FIRST READING. (Hansard, 15 May 1866)

§ MR. CARDWELL

, in moving for leave to bring in the Bill of which he had given notice for removing doubts as to the effect of Letters Patent granted to certain Colonial Bishops, and to amend the law with respect to Bishop and Clergy in the Colonies, said, it was well known to the House that by a recent very important decision the Privy Council had arrived at the conclusion that while in Crown Colonies a bishopric might be created and ecclesiastical jurisdiction conferred by the sole authority of the Crown, yet letters patent would not have any such authority in any colony which was in possession of an independent Legislature. That decision had removed the foundation on which the great majority of the colonial dioceses rested. They were therefore driven to this alternative—either they must restore by statute the foundation which that judgment had withdrawn, or they must take the other side of the alternative and accept the decision of the Courts and remove those statutory enactments which, having been formed on the opposite hypothesis, were inconsistent with what the Courts had now declared to be law. In that state of things they had to consider what was the position of the Church in the Colonies. In Canada, Victoria, South Australia, and New Zealand, the Church exercised its powers by voluntary arrangements, either by mere force of compact or by compact confirmed by the Colonial Legislatures; but the authority which had been supposed to he vested in the Crown in respect of the Church in the Colonies did not, according to the decision of the highest Court of Appeal, exist in any Colony possessing an independent Legislature. This being the established state of the law, the Government thought it their duty to consider which branch of the alternative they ought to adopt. They arrived at the conclusion that it would not he consistent either with the will of Parliament or with the modern policy this country had adopted towards the Colonies to attempt to re-establish by Imperial legislation that power which formerly had been supposed to be vested in the Crown, but which had been recently 1033 decided not to exist. The Bill which he was about to ask leave to introduce was founded on the opposite hypothesis. The Government proposed to assume that the decision of the Court would be the foundation of our future legislation, and they proposed to repeal those enactments which were not consistent with that decision. The Bill would be framed on the principle laid down by the Privy Council, when they said that the Church of England, in Colonies where there was no Church established by law, was in the same situation as any other religious body—no worse and no better. One of the enactments which were inconsistent with the legal decision and with the principle on which this Bill was founded was the Act of 1819, in which it was enacted that a person ordained by a Bishop, not having Episcopal jurisdiction over a defined district, should not be capable of holding any preferment within Her Majesty's dominions. But the majority of the Bishops, it had now been decided, had no such jurisdiction; and therefore all the clergy ordained by them were subject to this disqualification. This was entirely at variance with the intention of Parliament in passing the statute; the consequence in respect of the clergy themselves was intolerable; and it was impossible to say how far it might extend in respect of marriages and other religious services which had since the passing of the statute been performed by these clergy. Obviously it would be necessary to repeal that disqualification. A Bill passed not very long ago defined the position of clergymen coming into England who had been ordained by Bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland. The Bill which he was about to lay on the table would extend to clergy men ordained in the Colonies the rights extended to clergymen ordained by the Bishops in Scotland. The Bishops of New Zealand had addressed to the Crown a petition which the Government thought might reasonably be complied with. They asked to be allowed to surrender their letters patent; and the Ministers of New Zealand had forwarded a memorandum, in which they recommended that the Crown should not issue letters patent without the advice of the Colonial Ministry. That was an advice which was not likely to be given. The Bill proposed to give power to those Colonial Bishops who had letters patent to surrender them, and in future no letters patent or mandate, but only a Royal license, 1034 would be necessary to enable Bishops of the Church to consecrate Bishops in this country; and neither license nor any other Royal sanction would be required for consecrations elsewhere than in this country. The main effect of the provisions of the Bill would be, that it having been decided that the power supposed to exist in the Crown of creating a diocese and conferring a jurisdiction in Colonies which had independent legislation—which would include the great majority of our Colonies—did not exist, that the legislation for the Church should be based upon the hypothesis which the judgment of the Privy Council had established, and that those restrictions and statutory enactments which were at variance with that principle being removed, the Church of England should, in the language of the Privy Council, be in no worse position if in no better than any other denomination of Christians. He believed that this measure, instead of being detrimental to the Church, would really tend to its advantage. The principle of the Bill might be summed up thus—namely, that it accepted as final the decision of the Court, and proceeded to make the whole of the statute law upon the subject consistent with that decision.