HC Deb 04 May 1904 vol 134 cc397-459

[SECOND READING.]

Order for Second Reading read.

THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.

I shall not detain the House more than a few-minutes in recommending this Bill for its consideration. It is one of those Bills which from time to time are required in order to make the local organisation of the Church of England correspond to the changes in population and in the powers and facilities of locomotion which are incident to a progressive country like our own. I hope rather than believe that the House will consider such a Bill upon its merits, and will not attempt to make it an occasion for discussing questions altogether outside its scope, and which are in no sense cither directly or indirectly related to any subject which can properly be raised on the Second Reading. The Bill is one of a considerable series of measures which have been found necessary in order to make it possible for the Bishops of the Church of England to carry out their duties—increasing in onerousness, as they are, day by day— by dividing and diminishing the area of their dioceses. I will not enumerate, nor is it necessary that I should, the predecessors of this Bill; but what we have to consider to-day is whether the cases of the diocese of Worcester and of the diocese of Rochester afford a sufficient ground for making a further subdivision of the diocesan system of England, and enabling the Bishops who now preside over those sees to carry out with a less overwhelming burden of labour the duties which are imposed upon them.

The diocese of Worcester comprises, as the House knows, not only Worcester, but what is known as the Black Country and the great urban centre of Birmingham. It is not expedient and it does not facilitate episcopal work to conjoin in one diocese a city like Birmingham and the other districts which are attached to it. The House has already consented to establish a bishopric of Manchester, a bishopric of Bristol, a bishopric of Newcastle, and a bishopric of Liverpool; and the precedent which, with infinite advantage, has been followed with regard to these great cities should, in our opinion, be extended also to Birmingham. The new see of Birmingham, which I hope in consequence of this Bill we shall soon see created, will include a portion of the present Lichfield diocese; but in the main it will be taken out of the present Worcester diocese; and I am confident that the work of the Church in the diocese of Worcester will be enormously facilitated by a division of the labours now falling on one man's shoulders and laying upon those shoulders a burden almost greater than can be borne. All that can be said about Worcester can, I think, be said with increased emphasis, if that is possible, with regard to the diocese of Rochester. The diocese of Rochester as at present existing was constituted in 1875, and in that year the whole population of the present diocese amounted to about 1,600,000 persons. The division of that diocese, which by this Bill will be created, under the new bishopric of Southwark already contains a population far in excess of that which the old diocese, created in 1875, placed under the ecclesiastical supervision of the Bishop. The diocese of Southwark is a part of London which has been growing rapidly. By the last census I believe that, it contained 2,000,000 persons, as against 1,600,000 which the whole diocese of Rochester contained thirty years ago. And I am confident that every man who has looked into the Church of England needs in South London will admit that this vast population does require the uninterrupted labours of a Bishop who should not be compelled to share those labours with the more ancient portion of the diocese from which at present it takes its name. It is physically impossible adequately to work from the Bishop's house at Kennington the whole Rochester diocese, which is not even a continuous area with that part of the diocese of Rochester which is in South London. At present the diocese of Rochester consists of two islands, separated by a portion of the diocese of Canterbury, and even such excuse as territorial continuity might give for continuing it under one bishopric is absent in this particular case.

But I need not labour the point that this division is necessary in both cases. There have been innumerable meetings of various kinds, diocesan and other, on the subject of the division of these bishoprics, and they have been unanimous that the religious interests of the Church would be greatly promoted by the change which this Bill proposes. We all know that people are induced easily to pass resolutions which cost them nothing; but the sincerity of these resolutions has been demonstrated by the enormous sums collected in order to endow the new bishoprics. I need not remind hon. Gentlemen that not a single shilling that is to go to the future incomes of these new Bishops is drawn from public funds. The funds are entirely of ecclesiastical origin and almost entirely of private origin. They have been subscribed, and subscribed ad hoc. And if this House were to reject, as I am confident when they know the facts they would never think of rejecting, the Second Reading of the Bill, I then ask what it would mean. It would mean that we had used our power to sterilise the great efforts and the unstinted benevolence which in the dioceses of Worcester and Rochester have come forward to endow the new bishoprics which the members of the Church of England in these two districts believe to be absolutely necessary for carrying on the work of the Church. May I say that the creation of these two new dioceses represents a movement which has nothing whatever to do with those unhappy ecclesiastical differences of which we have heard so much? It is not a High Church, a Broad Church, or a Low Church movement. High, Broad, and Low Church are all at one in those dioceses in desiring the creation of the new Bishops and in doing their best to see that this great reform of organisation should take place. Are we, therefore, who are not asked to spend a single sixpence of public money in this matter to come forward and take up the ungracious—to use a very mild word— position of saying that all this liberality and unstinted effort in a spiritual cause is to have no effect because for one reason or another we choose to put this grain of sand in the ecclesiastical machinery of the Church of England? That any churchman should do this I cannot believe.

I am quite aware that there is a section of zealous Churchmen who criticise quite honestly, though very severely, the action or inaction of the Bishops. Granted for the sake of argument that their charge against the Bishops, or against certain Bishops, is well founded; is the work of the episcopacy likely to be better done be- cause you overwork them? If the Bishops have not supervised as they might have supervised the clergy over whom they preside, are they likely to be aided in the duty which lion. Members desire to throw upon them by having to deal with this overwhelming burden of daily labour which has broken down the health, I regret to say, of more than one Bishop in the past, and which, if unremedied, will break down the health of many Bishops in the future? This is visiting with something in the nature of physical torture men of whose conduct you may or may not have reason to complain, but which does nothing towards aiding the cause which the section if Churchmen of whom I speak have at heart. I should like to say another word to some of my hon. friends. They ardently desire the prosperity of the National Church as by law established, and they are ardent opponents of disestablishment. Can anything more further the cause of what I may call irrational disestablishment than to make it clear to everyone interested in the work of the Church that this House, for no reason whatever founded on the merits of the Bill brought before it, refuses to allow the Church the ordinary facilities which no one would dream of refusing in the case of any other organisation, whether connected with the State or not? I think those who oppose the Bill on grounds wholly outside the Bill, and claim to be, and genuinely are, ardent members of the Church of England, should think twice before they employ the Parliamentary machinery as I have heard rumours that they intend to employ it— to obtain some indirect and remote effect by refusing to accede to the most reasonable, most moderate, requests, local in their character, involving no principle, which certain numbers of Churchmen of ail shades of ecclesiastical opinion unanimously demanded in these dioceses.

I do not know whether that appeal will have any effect on my hon. friends. I hope it may; but I will appeal with at least equal confidence to hon. Gentlemen, whether on this side of the House or not, who are not members of the Church of England, who do not profess to like the system of Establishment, who do not approve either of episcopal organisations or of the doctrines of the English Church-They may differ from that Church; they may even be involved in vehement controversies which touch on political questions; and I do not feel that I have any title to complain of them if in open and fair contest they try to make out their case on a great public question where they feel that they differ from the Bishops, the clergy, and the great body of members of a communion to which they do not belong. That is fair and open warfare. I do not agree with their objects; I have no reason to complain, however, of their methods. But to use the power which their position as Members of this House may give them, not to touch any part of the work of the Church of England which by any extravagance of interpretation can be regarded as having a political reference, but merely to impair its utility as a great spiritual organisation—that I believe they will not condescend to do. I hope and think better of them. With many of them I have been in active, sometimes vehement, though. I hope, never bitter, conflict over controversies in recent years; but at all events they advocated a cause with which I did not agree, and they fought it in this House by fair and open methods. I would appeal to them whether they, who in large measure represent religious organisations, who bear their great part in the religious life of the country, are pursuing their duty and acting in conformity with their conscience when they use their power in this Legislature to prevent the Church of England from carrying out by means of its own funds what they know, and what every one else who has taken the smallest trouble to understand the case knows, must add greatly to her efficiency in those purely spiritual functions which even those who differ from her must desire to succeed. I beg to move.

Motion made, and Question proposed, 'That the Bill be now read a second time."

* MR. CHARLES McARTHUR (Liverpool, Exchange)

said that in moving the Amendment which stood in his name he must first express his regret at finding himself in the uncongenial position of opposing the Government of the day. It was a position which certainly afforded him no satisfaction, on the contrary, it caused him much pain. But the situation was not a novel one, because during the six or seven years he had been a Member of the House while it had been his duty and privilege to give a general support to the policy of the Government, he had found himself unable to support them in their policy in respect of the Church. There were other Members on that side of the House who were in the same position, and they could not help feeling that the Government failed to appreciate the gravity of the position in which the Church now stood, and the necessity—to use the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury—for stern and drastic action in order that the law might be obeyed and the Protestantism of the country preserved. He would remind the House that as far back as 1877 the late Archbishop Tait referred to the Ritualistic movement as a conspiracy in their own body against the doctrine, discipline, and practices of the Established Church. What at that time was a conspiracy had now become an insurrection falling not far short of a revolution. He candidly admitted that in ordinary circumstances he would not have opposed this Bill, to the provisions of which, as far as he could see, no objection could be taken. On the contrary, it was desirable that each of these large dioceses should be subdivided in order that the clergy and laity might have the benefit of episcopal supervision. But what was safe and admissible in time of peace was unsafe and undesirable in time of strife. It part of the Army were disloyal to the Throne and Constitution, and desired to bring back into their country another dynasty, he presumed Parliament would hesitate to sanction the raising of new regiments or the appointment of new officers without receiving guarantees of fidelity. That was the position of the Church to-day. A large section of the Church to-day was disloyal to the law and to the Constitution, and. having regard to the condition of the dioceses out of which it was proposed to form the new dioceses of Southwark and Birmingham, he submitted that a new diocese meant a new centre of disaffection, and a new Bishop meant a new instrument to perpetuate or aggravate the existing state of affairs. He thought some guarantees ought to be required that the new dioceses would be administered in accordance with the law.

It was not entirely a question of money. He had been told that the promoters of the Bill had collected a certain sum of money and had a right to spend it as they liked, but in this case something more was asked for. This Bill asked for certain ecclesiastical and legal powers to be created, and before any such request was granted, he thought the interests of the Church as a whole must be considered. The evidence showed that widespread disorders prevailed in the Church at large, and especially in those dioceses to which this Bill related, and that the Archbishops and Bishops had failed to restrain those disorders. A great and fundamental change had come over the Church of England, and the spirit which pervaded the whole had shifted from Protestantism to something very like Roman Catholicism. He was sorry that the Return for which he asked the other day showing the extent to which irregularities prevailed in the parishes throughout the country had been refused He was told that the Royal Commission which had been appointed to inquire into this subject would get the evidence that it required, hut if the Commission were to call witnesses from every parish in which irregularities of this kind existed they would have an arduous task. Taking the last Returns available, there were in England and Wales 2,000 clergy who wore mass vestments, which had been distinctly declared to be illegal; 265 churches in which incense was used, which also had been declared illegal by the Courts and condemned by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York sitting at Lambeth. These and other irregular practices, such as a celebration of Holy Communion without communicants, the elevation of the wafer, masses for the faithful departed, and services styled "the children's Eucharist" had been on the increase year by year during the last twenty years. The evil was often minimised. The Bishop of London the other day said the Royal Commission would break the greatest bubble of modern times, and that there were only a few churches in his diocese which required careful watching. Yet that Bishop's diocese was one of the worst in England in respect of these practices. In the diocese of Rochester there were 130 clerical members of the English Church Union, sixty-seven clerical members of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, nine clerical members of the Holy Cross Society, fourteen days using incense, and sixty-one who used mass vestments; so that the diocese was permeated by ritualistic practices.

One of the most unhappy features of the case was the effort which had been made to pervert the minds of the young through the medium of church services, and, he regretted to say also, through some of the day schools. One means used to that end was what was called "the children's Eucharist." In that case the children were compelled to take part in a distinctly illegal service. That service included vestments, lighted candles, genuflexions, and ceremonial incense, and was distinctly illegal. In the matter of his appointments the Bishop of Rochester was no exception to the other Bishops. He had appointed a great many clergymen who were known to be connected with ritualistic societies. The church of St. Saviour's, Southwark, which was to be the Cathedral of the new diocese, had a Chapter and four canons. Of these two were, he ventured to say, ritualists. One, the canon missioner of the diocese, was a member of the Church Union and of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, and was for ten years a, member of the Holy Cross Society. The other, who had held the position of chaplain to the Bishop and had been made Archdeacon of Southwark in the last few weeks, had recently published a manual intended for the use of children at a children's Eucharist. In this he gave directions for a form of service which was essentially different in spirit from a Church of England service. It was distinctly intended to inculcate in the minds of children sacerdotal views.

He ventured to say that the law was not obeyed in the Cathedral itself, for he was informed that the Communion was celebrated with only one communicant, which was distinctly contrary to the law of the Chinch. He was surprised at the apathy which prevailed on this subject. He could not see why lay people should be punished when they broke the law, while the clergy broke the law with impunity. They appeared to be getting so hardened to these illegalities that they were beginning to look upon them as right and proper. Before sanctioning this Bill the House ought to be satisfied that the law was going to be obeyed in the diocese of Southwark. With regard to the diocese of Worcester, he thought the Protestant section of the Church was scandalised when a member of the English Church Union was appointed Bishop. A good many of the services in that diocese were distinctly illegal. Illegalities, too, were committed in the diocese of Canterbury. They all had a great respect for the Archbishop of Canterbury, but at the same time they knew that he had done nothing so far to fulfil the promise he made, that he would take action to enforce obedience to the law. The Archbishops and Bishops by the exercise of their veto failed altogether to restrain illegality.

SIR LEES KNOWLES (Salford, W.)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is this point relevant to the question?

* MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is saying is that the ecclesiastical veto of the Bishops is not properly used by them, and, in those circumstances, I understand that he argues that the fewer Bishops there are the better.

SIR LEES KNOWLES

I understand that the hon. Member was about to argue that the Bishops and Archbishops do not use their power to suppress ritualistic practices.

* MR. SPEAKER

That point, I confess, seems to me to be rather more relevant than some of the matters the hon. Member has already referred to.

MR. CHARLES McARTHUR

, continuing, pointed out that the Bishops had used their veto against prosecutions, and played off one act against another. A Parliamentary Return showed that from 1874 to 1898 there were twenty-three complaints made to the Bishops, of which seventeen were vetoed. A further Return showed that from 1898 to 1902 there were no complaints. That was, of course, because people found it was useless to make complaints as they were invariably vetoed. Having regard to the state of the Church at the present time, and also to the state of these particular dioceses, he submitted that it was undesirable to proceed with the Bill. It would only aggravate the existing evils, by which a grievous wrong was inflicted upon the nation. Moreover, to pass the Bill would be an indication that the House were indifferent on the subject; whereas the Protestant laity were deeply concerned about the present position, At the present time he could not help feeling that there were two great currents moving the nation, one tending to sacerdotalism, and the other to infidelity. The masses of the Protestant laity were alarmed about the present position and looked to the Bishops for redress. The Bishops having failed to give them redress they now came to the House of Commons to find a remedy for their wrongs. Five years ago that subject was before the House, and the Government, in refusing to pass the Church Discipline Bill, promised that if the efforts of the Archbishops and Bishops were not speedily effective further legislation would be passed. The evil had gone on increasing, and now instead of giving them legislation the Government gave an inquiry which might last for an indefinite number of years. The disloyal clergy were continuing to indoctrinate the masses of the people with doctrines which were not those of the Church of England, and until the Royal Commission had reported as to the condition of the Church he contended that no further progress should be made with that Bill. That would show that at all events there was a determination that the Bishops should do their duty, that the law should be obeyed, and the Protestant character of the country upheld. He begged to move the Amendment standing in his name.

MR. BRYNMOR JONES (Swansea District)

said he rose to second the Motion. The hon. Member who moved this Resolution had covered so much of the ground that he would be able to say all he desired to say in a very short space of time. What was the argument which the Prime Minister had urged? He said: "Here is a great spiritual organisation; which under its constitution is bound, if it wants to alter the machinery for carrying on its work in the best way, to come to this House. "It came to this House, and then the right hon. Gentleman said they would be opposing a spiritual organisation and hampering the work of the Church if they did not give all those facilities which the Church demanded from time to time. The Church of England, however, was not simply a spiritual organisation, but it was a political organisation, and when the right hon. Gentleman said to him, "You are going to hamper the work of a spiritual organisation," the first answer he would make to him was that that organisation might terminate its connection with the House of Commons if it liked and put itself in the same position as other religious denominations. He failed to see that there was any substantial force in the appeal which the right hon. Gentleman had made. He was not concerned to deny that it might be a very proper thing to divide those dioceses, and if he could help forward the division honestly and conscientiously he would do it. But what was his duty in the matter? He objected to the doctrines and to the ritual of the Church of England as developed during the last 100 years. The Bishops did not keep the clergy in order; dogmas were openly preached, false doctrines were taught and books were being circulated containing all sorts of old mediaeval notions, and a ritual plainly against the directions of the Prayer-book was being used. Under such circumstances what was his duty as a politician and a Member of Parliament? It was their duty to see that the law was obeyed, and they ought not to give any facilities to a movement in the direction of Romanising the Church as established by law. He agreed that the House could not now decide whether a particular religious service was lawful or unlawful, but it was their duty to observe the great movement of opinion in the country. He asserted that the evidence showed not only that the principal offenders against the law persisted in their malpractices, but that the disorder was, under their defiant activity, one that was ever growing and threatened to spread more and more throughout the country, and he would show the House enough to justify the inference that they had to deal, not only with isolated and sporadic instances, but that there was a concerted movement to alter the fundamental principles of the Establishment.

He would not say anything about the history of what was known as the Oxford Movement. That was well known to most Members of the House; but he might say that whatever the original intention of the group of clergymen who began it, it had in its later development become an obvious attempt to assimilate the doctrine and usage of the English Church to that of the Roman Church. As far back as 1877, Archbishop Tait said in Convocation, in calling attention to a little confessional book for children issued, as it turned out, by the Society of the Holy Cross— I have now given your Lordships all the information that I have on this subject. I do it with the greatest pain. I do it with a full appreciation of the goodness of the men with whom we have to deal; but no admiration of any points in their character ought, I think, to make us hesitate as to whatever may appear to be our duty in the endeavour to counteract what I feel obliged to call a conspiracy within our own body against the doctrine, the discipline, and the practice of the Reformed Church. That was said by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1877. Over twenty-five years had passed, and instead of those disorders having abated they had increased. The Bishop of Hereford, writing recently, said— The section of the clergy which has come under the influence of this stream of tendency has been very earnest in propaganda and socially prominent, and it has for a considerable period been left to work steadily, and in many points of vantage, to wipe out the Protestant character of the Church of England, and to revive under the vague, and consequently misleading, name of Catholic, the Church of the darker ages, with its rule of sacerdotal authority over the individual conscience, its encouragement of the confessional, its doctrine of the Mass, its baseless dogmas about the state of the dead, and its imposing symbolic and spectacular worship. All this is fascinating to weak and emotional natures, and to a luxurious and sensation-loving society; but to any thoughtful person who understands what English life owes to the Reformation, it is clear that hardly any greater misfortune could befall our Church and nation than the success of such an endeavour. It was to prevent the success of that endeavour that he seconded this Motion. He had intended to go a little into the way in which what he called false doctrines were being permitted under the auspices of the Established Church, but he hardly thought it was necessary now to do that. He had read a good deal of the literature connected with the Oxford Movement, and he admired the scholarly and graceful style of many of the books, but in substance he found them very stale, flat, and unprofitable reading. The inference he drew from that literature was that for the most part it was given up to trying to prove propositions which were inconsistent, with the Protestant faith. He noticed that in recent controversies many people had been questioning the use of the word "Protestant" and the assumption of the word "Catholic" by the Church of England. He had been considering what authority he could appeal to in order to secure something like a reasonable definition or analysis of the word "Protestant," and he had consulted Sir George Cornewall Lewis's book on "The Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion." in which he examines the claims of the Church of Rome and the claims and theories of the Protestant Churches. After describing the attitude of the Church of Rome, Sir George Cornewall Lewis says— On the other hand, the Protestant Churches hold that the Scriptures of the Old and Kew Testament contain everything which goes to make up Christianity, and that they are the exclusive and ultimate rule of faith. They deny the existence of any uninterrupted and exclusive transmission of true doctrine in any Church since the times of the Apostles. If that was the test of Protestantism, then nearly all the manuals circulated and many of the sermons being preached were against the fundamental principles of the Protestant religion. The hon. Gentleman opposite said he would leave him to deal with some of the facts about the bishopric of Worcester. He had only one case to cite in connection with that bishopric, but there were undoubtedly many of a similar character. The case to which he should like to call the Prime Minister's attention was that of St. Jude's, Birmingham. It was the case of Mr. Pinechard, whom the Prime Minister appointed on the understanding that he was not a ritualist.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

No. Well, I cannot remember exactly what I did in Mr. Pinchard's case; but certainly in every case subsequent to that—the dates are not exactly in my mind—I had to be very careful in advising the Crown in such a fashion as always to see that there should lie a promise of obedience to the Bishop. Mr. Pinchard not only differs from the hon. Gentleman, and most of us, in his views of what ritual should be, but he has also the misfortune to differ from His Majesty's Government on every known question of politics; that might soften the hon. Gentleman's opposition.

MR. BRYNMOR JONES

The right hon. Gentleman said last year, when Mr. Pinchard was appointed, that he was sure he was not a ritualist.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am not sure whether I got a promise from him.

MR. BRYNMOR JONES

said the answer of the right hon. Gentleman was in the report of The Parliamentary Debates. With regard to the controversy that was going on, he put it to the House whether the kind of proceedings he was going to cite were fair. The statement he would read described a service which took place on the 24th January this year, at St. Jude's, Birmingham.

It was called a children's Eucharist— A large number of children were present and some adults, the majority of whom were evidently teachers. There were twelve candles alight on or above the altar. The children were supplied with a service-book called 'The Children's Eucharist, St. Jude's.' A copy was lent to me (the reporter); it contained neither printer's nor publisher's name, and it was marked 'Not to be taken away.' It consisted of an outline of the Prayer-book service of Holy Communion interspersed with other prayers and hymns. Before the Prayer of Consecration are printed in italic capitals the words 'Now Jesus comes, be very still.' After the Prayer of Consecration are printed in italics: 'Our Lord Jesus Christ is now verily and indeed present, keep very still and say this prayer very solemnly.' The following prayer occurs in the book, and is, I believe, the one indicated: 'O Jesus! because thou hast said it, we believe that the bread is now Thy body —we believe that the wine is now Thy blood. O Jesus Christ, our God, we adore Thee.' That was the service from the children's point of view. The celebrant on the day mentioned wore mass vestments, and performed a ceremony which, while it appeared to comply with the directions of the Book of Common Prayer introduced practices already condemned by the Courts of law in this country and many of which appeared to him to be of very doubtful legality. He was glad the right hon. Gentleman had appointed a Commission; that was an admission that there were a great many irregularities, and until the Commission had reported he hoped that the present Bill would be delayed.

Amendment proposed— To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'in view of the continuance in the Established Church of England and Wales of grave and widespread disorders which the Archbishops and Bishops have failed to restrain, this House declines to assent to any revival of the provisions of The Bishoprics Act, 1878, until satisfactory assurances are obtained that the Archbishops and Bishops will enforce a reasonable conformity by the clergy to the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles of Religion, and the law as determined by the Courts which have statutory jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical,' —(Mr. Charles McArthur.)—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN (Birmingham, W.).

I venture to ask the House to allow me to speak in a few words as the senior representative of one of the districts affected by this Bill. I speak solely as such a representative. The House is aware that I am myself a Nonconformist, and as such I should not have thought it desirable, or even proper, that I should intervene in questions concerning the Chinch of England. I am not only a Nonconformist, but I am myself, and always have been, in favour of the policy of disestablishment. I have thought and said that the adoption of that policy would really be a relief to the Church of England, that it would increase its spiritual influence, and that it would save it from attacks which are now made upon it on the grounds of its holding an exceptional and privileged position. I am not going to follow the hon. Members who have spoken in a theological discussion; I hardly think this House is the place for such details as those to which we have litened. But, speaking generally, I may say that I am strongly opposed to the illegal practices to which they have referred. Putting aside any question of theological doctrine, I am opposed to them because they are illegal. To my mind it matters not in the least whether a man is a layman or a priest, he is bound to obey the law; and if, as hon. Members have asserted, and as I suppose is the case, at all events exceptionally— if, as they assert, the law is broken, by all means do everything you can to see that the law is observed. But proceed against the law-breakers; do not attempt to proceed in this extremely indirect way by punishing the wrong people. Why are a number of worthy Church people in Birmingham, the majority of whom happen to belong not to the section of the Church which is guilty of these illegal practices, but to the other section of the Church, why are they to be prevented from completing their spiritual organisation because in some other place and some other district, or even in exceptional instances in their own district, the law is being broken? Let those who contend that the law is broken proceed against the law breakers. But it is said that there are great difficulties in the way, that it is very expensive, that is the first thing. Very well, if that be the case, ' try to alter the law so as to make the prosecution of this illegality more easy. That is clearly the duty of those who, like my hon. friend and the hon. Gentleman opposite, desire to see the speedy redress of this grievance. I agree most heartily with them. If the law is broken that ought to be stopped; and if the present means of stopping it are in-sufficient I should be glad to support Them when they bring forward a measure, I which commended itself to me on other grounds, which would secure the due observance of the law.

It is said that another reason why the law cannot at present be made operative is because of the Bishops' veto. Well, again, that is the law, and as long as that is the law you have to accept it. If you do not like the law, and think this veto should be taken from the Bishops, then I say you are justified in bringing in a Bill to alter it. But the law must be altered first. For all these reasons I think that my hon. friend and the hon. Gentleman opposite are proceeding on wrong lines; and while I sympathise to a large extent with their object, I object altogether to the methods —pardon me if I use the word, I do so in no offensive sense—the unworthy methods by which they seek to attain those ends. I cannot quite follow my hon. friend the Member for Liverpool in what he has said as to Birmingham. Although we have got a good number of Welshmen and a few Liverpool men in Birmingham I cannot help thinking that the city will prefer to be represented by its own men, and not by a Member for a division of Wales or a Member for Liverpool. What does my hon. friend say about Birmingham? He said, I understood, that it was one of the dioceses that was particularly affected by this illegality. Well, that is entirely contrary to the fact.

MR. CHARLES McARTHUR

was understood to say that Birmingham was not so largely affected.

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN

Quite so; my hon. friend began by saying that both dioceses were affected by this pernicious evil, and Rochester more than Birmingham. Birmingham, so far as the Church organisation is concerned, is essentially and substantially Evangelical. That is owing to the fact that there are a great number of Evangelical trusts, such as the Simeon Trusts, by whom the larger portion of the clerical appointments are made; and consequently, although ritualism is represented in Birmingham, that side of Church opinion is, I should say, represented only to a very slight extent. Then my hon. friend made a remark which I very much regretted and to which I must give a respectful contradiction. He said the Church in Birmingham were scandalised by the appointment of the present Bishop of Worcester. I am thankful to say, having the reputation of Birmingham at heart, that there was no such opinion expressed or felt by the vast majority of the people. The Bishop of Worcester, of course, came amongst us practically as a stranger; few, I suppose, had ever seen him or met him: but there was every desire to receive him as became his position and his character, and to give him every assistance in the duties he had to perform. Now that we do know the Bishop of Worcester, who has been amongst us a considerable time, we know that he has won golden opinions from everybody, from Nonconformists quite as much as from Churchmen, and his moderate, generous, broad, and religious influence is exercising the best effect upon the people of the city. I do not think the city of Birmingham need be picked out as specially affected by these practices, or need be specially penalised because these practices exist in other parts of the kingdom.

My hon. friend the Member for Liverpool endeavoured to draw a comparison between the state of things in the Church and a supposititious existence of disloyalty in the Army. It seems to me the illustration is entirely irrelevant, but I will give him an illustration which seems to me to exemplify what he proposed. Supposing the people of Liverpool were asking for the appointment of a second County Court Judge, and that the appointment had to be made from this House, if I were to come down from Birmingham and say there was a County Court Judge in Birmingham who had given decisions of which I disapproved, and that therefore we objected to any increase of judicial assistance in Liverpool, that would be an illustration. It appears to me the cases are exactly on all fours; and I do beg the House, on behalf of Birmingham, to consider what I assure them is the almost universal opinion, without respect to religious differences, of the people of Birmingham, that it would be most desirable in the interests, not merely of religious organisations, but of all the charitable organisations which are so largely dealt with by the Church—that it is in the interests of these great influences that the organisation of the Church in Birmingham should be completed. I hope the House will not stand in the way of the philanthropic efforts of the Church people of Birmingham who, out of their own pocket, have found all that is requisite in order to endow the new bishopric and will not make their sacrifices vain, for what? Not because any objection whatever has been taken or can be taken, on the merits, against this proposal, but because there is somewhere or other in the Church subjects of complaint which can be dealt with by totally different means.

MR. NEWDIGATE (Warwickshire, Nuneaton)

said that as one living in the diocese of Worcester he wished to thank the Prime Minister very mach for having introduced this Bill. He should also like to thank the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham for having supported the Bill in the way he had done. As one living in the diocese he knew what the feeling of the people in that part of Warwickshire was, and he could say that one and all were in favour of this Bill. He thought it was extremely hard that because a few ultra-anti-High Church people were against the Bill, they should try to postpone its passage. They, in the diocese, had put their hands in their pockets and subscribed the sum of £103,000, in about a year, of the £105,000 which was the sum that was wanted. In reference to this, he might say that the Bishop of Worcester—who he was sorry to hear spoken of in a way that no person in the Church or diocese of Worcester would approve of— had given the greater part of his fortune in order to help this bishopric forward. He ventured to say that when the man at the head of the diocese acted in that way, they would be very churlish indeed not to support him in the best way they could. He had in his hand a list of the subscriptions towards the bishopric fund, ranging from very large sums given by wealthy people to the humble £1 given by poor artisans. One Sunday was set apart in the diocese for collecting money for the bishopric fund, and in the mining and manufacturing districts almost every church did very well indeed on that particular Sunday. One church in his own neighbourhood, the congregation of which was composed almost entirely of miners, subscribed something like £11. He knew, from his own experiences, that at the present time it was almost impossible for one man to work the bishopric of Worcester. It contained the enormous population of 1,400,000 people; there were 781 benefices in it, and it embraced the towns of Coventry, Kidderminster, Leamington, and Warwick, besides Birmingham, which alone had a population of something like 538,000. He wanted to ask his hon. friend who sat below him, and who talked as if he alone and those who sympathised with him had the right to call themselves the representatives of the Evangelical party in the Church of England—whether he and his friends had ever visited the diocese of Worcester and whether they had ever consulted the opinion of the Evangelical supporters of the Church there with reference to this Bill? If they came down into the diocese he would take them to visit the various churches, and, with the exception of Mr. Pinchard's church in Birmingham, his hon. friend would see nothing whatever that he could possibly complain of. He asked the House to support the Prime Minister on this occasion and to vote against the Amendment.

* MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR. (Liverpool, East Toxteth)

said the Amendment had this advantage as against the alternative course alluded to by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, that it did not seek in any way to alter the ritual or the discipline of the Church of England, and therefore it could not be urged against the Amendment that the State was seeking to impose its authority upon the Church. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was familiar with the course of events in that House as regards Church matters during recent years. The right hon. Gentleman had had much to occupy him in other directions, and the persistent efforts which had been made to bring the grave state of affairs in the Church before that House and to obtain legislation in pursuance of the explicit pledges of the Government might have escaped his notice. In dealing with this Bill they must recognise that they were dealing with an Established Church, not with a purely voluntary society but with a spiritual organisation— not a political organisation, as his hon. friend seemed to think, but a spiritual organisation which, through its connection with the State, had undertaken certain statutory obligations: and it was because there had been breaches of those obligations on the part of the clergy, not sporadically here or there, but breaches so serious that the Government after five years of reflection had decided to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into those alleged illegalities, that his hon. friend was justified in raising this question by his Amendment. The Church of England in relation to the State was an interesting subject of investigation; but it would be altogether too wide, in speaking to the Amendment, were he to enter into the relations between Church and State in this country. He must say, however that occasionally when he considered the thorny, controversial, and almost hopeless character of the problems with which they were confronted; when he thought of the clergy and their practices in the National Church, there were moments when he thought with his right hon. friend the Member for West Birmingham, that the situation would be more easily dealt with if the Church were a purely voluntary society. These, however, were rare moments, and when he came back as a Member of this House, and as a citizen, to the facts of the case, he felt that it was essential to maintain the connection between Church and State for the good of religion, and for the benefit of the Constitution of the country.

What was the position before the House? The Bill requested from this House facilities for ecclesiastical machinery. He did not think it went further than that; that in asking for these bishoprics they were asking for nothing which would materially assist the lot of the clergy, either in Birmingham or Southward If the Bill asked for anything which would materially improve the lot of the parochial clergy, if it were intended to relieve some of the struggling and poorly-paid clergy, he would hesitate to oppose it. The proposal, however, was merely one for providing additional ecclesiastical machinery, audit was fair to ask that be fore this was given they should have guarantees from those who represented the Church in this country that the original obligation as settled by the Act of Uniformity should be carried out. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham that illustrations given in the course of debate were generally misleading. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of an almost inconceivable instance of misbehaviour in Birmingham on the part of a County Court Judge, and implied that it would be unreasonable to refer to such misbehaviour as a reason for not appointing a Judge in Liverpool. Had a Royal Commission been appointed to inquire into supposed judicial irregularities throughout the country he submitted that Members would be entitled to raise the question in that House. The question raised last year-concerning the patronage of Keble College. Oxford, had, he supposed, nothing to do with the dioceses of Southwark and Birmingham, but he desired to refer to it because the question he wished to raise was whether the Church as a whole was carrying out her obligations, and whether those exercising the functions of the hierarchy were doing so in accordance with the law. That might not have anything to do with the dioceses of Birmingham and Southwark; but what he was entitled to raise, as between the Church and the State, and what he desired to raise, was whether the Church as a whole was carrying out her obligations and whether those who were exercising the functions of the hierarchy in the Church were doing so in accordance with the laws of this realm. In view of the way in which the patronage of Keble College, Oxford, had been exercised——

* MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! I fail to see what the methods by which Keble College exercises its patronage have to do with this Bill.

* MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR

said he was going to point out that two Bishops, the Bishops of Lincoln and of Rochester, were members of the council of the College.

MR. SPEAKER

That is very remote.

MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR

said he would not pursue the point further and would submit to the ruling of the Chair. He, however, felt very strongly on the matter. Of course, opinions would differ in this House, and out of it, as to the extent of the evils of which they complained; but this must be admitted, that those evils had gone so far that His Majesty's Government five years ago admitted a contingent need for legislation, and had now appointed a Royal Commission to inquire whether legislation was really necessary. He thought it was a most reasonable contention of his hon. friend and colleague that any additional ecclesiastical machinery might very well wait until that Royal Commission had reported. He quite admitted that in taking up a position of this kind he might be charged with unduly severe treatment of the Church as a whole; but they had to deal with circumstances as they found them, and seeing that the inquiry would shortly proceed—he did not know to what length, but he hoped it would not be too long drawn-out—he thought those facilities might very well wait until the Royal Commission had reported, and possibly the fact that those facilities were waiting might lead to an earlier Report of the Commission than they might otherwise hope for. He felt that as opportunities in this House of raising a question of this kind as between the Church and the State were so rare, and that as the House of Commons was, after all, the only representative Assembly they had got, imperfect instrument though it was for the laity of the Church of England, those interested in the Church and in its Protestant aspect were justified in raising these questions as opportunity offered.

It might be, as his right hon. friend the Prime Minister said, that in raising those questions they were adopting an unduly harsh attitude towards a portion, or, if hon. Members liked, the whole of a great spiritual organisation to which they were deeply attached. He quite admitted the force of the contention of his right hon. friend. It was not an agreeable position for those who desired to maintain the Protestant character of the Church of England to find themselves obliged to come forward on an occasion like the present and assume an attitude which possibly ordinary Members of the House who did not feel so keenly, although they were quite as much attached to the Evangelical side of the Church, might not approve. It was a disagreeable matter to have to do it. But on whom did the responsibility rest? Surely, the responsibility rested primarily on those in the Church, who having authority did not exercise it to put down those practices. Perhaps even beyond them, the responsibility rested on those clergy, against whose private character and conscientious convictions he had nothing to say, but who determinedly persisted in a course of action which could only land the Church in irretrievable disaster. Surely, also, the responsibility in the last degree rested with the Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said he was in favour of disciplinary legislation; that if the law was not what it ought to be, let them make it what it ought to be; and that if a measure of that kind were brought forward he would support it, although he was careful to add that in his private opinion, which he had always held, disestablishment would be a preferable or at any rate a more equitable solution of the difficulty. Surely in view of the fact of those admitted difficulties, and that five years had passed since this House solemnly pledged itself to deal with this matter and also with the question of the distribution of the patronage of the Crown, the responsibility rested on the Government, who, although they were indebted to private Members, including himself, for continually bringing this matter to their recollection, had yet shown considerable hesitation and delay in grappling with a subject which ultimately they or their successors would be bound to grapple with. He had presumed too long on the time of the House, out this was a matter on which he felt keenly. He recognised that the House had a certain responsibility; but he felt that if, as time went on, nothing were done that responsibility would grow greater and not less. It was because he did not wish events to take a direction less favourable to the Church, which they might if those evils were not grappled with, that he was prepared to take the extreme course of raising the issue on the Bill before the House.

* MR. LOWE (Birmingham, Edgbaston)

said that, as representing a very large body of Churchpeople in Birmingham, he wished to give all the support in his power to the Second Reading of this Bill, and he desired to make a strong appeal to Members on both sides of the House not to place any obstacle in the way of its being passed into law. It was simply a measure, designed and intended to ratify and give legal sanction to an arrangement which had already been provisionally entered into by all the Church people resident in the localities with which it dealt, an arrangement which was unanimously approved of and supported by all who were interested in the matter: and the money for carrying out of which had been already subscribed by the people concerned. It bad the warm approval of the present Bishop of the diocese, who could not have given a better proof of his approval and of his earnestness in the matter than he had given by giving £800 a year of his present income and nearly the whole of his private fortune in support of this scheme It was admitted by everyone who was acquainted with the diocese of Worcester, as at present constituted, that it was far too large and unwieldy and too diverse in the nature of its population and interests to be properly supervised and administered by a single Bishop. He believed it consisted of about 500 parishes with an average population of something like 3,000 souls in each parish, and the difficulty was exaggerated and rendered greater by the fact that those parishes formed part of three archdeaconries which were quite different in their sympathies and interests-He did not quite know when the diocese of Worcester was first established, but it was quite certain that when it was established Birmingham was scarcely as large as Worcester now was. But now Birmingham had grown to such an extent that it contained a population larger than all the rest of the diocese put, together; and—as everyone knew— it had become one of the chief cities and one of the first commercial centres in the whole of the United Kingdom. It had been described as the best governed city in the world; it had a Lord Mayor, a University, and all the other attributes and adjuncts of a great city, except a Bishop and a Cathedral; and why it should he considered less worthy than Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, or Bristol to have a Bishop of its own, he was entirely at a loss to understand.

Those best acquainted with the spiritual needs of the locality, and those who wore best competent to judge of this matter, were strongly of opinion that Birmingham stood very much in need of an independent diocesan organisation, centred in a Bishop, whose seat should be, not in Worcester, but in Birmingham itself; and they believed that the moral, spiritual and social welfare of all those who lived in the great industrial district of which Birmingham was the centre would be greatly promoted if this see were established. He could not at all understand how anyone who wished to see the work of the Church of England prosper and progress, how anyone who wished to see the spiritual life of the people fostered and encouraged, could object to this Bill. Much less could he understand why those who believed in the virtue of local self-government should object to the Church people of Birmingham and its district being allowed, at all events, in an administrative matter of this kind, to manage their own affairs in the manner which seemed to them best. It appeared to him that his hon. friends representing Divisions of Liverpool and the hon. Gentlemen opposite who so strongly condemned illegal and irregular practices in the Church of England should be among the first and the most prominent in support of this Bill, for it stood to reason that the smaller and more compact a diocese was the better would the Bishop in charge of it be able to regulate and control its proceedings and to put down any evil practices which were found to exist. And just the same thing applied to hon. Gentlemen who objected to anything in the administrative action of the present holder of the see, for that was clearly a reason why they should support this Bill, because it was quite obvious that the Bishop would have a much smaller diocese to look after when the Bill was passed than he had at present and therefore would be able to look after it better. On all those grounds he heartily supported the Bill.

* MR. EMMOTT (Oldham)

said he wished to do every justice in his power to those who opposed the Bill, but he could not see that they had made out any case at all. He had listened very carefully to what they had said, because he had a great deal of fundamental sympathy with the views they held. He would suggest to them whether it was not possible that the establishment of these new bishoprics might not tend to benefit the cause they had at heart. Bishops, if they did not prosecute, did advise and admonish, and if they had more Bishops they might get more advice and admonishment, whereas if they had overworked Bishops they might get less advice and admonishment. The present Bishop of Manchester had been transferred from Birmingham to Manchester. A clergyman remarked to him that the new Bishop of Manchester was a very Low Churchman. He did not know if this were the case or not; but he wished to point out that if he had remained at Birmingham and Birmingham had been made a bishopric, the precise effect which Members who opposed the Bill desired would have occurred, and that instead of the Bishop of Worcester, to whom they objected, they would have had a Bishop whose views were mainly in accordance with their own. As to the Bishop of Worcester, he should like to say that he did not think there was in the Church of England or in any religious body in the country a more noble and more saintly figure. He (Mr. Emmott) did not deny there were serious irregularities in the Church of England, but what he deplored more than these irregularities was the spirit of ecclesiasticism which was spreading in the Church, the magnifying of Church authority as against the authority of the individual conscience and the tendency to materialism both among the religious and the irreligious. The excess of ritual, of which so much was said, was not half so important as the spirit which underlay it. He would ask this practical question—were they going to stop that movement by prosecuting people for ritualistic practices or by opposing a change of machinery in the Church itself? He ventured to think that the opposition which was raised to this Bill did give some colour to the feeling that opponents of ritualism in the Church of England did take a narrow and somewhat bitter view, and put forward, in a manner which was by no means wise, views which they strongly held and which to a large extent he completely sympathised with. He was certain that by opposing a Bill like this, not on its merits, they were doing damage to the cause they professed. As to the wider question of the connection between the Church and the State, although a Churchman, he was in favour of disestablishment. The more he saw of that House the more he saw how utterly unfitted it was to deal with questions connected with the Church. The question of disestablishment however was not a practical question now, and until that question came before them in a practical form they had no right to oppose a Bill like this, which was merely one for a necessary change of machinery. There fore he must support the Second Reading of the Bill.

MR KIMBER (Wandsworth)

said that, as the representative of the largest constituency in the Metropolis and one of the 2,000,000 people in South London hoped that this Bill would bring to them a great amelioration of the present ecclesiastical conditions of South London, the Mouse would no doubt bear with him while he expressed the views which he believed to be those of the large majority of the people he represented. The Bill asked the House for nothing in the way of money or power, but merely to give them facilities to improve their own internal administration. It dealt in no way with doctrine, ritual, or with discipline in the Church. It left those matters untouched, and he would have thought, subject to the greater knowledge of Mr. Speaker, that the Amendment would have been almost out of order, for this Bill did not touch any of the grounds upon which the mover and seconder sought to deprive him and those for whom he spoke of the benefits of this Bill. The seconder of the Amendment had based his opposition to the Bill on the ground that he objected to the doctrine and ritual of the Church of England as developed in the last seventy-five years. There was not a word in the Bill from first to last about making changes in the doctrine of the Church. The hon. Gentleman also objected to the false doctrines which were taught under the Established Church. The House would want to know, first of all, whether the hon. Member referred to the doctrines within the law of the Church or to those outside. This Bill did not deal with them, whether they were within the law of the Church or not. He claimed that this was a people's Bill and not an ecclesiastical Bill. Afundof£50,000 had already been raised among the people of South London, and as soon as this Bill passed, as it must pass, the fund would be raised to over £100,000 to endow the bishopric. He, therefore, appealed to hon. Members representing Swansea and Liverpool constituencies to leave the South Londoners to manage their own affairs. There should be liberty for all, within bounds, in the Church of England, both for High and Low Churchmen. He himself had no objection to High Churchmen simply because they were High Churchmen, nor was he aware that they had any objec- tion to him because he was what was called a Low Charchman. The Bishop of Rochester was a High Churchman, but he came among the people of South London and they were able to judge what his principles and practices were, and he could say without fear of contradiction that a large majority of the 2,000,000 people for whom he spoke would testify to the worthiness and the legality, from the Church point of view, of those practices. What the Amendment said was that admitting the Bill to be a good Bill seeking to improve the administration of their own affairs, unless they did something against somebody else in some other part of London they should not be allowed to improve their position. He entreated hon. Members to withhold any opposition, whatever their predilections might be with regard to other parts of the country, and allow this relief to be given.

MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWEN (Kent, Tunbridge)

appealed to the mover and seconder of the Amendment to be content with having raised the question, and no to press their Motion to a division. He did not complain of their raising the question, as persons who felt strongly on any matter were entitled to take every opportunity of ventilating their grievances. For his own part, he joined with his hon. friends to the extent of regretting the existence of certain abuses, and believing that means would certainly have to betaken to compel obedience to the law of the Church of England. But was the course they were now taking likely to lead to the accomplishment of their desire? Granted that certain abuses existed and that sufficient measures had not been taken to remove them, would that condition of affairs be altered by stopping this Bill, which merely effected an administrative reform, and preventing large masses of the people from obtaining proper ecclesiastical supervision? The Bill had been objected to on the ground that it would add to the number of Bishops, and that the Bishops had not done their duly in the ritualistic controversy. He did not think hon. Members were sufficiently aware of what the Bishops had done. They had had to deal with an exceedingly difficult situation, to curb practices, the illegality of which was often doubtful, and to interfere in the case of men who were doing splendid work in the cause of religion. It was their duty not to damp down religious ardour, or to press things too far merely to obtain legal compliance; and in many cases where no public action had been taken, the Bishops had done much quietly and privately to put a stop to certain practices. The best way to secure greater conformity to the law was to strengthen the administrative control of the Bishops, and that could be done only by ensuring that the areas over which they had control were such that they could promptly and effectively exercise their powers.

The people of Birmingham, including non-members of the Church of England, unanimously desired that that city should Le made an ecclesiastical centre, having its own Bishop, and, when they had themselves supplied the funds and made all necessary provision, he could not conceive on what grounds Parliament could refuse its assent. In regard to Rochester, he could speak from personal experience. South London was probably the greatest unbroken area of poverty in the world; and in no place was there greater need for genuine spiritual work. That work was being splendidly done by the Church of England, but it was seriously hampered from the administrative point of view by the non-existence or a separate see. The diocese of Rochester, which included South London, parts of Surrey, and a portion of Kent, was all placed under the ecclesiastical care of a Bishop whose first interest must be in South London That was a most anomalous position, and was not at all for the benefit of the Church or of the people. South London, in the diocese of Rochester, had a population of 1,750,000, and it increased at the rate of 30,000 per annum. Surely that was an area complete in itself and entitled to its own diocese. The rejection of this Bill would do nothing towards correcting the abuses of which complaint was made, but it would tend to render less efficient the Church of England. All would acknowledge the splendid work of that body, especially among the poorer classes in the great cities. Was the administrative efficiency of that work to be hindered because particular views were held with regard to certain services in certain churches? That was an unreasonable attitude to take up, and he hoped hon. Members would not press the Amendment to a division.

COLONEL SANDYS (Lancashire. Bootle)

, in supporting the Amendment said that, while it might be very desirable that Bishops should be appointed for Birmingham and Southwark, the main objection to the Bill was that it treated the matter as a local question rather than as a broad question affecting the Church of England as a whole. The point upon which the House ought to concentrate its attention was whether or not the Bishops as a whole had adhered to their ordination vows. The view which he took of the position of a Bishop in the Church of England was the same as he would take of that of the chief of any other great Department, whether in Church or in State. It was firmly believed by many devoted members of the Church of England, who longed for nothing so much as her well-being in all respects, that her greatest enemy was the introduction of doctrines of the Church of Rome into her teaching and ritual. There were many churches in which members of the Church of England as established at the Reformation could not worship, as they were unable to distinguish the services from those of the Church of Rome. It was the business of the Bishops to curb those practices, but instead of taking measures to that end, they seemed to be unable or unwilling to deal with the matter. On an occasion like the present when the House and the country were asked to add to the number of Bishops, the members of the Protestant section of the Church of England considered it to be their duty to protest against the appointment of additional Bishops until those who were already appointed were in a position to control or master the position and exercise their duty in a proper way. What would be said of a person who held communion with the enemy and allowed practices to go on between his army and the army of the enemy and did not take steps to check-it at all hazards? That was the position the Government had taken up, and on that account he thought it was his duty to appeal to the House of Commons to refuse consent to this Bill until such time as His Majesty's Government took the decided step which they promised to take five years ago, and until they saw that the Bishops themselves showed that they had some desire to grapple with and control this growing evil in the Church of England.

One particular thing for which he thought the Bishops were greatly to blame was that they had failed to grapple with the men who had set, the law at defiance, who regarded not the decisions of the House of Commons, and who having undertaken to obey the Thirty-nine Articles were content to eat the bread of the Church and do the work of the Church's enemies. How did those men get into their present positions? They were admitted into the Church by the Bishops. Why did the Bishops not make it impossible for a man to pass into holy orders unless he gave some assurance that he would, under no circumstances, take part in what he must describe as traitorous actions. The Bishop's examining chaplain admitted these men to the Church, and the Bishop himself appointed his own examining chaplain, and if the Bishop admitted them he was to blame. The House of Commons was now being asked to increase the number of Bishops without any assurance being given that these practices would be discontinued, and consequently they appealed to the House of Commons on no account to consent to this Bill until some definite and satisfactory assurance had been given by the Bishops to the country that these ritualistic practices in the Church of England should be put an end to. He knew that the opponents of this Bill were in a minority, but if he went into the lobby alone he should vote against this measure, because he considered it ought not to be passed. He apologised for having spoken with some warmth, but this was a question upon which he felt very deeply.

MR. SEELY (Lincoln)

said he agreed very thoroughly with many of the opinions of those who had moved the Amendment, but as a Member who had some knowledge of a portion of the proposed Southwark bishopric he joined with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham in urging the supporters of this Amendment to withdraw their opposition to this Bill. No one who at all realised the work which had been done by the Bishops and who had any knowledge of the circumstances of the two dioceses, could doubt the desirability of the measure submitted to the House to-day. In both cases the populations were very large. The case of Birmingham had been spoken of by many hon. Members, bat he desired to say a few words about the Southwark district. Everyone who had any knowledge of London knew not only how large the population in the Southwark diocese was now, but also how constantly it was increasing, and what prospect it showed of continuous increase. The actual routine work of Bishops was always very heavy, and that was very much added to if the diocese was increasing. They had to arrange for new parishes, new churches, and every new parish and new church added to the Bishop's work when established, and during the process of establishment. A Bishop was able to do much for the benefit of the people in a district and for the benefit of religion by his influence and assistance in new districts. He did not suppose there was anyone in the House, whatever his political or religious opinions might lie, who was not anxious to promote religious work in South London, and he therefore asked those who had moved the Amendment to be satisfied with the debate which had taken place on the question, and not to press the Amendment to a division of the House simply to prevent the making of proper arrangements for carrying on the work of the Church of England in South London.

He fully appreciated the reasons which had induced his hon. friends to bring this question forward, and he yielded to no one in his dislike of illegal practices, and he objected to them not merely because they were illegal, but because they were contrary to the Protestant spirit of the Church of England, which was the cause of the Establishment, and which he hoped would always be one of its glories as long as it existed, which he trusted might be a very long time. Although hon. Members who supported this Amendment might be fully justified in insisting, when new bishoprics were being created, that they should have an opportunity of drawing attention to the faults of existing bishoprics, and the deficiencies in the arrangements for enforcing discipline in the Church of England, he did not think it was wise or logical to attempt to prevent new bishoprics being established. If they were not satisfied with the work of the existing Bishops, there was no advantage in preventing them making arrangements for doing their work properly. The very words used in this Amendment— That, in view of the continuance in the Established Church of England and Wales of grave and widespread disorders which the Archbishops and Bishops have tailed to restrain, were an argument in favour of this Bill. If anything could be done to insist upon a thorough and proper carrying out of the law, if anything could be done to emphasise and maintain the Protestant character of the Church — if it needed emphasis and maintenance, which he very much doubted—it would have his cordial support. But he appealed to lion. Members not to allow themselves, in consequence of any sympathy with extreme, notions on the one side, or any dislike of extreme opinions on the other, now that an opportunity had been given for debate—he appealed to the House not to prevent the passing of a measure which was undoubtedly and urgently required for the proper administration of the ecclesiastical organisation in Birmingham and South London. He appealed to the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.

MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH (Anglesey)

said the introduction of this Bill had reminded them of the connection which existed between Church and State, and also of the necessity that if the Church of England wanted a new Bishop it must come to Parliament for it. The Church could not manage its own affairs, and it must come to Parliament to get its consent. The last speaker had argued that when the sphere of influence of a Bishop was made smaller the power of mischief would be smaller, and if they had less work to do it would be better for the Church. He knew that the Bishop of Rochester had done a good deal of work in the House of Lords, and if they wanted him to have less to do, the best way to accomplish this would be to deprive him of his power in the House of Lords. If the Bishops did suffer from overwork in this way the right way to deal with that overwork was not to lessen their dioceses but rather to deprive them of their functions in the House of Lords, and thereby enable them to devote all their time to their dioceses. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had stated that he was a Nonconformist, and that he was still a "Disestablisher." That being so, he thought they must congratulate him on having remained true to al least two of his earlier opinions. It was, however, hardly consistent with the right hon. Gentleman's position as a "Disestablisher" that he should support a Bill to increase the power and the vested interest of a Church which he proposed some day to disestablish. Surely that would make the task of the right hon. Gentleman still harder to disestablish the Church when he had the opportunity. It seemed to him that was not the right way to go about disestablishment if he was in earnest in the matter.

* MR. MARTIN (Worcestershire, Droitwich)

desired to support the creation of the new bishopric of Birmingham on behalf of the inhabitants of the county of Worcester. They felt they had in their present Bishop a guiding spirit, and they did not desire him to be so taken up with clerical work as to be unable to devote his time to spiritual work. It was no uncommon thing for the present Bishop to be occupied six or seven hours a day with clerical work. A great deal had been said by way of comparing the work of the Church to that of an army. What would they think if in time of war the generals were compelled to do the staff clerical work instead of devoting their energies to fighting? It was only consistent with common sense to afford the Bishops greater power to regulate the forces of the Church, and to deny them that power would prevent them from carrying on useful work in their dioceses. So far as Worcester was concerned, they did not wish for curtailment in the work of the Church: they rather desired that Church matters should be stimulated. Very few illegal practices were practised there, but there was ample room for the extension of Church work. He, therefore, supported the Bill.

MR. O'MARA (Kilkenny, S.)

said an hon. Member opposite had stated that by increasing the number of Bishops they would increase the opposition to the Church of Rome, which he called "the enemy." If that were to be one of the effects of the measure, he would be disposed to vote against it. On the other hand, he found that one of the new Bishops to be created was for Birmingham, and most Members admitted that Birmingham ought to have a Bishop to attend to its spiritual needs. It struck him there was no large town in the country that more required its spiritual needs attended to than Birmingham. If only for the sake of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham he thought the bishopric ought to be created. He agreed that Southwark, which had a large population, ought to have a Bishop. The arguments used by hon. Members opposite made it difficult for him to say how he should vote on this Bill, and he was almost inclined to fall back on the old practice when a doubt of this kind arose, namely, to vote against the Government. He wished to know from the Lord Advocate, the only representative of the Government at present on the Treasury Bench, on whom the costs for the two new bishoprics would fall. Would they fall on public or private funds [An HON. MEMBER: Private.] He was satisfied on that point, and would keep an open mind and decide by the further arguments adduced in the debate as to the Lobby he should go into.

MR. MIDDLEMORE (Birmingham, N.)

said that his support of all such Bills as that now before the House was necessarily hesitating and nervous. This Bill, like most others, was a compromise between what they approved and what they disapproved. He thought he would be able to show in the course of five minutes why he should vote for the Bill. An hon. Member opposite had brought up the question of disestablishment. He thought that question had a more intimate relation with the right and the wrong of this question than the question that was brought before the House by the hon. Member for Liverpool, although he admitted that that question was of considerable moment. He thought it might be said that Parliament was incompetent to deal effectively with such a question as this. It was incompetent to deal effectively with the spiritual affairs of anybody. Parliament was not a convocation, or a Sanhedrim, or a conference; it was an assembly of Party politicians, who by means best known to themselves had persuaded the electors to send them there till the next election, unless they applied for the Chiltern Hundreds. Ho would ask with great respect what had Roman Catholics to do with the creation of new Bishops of the Anglican Church any more than they had to do with the creation of Jewish Rabbis They regarded Anglicans as heretics, although it was true that their heresies were becoming somewhat difficult to perceive. Surely the non-religious had nothing to do with the creation of bishoprics. A large number of the Members of this House were non-religious. Was it not a grave scandal, and almost a blasphemy, that an Atheist should concern himself in these religious matters, even if it was only the establishment of the machinery of religion? If the Athiest uttered the reality within him he certainly would say that no two religions were more radically opposed than his and that of the Church of England. That Church existed to oppose the Atheist, and it might also be said that he existed to oppose this and other Churches, and yet he was asked to vote in favour of this Bill. The same might be said of the Jew. Christians believed that the New Testament gave them a divine guide in religious matters, but the Jew derided their view. But the Jew came here, perhaps, to vote for this Bill.

He admitted that the questions raised by the Amendment were of some moment. If the Church of England progressed to-wards the Church of Rome with the same rapidity during the next generation as she had during the past generation she would arrive there. She would out-Romanise Rome and would have her extravagancies kept in check from Rome. The Roman Church could do it very much better than the English House of Commons, for she would be kept in check by a spiritual body. He thought some Nonconformists must feel very strongly that as the Church receded more and more from its legal Protestant basis the salaries of the clergy would be drawn more and more from a Church to which they were legally aliens. There was the further question of how far the State ought to interfere in such matters. The creation of these bishoprics was so serious that each of them should be treated in one Bill; and they knew what that would mean. It had really come to this, that Parliament, which was inherently in Competent to deal with those questions, was pressed so much by such matters as they were now discussing that they could not devote themselves adequately to the business of the nation. He was bound to support this Bill. He had given strong reasons for a change in the law. [OPPOSITION cries of "When?"] He had given strong reasons for disestablishment; but when were they to get it? Were they to wait till hon. Gentlemen opposite were to give it? If so, how long would that be? He would appear on any platform with hon. Gentlemen opposite or with hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House, to support the disestablishment of the Church of England; but as to the Amendment, he thought it was an unchristian act to oppose the development of the Church of England. The diocese of Worcester was overgrown, and the present Bishop could not do justice to it. It really required two Bishops; and, as a Birmingham man, he asked that this Bill should be allowed to pass. He did not think that they ought to wait until some indefinite period when the Opposition were strong enough, or thought they were strong enough, to give the people of England ecclesiastical freedom; and therefore he supported the Bill, which he believed was one of the most pressing needs of the country.

SIR JOHN GORST (Cambridge University)

said he intended to vote for the Second Reading of the Bill on a ground which, he thought, over-rode a great many of the arguments used on both sides of the House in the course of the discussion. Southwark was a part of the United Kingdom which contained, he supposed, a much greater proportion of poor and wretched people than any other similar area in the country. Bir- mingham was not, he thought, exceptionally poor and wretched beyond all the other great manufacturing centres, but it contained many people whose lives were not a credit to our civilisation. Now, in these populations in Southwark and Birmingham there were all sorts of organisations at work endeavouring to improve the condition of the people, which was almost the despair of those who were conscious of that condition, and who desired to see the inhabitants of those cities as well-to-do and as happy as they ought to be. Religion was, perhaps, the most powerful motive which induced the Church and other organisations to make the sacrifices necessary for doing good amongst and improving the condition of these poor people. Those who knew the conditions in which their fellow-citizens lived, should be anxious to give fair play to every kind of organisation and institution in their endeavour to do anything to raise the character of the people.

The Church of England was not the only religious body in the world. There was the Church of Rome, which had active organisations for ameliorating the conditions of the poor; and the Nonconformists and the Salvation Army also exercised a very powerful influence in that direction. But all these other bodies could organise themselves as they thought proper; and if this was a question of those other religious bodies rather than of the Church of England it would not be necessary for them to come to Parliament to ask Parliament to sanction the improvement of those organisations. He would not enter into the question of why it was necessary that the Church of England should have to come to Parliament. For his part, he thought it was I very much better that the Church of England should be an Established Church; and he was not, like many of those who had addressed the House, one who believed that the Church of England would be better disestablished. The Church of England was an organised body which must corns to Parliament to ask leave to improve its organisation for purposes with which every Member of the House, I on both sides, and of every religious persuasion, must have sympathy. He, therefore, asked those hon. Members to help every organisation which desired to work for their benefit amongst the poor and unfortunate classes of the community. Was it not reasonable that Liberals and Conservatives alike, and even hon. Members from Ireland, should agree to enable the Church of England to organise itself in order to grapple with this serious problem? He had heard many speeches about discipline in the Church, and about the legal powers of the Bishops, and the extent to which these powers could be used. But in a case of this kind, where it was merely a question of enabling the Church of England to do that which every other organised community could do without

coming to Parliament, it appeared to him only common justice and generosity to give those powers to the Church of England to enable her to make the organisations thought necessary for her welfare and for that of the poorest people in the country. He wished God-speed to the struggle which the Church of England was making with the misery and wretchedness which existed in Southwark and Birmingham.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes, 279; Noes, 97. (Division List No. 110.)

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, Tames Tynte Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow Gilhooly, James
Ainsworth, John Stirling Crean, Eugene Golson, Sir Augustus Frederick
Aird, Sir John Cripps, Charles Alfred Gore, Hn. G.R.C. Ormsby-(Salop
Allhusen, Augustus HenryEden Crombie, John William Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon
Allsopp, Hon. George Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) Goschen, Hon. George Joachim
Ambrose, Robert Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile Goulding, Edward Alfred
Anson, Sir William Reynell Cullinan, J. Graham, Henry Robert
Arkwright, John Stanhope Dalkeith, Earl of Gray, Ernest (West Ham)
Arnold-Forster, Rt.Hn.HughO Dalrymple, Sir Charles Grenfell, William Henry
Arrol, Sir William Davenport, William Bromley- Gretton, John
Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbt. Henry Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham Groves, James Grimble
Aubrey-Fleteher. Rt. Hon. Sir H Delany, William Gunter, Sir Robert
Bailey, James (Walworth) Denny, Colonel Hain, Edward
Bain, Colonel James Robert Dewar,Sir T.R(Tower Hamlets Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.
Baird, John George Alexander Dickson, Charles Scott Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x
Balcarres, Lord Digby, John K. D. Wingfield- Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry
Balfour, Rt.Hon.A.J. (Manch'r Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph C. Hammond, John
Balfour, Rt. Hon. G. W. (Leeds Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph Hardy, Laurence(Kent, Ashford
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Dixon-Hartland,SirFred Dixon Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th
Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor Donelan, Captain A. Harris, Dr. Fredk. R. (Dulwich
Bartley, Sir George C. T. Doogan, P. C. Harwood, George
Bathurst,Hon.Allen Benjamin Dorington,Rt. Hon.Sir John E. Hay, Hon. Claude George
Bigwood, James Douhgty, George Hayden, John Patrick
Blundell, Colonel Henry Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers Heath, A. Howard (Hanley)
Boland, John Doxford, Sir William Theodore Helder, Augustus
Bond, Edward Dyke,Rt.Hon.Sir William Hart Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford,W.
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.
Bowies,TGibson (King's Lynn Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas Hoare, Sir Samuel
Brassey, Albert Emmott, Alfred Hogg, Lindsay
Bull, William James Esmonde, Sir Thomas Hornby, Sir William Henry
Butcher, John George Evans,SirFrancisH.(Maidstone Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry
Campbell.Rt.Hn.J.A. (Glasgow Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W. Hozier, Hon.James HenryCecil
Carlile, William Walter Fardell, Sir T. George Hudson, George Bickersteth
Carson,Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. Farquharson, Dr. Robert Hunt, Rowland
Causton, Richard Knight Farrell, James Patrick Hutton, John (Yorks., N.R.)
Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J.(Manc'r. Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Ffrench, Peter Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J.(Birm. Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne Joyce, Michael
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn J. A.(Worc. Fisher, William Hayes Kennaway, Rt.Hon. Sir John H.
Chapman, Edward FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose- Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T.(Denbigh)
Clive, Captain Pery A. Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop
Coates, Edward Feetham Flavin, Michael Joseph Kerr, John
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. Forster, Henry William Keswick, William
Coghill, Douglas Harry Foster, Sir. Michael (Lond. Vniv. Kimber, Henry
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse Foster, Philip S.(Warwick, S.W. Knowles, Sir Lees
Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C.R. Fyler, John Arthur Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.
Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole Garfit, William Laurie, Lieut.-General
Condon, Thomas Joseph Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)
Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W. Nannetti, Joseph P. Sheehan, Daniel Daniel
Lawrence, Sir Jos. (Monmouth) Newdegate, Francis A. X. Simeon, Sir Barrington
Lawson, Jn. G. (York., N.R.) Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) Skewes-Cox, Thomas
Leamy, Edmund O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid.) Smith, HC.(North'mb.Tyneside
Lee, Arthur H.(Hants.,Fareham O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) Smith, James Parker(Lanarks.
Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, X.) Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich
Llewellyn, Evan Henry O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset
Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.)
Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham O'Dowd, John Stewart, Sir Mark J.M' Taggart
Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Bristol, S.) O'Kelly, Jas. (Roscommon, N.) Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
Lowe, Francis William O'Malley, William Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G.(Oxf'dUniv.
Loyd, Archie Kirkman O'Mara, James Thornton, Percy M.
Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.
Lundon, W. Parkes, Ebenezer Tritton, Charles Ernest
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred Partington, Oswald Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward
Macdona, John Gumming Percy Earl Tuke, Sir John Batty
Maconochie, A. W. Platt-Higgins, Frederick Valentia, Viscount
MacVeagh, Jeremiah Plummer, Walter R. Vincent, Col Sir C.E.H. (Sheffield
M'Fadden, Edward Pretyman, Ernest George Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)
M'Hugh, Patrick A. Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward Walrond, Rt.Hn. Sir William H.
M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W Randles, John S. Warde, Colonel C. E.
M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) Rankin, Sir James Welby, Lt-Col. A.C.E.(Taunton
M'Killop, W, (Sligo, North) Reddy, M. Welby, SirCharles G.E.(Notts.;)
Majendie, James A. H. Redmond, John E. (Waterford) Wharton, Rt. Hon. JohnLloyd
Malcolm, Ian Reid, James (Greenock) Whiteley, H.(Ashton-und-Lyne
Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Martin, Richard Biddulph Ridley, Hon. M.W.(Stalybridge Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Maxwell, Rt. Hn. Sir H.E (Wigt'n Ridley, S.Forde(Bethnal Green) Willoughby de, Eresby, Lord
Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh. Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson Wilson, J. W. Worcestersh. N.)
Middlemore, John Throgmorton Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) Wilson-Todd. Sir W.H. (Yorks.
Mildmay, Francis Bingham Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) Wodehouse, Rt.Hn.E.R (Bath)
Milner, Rt. Hn.Sir Frederick G. Robinson, Brooke Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Milvain, Thomas Roche, John Wortley, Rt. Hon. C.B.Stuart-
Mitchell, William (Burnley) Rollitt, Sir Albert K. Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert Wylie, Alexander
Moon, Edward Robert Pacy Rose, Charles Day Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Morpeth, Viscount Round, Rt. Hon. James Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.
Morrell, George Herbert Royds, Clement Molyneux Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer Sackville, Col. S. G. Young, Samuel
Mount, William Arthur Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander Younger, William
Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. Samuel, Sir Harry S. (Limehouse
Muntz, Sir Philip A. Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir
Murphy, John Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) Alexander Acland-Hood
Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G.(Bute) Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln) and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.
Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) Seton-Karr, Sir Henry
Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) Sharpe, William Edward T.
NOES.
Asher, Alexander Dunn, Sir William Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)
Austin. Sir John Edwards, Frank Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Acerington.
Barran, Rowland Hirst Ellice, Capt EC (S.Andrw'sBghs Leigh, Sir Joseph
Barry, E. (Cork, S.) Fenwick, Charles Leng, Sir John
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond Lloyd-George, David
Black, Alexander William Flynn, James Christopher Lonsdale, John Brownlee
Brand, Hon. Arthur G. Furness, Sir Christopher MacIver, David (Liverpool)
Brigg, John Griffith, Ellis J. M'Crae, George
Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson Harcourt, Lewis V. (Rossendale M'Kenna, Reginald
Burt, Thomas Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir ArthurD. Mansfield, Horace Rendall
Caldwell, James Helme, Norval Watson Moore, William
Cameron, Robert Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. Morley, Charles (Breconshire)
Cawley, Frederick Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) ' Moulton, John Fletcher
Charming, Francis Allston Horniman, Frederick John Norman, Henry
Charrington, Spencer Houston, Robert Paterson Palmer, Sir Charles M.(Durham)
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C. Perks, Robert William
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S. Hutchinson, Dr.Charles Fredk. Price, Robert John
Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark) Jacoby, James Alfred Priestley, Arthur
Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) Johnson, John (Gateshead) Rea, Russell
Dalziel, James Henry Joicey, Sir James Roberts, John H. (Dcnbighs.)
Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) Jones, William (Carnarvonshire Robertson, Edmund (Dundee
Dewar, John A. Inverness-sh. Jordan, Jeremiah Roe, Sir Thomas
Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) Kilbride, Denis, Russell, T. W.
Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles Sullivan, Donal Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J. Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) Whittaker, Thomas Palmer
Shackleton, David James Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) Wilson, Henry J. (York. W.R.
Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E. Wilson John (Durham, Mid.)
Sheehy, David Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr Wilson, John (Falkirk)
Shipman, Dr. John G. Tomkinson, James Yoxall, James Henry
Slack. John Bamford Wallace, Robert
Sloan, Thomas Henry Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Charles M'Arthur and Mr. Brynmor Jones.
Smith, Samuel (Flint) Weir, James Galloway
Soares, Ernest J. White Luke (York. E. R.)
Spencer, Rt Hn. C.R.(Northants Whiteley, George (York, W.R.)

Main Question put accordingly.

The House divided;—Ayes, 282; Noes, 85.(Division List No.111)

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, James Tynte Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton Grenfell, William Henry
Ainsworth, John Stirling Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile Gretton, John
Aird, Sir John Cullinan, J. Groves, James Grimble
Allhusen, Augustus Hen. Eden Dalkeith, Earl of Gunter, Sir Robert
Allsopp, Hon. George Dalrymple, Sir Charles Hain, Edward
Ambrose, Robert Davenport, William Bromley- Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G(Midd'x
Anson, Sir William Reynell Davies, Sir Horatio D.(Chatham Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry
Arkwright, John Stanhope Denny, Colonel Hammond, John
Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.) Hardy, L (Kent, Ashford)
Arrol, Sir William Dewar, Sir T.R(Tower Hamlets Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th)
Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt.Hn. Sir H. Dickson, Charles Scott Harris, Dr. Fredk. R. (Dulwich
Bailey, James (Walworth) Digby, John K. D. Wingfield- Harwood, George
Bain, Colonel James Robert Dimsdale, Rt. Hn. Sir Joseph C. Haslam, Sir Alfred S.
Baird, John George Alexander Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph Hay, Hon. Claude George
Balcarres, Lord Dixon-Hartland, SirFred Dixon Hayden, John Patrick
Balfour, Rt.Hon.A. J.(Manch'r. Donelan, Captain A. Heath, Arthur Howard) Hanley
Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey). Doogan, P. C. Helder, Augustus
Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds) Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E. Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.)
Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch. Doughty, George Hormon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers Hickman, Sir Alfred
Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor Doxford, Sir William Theodore Hogg, Lindsay
Bartley, Sir George C. T. Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart Hornby, Sir William Henry
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry
Blundell, Colonel Henry Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil
Boland, John Emmott, Alfred Hudson, George Bickersteth
Bond, Edward Esmonde, Sir Thomas Hunt, Rowland
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- Evans, Sir Francis H.(Maidstone Hutton, John (Yorks., N.R.)
Brassey, Albert Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.) Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John Fardell, Sir T. George Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.
Bull, William James Farquharson, Dr. Robert Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)
Butcher, John George Farrell, James Patrick Joyce, Michael
Camphell, Rt. Hn J. A. (Glasgow Fergusson, Rt. Sir J. (Manc'r.) Kenyon, Hn. Geo. T.(Denbigh)
Carlile, William Walter Ffrench, Peter Kenyon-Slaney Col. W. (Salop)
Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H. Finch, Rt. Hon George H. Kerr, John
Causton, Richard Knight Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne Keswick, William
Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire Fisher, William Hayes Kimber, Henry
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) FitzGerald, SirRobert Penrose- Knowles, Sir Lees
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) Fitzroy, Hn. Edward Algernon Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J.(Birm. Flavin, Michael Joseph Laurie, Lieut.-General
Chamberlain, Rt.Hn. J. A (Worc. Forster, Henry William Law, Andrew Bonar(Glasgow)
Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry Foster, P. S. (Warwick. S.W.) Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)
Chapman, Edward Fyler, John Arthur Lawrence, Sir J. (Monmouth)
Charrington, Spencer Galloway, William Johnson Lawson, John G. (Yorks., N.R.
Clive, Captain Percy A. Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. Leamy, Edmund
Coates, Edward Feetham Gilhooly, James Lee, A.H.(Hants., Fareham)
Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk. Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage
Coghill, Douglas Harry Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets Llewellyn, Evan Henry
Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse Gore, Hn G.R.C.Ormsby-(Salop Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine
Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. R. Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham)
Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole Goschen, Hon. George Joachim Long, Rt. Hn. W. (Bristol, S.)
Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) Goulding, Edward Alfred Lowe, Francis William
Crean, Eugene Graham, Henry Robert Loyd, Archie Kirkman
Cripps, Charles Alfred Gray, Ernest (West Ham) Lucas, Reginald J.(Portsmouth
Crombie, John William Green, Walford D(Wednes bury) Lundon, W.
Lyell, Charles Henry O'Kelly, James(Roscommon, N. Spencer, Sir E.(W. Bromwich)
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset
Macdona, John Cumming Parkes, Ebenezer Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.)
Maconochie, A. W. Partington, Oswald Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart
MacVeagh, Jeremiah Peel, Hn.Wm.Robert Wellesley Stroyan, John
M'Fadden, Edward Percy, Earl Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
M'Hugh, Patrick A. Platt-Higgins, Frederick Talbot, Rt, Hn J.G.(Oxfd Univ.
M'Iver, Sir Lewis(Edinburgh W Plummer, Walter R Thornton, Percy M.
M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) Power, Patrick Joseph Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.
M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) Pretyman, Ernest George Tritton, Charles Ernest
Majendie, James A. H. Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward
Malcolm, Ian Randles, John S. Tuke, Sir John Batty
Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe Rankin, Sir James Valentia, Viscount
Martin, Richard Biddulph Reddy, M. Vincent, Col. Sir C.E.H (Sheffield
Maxwell, Rt. Hn. Sir H.E(Wigt'n Redmond, John E.(Waterford) Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)
Maxwell, W. J H.(Dumfriesshire Reid, James (Greenook) Walrond, Rt.Hn.Sir William H.
Middlemore, John Throgmorton Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine Warde, Colonel C. E.
Mildmay, Francis Bingham Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge) Welby, Lt.-Col.A.C.E(Taunton
Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G. Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green Welby, Sir Charles G.E.(Notts.)
Milvain, Thomas Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd
Mitchell, William (Burnley) Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) Whiteley, H. (Ashton and. Lyne
Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) Whitmore, Charles Algernon
Moon, Edward Robert Pacy Robinson, Brooke Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Morgan, David J(Walthamstow Roche, John Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Morpeth, Viscount Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye Wilson, J. W.(Worcestersh. N.)
Morrell, George Herbert Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert Wilson-Todd, Sir W.H. (Yorks.)
Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer Rose, Charles Day Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R.(Bath)
Moulton, John Fletcher Round, Rt. Hon. James Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Mount, William Arthur Royds, Clement Molyneux Wortley, Rt. Hon. C.B. Stuart-
Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Muntz, Sir Philip A. Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander Wylie, Alexander
Murray, Rt. Hn A. Graham(Bute Samuel, Sir Harry S.(Limehouse Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.
Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Newdegate, Francis A. N. Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln) Young, Samuel
Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) Seton-Karr, Sir Henry Younger, William
O'Brien,Kendal(TipperaryMid. Sharpe, William Edward T.
O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) Sheehan, Daniel Daniel TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir
O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) Simeon, Sir Barrington Alexander Acland - Hood
O'Connor, James(Wicklow,W.) Skewes-Cox, Thomas and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.
O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) Smith, H. C(North'mb. Tyneside
O'Dowd, John Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.
NOES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) Furness, Sir Christopher O'Malley, William
Asher, Alexander Harcourt, Lewis Y.(Rossendale O'Mara, James
Barran, Rowland Hirst Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. Palmer, Sir Charles M.(Durham)
Barry, E. (Cork, S.) Holme, Norval Watson Perks, Robert William
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) Price, Robert John
Black, Alexander William Horniman, Frederick John Priestley, Arthur
Brigg, John Houston, Robert Paterson Rea, Russell
Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C. Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)
Caldwell, James Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk. Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)
Cameron, Robert Jacoby, James Alfred Roe, Sir Thomas
Cawley, Frederick Jones, David Brynmor(Swansea Russell, T. W.
Channing, Francis Allston Jones, William (Carnarvonshire Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles
Condon, Thomas Joseph Jordan, Jeremiah Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)
Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) Kilbride, Denis Sheehy, David
Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark) Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall) Shipman, Dr. John G.
Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) Leese, Sir Joseph F.(Accrington Smith, Samuel (Flint)
Dalziel, James Henry Leigh, Sir Joseph Soares, Ernest J.
Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) Leng, Sir John Sullivan, Donal
Delany, William Lloyd-George, David Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. MacIver, David (Liverpool) Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe
Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen. E.)
Dunn, Sir William M'Crae, George Thomas, David Alfred(Merthyr)
Edwards, Frank Mansfield, Horace Rendall Wallace, Robert
Ellice, Capt E.C(S. Andrw'sBghs Morley, Charles (Breconshire) Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney
Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan Murphy, John Weir, James Galloway
Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond Nannetti, Joseph P. White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Flynn, James Christopher Norman, Henry Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Whittaker, Thomas Palmer Wilson, John (Falkirk) TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. Ellis Griffith and Mr. Slack.
Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) Yoxall, James Henry

Bill read a second time.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I beg to move that the Bill be referred to the Standing Committee on Law.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be committed to the Standing Committee on Law, etc." — (Mr. A.J. Balfour.)

MR. DALZIEL (Kirkcaldy Burghs)

opposed the Motion on the ground that the Bill was a contentious measure in regard to which much difference of opinion had been expressed, and the Prime Minister himself had laid down the proposition that no Bill of a contentious character ought to be sent to a Committee upstairs. There was no great rush of Government business, and he submitted that the Bill ought to be considered in Committee of the Whole House so that all Members would have an opportunity of expressing their views. Moreover, supporters of the Bill had brought forward questions of principle, and, inasmuch as principles could not be discussed upstairs, that was an additional reason for keeping the measure in the House. But if it was to go to a Standing Committee, he submitted that the Committee on Trade was more suitable than that on Law.

MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tryone, S.)

had grave doubts as to whether the Bill ought to go upstairs. He remembered the scenes which took place when the Church Discipline Bill was referred to a Standing Committee, and how that measure was practically forced through by Mr. Gladstone's influence. The Bill would probably take longer to pass through the Standing Committee than through a Committee of the House, and the Government would regret having sent it upstairs.

MR. WHITLEY (Halifax)

thought there ought to be some understanding as to the Bills to be referred to Standing Committees. An unexpected notice had appeared on the Paper with reference to the Aliens Bill, and personally he would be prepared to agree to the present measure going upstairs if the Prime Minister would agree to allow the Aliens Bill to be discussed in a Committee of the Whole House.

MR.SAMUEL EVANS (Glamorganshire, Mid.)

hoped the Prime Minister would not press his Motion. Experience had shown that it was a mistake to send legislation of this description, which aroused strong feeling, to a Standing Committee. A prolonged fight was certain to ensue. Amendments would be manufactured, obstruction, legitimate or otherwise, resorted to, and then when the Bill came back to the House the whole fight would be gone over again, with the result that much more time would be occupied than if the measure had been considered by the House in the ordinary way. Moreover, this was not the class of Bill that ought to be sent upstairs. Only measures to which there was practically no objection on principle should be so referred. Business men and lawyers were heavily penalised by having to attend the House at two o'clock under the new Rules, but it would be practically impossible for practising legal Gentlemen to get down in time to take part in the deliberations of the Standing Committee on this Bill.

SIR J.FERGUSSON (Manchester,N.E.)

reminded the House that the Benefices Bill, which was certainly as contentious as the measure under consideration, was satisfactorily and thoroughly discussed before the Standing Committee on Law.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)

said that, according to his recollection of the measure referred to by the right hon. Baronet, the discussion in the Standing Committee did not at all assist the Bill. So considerable was the discussion when the Bill came again before the House that it was not passed in either its first or its second session, and it succeeded in getting through in its third session only in a truncated form. The discussion on the present Bill had turned on questions of disestablishment, the qualifications of Bishops, ritual, and doctrine; the debate upstairs would doubtless proceed on similar lines, and it was absurd to suggest that a Committee of lawyers was the best tribunal for settling questions of that character. The Bill was exceedingly controversial, and when Standing Committees were first set up the Prime Minister was one of their strongest critics, because he feared that Bills of a controversial character would lie referred to them. In the present case the greatest importance attached to the details of the measure, to the powers to De conferred on the Bishops, and yet in those questions the House was to have no voice whatever. There appeared to be a disposition to rush through a Bill of this character. He had often seen pressure exercised by majorities upon that Committee to vote down every Amendment, however reasonable and fair. He could understand a Bill of this sort being sent to the Standing Committee in order to save time, but did the Prime Minister really think that under the new Rule any time would be saved by adopting this course? Hon. Members who were really interested in this question were not members of the Standing Committee on Law. They would not, for instance, on that Committee have the benefit of the advice of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. In the interests of saving time he thought the Prime Minister would be well advised in withdrawing his Motion to refer the Bill to the Standing Committee. If the Prime Minister was intent upon sending highly controversial matters of this kind to the Standing Committee on Law he would remind him that he was setting up a precedent for the future of a rather dangerous character.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am rather puzzled to understand the change of opinion on the part of the hon. Member opposite with regard to the effect of sending up Bills to the Standing Committee, for I remember great struggles taking place in which the hon. Member himself took part in order to get private Bills sent up to that Committee.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

Not controversial Bills.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The Employers' Liability Bill and the Deceased Wife's sister Bill.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

It was a very fatal precedent. The Bill was killed.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

But they did not take that course in order to kill the Bill. I presume, therefore, that as far as hon. Gentlemen opposite are concerned when their own measures are being dealt with they take a somewhat different view of the effect of a Standing Committee than they do when other people's Bills are under consideration. They do not then regard the Standing Committee as a mere manufactory of Amendments, or as a place where great delay might occur. Of course the more important question is whether this is or is not an appropriate Bill to send to the Standing Committee. I can hardly imagine a Bill more clearly in the category of those which ought to be dealt with by a Standing Committee than this Bill. The hon. Gentleman has remarked that disestablishment and various important theological topics have been discussed in the debate; but that is because there has been an Amendment to the Second Reading in no sense touching the principle of the Bill. What the Bill really does is to deal with certain localities, and there is no general principle contained in the measure at all, unless you call it a general principle that this House is not to impede the work of the Established Church. I do not think it would be in order on the Committee stage to discuss the larger questions which have been raised to-day, though I do not pass judgment on the propriety of discussing whether the new Bishops should sit in the House of Lords. What powers of obstruction there may be if those questions are discussed I cannot say, but I hope that hon. Gentlemen, however much they dislike anything which conduces to the spiritual efficiency of the Church of I England—[Cries of "Oh."]—If I have said anything which hurts hon. Members' feelings I withdraw it, though I cannot understand their conduct unless there is some object of that kind behind it. If, however, they say they have no such object, I accept the disclaimer. This is a local measure, and ought, on its merits, really to be dealt with by Provisional Order. That form, however, has not been adopted, and we have to take the machinery of this House as we find it. But surely we are putting that machinery to its most legitimate use when we ask that one stage of this local ecclesiastical Bill shall not occupy the whole time of all the Members of this House. I do not think a case has been made out for any opposition to this Motion. I deeply regret the tone, which has been adopted by the hon. Gentleman opposite. As to the statement, amounting almost to a threat, made by the hon. Member opposite, the responsibility for the course referred to will rest with the hon. Member and not with me.

MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)

said the Prime Minister had spoken of those who opposed this Motion as being animated by hostility to the Bill. That statement might be true of some of those who had spoken but it was not true in regard to himself. For reasons which the House would readily understand he had not ventured to intervene in the debate upon the previous stages of the Bill. He felt somewhat embarrassed in the matter. But this was one of the embarrassments they suffered from in being forced to come to this House. He now found himself forced to vote one way or the other upon a question affecting the discipline of the Established Church. He might say he had already exercised his vote not in hostility to this measure but in favour of it. It was, therefore, not from any hostility to this Bill that he opposed this Motion, but because he regarded the practice of sending, year after year, controversial measures to standing Committees as a growing danger which deprived private Members of full control over questions which were not matters of agreement. The Prime Minister had stated that he could not conceive a Bill which was more suited to go to a Standing Committee, but in his opinion he could not conceive a measure of a more controversial character than this one, and upon that broad principle he should vote against this Motion.

MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis)

said that like his hon. and learned friend the Member for Waterford he had already voted for this Bill, but it seemed to him that there was no Standing Committee to which it could be appropriately referred. He had the strongest possible objection to referring anything to a Standing Committee, because it was taking away from the House of Commons the business that most properly belonged to it, and business which it could most profitably do. He had never known a Bill discussed in Committee of the House without suggestions of the most valuable kind being made, and very often adopted by the Minister in charge of the measure. He had never known a Bill pass through the Committee stage of the House of Commons without; being enormously improved. It was for want of adequate discussion in the House of Commons that measures became failures, and everything that tended to withdraw a measure having any element of controversy in it from the Committee of the House was not in the interests of good legislation. A debate on the Report stage was not the same thing as a debate in Committee, and it had not the same effect, for it did not produce the same suggestions, and they could only speak once. The result was that the debate on the Report stage was not productive of the same benefit as a debate in Committee of the Whole House. This was a very dangerous practice and ho hoped his right hon. friend would not press his Motion to a division.

MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH

said it had been stated that this was not a contentious measure, but when he saw the right hon. Gentleman strike the box before him he thought it was strange that he should show so much heat in discussing a non-contentious measure. If a Bill proposing two additional Bishops was not contentious, he wondered how a Bill would be described if it proposed to take away two Bishops. He should very much like to hear the view of hon. Members opposite if such a Bill were introduced on that side. In reference to what the Prime Minister said as to the way in which private Members Bills were dealt with, ho pointed out that the Government had command of the time of the House in a way which was not open to private Members. Why that argument had been introduced was beyond his comprehension. He was not going to consider the question whether the Committee on Trade or the Committee on Law was best fitted to deal with the Bill. His hon. friend had referred to the Amendment standing in his name on the Paper as one that ought not to be discussed.

* MR. SPEAKER

I understand that you are speaking of the Instruction which he has on the Paper. That Instruction is out of order on the ground that it is mandatory.

MR. ELLIS GRIFFITH

said that though his proposal was not in order as an Instruction, it could be put in the form of an Amendment here or upstairs as the case might be. An Amendment proposing to prevent two new Bishops from sitting in the House of Lords was clearly one of those important matters that ought to be discussed before a Committee of this House. He thought the Prime Minister would best consult the interests of the Government from the point of view of time by acceding to the proposal they were making and not insisting or taking a course which would in the end militate against the progress of the Bill.

MR. FLYNN (Cork County, N.)

said he associated himself with the protest against the growing practice of withdrawing from the consideration of this House a large amount of contentious matter.

The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had been most unhappy in the precedents he had quoted. The Government were masters of the time of the House, and private Members were not. The hon. Member for the Kirkcaldy Burghs made a dangerous suggestion when he said the Bill should be referred to the Committee on Trade. He would remind the hon. Member that the Committee on Trade had most important Bills to deal with—the Butter Bill for example—and it would be unfair to send to that hard-worked Committee the Bill now before the House. He also objected to the Bill being sent to the Committee on Law on the ground that this was a measure which should be considered by Committee of the Whole House.

MR. HUMPHREYS-OWEN (Montgomeryshire)

suggested that the Bill be sent to a Select Committee.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

rose in his place, and claimed to move that the Question be now put.

Question put "That the Question be now put."

The House divided:—Ayes, 242; Noes, 120. (Division List No. 112.)

AYES.
Aird, Sir John Bull, William James Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile
Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden Butcher, John George Dalkeith, Earl of
Allsopp, Hon. George Campbell, Rt Hn. J. A. (Glasgow Dalrymple, Sir Charles
Anson, Sir William Reynell Campbell, J. H. M. Dublin Univ. Davenport, William Bromley-
Arkwright, John Stanhope Carlile, William Walter Davies. Sir Horatio D. (Chatham
Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O. Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. Dewar, Sir T. R. (Tower Hamlets
Arrol, Sir William Cautley, Henry Strother Dickson, Charles Scott
Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-
Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph C.
Bailey, James (Walworth) Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph
Bain, Colonel James Robert Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon
Baird, John George Alexander Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm. Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E.
Balcarres, Lord Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A.(Worc. Doughty, George
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r Chapman, Edward Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-
Balfour, Capt. C. B.(Hornsey) Charrington, Spencer Doxford, Sir William Theodore
Balfour, Rt Hn. Gerald W.(Leeds Churchill, Winston Spencer Duke, Henry Edward
Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch. Clive, Captain Percy A. Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas
Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor) Coghill, Douglas Harry Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.)
Bartley, Sir George C. T. Cohen, Benjamin Louis Fardell, Sir T. George
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r
Bigwood, James Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C.R. Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.
Blundell, Colonel Henry Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas Fison, Frederick William
Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-
Brassey, Albert Cripps, Charles Alfred Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) Forster, Henry William
Brotherton, Edward Allen Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) Foster, Philip S. (Warwick. S. W.
Fyler, John Arthur Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert
Galloway, William Johnson Llewellyn, Evan Henry Royds, Clement Molyneux
Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-
Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol, S. Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander
Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets Lowe, Francis William Samuel, Sir Harry S. (Limehouse
Gore, Hn G. R. C. Ormsby-(Salop Loyd, Archie Kirkman Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles
Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth) Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)
Goschen, Hon. George Joachim Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred Seton-Karr, Sir Henry
Goulding, Edward Alfred Macdona, John Cumming Sharpe, William Edward T.
Graham, Henry Robert Maconochie, A. W. Simeon, Sir Barrington
Gray, Ernest (West Ham) M'Calmont, Colonel James Skewes-Cox., Thomas
Green, Walford D.(Wednesbury M'Iver, Sir Lewis(Edinburgh W. Smith, HC.(North'mb. Tyneside
Gretton, John M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) Smith, James Parker(Lanarks.)
Groves, James Grimble Majendie, James A. H. Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)
Gunter, Sir Robert Malcolm, Ian Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)
Hain, Edward Manners, Lord Cecil Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset)
Hall, Edward Marshall Martin, Richard Biddulph Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.
Hambro, Charles Eric Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H.E.(Wigt'n Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart
Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x Maxwell, W. J. H (Dumfriesshire Stone, Sir Benjamin
Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry Middlemore, John Throgmorton Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
Hardy, Laurence(Kent' Ashford Mildmay, Francis Bingham Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G.(Oxf'd Univ.
Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th) Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G. Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Harris, Dr. Fred K. R. (Dulwich) Milvain, Thomas Thornton, Percy M.
Haslam, Sir Alfred S. Mitchell, William (Burnley) Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.
Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo. Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.) Tritton, Charles Ernest
Hay, Hon. Claude George Morgan, David J.(Walthamstow Tuke, Sir John Batty
Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley Morpeth, Viscount Valentia, Viscount
Helder, Augustus Morrell, George Herbert Vincent, Col. Sir C. E. H (Sheffield
Henderson, Sir A.(Stafford, W.) Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)
Hickman, Sir Alfred Mount, William Arthur Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.
Hogg, Lindsay Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. Warde, Colonel C. E.
Hope, J. F.(Sheffield, Brightside Muntz, Sir Philip A. Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E (Taunton
Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry Murray, Rt Hn. A. Graham (Bute Welby, Sir Charles G. E.(Notts.)
Hoult, Joseph Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd
Houston, Robert Paterson Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) Whiteley, H. (Ashton-und-Lyne
Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil Newdegate, Francis A. N. Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
Hudson, George Bickersteth Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Hunt, Rowland Parkes, Ebenezer Wilson, John (Falkirk)
Hutton, John (Yorks., N. R.) Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley Wilson, John (Glasgow)
Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse Percy, Earl Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.)
Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred. Pierpoint, Robert Wilson-Todd, Sir W. H.(Yorks.)
Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) Platt-Higgins, Frederick Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R.(Bath)
Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. Plummer, Walter R. Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh) Pretyman, Ernest George Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart-
Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop. Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward Wrigbtson, Sir Thomas
Kerr, John Randles, John S. Wylie, Alexander
King, Sir Henry Seymour Rankin, Sir James Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Knowles, Sir Lees Reid, James (Greenock) Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Laurie, Lieut-General Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine Young, Samuel
Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalybridge Younger, William
Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th.) Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green
Lawson, Jhn. Grant (Yorks. N.R. Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.
Lee, Arthur H.(Hants., Fareham Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)
Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) Robinson, Brooke
NOES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) Causton, Richard Knight Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)
Ainsworth, John Stirling Cawley Frederick Ellice, Capt E. C(S Andr's Bghs
Asher, Alexander Channing, Francis Allston Emmott, Alfred
Atherley-Jones, L. Condon, Thomas Joseph Esmonde, Sir Thomas
Barran, Rowland Hirst Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark) Evans, Sir Francis H. (Maidstone
Barry, E. (Cork, S.) Crean, Eugene Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) Crombie, John William Eve, Harry Trelawney
Black, Alexander William Cullinan, J. Farquharson, Dr. Robert
Boland, John Dalziel, James Henry Farrel, James Patrick
Bolton, Thomas Dolling Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)
Brigg, John Delany, William Ffrench, Peter
Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond
Caldwell, James Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.) Flavin, Michael Joseph
Cameron, Robert Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. Flynn, James Christopher
Carvill, Patrick Geo. Hamilton Doogan, P. C. Furness, Sir Christopher
Gilhooly, James Lundon, W. Redmond, John E. (Waterford)
Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert Jn. Lyell, Charles Henry Roche, John
Goddard, Daniel Ford MacVeagh, Jeremiah Roe, Sir Thomas
Griffith, Ellis J. M'Crae, George Rose, Charles Day
Hammond, John M'Fadden, Edward Russell, T. W.
Harcourt, Lewis V. (Rossendale M'Hugh, Patrick A. Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)
Harmsworth, R. Leicester M'Kean, John Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Harwood, George M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) Sheehan, Daniel Daniel
Hayden, John Patrick Mansfield, Horace Rendall Slack, John Bamford
Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe Sloan, Thomas Henry
Helme, Norval Watson Moulton, John Fletcher Smith, Samuel (Flint)
Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. Nannetti, Joseph P. Soares, Ernest J.
Holland, Sir William Henry Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.) Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. B (Northants
Horniman, Frederick John Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) Sullivan, Donal
Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk. O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary, Mid Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)
Jacoby, James Alfred O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) Thomas, D. Alfred (Merthyr)
Joicey, Sir James O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) Tomkinson, James
Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. Wason, Jn. Cathcart (Orkney)
Jones, William (Carnarvonshire O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) White, Luke (York. E. R.)
Jordan, Jeremiah O'Dowd, John Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Joyce, Michael O'Malley, William Whittaker, Thomas Palmer
Kilbride, Denis Partington, Oswald Yoxall, James Henry
Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall) Power, Patrick Joseph
Leigh, Sir Joseph Price, Robert John TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Herbert Roberts and Mr. Humphreys-Owen.
Lewis, John Herbert Rea, Russell
Lloyd-George, David Reddy, M.

Question put accordingly.

The House divided:— Ayes, 236, Noes, 120. (Division List No. 113.)

AYES.
Aird, Sir John Chapman, Edward Foster, Philip S.(Warwick, S. W.)
Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden Charrington, Spencer Fyler, John Arthur
Allsopp, Hon. George Give, Captain Percy A. Galloway, William Johnson
Anson, Sir William Reynell Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H.
Arkwright, John Stanhope Coghill, Douglas Harry Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick
Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn Hugh O. Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse Gordon, Maj. Evans-(T. H'mlets
Arrol, Sir William Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C.R. Gore, Hn. G. R. C. Ormsby-(Salop
Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. Colston, Chas. Edw. H Athole Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon
Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitzroy Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas Goschen, Hon. George Joachim
Bailey, James (Walworth) Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) Goulding, Edward Alfred
Bain, Colonel James Robert CrippS, Charles Alfred Graham, Henry Robert
Baird, John George Alexander Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) Gray, Ernest (West Ham)
Balcarres, Lord Cross, Herb. Shepherd(Bolton) Green, Walford D (Wednesbury
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile Gretton, John
Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) Dalkeith, Earl of Groves, James Grimble
Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W. (Leeds Dalrymple, Sir Charles Gunter, Sir Robert
Balfour, Kenneth R.(Christch. Davenport, William Bromley Hain, Edward
Banbury, Sir Frederick George Davies, Sir Horatio D. (Chatham Hambro, Charles Eric
Barry, Sir Francis T.(Windsor) Dewar, Sir T. R.(Tower Hamlets Hamilton. Rt Hn Lord G (Midd'x
Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin Dickson, Charles Scott Hamilton, Marq. of (L'd'nderry
Bigwood, James Digby, John K D. Wingfield- Hardy, Laurence(Kent, Ashford
Blundell, Colonel Henry Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph C. Harris, F. Leverton(Tynem'th)
Boscawen, Arthur Griffith- Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph Harris, Dr. Fredk. R. (Dulwich
Brassey, Albert Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon Harwood, George
Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John Dorington, Rt. Hon. Sir John E. Haslam, Sir Alfred S.
Brotherton, Edward Allen Doughty, George Hatch, Ernest Frederick Geo.
Bull, William James Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- Hay, Hon. Claude George
Butcher, John George Doxford, Sir William Theodore Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley
Campbell, Rt. Hn. J. A.(Glasgow Duke, Henry Edward Helder, Augustus
Campbell, J. H. M.(Dublin Univ. Dyke, Rt. Hon. Sir William Hart Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.
Carlile, William Walter Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas Hickman, Sir Alfred
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W. Hogg, Lindsay
Causton, Richard Knight Fardell, Sir T. George Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry
Cautley, Henry Strother Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J.(Manc'r Hoult, Joseph
Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.) Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. Houston, Robert Paterson
Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) Fison, Frederick William Hudson, George Bickersteth
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose- Hunt, Rowland
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J.(Birm. Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon Hutton, John (Yorks., N.R.)
Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A.(Worc. Forster, Henry William Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.
Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) Morpeth, Viscount Smith, James Parker (Lanarks.
Joicey, Sir James Morrell, George Herbert Smith, Hon. W. P. D. (Strand)
Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer Spencer, Sir E. (W. Bromwich)
Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh) Mount, William Arthur Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset
Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop. Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.
Kerr, John Muntz, Sir Philip A. Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart
King, Sir Henry Seymour Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute) Stone, Sir Benjamin
Knowles, Sir Lees Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley
Laurie, Lieut.-General Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G.(Oxf'd Univ
Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) Newdegate, Francis A. N. Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th Palmer, Walter (Salisbury) Thornton, Percy M.
Lawson, John Grant (Yorks, N. R Parkes, Ebenezer Tomlinson, Sir Win. Edw. M.
Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareham Peel, Hn.Wm.Robert Wellesley Tritton, Charles Ernest
Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage Percy, Earl Tuke, Sir John Batty
Llewellyn, Evan Henry Pierpoint, Robert Valentia, Viscount
Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine Platt-Higgins, Frederick Vincent, Col. Sir C.E.H.(Sheff'ld
Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S) Plummer, Walter R. Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)
Lowe, Francis William Pretyman, Ernest George Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H.
Loyd, Archie Kirkman Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward Warde, Colonel C. E.
Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth) Randles, John S. Welby, Lt.-Col. A. C. E. (Taunton
Lyttelton, Ht. Hon. Alfred Rankin, Sir James Welby, Sir Chas. G. E. (Notts.)
Macdona, John Cumming Reid, James (Greenock) Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd
MacIver, David (Liverpool) Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine Whiteley, H. (Ashton und.Lyne
Maconochie, A. W. Richards, Henry Charles Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)
M'Calmont, Colonel James Ridley, Hon. M.W.(Stalybridge Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W. Ridley, S. Forde (Bethnal Green Wilson, John (Falkirk)
M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh., N.)
Majendie, James A. H. Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) Wilson-Todd, Sir W. H. (Yorks.)
Malcolm, Ian Robinson, Brooke Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath
Manners, Lord Cecil Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson
Martin, Richard Biddulph Royds, Clement Molyneux Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-
Maxwell, Rt Hn. Sir H. E. (Wigt'n Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- Wrightson, Sir Thomas
Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.) Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander Wylie, Alexander
Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton Samuel, Sir H. S. (Limehouse) Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
Mildmay, Francis Bingham Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong
Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G Seton-Karr, Sir Henry Younger, William
Milvain, Thomas Sharpe, William Edward T.
Mitchell, William (Burnley) Simeon, Sir Barrington TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.
Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.) Skewes-Cox, Thomas
Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow) Smith, H C (North'mb.Tyneside
NOES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea)
Ainsworth, John Stirling Ellice, Capt. E.C.(SAndrw's Bghs Jones, William (Carnarvonshire
Asher, Alexander Emmott, Alfred Jordan, Jeremiah
Atherley-Jones, L. Esmonde, Sir Thomas Joyce, Michael
Barran, Rowland Hirst Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone) Kilbride, Denis
Barry, E. (Cork, S.) Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)
Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire) Eve, Harry Trelawney Leamy, Edmund
Black, Alexander William Farquharson, Dr. Robert Leigh, Sir Joseph
Boland, John Farrell, James Patrick Lewis, John Herbert
Bolton, Thomas Dolling Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith) Lloyd-George, David
Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn Ffrench, Peter Lundon, W.
Brigg, John Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson Flavin, Michael Joseph M'Crae, George
Caldwell, James Flynn, James Christopher M'Fadden, Edward
Cameron, Robert Furness, Sir Christopher M'Hugh, Patrick A.
Cawley, Frederick Gilhooly, James M'Kean, John
Channing, Francis Allston Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herb. John M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)
Condon, Thomas Joseph Goddard, Daniel Ford Mansfield, Horace Rendall
Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark) Hammond, John Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe
Crean, Eugene Harcourt, Lewis V. (Rossendale Moulton, John Fletcher
Crombie, John William Harmsworth, K. Leicester Murphy, John
Cullman, J. Hayden, John Patrick Nannetti, Joseph P.
Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen) Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. Nolan, Col. J. P. (Galway, N.)
Delany, William Helme, Norval Watson Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)
Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. O'Brien. K. (Tipperary, Mid.)
Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.) Horniman, Frederick John O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)
Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C. O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)
Donelan, Captain A. Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk. O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.
Doogan, P. C. Jacoby, James Alfred O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)
O'Dowd, John Russell, T. W. Thomas, D. Alfred (Merthyr)
O'Malley, William Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) Tomkinson, James
O'Mara, James Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) Ure, Alexander
Partington, Oswald Sheehan, Daniel Daniel Wason, Jn. Cathcart (Orkney)
Power, Patrick Joseph Sinclair, John (Forfarshire) White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Rea, Russell Slack, John Bamford Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)
Reddy, M. Sloan, Thomas Henry Whittaker, Thomas Palmer
Redmond, John E. (Waterford) Smith, Samuel (Flint) Young, Samuel
Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) Soares, Ernest J. Yoxall, James Henry
Roche, John Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R (Northants
Roe, Sir Thomas Sullivan, Donal TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Ellis Griffith and Mr. Dalziel.
Rose, Charles Day Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.)

Bill committed to the Standing Committee on Law, etc.