§
THE BISHOP OF OXFORD moved—
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, for Copy of an Address presented to Her Majesty by the House of Assembly and Legislative Council of Canada, praying for the Removal of Disadvantages to which the Church in Canada is subject, and to enable it to elect its own Bishops; and for any Answer which may have been given thereto.
The right rev. Prelate said, that an Act had passed the Canadian Legislature, and had been accepted by the Parliament of this country, one clause of which would effect an entire separation between the Established Church and the State in Canada, and it was in consequence of the adoption of that Act that the Address for which he moved was agreed to by the two Chambers of the Canadian Legislature. The Address prayed that, inasmuch as the connection between Church and State had thus been declared to be dissolved, those accidents which had hitherto followed that connection might also be removed. If any answer had been returned to that Address he hoped it would be also communicated to their Lordships. He would only say, in moving for the Address, that he thought this was not an uninstruetive movement to the people of this country also. Many people were apt to forget that the union between Church and State implied co-relatives to either—certain support from the State, and a certain renunciation by the Church, of what would properly be the natural liberties of the Church. He, for
1092
one, believed that the Church and State greatly profited by the relations existing between them, and he believed that the Church was kept, in many instances, from sectional feeling and sectional action by its connection with the State, and that the supremacy of the Crown exercised influences highly beneficial to the Church of the land as well as to the State of the land. Believing this himself, and yet seeing that the daily current of legislation tended to remove from the Church the support in every respect which it had hitherto received from the State, he thought it might not be uninstructive to consider that these two things were co-relative, and that if the State gave up all assistance and support to the Church it was not to be contended that the State could exercise the same authority as when supported by the Church.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, there was no objection whatever on the part of the Government to produce the papers moved for by the right rev. Prelate. No answer had yet been sent—only a mere acknowledgment.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, he had listened with great satisfaction to the remarks of the right rev. Prelate, and he fully concurred with him in all he said as to the advantage of the connection of the Church with the State, as well as in the deduction that this Address would prove not uninstructive on that subject to people in this country. But he could not forget that it was to a measure to which that right rev. Prelate gave his most cordial support—the Clergy Reserves Bill—that the present desire to separate Church and State in Canada was owing; that measure having given the Colonial Legislature full power and freedom to dissever the endowments of the Church in Canada. He (the Earl of Derby) was happy to feel himself free from all responsibility of the sanction of that measure, which was the first step in bringing about the separation between Church and State.
THE BISHOP OF OXFORDsaid, that any future notice he might take of the subject would, of course, depend upon the answer that might be returned to the Address. In reply to the courteous remark of the noble Earl, whose agreement with him (the Bishop of Oxford) on this occasion was to him a matter of great satisfaction, he would point out to the House where, in his judgment, the noble Earl had misconceived what he (the Bishop of 1093 Oxford) had agreed to, and what he had not agreed to, on the occasion to which reference had been made. What he had agreed to, and what he was still prepared to agree to, was this, that Canada and this country should keep their terms, and that this country should not make engagements with its Colonies and then break them. He had not given any assent, direct or indirect, to the clergy reserves being taken from the Church. On the contrary, he had stated in his place in Parliament that he conceived that such a spoliation of the Church, if it was ever effected by the Canadian Legislature, would not only be unlawful for them to effect, but would be an act of the grossest folly. As this country had intrusted to the Colony the power of legislating for themselves, he had thought that the power and its responsibilities ought to be wholly left in their hands.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, there was an inaccuracy in the statement of the right rev. Prelate. It was true that we had committed ourselves by giving the Colony the power of legislating for itself; but that power was subject to certain reservations, which bore directly on claims preferred by the body of which the right rev. Prelate was a member. The Act to which the right rev. Prelate referred broke down those reservations, and enabled the Legislature of Canada to deal with the endowments of the Church.
THE BISHOP OF OXFORDremarked that the whole question turned upon whether this was a reserved point or not. His belief was, that it was a point concluded already by Parliament.
§ THE EARL OF DERBYIf there were no reserves, where was the necessity of an Act of Parliament.
§ Motion agreed to.