§ SIR CHARLES ADDERLEYasked, the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether Bishop Courtenay of Kingston is not at least equitably entitled to £1,600 a-year from the Consolidated Fund, under the first section of the Act of 1868, for relieving the Consolidated Fund of salaries of West India Bishops and Clergy, which provides against any diminution of the salary of any Bishop which he may have been receiving at the passing of that Act; whether the Right Reverend Reginald Courtenay was not appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Kingston on the retirement of Bishop Spencer of Jamaica in 1856, by Letters Patent expressly providing that he should hold that office till a successor was appointed, and act for all purposes as Bishop of Jamaica; whether the £3,000 assigned out of the Consolidated Fund for that bishopric was not thus divided—£1,400 as retiring pension to Bishop Spencer, £1,600 to Bishop Courtenay; but an excuse for discontinuing the latter payment on the 1331 death of Bishop Spencer in 1872, has been found in the mere arrangement that the whole sum was made payable to the latter bishop on the understanding that he should pay over to the former his share; whether the subsequent disestablishment of the Jamaica Church has not precluded the Crown from the recommended appointment of Bishop Courtenay as Bishop Spencer's successor; and what steps Her Majesty's Government will take to protect Bishop Courtenay in his equitable claim, or to aid him in securing the position he has had so assured an expectation to hold in the new voluntary Church of Jamaica?
§ MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENIt is difficult, Sir, to give a full answer to the five Questions of my right hon. Friend without making a longer statement than I should feel justified in doing. I will, however, state generally that his first Question turns upon the construction of an Act of Parliament, under which we do not consider that Bishop Courtenay has an equitable claim for £1,600 a-year from the Consolidated Fund. The arrangement by which Bishop Courtenay received a portion of Bishop Spencer's salary during the, life-time of the latter must be held to have been a private arrangement between the two Bishops, which terminated on the death of Bishop Spencer. It is true that Bishop Courtenay was appointed Coadjutor Bishop by Letters Patent, which provided that he should hold that office until a successor to Bishop Spencer was appointed; but this evidently referred to the interval which would in any case elapse between the death of Bishop Spencer and the appointment of a successor, if one were appointed. I do not know by whom or to whom Bishop Courtenay's appointment was "recommended;" no expectation was held out to him by authority; but any such appointment, with a salary from the Consolidated Fund, was prevented, not by the Jamaica Church Disestablishment Act, but by the Act passed by my right hon. Friend in 1868, removing these charges from the Consolidated Fund. I must remind the House that this matter has been already before the House of Commons, which decided against the Bishop's claim; and having gone most carefully into the case, with every disposition to do justice, my noble Friend at the head of the 1332 Colonial Department has come to the conclusion—in which I entirely concur—that there is no reason to reverse the decision of the House of Commons. As we consider that the Bishop has not established an "equitable claim," we cannot, of course, advise Her Majesty's Government to take steps to put him in a better position.