§ MR. A. MILLSasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the attention of the Government has been called to certain resolutions passed at a meeting of the Indian Bishops held at Calcutta on the 8th of March last, to the effect that all the appointments to spiritual functions in their dioceses ought to be made with the recognition of the rights of the Bishops to exercise a veto upon the same; whether the powers thus asserted are within the limits prescribed by stat. 53 Geo. 3 c. 155; and, whether an exercise of authority over the Missionary Clergy in India, on the part of Bishops paid out of Indian revenues and appointed by the Secretary of State, is consistent with the policy hitherto adopted by the Imperial Government of entire abstention from all 1663 official interference with the religions of the natives of India?
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONSir, the Indian Government has invariably abstained from interfering with the religion of the Natives of India, nor does it give to any person acting under it authority to do so. With regard to the exercise of authority by the Bishops over the missionary clergy in India, those missionaries may happen to be clergymen of the Church of England; but in any case they are, in common with all other clergymen, under the provisions of the Letters Patent, subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishops in whose diocese they may happen to be officiating; but no secular assistance or recognition is on that account given by Government to any missionary undertaking. No alteration is proposed or contemplated in the policy hitherto adopted by the Imperial Government, neither have we any official cognizance of the resolutions alluded to by my hon. Friend.