THE BISHOP OF EXETER, in presenting Petitions from places in Devon and Cornwall against the abolition of church rates, and for the enforcement and recovery of church rates, until an effectual equivalent be provided, said, he should have been content to place them upon the table without remark, had it not been for what had passed within the last twenty-four hours in another place. Of course he would not be guilty of the irregularity of alluding to anything that had happened in the House of Commons, but their Lordships had been made acquainted by the public prints with what had taken place elsewhere, and he thought it was his duty to take some notice of a startling declaration made by persons of high position in the State. He had that morning read the opinions entertained by Her Majesty's principal Minister with regard to the question of church rates. He found that Her Majesty's Government intended to support the measure respecting church rates now before the House of Commons, with certain amendments, and the main reason assigned for their change of opinion since the last Session of Parliament was, that a Bill upon the subject had been laid upon the table of this House last Session by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and read a first time; and it was said, upon the authority of that Bill, that the heads of the Church were in favour of putting an end to church rates in all parishes where a majority of the parishioners had refused to pay them for a certain number of years. He protested against 1931 the supposition that this was the opinion even of the Bishops; it was far from being that of the members of the Church of England at large. He had not yet met with a single clergyman or a single Churchman who had expressed anything like approbation of the enactment to which he had referred; every one had spoken of it with astonishment, considering the quarter from which it proceeded. It appeared that even in that quarter there was no very sanguine hope entertained that the Bill would be allowed to pass, because its second reading was never proposed, and never, as he believed, even thought of. It had been stated that the Archbishop of Canterbury had consulted with several of the Bishops before laying it on the table. He (the Bishop of Exeter) happened to be in the country at the time it was brought forward, and he had received no intimation with respect to it; he protested, therefore, against its having ascribed to it the importance of having' received the sanction of the Bishops. So little confidence in its merits was felt by its authors that not only had they not proposed it for the consideration of Convocation, but those members of the Committee of the Lower House to whom had been entrusted the duty of preparing a measure on the subject were notoriously adverse to it. Its authors shrank from reintroducing it in this House, and also from proposing it to Convocation, and yet it was said actually to have had the effect of changing the opinions and the conduct of two leading Members of the Government—the Prime Minister and the Secretary for the Home Department. The opinion entertained by the Archbishop of Canterbury was entitled to the greatest respect, but he protested against its being spoken of in the terms which had been employed by the noble Lord at the head of the Government. He would abstain from entering into the general question, but he thought it was his duty to make some remarks upon the point to which he had called their Lordships' attention.