§ MR. DILLWYNasked Mr. Attorney General, If he will state to the House to whom he referred when, in answer to a Question by the honourable and gallant Member for Bath (Captain Hayter) he stated that his predecessors were responsible for the Clause in the Scheme for the regulation of St. John's Hospital, Bath, which would confine the governing body of that charity to persons signing a declaration of membership of the Church of England? The scheme was very objectionable, and hon. many Members were anxious to know whether anyone on that (the Opposition) side of the House was answerable for it.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, in reply, said, he was sorry his hon. Friend had thought it consistent with his duty to repeat to-day in a formal manner the Question which he put on Friday last in an informal manner, and which he (the Attorney General) had then declined to answer; lest, however, his motive in declining to answer should be misunderstood, he now proposed to reply to the Question. But, before doing so, he would, with the permission of the House, make a brief statement relative to the position of the Attorney General in regard to matters of this kind, because he did not think it desirable that popular opinion should be brought to bear on a Law Officer of the Crown, with the view of influencing him, when he had under his consideration matters on which he had to give a quasi judicial decision. In all matters relating to charities, the Attorney General was in a quasi judicial position, and this was particularly the case in ex officio proceedings like those 1405 at present under consideration. In such cases the Attorney General was put in motion by the Charity Commissioners, and it became his duty to ascertain, as far as he could, what was the Law applicable to the circumstances placed before him. There was no doubt that in many cases a discretion was to be exercised by the Attorney General, but that discretion was not to be exercised according to party bias or political views, but in a judicial spirit. The Question of his hon. Friend implied that the Attorney General, who was responsible for the scheme, had been influenced by his political opinions, and what the hon. Gentleman had just stated bore out that view, for he had fairly enough stated that his reason for putting it was the anxiety felt by many hon. Members sitting on his side of the House lest a Liberal Attorney General was responsible for the scheme. The proceedings to which the hon. Gentleman referred were commenced while Lord Selborne was Attorney General, and they had been under the consideration of every Attorney General since, the Papers being very voluminous. When he answered the Question of the hon. and gallant Member for Bath the other clay, he did not know who the Attorney General was when the particular question with reference to the trustees was first brought under consideration; but he had since found that it was his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Sir John Karslake). He was in error, however, in stating, the other day, that the matter had been under discussion in Judges' Chambers. It had not got so far as that. The hon. and learned Member for Huntingdon, after giving the best consideration he could to the authorities bearing upon the question, directed the scheme to be prepared in the form in which it now was; but he at the same time gave directions that it should be sent down to Bath and published there, in order that the municipal trustees and every person interested in the matter might have a full opportunity of considering and discussing it. It had been discussed at a public meeting, at which objections were raised to the trustee clauses; but up to this moment it had not been taken to the Judges' Chambers, and would not be until October or November next, at which time it would be his duty, if he 1406 continued to be Attorney General, to give full consideration to all the circumstances of the case, and particularly to the objections which had been raised; and he should not hesitate either to differ from, or to adhere to, the views of his hon. and learned Predecessor according to the view which he should then take of them, a course which he was sure his hon. and learned Friend would adopt were he then in office.