, he had not had the opportunity of expressing an opinion upon the Bill on a previous discussion, he therefore hoped the Committee would bear with him while he made a few remarks on the measure. It was not a subject
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on which he would venture to offer an opinion without much consideration. He deeply deplored that any observations should have been made to the effect that if the Bill were carried an imputation of simony would attach to the right rev. Prelates whose names were connected with it. That ought not to have been stated by any one who could not conscientiously aver that he was perfectly well informed upon the subject of the law and conversant with ecclesiastical proceedings. He ventured to say, with great humility, but with much confidence, that any man who would devote an hour to ecclesiastical history, or to ascertain what were the ecclesiastical duties of the Bishops—which any man might do who would look through the Statutes—would be perfectly convinced that what was now proposed to be done was in strict conformity with the law of the Church, and in strict conformity with the municipal and conventional law of simony, which was all that they were bound to recognise. Now, what was the practice of the Church in ancient times? He would read what was the history of the resignation of the Bishop of Durham in the fourteenth century. He quoted from Strype's History of the Life and Acts of Archbishop Grindal:—
"Purificatione Beatæ Mariæ imminente, Episcopus Dunelmensis Nicolaus, sentiens se annosum, valetudinarium, et infirmum, &c., Episcopatum suum Dunelmensem, obtcntâ tali à Domino Papa licentiâ, resignavit,—[hon Members should observe the peculiar phraseology of what follows]—et datis ad hoc provisoribus, Archiepiscopo Eboracensi et Londinensi et Wigorniensi Episcopis, assignata sunt ei tria maneria,—viz., de Hoveden cum pertinentiis, Stoctuna et Esingtuna. Recedens igitur à Dunelmo, acceptâ ibidem à fratribus licratiâ ad alterutrum dictorum maneriorum mansurus, perrexit, ut in pace ibidem, sine querelarum vel causarum strepitu, exutus à sollicitudinibus mundanis, sibi jam expectanti donec ejus veniret immutatio, liberius orationi vacaret, &c."
It might not be unworthy the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) to consider in what way objections to arrangements for retiring Bishops were met in those days:—
"Adulatores quidam pessimi cupientes placere Dunelmensi Episcopo Waltero, petierunt à Papa Episcopatum vel redintegrari, vel saltim minus damnificari. Quibus Papa. Miramur super his. Nonne facta fuit distributio illa, et partitio per magnam deliberationem et considerationem virorum peritorum, et consensum partium; et res jam confirmata est per nos, et regem Angliæ, et per piovisores. Et sic repulsi sunt accusatores cum probris."
There was another case—the case of Archbishop Grindal. He was Archbishop of

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Canterbury in the reign of Elizabeth, and, being blind, was incapable of performing the duties of his office. The Queen sent the Lord Treasurer to him, and, after an interview, the Lord Treasurer sent a message to some person attending about the Queen:—
"To inform Her Majesty at his leisure, that the Archbishop was now ready at Lady Day, being the end of the half year allotted him, to resign his bishopric, to be conferred by her upon some other, to enter into actual government of the Church of England, which sustained, he said, great lack for present action. That he yielded himself to Her Majesty's goodness to have some pension during his short life, which he (the Treasurer) wished to be great and honourable, although it should be to the successor burdenous for the present. But he that should have it must shape his garment with his cloth for the time. That he had seen into the value of the Archbishop's possessions, and found them to be about £2,780 per annum, according to the rate of the book of first-fruits. That he had also seen the particular books of the annual receipts, which grew somewhat, but not much, above; and if the then Archbishop might have £700 or £800 a year pension, he thought his successor with good husbandry might, make the rest to be £2,000."
[Mr. GLADSTONE: What is the book you are quoting from?] The passage is from Strype's Life of Archbishop Grindal. The Archbishop made two petitions to Her Majesty, that she would grant him the house at Croydon, and
"This he signified to his Friend the Lord Treasurer, showing him that in all resignations of Bishops, so far as he had read or heard, there had been always one house at the least, pertaining to the see, assigned to the resigner, as partly might appear by a note which he sent him, taken out of the history of Mathew Paris."
The other petition was—
"That he might not be called to trouble after his resignation for dilapidations. From which, as he was informed by the learned in the laws, he was by law upon a resignation excused. Notwithstanding, although he did not distrust the equity of his successor, yet because he had been so much troubled with suits for dilapidations, he was fearful. And therefore prayed, that he might have some good assistance if the case should so require."
It was so arranged that the House at Croydon should be given, and also freedom from dilapidations; and those conditions were recited in the deed of resignation which was prepared. The deed was not completed, because the good old Archbishop died before the arrangement could be carried into effect; but no one in those days—and they knew the law of simony just as well as lawyers did now—ever dreamt that Archbishop Grindal was open
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to the charge of simony. The hon. Baronet the Member for the University of Oxford (Sir W. Heathcote) referred to the statute 26 Hen. VIII., chap. iii. Whoever looked at the 2lst, 22nd, and 23rd sections of that Act would find that in every case of resignation by a Bishop, Abbot, or Dean, it was competent to the ordinary to assign a pension to the retiring dignitary, to be paid out of the revenue of the succeeding Bishop, Abbot, or Dean, and in some particular cases the statute provided that the pension should not exceed a limited amount. That particular statute was not in the smallest degree interfered with by 31 Eliz. The Act of Elizabeth struck only at corrupt resignations and pensions, which were the result of corrupt bargains. The consequence was, that by the law, as embodied in the statute of Henry VIII., and confirmed by the statute of Anne, it was competent to give pensions upon resignations, and, but for some difficulties in the manner and form of carrying these resignations into effect, there would have been no necessity to come to Parliament at all; but inasmuch as there had been no resignation of a bishopric since the time of the Reformation, there would be a difficulty, no doubt, in understanding accurately in what form to carry the law into effect; and it had therefore been thought best to bring in the Bill now before the House. He was surprised that a right rev. Prelate in another place (the Bishop of Oxford) should not only have objected to the Bill on the ground of simony, but also, he stated, because it was a privilegium introduced for the first time, and unknown to the law of the land. Now, that objection only showed that no man should deal in those observations whose knowledge of the subject was not so complete as to render it perfectly sure he could maintain them. It was said this was a corrupt bargain on the part of the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Durham. The words of the ecclesiastical law were that resignation should be spontè simpliciter et absolutè. He contended, then, that these resignations accurately fulfilled that interpretation that everything was done in facie ecclesiæ, and that there could not be the slightest ground for imputing a corrupt bargain to those Prelates. It was said that the Bishops offered to resign upon conditions; but he could not imagine a more perverse view of the question. The letter of the Bishop of London was merely to this effect—that he was desirous of receiving

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a provision for old age, and if it were allowed by law he would accept it; that if the law gave it to him, or if the law would give it to him, then he desired it. Was there any corruption in a man saying he desired to do nothing more than what the law authorised or should authorise? And when hon. Members spoke of a contract by the Government, they should remember that the arrangement made by his noble Friend the First Minister of the Crown was nothing more than that, if the existing law did not meet the case, a Bill should be brought in for the purpose. He trusted his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford would give him credit for speaking with perfect sincerity when he expressed his belief that he had laid before the House the true grounds on which a legal decision of the question could be arrived at. Sound reason and good sense would be sufficient, even if the question would not stand the test of the law; but he believed it would stand the test of law and of ecclesiastical usage. He believed that the provisions of the Bill were framed in complete conformity with what the law was upon the subject, and in complete conformity with ecclesiastical precedent and the usage of former times. The right hon. Gentleman had read somewhere that simony was bargaining. It was so; but it meant corrupt bargaining—the receiving money or other consideration—and the right hon. Gentleman had taken the naked proposition without its proper interpretation. If they altered the first clause in the way proposed, they must alter the Bill altogether, in a manner unquestionably not contemplated when leave was given to bring in a Bill to provide for the retirement of the Bishops of London and Durham.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was sorry to interefere with his hon. and learned Friend, but as the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman was addressed to him he trusted the Committee would allow him to say a few words in reply. His hon. and learned Friend said he would not pronounce a syllable of censure, and though he had not pronounced censure explicitly, he had come as near to it as possible with the interpretation he had put on the words repulsi accusatores cum probris. If there were any probra in this matter to whom did they belong? He thought he should prove that they did not rest upon him. The hon. and learned Solicitor General produced a book, which,
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by his learning and accomplishments—and no Solicitor General ever possessed greater talents and greater accomplishments—he had been enabled to discover, and from the extracts he had read he wished the Committee to believe he had convicted his opponents of gross ignorance, because, he said, any man who gave an hour to an examination of the law of the Church must have seen that the Bill before the Committee was perfectly conformable to the law, that the objections were nought, and that the accusatores ought to be repulsed cum probris. But what would the Committee think when he assured them that the cases quoted by the Solicitor General did not touch the matter in dispute in the slightest degree. The hon. and learned Gentleman had conveyed a perfectly untrue impression as to the character of the two cases. Now, what was the point of issue between him and his hon. and learned Friend? Had he ever said that it was improper to assign maintenance to persons who resign bishoprics? Did not the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe), representing a somewhat rigid rule with regard to the retirement of Bishops, and, at any rate, not taking a too favourable view of the case—did he not say that these Bishops ought to have resigned unconditionally and thrown themselves on the generosity of Parliament? His hon. and learned Friend's indisposition must not only have prevented his hearing the debate yesterday, but of knowing what was said, for if he had read what had been said in that House he could not have fallen into the gross error which he had displayed. The point at issue was not whether it was lawful to assign pensions. Who had ever said that a Bishop, if he resigned his bishopric, ought to starve? It was perfectly plain that provision ought to be made for a Bishop who resigned his bishopric, but the question was—and had the hon. and learned Gentleman exhibited only a hundredth part of the acuteness he was known to possess he must have known it—whether they ought to have, or had they ever had, an individual bargain for the resignation of a bishopric in which an engagement to receive a pension was made the condition of resignation, and without which condition the resignation was not to take place. The hon. and learned Gentleman produced two cases from Strype's Life of Archbishop Grindal to show the folly and inutility of the proceedings of his opponents.

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To support the doctrine he laid down the hon. and learned Gentleman quoted the case of a Bishop of Durham, and said it was perfectly plain there was no bargain in that case, for the words were, "sentiens se annosum, valetudinarium, et infirmum, &c., Episcopatum suum Dunelmensem, obtentâ tali à Domino Papa licentiâ, resignavit." Had it been that this Bishop had said he would resign if the Pope or the Archbishop would give him a pension, the case would have been parallel; but the "resignavit" preceded the words "et datis ad hoc provisoribus." The pension was provided by the will of the Pope, and when complaint was made, not of any bargain, but that too large a provision was made to the injury of the successor in the see, that complaint was found to be groundless, and the accusers were repulsed cum probris. So much for the case of the Bishop of Durham. He did not think the hon. and learned Gentleman would return to that case; at any rate, he distinctly gave him the challenge that there was not one syllable in the recital upon the subject of bargain; and the bargain here was the whole question. The precedent quoted had no more to do with it than with the question of Magna Charta. Then there was the case of Archbishop Grindal. He had not had an opportunity of examining fully into it, but, so far as he had been able to look into that case upon the instant, and so far as his recollection served, as to the peculiar circumstances attending the resignation of Archbishop Grindal, he thought it did not make one bit more in favour of the hon. and learned Gentleman's argument than did the case of the worthy old Bishop of Durham that he had quoted. Archbishop Grindal never voluntarily resigned at all. He was particularly obnoxious to Queen Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth considered him a very bad Archbishop of Canterbury, and so strong was her opinion, that she actually suspended him from the discharge of his duties altogether. He was not quite certain whether that suspension continued to the end of his life or not—perhaps he might have resumed the administration of the see. At any rate he continued in possession of the see; but Queen Elizabeth signified her pleasure to Archbishop Grindal that he should resign, and the signification of the pleasure of Queen Elizabeth, he need not say, was more full of meaning than anything which proceeded from him, or even anything which proceeded
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from his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General. There was no doubt that the whole meaning, purport, and significance of the communication from Queen Elizabeth was that he should resign. That was the basis of the whole transaction; but did Archbishop Grindal, or did he not, write to the Minister and say he was ready to resign, or did he write and say that he was ready to resign upon the assurance that he should have a pension?—for it was admitted that it was perfectly justifiable and honourable for a Bishop to ask for maintenance during the remainder of his life, and that was the outside of what Archbishop Grindal did. In his petition he apologised for not having offered to resign before, and then he continued—
"These were the considerations which hitherto had stayed him from offering of this resignation of his place. But now, knowing Her Majesty's mind, he would do it with all his heart; and would prepare himself accordingly to satisfy her pleasure, hoping for her favour, which he esteemed above all worldly things; trusting yet, and humbly praying, that by his lordship's means she would permit and tolerate him to continue in place till a little after Michaelmas next, when the audit of the see was kept for the whole year; that he might see some end of his said suits, the finishing of his school, and the multitude of his poor servants provided for; meaning in the meantime, both by his officers and himself, by God's grace, to have a vigilant care for the good government and well ordering of his cure. In which time he should also be more able to make a perfect account of all things, to the satisfaction of his successor.
There was nothing in his petition of a bargain for so much per annum. The Archbishop said he was ready to resign. He stipulated only for provision for his poor servants, to finish some matters in hand, and to give a more perfect account of all things.
"And after that time he would be most ready, with all humble thanks to Her Majesty, to resign his place unto Her Highness's disposition. Which favour he wished to obtain by the interest of him, the Lord Treasurer."
Then came a passage which had been quoted, to the effect that he had two petitions; one that he should be allowed the house at Croydon, and some small grounds pertaining to the same of no great value, and that he should not be held liable to his successor for dilapidations. [An Hon. MEMBER: That is very like a bargain.] Very like a bargain! why Archbishop Grindal neither made nor attempted to make a bargain. He resigned unconditionally, and there was not a syllable in

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the engagement to resign that would serve the argument of his hon. and learned Friend. His hon. and learned Friend said this was not a corrupt transaction, because it was a transaction in facie ecclesicæ. Were they really to take it for granted that the law was, as laid down by the Solicitor General of Her Majesty's Government, that a transaction with regard to resignation of benefice, if done publicly, removed all taint of simony, and made it a prudent, safe, and pure transaction? He could hardly suppose that his hon. and learned Friend intended the Committee to take that for law, but, if he did, he (Mr. Gladstone) must really request him to give his authority, and show them where it was so laid down in the Ecclesiastical Law. Where was his authority for defining simony as a resignation secretly made for money; but that, if the resignation were made for money publicly and under the sanction of the constituted authority, the bargain so made was not simony? Would the hon. and learned Gentleman produce his authority for that proposition? If not, his mere dictum could not be accepted. It was certainly in total contradiction to all that he (Mr. Gladstone) had ever heard or read. What a happy invention it was on the part of the Solicitor General! His (Mr. Gladstone's) right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole) did not consider publicity a cure for simony. Where, then, was the authority of the Solicitor General for his definition? Where was his authority to show that at any period in the history of the Church it had been permitted to make a bargain to resign a spiritual cure for money, and that that transaction was to be considered a lawful and legitimate one because it was carried on publicly? He entirely dissented from such an opinion, and held his judgment in a state of suspense with respect to the law which his hon. and learned Friend had laid down.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, it was much to be regretted that his right hon. Friend had not been brought up to the bar, so great was the legal talent he had displayed, so great were his powers of special pleading. Observe the art with which he had shifted his ground. He had denounced the Bill, but now with a dexterity that would have done honour to a pleader, he changed the question into an inquiry into a Bishop's letter. He (the Solicitor General) had read to the House the case of the Bishop of Durham, and the right hon. Gentleman had endeavoured
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to pervert it to his own views. Unfortunately, however, in olden times a custom prevailed—and this only showed how dangerous was "a little learning"—that when a Bishop wished to retire he made application that provisores might be appointed to make provision for him, and his resignation was always conditional upon that being done. When this Bishop of Durham desired to resign he made application for a residence to be assigned to him, and his resignation was always conditional. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Where does he stipulate? Where are the words?] "Et datis ad hoc provisoribus." What was the case with regard to Archbishop Grindal? He threw himself upon the consideration of the Queen, but he stipulated for his house at Croydon, for freedom from liability on account of dilapidations, and for a provision for his domestics. These three things were granted before he resigned. With regard to what the right hon. Gentleman had imputed to him on the subject of simony, he denied having said that an act would be less simoniacal because it was done in facie ecclesiæ. What he said was that it was evidence there was no corruption when it was done in facie ecclesiæ. He had also said that by the statute of Henry VIII. the metropolitan might have legally made these arrangements without the necessity of an Act of Parliament, but that the peculiar circumstances connected with the cases of London and Durham he considered required an Act of Parliament.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was very sorry that this conflict had arisen, but, as it had, they had better fight it out. They stood there upon a footing of equality. His hon. and learned Friend complained of his (Mr. Gladstone's) art as a pleader; but surely that was not a particular in which the hon. and learned Gentleman was taken at a disadvantage. He hinted at what he (Mr. Gladstone) might have done at the bar, but the unhappy fact remained that he had never been there, and on that score the hon. and learned Solicitor General had surely no right to complain. His hon. and learned Friend had made a quotation respecting the resignation of Archbishop Grindal, but that quotation was in the third person, and they were the words of the historian and not of the Archbishop himself. In Archbishop Grindal's own document he gave his promise to resign absolutely and without the slightest reference to any condition. At a subsequent period, but before the resignation took

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place, the Archbishop asked for the house and manor of Croydon, but he never attempted to qualify his promise of resignation. The promise of his resignation was one thing; the asking for a residence was another thing. Now, in the Bill before the Committee, these two things were connected by an indissoluble link, but in the case of Archbishop Grindal they were separate and entirely distinct. That was the case he wished to establish. The Committee could not fail to mark the contrast between the confidence with which his hon. and learned Friend commenced this discussion—producing this volume in their faces, and saying that any man who had considered the Ecclesiastical Law for a single hour might see the whole thing, and then ending in a tone of triumph with his sic repulsi sunt accusatores cum probris—and the subdued tone with which he had made his second quotation. The hon. and learned Gentleman then hung over his book in a manner much more gingerly, and did not indulge himself in that facility and promptitude of citation which had marked his first address. He made such a jejune and faint reference to the document as a man would do who only had "a little knowledge" of his subject, or who was venturing to speak upon it without having given so much as an hour to the study of ecclesiastical history. But let the Committee simply read the document, and then would they sec who was right:—
"Puriflcatione Beatæ Mariæ imminente, Episcopus Dunelmensis Nicolaus, sentiens se annosum, valetudinarium, et infirmum, &c., Episcopatum suum Dunelmensem, obtentâ tali à Domino Papa licentiâ, resignavit."
That was the first portion of the document. Now, his assertion was, that the recital of the resignation was a thing apart from the question of the provision made for the Bishop, precisely as, he contended, ought to be the case with regard to the provision for the Bishops of London and Durham. The document then went on to say—
"Et datis ad hoc provisoribus, Archiepiscopo Eboracensi et Londinensi et Wigorniensi Episcopis, assignata sunt ei tria maneria,—viz., de Hoveden cum pertinentiis, Stoctuna et Esingtuna."
This constituted the whole case between him and his hon. and learned Friend, and, without troubling the Committee further, he would leave them to decide who had taken the more correct view of the subject.
MR. NAPIERsaid, that if "a little learning" was dangerous there was sometimes even more danger in great learning. He (Mr. Napier) contended that there could be no lawful resignation without a condition annexed, and he would test that in this way. Would the hon. and learned Gentleman be content to let the Bishop of London send his resignation to the Archbishop, and let the Archbishop assign him a third of his income? He was surprised to hear the hon. and learned Solicitor General attempt to confuse the Committee by his mystifications upon a very simple question, and he challenged the hon. and learned Gentleman to state before the Committee that there had been an unconditional resignation.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, that to say a man could not bargain to resign upon such terms as the law allowed him to do was an idea consistent neither with law nor with common sense. He repeated there had been no corrupt bargain; and the resignations had not taken place under the statute of Henry VIII., for reasons he had already stated.
Amendment negatived.
Clause agreed to; as was also Clause 2.
Clause 3 (Pensions to be payable to the said Bishops).
MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, he should propose, as an Amendment on the clause, to omit the words conferring the pensions.
Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 14, to leave out from the words "There shall be," to the word "life," in line 17.
COLONEL NORTHsaid, he would take that opportunity of protesting against the speech of the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield). The noble Viscount at the head of the Government might just as well be reproached for the thousands of pounds he had received from the public during his long and splendid career. When the hon. Member talked about the receipts of the two right rev. Prelates he should remember their public services and their munificent charities.
MR. HADFIELDsaid, he could not understand the hon. and gallant Member's speech. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had not attempted to refute his (Mr. Hadfield's) figures; he had only told them that these two Bishops were charitable. Charitable! With whose money had they been charitable? There was one who would not take robbery for sacrifice; and for those two Gentlemen to take bread of ten thousand families fixed a stigma upon the country.

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He dared not express what he felt when they talked to him of the charities of men who luxuriated on such incomes, drawn from such sources, and paid them for such services.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he considered that these discussions were of a very painful character. The Bishops did not boast of their charity. If there had been any vaunting at all on the subject, it proceeded from men of all parties who had a warm and conscientious admiration of the liberality of those right rev. Prelates. It was most desirable that the Committee should decide on the Amendment. He did not know whether it was the intention of the hon. Member for Finsbury to name a smaller pension, but he (Mr. Gladstone) accepted the Amendment as an objection to granting any pension as a condition of resignation. There was a difference between the case of the Bishop of Durham and that of the Bishop of London. The former succeeded to his diocese under a regulated income of £8,000 a year, and it was from a defect of the law that he had received a larger sum. The Bishop of London, on the other hand, entered upon his see quite free from any stipulations or Parliamentary enactments. In estimating the pension of the Bishop of Durham, Parliament ought, therefore, to regard the annual salary of £8,000, and not make a calculation on the basis of emoluments which accidentally resulted from the faulty provisions of the Act of 1836.
MR. HEADLAMsaid, he could willingly bear testimony to the liberality of the Bishop of Durham's charitable donations in his diocese.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, he should vote against the Amendment, not wishing to withhold all pension from these Prelates. He concurred in thinking that the allowance to the Bishop of Durham should be regulated by the salary that he ought to have received, not by the amount which he had received owing to the unfortunate circumstance of the Act of Parliament being nugatory.
MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid, he was opposed to either of these Prelates having pensions upon the conditions expressed in their correspondence with the Prime Minister.
MR. WIGRAMsaid, he held that, irrespective of any contract between the Bishops and the Minister of the day, a Prelate who had served his country so long was entitled to an allowance of not
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less than one-third of the existing salary on his retirement from old age or infirmity.
Question put, "That the words 'paid to the said Bishop' stand part of the clause.
The Committee divided:—Ayes 105; Noes 30: Majority 75.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid, he would now move to omit the words "six thousand," from page 2, line 15, and insert instead the words "three thousand five hundred," as the amount of the retiring pension for the Bishop of London. He understood that by the new regulations the salary of this Bishop would be £10,000; and, therefore, one-third of that sum would form a fair retiring allowance.
Question put, "That the words 'six thousand' stand part of the clause."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 104; Noes 19: Majority 85.
House resumed.
Committee report progress; to sit again this day.

THE AFFAIRS OF SPAIN—QUESTION.
MR. MURROUGHsaid, he would beg to inquire of the First Lord of the Treasury, whether the Government were prepared to adopt any and what means for the prevention of the armed interference of France in the internal affairs of Spain?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Sir, I apprehend that there is at present nothing in regard to the affairs of Spain which could lead to any interference on the part of the French Government with those affairs. The Emperor of the French is a man of great justice, and would, I think in any case, feel that foreign interference with the affairs of the Spanish nation, except under circumstances which we cannot foresee, would be unjust. He is also a man of great sagacity, and the lessons of the past teach that those Sovereigns of France who have been led to interfere in the affairs of Spain have always, sooner or later, found that interference more or less disastrous to themselves. There can be no reason for apprehending that there is on the part of the French Government any intention to interfere in Spain.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY IN INDIA —QUESTION.
MR. GROGANsaid, he would beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control, whether any minute had been made by the Governor

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General of India, recognising delegates from the see of Rome, under the style and title of Vicars Apostolic, as the official channels of communication with the Government in matters connected with the Roman Catholic Church, and admitting the propriety of addressing the aforesaid Vicars Apostolic in official communication according to the ecclesiastical rank and position bestowed upon them by the Pope? Whether the Roman Catholic Bishops at each seat of Government were to be allowed a certain salary to enable them to send Returns, and to correspond with the Government? Whether a Roman Catholic priest, with a fixed salary, was to be allowed at every station where there might be British-born Roman Catholics, although there should be no European regiment stationed there? Whether the Roman Catholic priests wore to be allowed to receive medical attendance and medicines gratuitously in certain cases? Whether grants were to be given in aid of building Roman Catholic Chapels? And whether, although the Government orphanages were open to Roman Catholic children as to all others, a sum equal to the cost of maintaining each child is to be paid to Roman Catholic orphanages into which such child shall be received?
MR. VERNON SMITHsaid, the hon. Member appeared to have based his question rather upon applications which might have been made to the Governor General of India than upon any instructions which were issued by him. There was no Minute of which he (Mr. V. Smith) was aware similar to that to which the first question of the hon. Member related. Instructions had been sent out to India by the Government to the effect that there should be no alteration in the status of the Roman Catholic Bishops, and by orders which had been previously sent out they were not entitled to any consideration arising out of the rank which they happened to hold in the Roman Catholic Church. For a long period the Roman Catholic prelates had been allowed a pecuniary stipend for sending returns relating to their co-religionists, which was the best mode the Government possessed of obtaining information on such subjects. Latterly that remuneration had been confined to four Roman Catholic Bishops, of whom there was one in each of the four Presidencies of India. Roman Catholic priests at military posts, where European regiments were stationed, had always been allowed a fixed salary, and a
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similar privilege had lately been extended to stations where there were British-born Roman Catholic subjects employed in the civil service, the rule in India being that in those cases in which men were engaged in that service their religious education should be provided for. They had also been allowed to receive medicines and medical attendance gratuitously, owing to the difficulty of procuring those necessaries at remote stations. With respect to the last question, he should state that he was not aware that a sum equal to the cost of maintaining each child was to be paid to Roman Catholic orphanages in particular. Instructions had, however, been sent out to the effect that every attention should be paid to the teaching of Roman Catholic children in the several districts.
MR. GROGANsaid, he desired more particular information as to the dignity and position of the Roman Catholic Bishops.
MR. VERNON SMITHsaid, that the only information he could give the hon. Member was, that those prelates were not entitled to any consideration in consequence of their rank and condition in the Roman Catholic Church.

THE MISSION TO BELGIUM—QUESTION.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he had seen it stated in the London Gazette that the Earl of Westmorland had been sent by Her Majesty on a mission of congratulation to the King of the Belgians. He begged to inquire at whose expense that mission had been undertaken?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I am afraid that my hon. Friend will have to contribute his share.

EXPULSION OF JAMES SADLEIR.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid that, according to the rules of the House, he was entitled to precedence in the Motion he was now about to submit, which was one for the expulsion of a Member. He was about to ask the House to exercise a power inherent in it, and which was of the greatest importance as regarded the maintenance of its honour, its efficiency, and its influence in the country. He would not call upon hon. Members to use that power on light grounds, nor upon an occasion when it could be said that their act would tend to the establishing of a precedent dangerous to that House. He would not ask them to pass judgment by way of punishment on a man whom he supposed to be

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guilty, but to free themselves from the companionship of a man who had disgraced himself in the eyes of the nation. He would not ask them to constitute themselves, and assume the functions of a Court of adjudicature, for those functions, properly speaking, they did not exercise. All he desired was, that hon. Members should satisfy their own consciences as to the truth of the statements which he was about to lay before them: and if, as was the general rule, they would take the observations of one hon. Member as to facts of which he himself was cognisant to be correct, he felt no doubt that they would accede to the Motion which he had risen to propose. That Motion was, that Mr. James Sadleir, Member for the county of Tipperary, be expelled this House. The grounds on which he made the proposition were briefly these:—He did not say that Mr. Sadleir was guilty of the charges brought against him; with that he (Mr. Roebuck) had nothing to do. All he had to say was, that charges had been brought against him derogatory of his honour and destructive of his power and capacity as a Member of that House—charges which, not being rebutted by him, were a disgrace to that House as long as the person to whom they related continued a Member of it. Such were the accusations that had been brought against Mr. Sadleir. Into their truth he would not inquire, but what he did charge against him was, that, knowing that these accusations had been made against him, he fled from justice and did not attempt to defend himself. The charge which he (Mr. Roebuck) made was, not that he was guilty of a crime, but that, having fled from the accusation of one, he had confessed himself guilty of it. All that he had to make out was, that Mr. Sadleir had fled from the charge. The proof of that fact, he considered, would suffice to justify his expulsion. The first thing to be done was to show that he had been charged with a crime. On that point the papers that had been laid upon the table furnished abundant evidence. The bill of indictment found at Clonmel Assizes by the grand jury of the county of Tipperary—a document of which he held in his hand a certified abstract—attested that, upon the 18th of July, the grand jury returned against him a true bill, charging him on eight counts with fraud. That, be it observed, was on the 18th of July. On the 20th of June, the Master of the Rolls in Ireland used these words in delivering a
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judgment:—"It is now necessary to go to the succeeding stage of these proceedings, which I believe is unparalleled in the annals of fraud." So that, as early as the 19th of June, Mr. Sadleir must have known that he was charged with fraud. Last Friday, he (Mr. Roebuck) gave notice that he should call upon the honourable Member for Tipperary—no, his tongue had made a lapse—he would not call him the honourable Member, but the Member for Tipperary, to be present in his place while he (Mr. Roebuck) made a Motion for his expulsion. It appeared, therefore, that the Member had had notice, first, that in a judgment delivered by the Master of the Rolls, as far back as the 20th of June, he was charged with fraud; and, secondly, that on the 18th of July a Bill of indictment for that offence was found against him in the town of Clonmel by the grand jury of the county of Tipperary, Nor was that all. Some time previously a warrant for his apprehension had been issued by the Government, and the House had sent their messenger in search of him both to Dublin and to Tipperary. He was not to be found. He was not in the House, nor had they been able to discover him elsewhere. The inference was, that he had fled from justice, and, having done so, he asserted that he was not worthy to sit as a Member of that House. It might be said that he (Mr. Roebuck) was about to commit the House to a perilous precedent; and this case had been put to him, "Suppose that you had gone to America, and that some Member were to get up in his place and to give notice that next Thursday he should move that Mr. Roebuck do appear in his place on a subsequent day, when a motion for his expulsion would be submitted, what would you say to such a proceeding?" His answer was, that if he had been charged with fraud by the Master of the Rolls, if a bill of indictment had been found against him, if a warrant had been issued against him, and if that House had sent out their messenger to find him, and if, notwithstanding all these proceedings he had failed to appear in his place, he should deserve to be expelled. But it might be asked, "Why act with haste in such a matter? Where would be the danger in waiting till next Session?" Waiting till next Session! Had they not waited long enough already? Was this a case for delay? To protract it further was as though a man should lie down by the side of a dead body and attempt

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to compose himself with the noisomeness thereof. This man had disgraced the House, had brought shame and ignominy on the House, and the House, if it regarded its own honour, had nothing for it but to cut off the peccant Member. His expulsion, hon. Members must be aware, would not render him incapable of being again elected. The case of John Wilkes had established that fact. Though they should expel him that evening, it would be competent for him to go down to Tipperary to-morrow and solicit the suffrages of the constituents. But would he do so? He (Mr. Roebuck) would appeal to any Member of that House to say whether he did not in his heart believe that Sadleir had evaded the law, and that, in expelling him, the House would only be doing justice both to him and to themselves? Precedents were not to be disregarded on a question of this kind, and, if required, they could be cited. It might, no doubt, be argued that there had been in the case of the Member for Tipperary no conviction; but it was by no means necessary for his (Mr. Roebuck's) case to prove that there had been, inasmuch as the other grounds upon which he had based his Motion were, in his opinion, amply sufficient to recommend it to the adoption of the House. One of those grounds was that James Sadleir had evaded public justice; and a man could be supposed to take that course only for one of two reasons—either because he imagined he would not have a fair trial, or because he was conscious of guilt. The former reason could not, as hon. Members well knew, have any force in the case of the Member for Tipperary; therefore, the only conclusion at which they could legitimately arrive was, that he knew himself to be guilty and had sought safety in flight. But to advert to precedents, he (Mr. Roebuck) might observe that there was one to be found in 5 Geo. II., in the year 1732. In that case George Robinson had had the following charges made against him, and the following Resolution passed in his regard:—
"George Robinson, Esq., having been charged in Parliament with being privy to, and concerned in, many indirect and fraudulent practices in the management of the affairs of the Charitable Corporation for the Relief of Industrious Poor, and having never attended the service of this House, although required so to do, is guilty of a high contempt of the orders and authority of this House; resolved, that for his said offence he be expelled this House."
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Now, was not that a case exactly parallel with the one before the House? Mr. James Sadleir had been charged with fraud; he had been summoned, but he did not comply, and failed to appear in his place in that House. The Master of the Rolls, as far back as the 19th of June, gave him clearly to understand what was hanging over his head; the grand jury at Clonmel found a true bill against him; warrants had been issued against him by the Crown, but he had not been found. What greater proof, therefore, could they have that he had evaded justice? Another case that might be cited was that of Mr. Benjamin Walsh, who had been tried and convicted of fraud; but the conviction had subsequently been quashed, yet, notwithstanding that circumstance, the House proceeded to expel Mr. Walsh. On that occasion, Sir Francis Burdett observed:—
"He was very far from being a stickler for what were called the privileges of Parliament, but certainly, if there was a privilege or a power in any body or assembly less disputable than another, he conceived it to be that of declaring any one of the individuals of which they were composed unfit and unworthy of associating amongst them. It was, at all events, a power which, when compared with the other extraordinary privileges assumed by Parliament, appeared to him to be of all others the least liable to abuse, because if any member was expelled from any motives of party zeal or personal persecution, a remedy would be open to him in an appeal to his constituents, who, if they thought differently of his conduct, could unquestionably restore him to his scat."—[1 Hansard, xxi. 1187.]
Mr. Wynn, a great authority on Parliamentary matters, also said that—
"The object of the present Motion was not to punish Mr. Walsh, but to take a very important trust out of the hands of a person entirely unworthy to hold it."—[Ibid. 1194.]
Mr. Perceval remarked, as to the previous case of the Member charged with misappropriating the funds of a charitable corporation, that there had been no legal conviction, yet the House was not content with simple expulsion—it also asked for a legal prosecution. Thus it appeared that the House, after expelling a Member, went further, and addressed the Crown to institute a prosecution against him. It did not wait for a conviction before it acted; and even after the acquittal of Mr. Benjamin Walsh, it thought itself justified in expelling a man who had been legally pronounced innocent. It said it was morally convinced of his guilt, although by the laws of his country he had been allowed to escape;

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and that not as a court of justice, but as a body of persons called upon to satisfy their own consciences, they were persuaded the individual in question was unworthy to hold the important trust confided to a Member of that House. Such being his opinions, and feeling that every hour the representative for Tipperary remained a Member of that House, the power, the consideration, and the honour of that assembly were tainted and impaired, he should beg to move the expulsion of Mr. James Sadleir on the grounds set forth in the statement which he had just made.
MR. NAPIERsaid, he rose to second the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman, which raised a most important constitutional question. The jurisdiction which the House was invited to exercise concerned not only its own character and honour, but also the interests of the constituency of Tipperary, now left substantially without a representative. A notion very generally, and perhaps very naturally, prevailed, that the House at that moment had not materials technically sufficient to act upon. That impression doubtless arose from confounding the jurisdiction of that House with the ordinary jurisdiction of the courts of law. They could not examine witnesses on oath, they did not proceed on technical grounds, but rather on what satisfied the conscience of the House. That assembly being the exclusive judge of the worthiness of its own Members had now to determine whether, having regard to facts well known to them all, and on which they could fairly act, it was not due to the honour and dignity of Parliament that James Sadleir should no longer be suffered to retain his seat? In matters of that kind they must be governed by established usage and precedent. A Committee of that House sat in 1807 to examine into all the precedents of the expulsion of Members; and in the Report of that Committee all the precedents down to that date were set forth and classified. It was remarkable that by far the greater number of them were cases in which there had been no legal conviction. It should be observed in limini, that in one or two singular instances of this description the House proceeded first to expel the person whom it regarded as an unworthy Member, and then addressed the Crown to direct the Attorney General to prosecute him—thus marking the distinction which it drew between the case of Members whom it
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deemed not entitled to the appellation "honourable," and that of those who might or might not be legally convicted of crime. A man indicted for a heinous offence might elude punishment on some purely technical point, and yet in substance and in fact be really unfit to remain a Member of that House. There was a class of offences—such for example as the frauds in regard to which the Attorney General for England had brought in a Bill in the course of the Session, and the Attorney General for Ireland had promised to bring in one next Session,—which were undoubtedly grave crimes in foro conscientiœ, although not indictable by the law of the land. It therefore became the duty of the House, without setting themselves up as affected purists, honestly to inquire whether one of their own Members was not proved, by notorious facts to which they could not shut their eyes, to have evinced a degree of moral turpitude which disqualified him from remaining enrolled in the list of that assembly. On such questions the House acted on the statement of one of its Members in his place. And why so? Because they were bound to repose confidence in the honour of each other, the principle being that hon. Members, though returned for particular constituencies, were all bound together, as, in a sense, representing the whole community. In the Report of the Committee to which he had referred, the precedents were chronically arranged, and the first one enumerated was very remarkable. It happened in 1558. Mr. John Smyth had defrauded several merchants in London, and the question was raised whether he was entitled to the privilege of Parliament in regard to legal process. In Hatsell, p. 81, it was stated:—
"It should seem from the words of the order that the doubt was.…. whether a man who appeared to the House to have been guilty of so gross a fraud ought any longer to continue a Member. And as Prynne says, 'How honourable this vote was for the House in the case of such a cheating Member, carried only by five voices, is not fit for me to determine.'"
Again, the case of Sir John Leeds, in 1620, was that of a Member who, having been committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms, made his escape; and it was remarked, in the fourth volume of Hatsell, page 109, in a note, that "having by his flight acknowledged his guilt, he is expelled the House of Commons." Passing over many intermediate precedents, and coming to the period subsequent to the

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Revolution of 1688, there was the case of 1710, in which the House resolved, nem. con.:—
"That it appears in this House that Thomas Ridge, Esq., a Member of this House, is guilty of great fraud and abuses, by having contracted to furnish 5,513 ton of beer upon his own account, and 2,704 ton of beer in partnership with Mr. Dixon, and having received bills for the whole; although he delivered but 3,213 ton on the first, and but 1,269 upon the latter contract; that the said Thomas Ridge, Esq., be, for the said frauds and abuses, expelled this House; that an humble address be presented to Her Majesty, that she will please to give direction to Her Attorney General to prosecute the said Mr. Ridge for the said frauds and abuses."
He would not refer to the South Sea cases, because their circumstances were peculiar. The ground upon which Mr. Robinson—to whose case the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) had referred—was expelled, was thus declared in the Resolution of the House of Commons:—
"Resolved, that George Robinson, Esq., having been charged in Parliament with being privy to and concerned in many indirect and fraudulent practices, * * * and having never attended the service of this House, although required so to do, is guilty of a high contempt of the orders and authority of this House."
The expulsion was not based upon the charge of fraud, but simply on the ground that Mr. Robinson having been ordered to attend in his place, and having failed to do so, he had been guilty of contempt of the House. He found, from the Journals, that in the following year an Address to the Crown was agreed upon, praying that the Attorney General might be directed to prosecute the expelled Member. The next case to which his (Mr. Napier's) attention had been directed was that of Mr. Atkinson, who was indicted for perjury; a verdict was found against him, but he was never called up for judgment. The Attorney General for that day stated the whole process against Mr. Atkinson, the issue of which, he said, was,—
"That Mr. Atkinson had absconded from the justice of his country. In this situation it became Parliament to attend to their own dignity and importance. The Member had been indicted, in his opinion, on the clearest and most unexceptionable evidence, for what the laws of this and every other country held a very grievous offence; and the question would naturally be with Gentlemen, how was the House to act in such a case? Every society, in his opinion, were competent to their own preservation. It was the duty of Parliament, as he conceived, for that reason, to come to an immediate decision on a point, in which its honour and respectability were so essentially interested."
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In the present case, indictments had been found against James Sadleir; he had absconded from justice; the Attorney General for Ireland and the Government had done everything in their power to cause his apprehension; a warrant had been issued against him, and a reward had been offered for his capture. An order of that House had been made, requiring the attendance of Mr. Sadleir: and, as he had neither appeared to answer the indictments nor obeyed the order of the House, he (Mr. Napier) considered that the precedents he had quoted fully justified his expulsion. In the case of Lord Cochrane, Lord Castlereagh said:—
"Indeed, it never had been held that expulsion could rest upon any other grounds than that the Member expelled had not delivered himself from the charge legally charged upon him, and that therefore he was not a fit person to remain in this House."
He (Mr. Napier) thought that opinion of Lord Castlereagh, and the opinion of the Attorney-General in the case of Atkinson, fully justified the House in adopting the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield. When a Judge had declared in public Court that James Sadleir had been guilty of gigantic frauds; when it had been stated in a judicial judgment that those frauds had resulted from a conspiracy; when the charge had been embodied in informations; when warrants had been issued; when indictments had been found by the grand jury, which James Sadleir did not appear to answer; and when, having been ordered to attend in his place in that House he had neglected to do so, he (Mr. Napier) would ask whether it was right and fitting that the constituency of Tipperary should be left with such a person as their representative, and whether he should still be the companion of Members of that House, and entitled to claim the title of ''honourable"? The Attorney General for Ireland had stated that the case was one of such a special character that the opinion of high legal authorities in Ireland, that James Sadleir should not be prosecuted by the Crown, had been overruled, and the Attorney General had himself undertaken the prosecution. The case of Mr. Walsh was one of a very remarkable character. He was charged with felony; but the opinion of the Judge was that the offence did not amount to felony. On the Motion for his expulsion there were in the minority of eighteen the names of some of the most honoured

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Members at that time in the House, including Sir Samuel Romilly, Lord Brougham, and the father of the right hon. Gentleman in the chair. He (Mr. Napier) willingly admitted that in a case of this description they ought not to act upon light grounds or to be influenced by mere suspicion. He thought, however, that the present was a very peculiar and special case. James Sadleir, according to the statement of the Government, could not now be made amenable to justice; he had withdrawn himself from the service of the order of that House. Was it fitting, then, that he should continue to enjoy all the privileges of a Member of Parliament? Had the recent elections in Ireland afforded any ground for believing that, if he again presented himself to his constituents, they would be likely to re-elect him? Mr. Walsh, as he (Mr. Napier) had stated, was acquitted of felony, but the House considered that he was guilty of a fraud which attached a stain to his character and honour, and they expelled him. With reference to that case Sir Francis Burdett stated that of all the privileges of the House that of the expulsion of Members was the one least liable to abuse, because if the House committed any mistake the constituency of the expelled Member would set them right. Were a constituency, however, to be saddled with a representative who had withdrawn himself altogether from their service? What he would ask, was, according to the precedents, the duty of the House? He conceived that they were bound, by the consideration of what was due to their own dignity and honour, to teach a great moral lesson to the people of Ireland and of this country by expelling James Sadleir, and leaving it to his constituents, if they thought fit, to return him again to Parliament. He (Mr. Napier) had considered the subject most carefully, and when he had fully acquainted himself with all the circumstances of the case he was satisfied that some action ought to have been taken at an earlier period. There were such facts before the House as must lead them to the conviction that fraud had been committed—committed by men possessing considerable political influence and position, and having seats in that House. A great scheme of fraud had been established, but the scheme was broken up—the waters gathered around them, and the wheels of their chariots were broken. Here they had a great moral lesson, for though the perpetrators of this fraud
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might escape from Courts of Justice they did not escape from the consequences of their conduct, and he hoped with respect to the individual whose case was now before them, that he would not be permitted to enjoy the honour of a seat in that House, the Members of which were entitled to the appellation of "honourable." He did not think they were called on to declare whether this individual was guilty or not, but they were entitled to act upon facts and proceedings that were perfectly notorious. [Mr. J. D. FITZGERALD indicated dissent.] The Attorney General for Ireland shook his head at that statement, but he believed they were fully entitled to proceed in that House on the statement which had been made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself on to the fact that an indictment had been preferred against James Sadleir. If he understood aright the gesture of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, the Government meant to oppose the Motion; but if so, he would ask was nothing to be done? As far as he (Mr. Napier) was concerned, he had done a simple constitutional duty; and if the House shrank from the duty which he believed rested with them, they would be sheltering guilt, exhibiting a miserable example of timidity, and telling the world that men might be guilt of, or at all events charged with, crimes of the greatest dishonour and yet might set justice at defiance, and, at the same time, defy the orders and privileges of that House, and continue to claim the title of "honourable members."
Motion made and Question proposed—"That Mr. James Sadleir having absconded from public justice, be expelled this House."
MR. SPEAKERsaid he wished to know whether the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield desired to have the indictment read at the table of the House?
MR. ROEBUCKsaid he had no wish that it should be done unless the forms of the House required it. He had supposed the House would have considered it as read.
MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid, he wished before any statement was made by a Member of the Government to suggest the course which he considered should be adopted, because he was not sufficiently acquainted with the facts of the case, and he had no doubt many hon. Members were similarly situated. He thought the House should not come to a hasty decision on the subject, but rather take time first to investigate the truth of the charges alleged

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against Mr. James Sadleir, and to read the official documents which the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Napier) had so largely quoted from. The present was a grave judicial question, and ought not to be settled without examination. But, besides that his hon. and learned friend (Mr. Roebuck) had produced documents which he had been asked from the chair whether he wished to have read or not, and (Mr. S. Wortley) thought it was desirable that those papers should not only be read by the Clerk, but put in such a shape that every Member would have an opportunity of reading them for himself. He believed that the precedents that had been cited were not identical with the case before them. In the cases referred to the Members had been expelled for their conduct towards that House, after conviction of an offence, or from notorious conduct before conviction, and on which the House had afterwards addressed the Crown to prosecute. Whether the proceedings in those cases had or had not been hasty, and under what time and causes those proceedings were taken, he was not then prepared to say, but they sounded to him of harsh and hasty proceedings. Here they had the case of a Member of that House charged with the greatest possible frauds, who as yet had made no answer to them. Those charges had been made the subject of a prosecution, and which prosecution was now hanging over that Member's head, and they were about to expel him on the ground that having been charged with the committal of those frauds for which he was to be prosecuted, he had left the country to avoid justice. Now it should be remembered that Mr. James Sadleir left the country before the warrant was issued against him, and it was impossible for them to say he would not appear at the proper time and place to answer to the indictment framed against him, because it was well known that persons who were charged with an offence were unwilling to remain in prison for a period antecedent to their trial, and they consequently kept out of the way until the day of trial, when they surrendered, and that was one ground why he considered that they should not proceed at once to decide on this Motion. If they did, and Mr. James Sadleir appeared hereafter to take his trial, the House would be placed by it in a very painful and curious position. He should therefore move, that the documents referred to be printed, and the debate adjourned.
Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words, "the Papers presented to the House this day, relating to Mr. James Sadleir, be printed," instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. J. D. FITZGERALDsaid, he thought it was proper, before proceeding any further with the discussion, that the House should be made aware of the facts which were in evidence before them, because he, for one, must protest against the House proceeding on certain facts merely because they were declared to be "notorious." There was before the House proper evidence of the following facts:—That on the 4th of July informations were sworn before a magistrate against James Sadleir, and that the offence sworn against him was not felony or a misdemeanor, but that of conspiring with his deceased brother John Sadleir, to cheat and defraud the public by means of false representations; that the Tipperary Bank was a solvent institution when it was otherwise, in order to induce people in this country to become shareholders in that bank. They had also this evidence that, on the 4th of July, in consequence of this sworn information, a warrant was issued against James Sadleir; that on the 18th of July—being the first day of the assizes for the South Riding of Tipperary—bills of indictment were presented against him to the grand jury of the county of Tipperary, and that the grand jury, on the evidence of three witnesses, found a true bill against him; and further, that, on that bill of indictment, so found against James Sadleir, the Judge of assize issued a bench warrant for his apprehension on Saturday last. He believed he had accurately stated all that the House had before it in the shape of evidence. There were a great many charges and accusations which might be true—which they might perhaps believe to be true—but of evidence the House had nothing more before it than what he had stated. He might state, further, that Mr. Sadleir had not been arrested under the warrant issued on the 4th of July, and had not appeared to answer the charge preferred against him on the 18th. Assuming that the ordinary course of proceeding would be followed if Mr. Sadleir did not appear to plead to the indictment, the Crown would proceed against him to outlawry, and upon

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that outlawry, although the law did not consider a judgment of outlawry tantamount to an admission of guilt, yet if that step was arrived at, the House would have something on which it might act, and, if it thought fit, expel Mr. Sadleir. He would now allude to another matter. It would he recollected that on Monday last the House made an order that Mr. Sadleir should attend in his place on that day. As yet the House had not before it what took place upon that order, but he might state that on Monday evening one of the messengers of the House proceeded to Ireland, and on the following day (Tuesday), he served the order at the residence of Mr. Sadleir, in the county of Tipperary. Also, on the same day, he served the order at a place pointed out to him in Dublin where Mr. Sadleir had once resided, and likewise upon parties who were represented to him to be the solicitors who acted for Mr. Sadleir, in the Tipperary Bank case. It thus appeared that due diligence had been used; but they could not shut their eyes to the fact that it was only on Monday last that the Order of the House was made, and that it was not until the following day that it was served at the residence of Mr. Sadleir, in Tipperary. He made this preliminary statement to enable the House to form its judgment. Speaking of the case generally, he did not say that it was his intention, or the intention of the Government, to resist the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck). The case was peculiarly one for the House itself to determine. It involved the honour and character of the House, and the House ought to deal with it in its judicial capacity. But it behoved them, the proceeding being judicial in its nature, to act with great care and with prudent examination beforehand. The hon. and learned Member for Sheffield said he did not call upon the House to come to the conclusion that the charges were true and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Napier) asked the House to proceed, not on evidence but on conscience; but he would say that in a judicial proceeding they should proceed with great care, and in his judgment if they made an Order in accordance with the Motion they would take a very dangerous step. He did not say that the Motion ought to be resisted. It was a proper Motion, but the decision of the House upon it, he considered, ought to be deferred,
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inasmuch as the time had not yet arrived when they could act upon anything before them. He could not forget that the House had already by statute, with respect to seats affected by election petitions, denuded itself to a great extent of the power which it once exercised and in some cases abused; had confined that power within narrow limits; and had decided that in its proceedings it ought to be guided by something like legal evidence. In the case of Mr. Sadleir, his opinion was that, having regard to the constitution, the House ought not to pronounce a judgment without a proper preliminary inquiry—without either a confession of guilt or an amount of legal evidence tantamount to it. Nothing had yet occurred to justify the House in coming to the conclusion that there had been an admission of guilt. There was not to be found one solitary case in which the House, unless in times of violence, when might and not law regulated its proceedings, had expelled a Member without either a conviction, a confession of something which rendered him unfit to continue in his seat, or some inquiry at the bar or by a Select Committee. All the precedents which had been referred to classed themselves under one or other of those categories. In the first—that of Mr. Robinson, in 1732—a Select Committee was appointed to inquire into the alleged frauds. Mr. Robinson, however, was not expelled for fraud, but for contempt, he having obstinately refused, after due notice had been served upon him, to appear and answer the charge before the House. The case of Mr. Benjamin Walsh in 1812, was one of conviction for felony, but the charge of felony contained within it an accusation of gross fraud, whatever might be the legal definition of the crime. Walsh, in fact, could not have been convicted unless the jury had found the truth of this charge of fraud. After his trial and conviction the Judge came to the conclusion that, though the charge was true, yet in its legal definition it was not felony. Such was the state of the case when the House undertook to deal with it. The charge of fraud was found to have been established beyond the shadow of a doubt, and, although that fraud did not amount in a legal sense to felony, the House very properly expelled the Member. In almost all the cases which had been referred to the Member was either personally present or had made an admission of his guilt. He did not put these cases forward

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to prove that the House could deal only with cases of crime. If a Member had been guilty of that which tainted his moral character—which, though not a legal crime, made him unfit to continue in his seat—the House might and ought to expel him. Nor did he wish to say that, in order to warrant the expulsion of Mr. Sadleir, the House must come to the conclusion that crime had been committed. The House need not even enter into that question, but if it found that he had been guilty of fraud of such a character that he ought not to be allowed to consort with the Members of the House, it would then be its duty to expel him. None of the cases which had been referred to, including those mainly relie upon by the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield, were at all similar to that of Mr. Sadleir. In the case of Mr. Wilkes, which bore no analogy to the present, a speech was delivered by Mr. Grenville, which pointed out very clearly what course the House ought to pursue. Mr. Grenville said—
"Whenever this House has expelled any Member it has invariably assigned some particular offence as the reason for such expulsion. By the fundamental principles of this constitution the right of judging upon the general propriety or unfitness of their representatives is intrusted with the electors; and, when chosen, this House can only exclude or expel them for some disability established by the law of the land, or for some specific offence alleged and proved. … We are now acting in our judicial capacity, and are therefore bound to found the judgment which we are to give, not upon our wishes and inclinations, not on our private belief or arbitrary opinions, but on specific facts alleged and proved according to the established rules and course of our proceedings."—[Hansard, Parl. History, xvi. 561.]
In that advice so given by Mr. Grenville, the House would find the soundest principles to guide its proceedings, and a course of action laid down, which he hoped would never be departed from. The only precedent which he could find that had a distinct bearing upon the matter before the House was the case of Mr. Hunt, in 1810. Mr. Hunt held the situation of Treasurer of the Ordnance, and, upon the Report of a Commission, was charged with being a defaulter, and with having misappropriated public funds to the extent of £83,000. The Report of that Commission had been on the table some time when Mr. Calcraft gave notice that he would, upon the 4th of April, 1810, bring the case before the House; but on an intimation from the Speaker that his notice had been too short, he withdrew it, and gave notice again for the 17th of April.
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Upon that day, again at the suggestion of the Speaker, he deferred his Motion, and it finally came on for discussion on the 23rd of May. It appeared then that Mr. Hunt had gone to Lisbon, and that an Order of the House had been served upon him. Mr. Calcraft also produced a letter, which was proved to be in Mr. Hunt's handwriting, in which he admitted to have received the Order of the House, and also admitted his guilt, although not to the extent charged against him. The House then came to a Resolution that Mr. Hunt had been guilty of embezzlement, and to the further Resolution that he should be expelled the House. From the course which the present case had taken it was quite unnecessary that he should go through the whole of the precedents, and he would only state that he had examined them with care, and that they all partook of the character which he had pointed out. He had also gone through the records of the Irish Parliament for the last century, and he found that the same rule had prevailed there—that they had expelled Members who had been guilty of crime and of fraudulent misconduct; but that in no case had they done so, except on conviction, confession, or inquiry. In 1703, a Mr. Asgill was expelled. The Resolution stated that the House had examined several witnesses, and found that Mr. Asgill was the author of a certain book, and therefore ordered him to be expelled. He would now see whether there was anything in the present case on which the House could safely proceed. It was said that the charge was made by the Master of the Rolls on the 4th of March, but James Sadleir was no party to the proceedings in that Court, and it was not until the 4th of July that anything took place on which they could act. If he might advise the House, he would say let the Motion stand over until they met again; in the meantime the proceedings would go on, Mr. James Sadleir would either be made amenable and tried, or judgment of outlawry would be recorded against him. In either case then the House would have something on which to proceed. He would only advert to one remark of the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin, who told the House they should proceed on conscience. From that it would appear that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was inclined to view this as a political question. He (Mr. J. D. FitzGerald) hoped there was no Gentleman in

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the House who, on a question where the honour and character of the House were involved, would, under the name of conscience, deal with it in a political spirit. Against such a course he, at least, would enter his solemn protest.
MR. SEYMOUR FITZGERALDsaid, he quite agreed that this was a matter with which the House could not act with too much caution, but he did not think that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland had stated to the House what the real facts of the case were. The facts were these:—Mr. James Sadleir's connection with the Tipperary Joint-stock Bank had been the subject of inquiry in the highest Court in Ireland, and the Judge of that Court had found that a letter had been written by the late Mr. John Sadleir to his brother James, pointing out by what means one of the most unparalleled frauds could be carried out. They had it before them that that letter had been found in the possession of Mr. James Sadleir, and also that the directions contained in the letter had been fully carried out by them. [Mr. J. D. FITZGERALD: No, no!] Well, at all events, they had the fact that, in obedience to the directions contained in that letter, Mr. James Sadleir put his name to a fraudulent statement in respect to the position of the bank, and also that a fraud of so gigantic a nature had been perpetrated that the whole of the English shareholders, who in consequence of that fraudulent statement had invested money in the bank, were released from their liabilities. Those were the real facts which had been laid on the table of the House in the documents which were produced; and he must say, he was strongly of opinion that they ought, in consequence, to take some steps to secure the honour and reputation of the House. It must be recollected it would be impossible that any trial could take place before the Lent assizes, and therefore until the month of March next, Mr. James Sadleir would occupy the honourable position of a Member of Parliament. There was one thing he wished to know, which was, whether any proceedings of outlawry could be taken before that time? Although it was very true that until a trial and conviction had taken place, the House could not be put into formal possession of the facts of the case, yet he thought that no reasonable man could doubt—after what had been stated by a most upright Judge, who had fully investigated the facts of the case—
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that a great fraud had been committed by Mr. James Sadleir. His right hon. and learned Friend opposite (Mr. S. Wortley) had moved as an Amendment to the Motion made by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) that the papers should be printed. The effect of that would be to get rid of the Motion altogether. The papers were very short, and hon. Members had been placed in full possession of the facts of the case, therefore he thought there was no excuse for not coming to a decision upon the main question.
THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, he was most anxious to echo the advice given by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, that they ought to proceed with the utmost deliberation in this case. He believed that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sheffield was animated with no other desire than to uphold the dignity and the honour of that House. But it must be remembered that they were now exercising a judicial function—they must take care, therefore, that they did not act with precipitancy which might possibly lead to injustice. The House must thoroughly understand, that if they adopted the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend they would establish a precedent; for there certainly had never yet been a case in which the House had expelled an individual Member, since law and justice had prevailed, except upon previous conviction or some Parliamentary inquiry, where the accused had an opportunity of vindicating himself. As far as he (the Attorney General) understood, Mr. James Sadleir was not a party to the proceedings before the Master of the Rolls; neither had he had any opportunity of explaining or refuting the charges which had been brought against him. He (the Attorney General) did not pretend to assert that a conviction was necessary to justify a proceeding of this nature; but, in his opinion, there ought to be some preliminary inquiry by the House into the facts of the case. It must be remembered that the judgment of the Master of the Rolls had been appealed from, and even if it had not, that judgment was not formally before the House. He could not understand why it was necessary that they should act hastily in the matter. It was quite clear that within a few days Parliament would be prorogued. The House, therefore, could not be offended by the presence of Mr. Sadleir, neither could his

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constituents receive any injury, because in the interval between the prorogation and the meeting of Parliament they would have no need of his services. In the meantime, Mr. Sadleir would be required to surrender and take his trial. Upon that trial he would be either convicted or acquitted. If he did not surrender, the proceeding of outlawry would take place, and it had been laid down by the highest Parliamentary authorities that outlawry upon a criminal proceeding would be sufficient to disqualify any man from sitting in Parliament. By a postponement, therefore, they would avoid the charge of precipitancy, and they would avoid creating a precedent which might hereafter be converted into a dangerous political instrument. Taking all the circumstances, therefore, of the case into consideration, he thought that the better course of proceeding would be to postpone the Motion until the commencement of the next Session.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he did not intend to enter into the merits of the case, but he would put it to his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. S. Wortley) whether the better course would not be for him to withdraw his Motion for papers, and to let the House come at once to a decision on the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sheffield. There was nothing in those papers that was not already known to the House, and they would not to-morrow be in any better position than they were in to-day for coming to a decision. As to the case itself, he entirely concurred with the opinions expressed by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland. They were now called upon to preserve the purity of the House; that was, no doubt, a most important application, but one of the chief elements of purity was a strict regard of the principles of justice, and an avoidance of precedents which might hereafter be converted to purposes of injustice. Assuming that there was a full conviction in the mind of every hon. Member of the guilt of James Sadleir, still he held that they ought not to take a proceeding in the nature of expulsion without being able to found it upon some formal indisputable ground, such as conviction or confession, or the Report, after due examination, of a Committee—something which, at present, thoy had not. He, therefore, urged the House, out of regard to its own purity and to the principles of justice, not to establish a precedent which
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might on future occasions be converted into an instrument of injustice, but to postpone their decision until they were in a better position to decide.
SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, there was one ground which compelled him to ask the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield not to press his Motion. A Motion was made on Monday for Mr. James Sadleir to appear in the House on Thursday. That period was very short, and Mr. Sadleir could scarcely have been present if he had felt so disposed.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he agreed with the noble Lord at the head of the Government, that the best way of vindicating the honour of the House was to act justly. Without expressing any opinion as to the case of James Sadleir, he thought that the worse the case seemed the more careful they ought to be not to act upon it until the person implicated had had an opportunity of being heard. He could not say that when notice to a person to appear in that House on a Thursday had only been given on a Monday, and there was no proofs of personal service, he was to be treated as absent.
MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid, he had no objection to withdraw his Amendment, if the hon. and learned Gentleman below him would withdraw his Motion. The hon. and learned Member for Sheffield makes no sign. Under these circumstances he could only withdraw his Amendment, on the understanding that the noble Lord would move the previous Question.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I beg, Sir, to move the previous Question.
MR. ROEBUCK: Sir, I suppose there will be no further discussion on this matter. It strikes me, from the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, that some political considerations are mixed up with this question—[cries of "No, no!"] I understood him so, and I think it a most unhappy thing that we cannot touch anything in regard to Ireland unless political feelings are imported into the discussion. I have done the best I could to support the honour and dignity of the House, and if I find the majority against me, of course I cannot help it. Hon. Gentlemen have talked about the danger of precedent. No man, however, had pointed out what that danger is. What is this case? A man commits a crime dishonourable in itself. He is found by the Master of the Rolls guilty of a fraud of the most atrocious description;

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and I ask, therefore, if such a man ought not to be expelled from the House of Commons? To talk about danger, and to affect a squeamishness of this sort, appears to me to be most inconsistent with the maintenance of the honour and dignity of the House. Sir, we stand dishonoured by the association with a peccant Member. I have done what I could to free you from that association, and the blame must therefore rest with those who have prevented me.
MR. NAPIERsaid, that in reference to the remark of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Henley) he could state that efforts had been made to serve the Order on James Sadleir, but he could not be found.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he must repudiate in the most distinct terms, on the part of the House, the charge which had been brought against it by the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield. The arguments that had been urged in the course of the discussion did honour both to those who had used them and to those who had been influenced by them. As far as he could understand the grounds upon which the House had proceeded, they had wholly discarded any considerations as to the side of the House upon which the person sat who was the object of the inquiry; they had proceeded entirely upon abstract principles of justice.
MR. MALINSsaid, he thought that the worst course to be adopted was, to move the previous question; but, at the same time, he wished it to be understood that his opinion was not grounded upon any hesitation of a private kind, as to whether this was a case in which it was necessary to expel a Member from the House or not. He hoped his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Roebuck) would renew his Motion. He did not think there could be any mode by which, except by accepting the Chiltern Hundreds, Mr. James Sadleir could now escape from the vote of that House, and the expulsion to which he ought to be subjected.
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, that having observed the course of the whole proceedings during the last six months, and not believing that any evidence could be adduced to justify the person in question, he was prepared to vote with the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield. But, as it appeared to be thought by a majority of the House that it was better to wait a little, he would recommend the hon. and learned Member not to divide, since if he were in
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a minority the effect would be that a great number would escape whom he believed to be equally guilty.
MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid he had no doubt the time would come when the House would interfere, but it would be better not to proceed hastily. When the time did come he did not question that the House would act with vigour and firmness.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question again proposed, "That Mr. James Sadleir, having absconded from public justice, be expelled this House."
Whereupon the Previous Question, "That that Question be now put," was put, and negatived.
MR. ROEBUCK: I wish, Sir, to put a question to the noble Lord at the head of the Government. If an application is made for the Chiltern Hundreds for Mr. James Sadleir, will the Government pledge themselves not to grant it?
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: Undoubtedly.

BISHOPS OF LONDON AND DURHAM RETIREMENT BILL.
Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
Clause 3.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid, he should now move to omit the sum of £4,500, and to substitute the sum of £3,000 (the former being the amount proposed as the retiring pension of the Bishop of Durham). He took that course upon the following grounds—He was told upon the highest authority that the Bishop of Durham was entitled by law to a salary of £8,000 a year, but, that by an ingenious arrangement made between himself and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, he was to pay a certain sum of money, and receive all the proceeds of his estates after that amount. In that way, instead of £8,000 the Bishop had been in the receipt of some £14,000 or £16,000 a year. His proposition was to limit his retiring salary to one-third of that which it was originally intended he should have received.
Amendment proposed, in line 16, to leave out the words "four thousand five hundred" and insert the words "three thousand."
SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he could not but think that the Motion of the hon. and learned Member had some claim upon the consideration of the Committee. No one could say that £3,000 was too small a sum for a Bishop who was wholly

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incapacitated for further business. He should support the Amendment, believing that the question stood upon different ground from the sum voted to the Bishop of London. In spite of what the Government said, the Bill would form a precedent for the income to be fixed hereafter in any general measure. There was nothing to justify so high a charge as this. The Bishop of Durham had had a larger income than £8,000, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had parted with property which did not belong to them when they gave him more than that sum.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid, that one reason which had been stated for giving the retiring Bishops those high salaries was, that they had establishments to maintain both in town and in the country; but it was idle to talk of voting away the money, and to suppose it was necessary for any such purpose; because, on their retiring, they would give up one at least of their establishments. By the present state of the law an active Bishop, in the full enjoyment of his faculties, got upon an average a sum of £5,000 a year, but in this instance they had already voted one Bishop who was retiring—because, according to his own statement, his infirmities had incapacitated him from performing his duties—a sum of £6,000 a year, which was actually more than they gave to a hardworking Bishop. That was an instance of the poverty of virtue. Our Bishops professed to be the successors of the Apostles; but certainly that was a curious mode of imitating their humility and poverty. He proposed that the retiring pension of one of these successors to the Apostles should be £3,000, and upon that he would divide the Committee.
MR. WILKINSONsaid, that the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck) had not put the case quite fairly when he stated that the Church must pay the Bishop of Durham £4,500 a year, or, if not, he would continue to enjoy an income of £16,000 per annum. By the arrangement proposed by the clause it was clear that there would be a gain to the common Ecclesiastical Fund.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid, that he did not say that the Committee was asked to vote £4,500 a year to a Bishop, but to one who had ceased to be a Bishop.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he could not allow the Committee to come to a vote upon the clause without informing it that the notion which had been suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that the
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Bishop of Durham had hitherto received £8,000 per annum only, was not correct.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid, he must explain that he had stated that the arrangement made between the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Bishop was—the law being that he was to receive £8,000 a year—that upon his paying a certain round sum to the Commissioners he should receive the whole revenue, and in consequence of that arrangement his income had been from £14,000 to £16,000 per annum.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that was just what he was coming to. Upon the ground of the Bishop's retiring, it was proposed to give him this salary; and it appeared to him (Lord Palmerston) that £4,500 was a sum not disproportionate to the actual receipts which had been taken by the Bishop of Durham, and which were admitted to be between £14,000 and £16,000. The result therefore was, that, after giving the Bishop this pension, and paying his successor £8,000, there would still be a surplus left at the disposal of the Ecclesiastical Commission.
LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he wished to call the attention of hon. Members to an argument which had been used, that unless the Committee yielded on his own terms the Bishop would retain his see. He (Lord R. Cecil) could not believe, after the confession of incapacity which had been made, that, whatever the vote of the Committee might be, the right rev. Prelate would retain his see in opposition to public opinion. He could not believe that they were in misericordiam as regarded those Bishops. The Bishop of Durham, by law, was entitled to £8,000 a year, but, by a particular arrangement, he had managed to obtain double that amount; and now he came to Parliament to ask for an allowance based upon that doubled income more than equal to the salary allowed to the working Bishops.
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, he was anxious to correct a mistake into which the noble Lord had fallen, and it would be important that he should state to the Committee what the law really was. If there were any arrangement, it was not framed by any ingenious contrivance between the Bishop of Durham and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, but its terms were imposed by an Act of Parliament, which provided that certain incomes should be assigned to certain Bishops, and, amongst the rest, that a salary of £8,000 should be assigned to the Bishop of Durham. Under that Act it was arranged that the

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salaries should be estimated upon the average receipts of the diocese, taken for a period of seven years before the acceptance of the see. Whenever those receipts should be in excess, the salary was to be a charge upon those revenues; on the other hand, if the revenues of the see fell short, the deficiency was to be made up by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. He considered that that was a very bad arrangement; and it had been admitted by the House to be so, for it had been repealed, and they passed a Bill, prescribing other terms which were better calculated to carry out the proposed object. The Bishop of Durham was, therefore, legally in possession of the income which he now received; and being in possession of that income, and spending it, as he (Sir G. Grey), living as he did in his diocese, could testify, most munificently; and having devoted large sums to the augmentation of small livings, he was now returning £2,000 a year to the Ecclesiastical Commission.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, that without imputing any contrivance to the Bishop, the fact remained the same. The Legislature had intended the income of the Bishop of Durham to be £8,000 per annum, while he had actually received about £16,000. In granting a retiring pension, if the amount was to be one-third of the income, the question arose in this case, was that proportion to be based upon the income which by error—of Parliament if they would, but certainly by some error—had been actually received by the Bishop, or upon the amount which it had been the intention of all parties he should receive? He was inclined to adopt the second rather than the first proposition. The noble Lord (Lord R. Cecil) had referred to some arguments, that if the terms proposed were not accepted there would be no resignation; but he (Mr. Cardwell) did not believe that if Parliament should vote a pension upon just and equitable terms, consistent with the spirit of precedent, any Prelate who had already admitted his incapacity to continue in his office would venture to refuse those terms.
MR. SPOONERsaid, he had supported the allowance of £6,000 to the Bishop of London upon the understanding that it was one-third part of his present income. He had been prepared to support the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield in the case of the Bishop of Durham, believing that the sum proposed by it was one-third part of the income to which that right rev. Prelate was
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legally entitled. He found now, however, that the Bishop was entitled legally to receive £16,000 per annum, and, therefore, he thought Parliament ought to deal with him as it had done with the Bishop of London, and calculate the retiring pension upon the amount he was legally entitled to receive.
MR. MOWBRAYsaid, he was of opinion that the retiring pension should be calculated upon the basis of the actual receipts of the Bishop, whose habits and expenses had been formed by the actual amount of his income. With respect to the Bishop of Durham, he could fully corroborate the statement of the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey) of the munificent uses to which that income had been applied. The Bishop had been accustomed for many years past to contribute to all local charities within his diocese, nor did he confine his gifts to those institutions connected with the Church merely, but he extended them to such objects as the hon. and learned Member for Sheffield himself would take an interest in.
MR. DUNCANhoped that the working clergy would be dealt with upon the same principles which were applied to Bishops.
Question put, "That the words 'four thousand five hundred' stand part of the Clause."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 52; Noes 19: Majority 33.
On the Question that Clause 3 should stand part of the Bill,
MR. MOWBRAYsaid, there was one point to which he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary. As, in consequence of the change which was about to be made, a number of poor clergymen would be deprived of the assistance which they now received from the Bishop of Durham, and as the "Common Fund" would benefit considerably by the new arrangement, he thought the case of such clergymen would be deserving of the special consideration of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in their application of the "Common Fund." He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) was not present to hear this suggestion.
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that the surplus would, of course, form part of the "Common Fund," but he was not aware whether the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had power specially to consider those peculiar cases. If they had such power he had no doubt they would do so; but he

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could not pledge them to the adoption of any course.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the point which had just been raised gave a new aspect to the matter. The statement that £4,000 to £5,000 a year would be saved for the "Common Fund," no doubt induced many Members to support the proposed arrangement. It now appeared that a portion of that sum was to be impounded. The same question might be raised in reference to the diocese of London, seeing that the Bishop of London had, as every one knew, contributed enormously towards the support of the poorer clergy out of his episcopal income. It really appeared to him that the Bill had been introduced, if not under false pretences, at least under a sort of promise which could not be fulfilled. It would be impossible to keep up the charities of the present Bishops and to replenish the "Common Fund" at the same time.
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that he had not stated that those claims should be considered, because he was not sure that the law would allow their consideration. He had only said that if the law gave them power to do so he had no doubt that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would take into consideration the small benefices time been augmented. The raising of the question made him sincerely glad that an Amendment moved in another place, that all the surplus under the Bill should go to an episcopal fund, had been negatived.
MR. HEADLAMsaid, he thought that the claims of those clergymen stood so high that, if it was possible, they should receive every consideration from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. It was clear that if Parliament had not interfered they would have derived this addition to their miserable stipends during the life of the present Bishop. He, therefore, thought that if Parliament interfered, they ought not to do so at the expense of their incomes.
MR. RIDLEYsaid, he hoped those claims would not be lost sight of by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who had the large sum of at least £450,000 in their hands, and yet spent but little of that in the augmentation of small livings.
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, the Report of the Commissioners, which was about to be produced, entered fully into the subject.
MR. CARDWELLsaid, that as one of the Commissioners, he hoped that nothing that had passed in the present discussion would be understood as committing them, and that the Committee would reserve their
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opinion upon it until they had read the Report.
Clause agreed to; as also was Clause 4.
On Clause 5. Every Bishop who shall succeed to the dioceses of London and Durham respectively shall held his See, and all the property, patronage, and rights belonging thereto subject to any provision which shall be made by the authority of Parliament within the space of three years next after the passing of the present Act, "any Law, Statute, or Canon to the contrary notwithstanding."
MR. ROEBUCK: As it stood at present the clause provided that any future appointed Bishops of the two sees mentioned in the Bill should be subject to any provision which might be made "by Parliament within three years after the passing of this Act." He would propose to strike out those words, and insert in lieu thereof, "by the authority of Parliament relating to the extent of his duty or the amount of his emolument."
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that he hoped the hon. and learned Member would not press his Amendment, as his right hon. Friend (Sir G. Grey) intended to propose a somewhat similar emendation upon the third reading. The Amendment of his right hon. Friend did not, however, propose to deal with the limitation of three years.
MR. HADFIELDsaid, he thought that if this provision, limiting the time to three years, were not got rid of, the clause would be valueless.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he would suggest that the advisability or non advisability of retaining the limitation of three years would be better discussed to-morrow, when the Amendment to which he had referred was before the House.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid, he would remind the Committee that they would discuss the subject upon the third reading, under the disadvantage of being able to speak once only. He did not wish to obstruct the progress of business, but he thought it right to place the fact before hon. Members.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he took exception to the last phrase, as at best unmeaning, and as possibly calculated to create some difficulty in the interpretation of the clause. He did not profess to be learned in the Ecclesiastical Law, but there was upon the Treasury Bench one hon. and learned Gentleman, the Solicitor General, who ought to be proficient in the science, having devoted a whole hour to it that day, and he should be glad to be informed

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by him what was the meaning of the word "canon" as used in the clause.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, he would willingly give the noble Lord the benefit of his opinion as regarded the application of the three words "law, statute, and canon." The first was used with reference to the Common Law, the second with reference to Acts of Parliament, and the third with reference to the Ecclesiastical Law. But the whole phrase was, as every one must be aware, little else than surplusage—mere words, of course.
MR. ROEBUCK: The hon. and learned Gentleman follows the precedent of former Bills, and trudges on in a beaten track.
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL: Allow me to assure the hon. and learned Member that he is mistaken in supposing that I framed the Bill. I never saw it till it came down from the House of Lords.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that, strictly speaking, both the words excepted to by the noble Lord, and even the entire clause, he considered were unnecessary. They had no enacting power, and were only introduced to save the honour of Parliament.
LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he still objected to the words, and should move that they be omitted.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, he must beg the noble Lord not to press the Motion; though the words might be unnecessary, they were justified by precedent, and, at all events, could do no harm.
LORD ROBERT CECILsaid, he would consent to withdraw the Motion, but he should renew it to-morrow.
Clause agreed to.—On the Preamble,
SIR WILLIAM HEATHCOTEsaid, he must protest against the supposition that he approved of the Preamble in its present form. An Amendment would probably be proposed to-morrow.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he wished to know whether it was intended to propose any material Amendments in the Bill on the third reading? If so, notice of them should be given that evening, as there only remained four days of the Session.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, that the only Amendment contemplated was the technical one of substituting the words "that he has under his hand and seal" for the words "duly and canonically, with reference to the manner in which the Archbishop of Canterbury should accept the resignation of the outgoing Bishops.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he deemed that Amendment a very important one, and would oppose it.
SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General would state to-morrow the grounds upon which he rested his Amendment.
MR. ROEBUCKsaid, his objection to the Preamble as it stood now was that it was not a true one; and he wanted to know whether the Government were prepared to make it accord with the facts? At present it stated facts about the resignation which never occurred. The dates were made very different from the actual dates. The Bishops had offered to resign upon condition of having certain sums as retiring pensions, but that was not stated, though it ought to be, in the Preamble.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that to any Amendment which proposed to strike out the words "duly and canonically" he should, when it came to be considered, offer every opposition in his power. At the same time, deferring as he did to the sense of the Committee which had been unequivocally pronounced, he had no wish whatever to obstruct the Bill.
Preamble agreed to.—House resumed.
Bill reported, without Amendment.

METROPOLIS LOCAL MANAGEMENT ACT AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.
Order for consideration of Lords Amendments read.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That the said Amendments be now read."
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, he must press for the postponement of the Order, on the ground that an hon. Friend of his had a petition against the Bill, and was not able to be present to lay it before the House.
SIR BENJAMIN HALLdeclined to accede to the suggestion.
MR. BUTLERobjected to the haste with which these Amendments were being hurried; he entertained strong objections to them, and he had reason to believe that there was a general feeling throughout the metropolis against them,—true it had not been strongly expressed, but these Amendments had only been placed in the hands of Members the previous morning, when it appeared that they were of a nature seriously to interfere with the rights of the ratepayers, to choose their own churchwardens and parochial officers—500,000 ratepayers were to be deprived of their rights, the alteration was uncalled for, and unless the right hon. Baronet would consent to postpone the consideration of these Amendments, he should move that the further consideration be postponed till to-morrow.
Amendment proposed, to leave out from the words "That the" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "consideration of such Amendments be postponed till To-morrow."
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
SIR BENJAMIN HALLsaid, the only Amendment proposed by the Lords related to the appointment of parochial officers. That Amendment was contained in the first clause, and he believed that was the only point to which the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Butler) referred. Under the Act of last Session the Vestries were elected an by almost universal suffrage, namely, by a rate-paying suffrage. One-third went out by rotation every year, and there was household suffrage with single voting. The Lords thought that bodies so constituted had the confidence of the ratepayers, and that they might be intrusted with the election of the parochial officers, rather than that there should be a recurrence of those exciting scenes which had occasionally taken place. In most of the parishes the vestries elected the churchwardens, overseers, and other parochial officers. In other parishes they were elected by the parishioners at large, and the object of the Lords' Amendments was to assimilate the practice.
MR. PELLATTcomplained that the Lords' Amendments would destroy the whole vitality of the Bill. Parishes now in the enjoyment of open vestries would not like the measure, and he should move the omission of the Lords' Amendments so far as they went to extinguish the first clause.
MR. W. WILLIAMSsaid, there was no right which the inhabitants of the metropolis valued more than the ancient right of electing their parochial officers. In some parishes there were 20,000 ratepayers who would have the right to vote for those parochial officers, while the largest number of members in any vestry was not more than 120. The ratepayers did not wish to delegate this right of election to the vestries. The first clause of the Bill which had been expunged by the Lords was the very part of the measure which was viewed with the greatest satisfaction by the inhabitants of the metropolis, and he certainly hoped that the House would not agree to its being expunged.
SIR WILLIAM CLAYsaid, there was much that was good in the Bill, which he was sorry to see rejected. After the passing of this Bill a church rate could only
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be made in open vestry, which he thought a very great point. Another important object of the Bill was to dispense with the necessity of the payment of church rates to entitle a person to the enjoyment of the elective franchise. If his hon. Friend's object was to defeat the Bill by postponing the consideration of the Lords' Amendments to-morrow, he feared he must vote against him.
MR. WILKINSONsaid, that at a meeting of parochial officers, held a few days since, there was a general expression of opinion that sooner than lose the Bill the first clause should be struck out. As he understood that the clause inserted by the Lords could not be struck out, and the original clause inserted, he should not offer any opposition to the Bill as it stood.
MR. MURROUGHsaid, that a great number of the Members for the metropolis looked upon the first clause as the only valuable part of the Bill; and, notwithstanding what had fallen from the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Wilkinson) who had shown less discretion in the matter than his hon. Colleague, he could assure the House, from his acquaintance with the constituency of Lambeth, that that feeling was shared by a great proportion of that constituency. The right hon. Baronet opposite would not be showing that moral courage which, from his general political conduct, might be expected from him, if he did not move that the Lords' Amendment for expunging Clause 1 be not agreed to.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Main Question put, and agreed to.
MR. BUTLERadmitted the necessity for legislation, and that there were useful clauses in the Bill; but the Amendments materially affected the rights of his constituents, rights which they valued; he should therefore move that the Amendment of the Lords to expunge Clause 1, be not agreed to.
MR. MURROUGHseconded the Motion.
Motion made, and Question put, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the Amendment in page 1, 'Leave out Clause T.'"
The House divided:—Ayes 8; Noes 53: Majority 45.
Amendment agreed to:—Several others agreed to; one agreed to, with an Amendment.

FORMATION, &c., OF PARISHES BILL.
Order for consideration of Lords' Amendments read.
THE MARQUESS OF BLANBFORDsaid,

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he would beg to move that the Lords' Amendments should be agreed to. At the same time he must confess that he very much regretted that the clause which permitted the application of voluntary offerings towards the endowment of the clergy had been rejected from the Bill. He felt very strongly on the subject of that clause; nevertheless, he felt it might, at that late period of the Session, endanger the passing of the Bill if he were to insist upon its reinsertion. He should, therefore, content himself with expressing his complete adhesion to the principle of the clause, and he hoped that on a future occasion the subject would be again taken up.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was very glad to hear the observations of his noble Friend. He confessed he felt they were placed in a very unfortunate position. The clause had been inserted in the Bill with the unanimous approval of a Select Committee, and it had passed through that House without a division. However, it went up to the House of Lords at the end of the Session and it was rejected by a Majority of two Peers in a House of only forty Members. Although the majority against the clause was no larger, he quite agreed with his noble Friend, that as it was within a few days of the end of the Session, it would endanger the passing of the Bill if they were to insist on its reinsertion. At the same time, having regard to the unequivocal expression of opinion in that House in favour of the principle of the clause, he trusted that at a future time attention would be again attracted to the subject.
Amendments read, and agreed to.
The House adjourned at Ten o'clock.