MB. ARTHUR MILLSsaid, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether a Patent, dated July 9, 1861, appointing a Metropolitan Bishop in Canada has been returned to the Colonial Office for revision; and whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to the circumstance that the Patent in question may involve an infraction of the provisions of the Act 19 & 20 Vict., c. 121, of the Canadian Parliament, by which the appointment of all Ecclesiastical Functionaries within the Province was vested in the Canadian Synods?
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, that a Patent for appointing a Metropolitan Bishop in Canada had been twice sent back to the ecclesiastical authorities of the Colony for revision before it was finally adopted. With respect to the Act of the Canadian Parliament, the hon. Gentleman seemed to be under some misapprehension. The Act did not vest the appointment of all the Ecclesiastical Functionaries in Canadian Synods, although it left the Synods to make regulations which might involve that assumption. That assumption of power had not, in fact, been made by them. The Crown still appointed Canadian Bishops, although it appointed persons who had been recommended to it by the Diocesan Synods. The Secretary of State for the Colonies thought that the old form of Letters Patent was no longer suited to the present state of things, and he hoped to provide in future a new form of document, which would enable the Bishops in Canada to consecrate persons designated by the Diocesan Synods, reserving only to the Crown a veto on those appointments.