§ MR. A. STEUARTsaid, according to notice he rose to call the attention of the House to the facilities by which a clergyman of the Scottish Episcopal Communion 872 may by a private Bill obtain admission into the Church of England, even though he may have countenanced what had been condemned by his own Church as dangerous error. It was a very serious question, and one that perhaps derived immediate importance from the fact that a private Bill of the kind, relating to one particular case, would be before the House on an early day. When that Bill should be before them, he himself was at a loss how to deal with it— whether to refer it to a Select Committee, or what course to follow. In the year 1856, about the last day of the Session, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an excellent speech, called the attention of the House to the legal disabilities under which clergymen of the Episcopal Church of Scotland lay, and expressed his opinion that there should be a general law on the subject. He was sure there was no Member of that House who would say that if a Scottish clergyman had fallen under the censure of his bishop, he would use his privilege to enable him to obtain admission into the Church of England. At present the Statute Law of the land created a disability, but private Bills were brought before the House to remove that disability in individual cases, and if Select Committees could be appointed to inquire into each case he should see no objection, but on the other band he could not see how the Church of England could be kept pure if Scottish clergymen who had fallen into error could be admitted almost without question into the Church of England. With regard to the case that was to come on before the House soon he would only make one remark. His hon. Friend the Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) had called his attention to a statement which he (Mr. Steuart) had made on a previous occasion in the House with regard to the same case, when it was alleged that he said he had been in the chapel of the gentleman in question, and while there had seen him make use of burning incense in his church. By burning he could only mean such an inference as to that fact as he could make from smell. He certainly had seen flags and banners in his church. A communication which he had received from the Parliamentary agents who were promoting the private Bill in question stated that he (Mr. Steuart) was mistaken as to the burning of incense, and that the odour which be had perceived arose from fumigation for other purposes than of religious worship, and that the banners admitted of a similarly ready ex- 873 planation. The fact of banners, then, was admitted. He did not mean to misrepresent the gentleman concerned in anything which he had said; he was sure the House would concede that to him. He wished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he considered a remedy should be devised, either by a public enactment or by regulations, regarding private Bills of so unusual a nature?
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONsaid, that whatever might have been the fact in the case alluded to by the hon. Member, he (Viscount Palmerston) thought that while hon. Members had recently been suffering from the exhalations of the river close at hand, they would scarcely have criticised any course that would have rid thorn of the unpleasantness, oven at the risk of their being charged with License-burning. With respect, however, to the question put by the hon. Member, he believed that a Bill would come before them on Monday relating to the subject which had been brought under the consideration of the House. The Bill, he believed, was a private one, and though he did not think that was a proper way of dealing with matters of this sort, he thought that the time when the Bill was brought forward would be the proper one for making any suggestions that might be offered.