REPORT OF AMENDMENTS. (Hansard, 19 July 1869)

§ LORD REDESDALE
suggested that it would be better to confine the operation of the Bill to that part of it which related to the voluntary resignation of Bishops.

THE EARL OF LIMERICK
said, that one of the provisions of the Bill was that the coadjutor Bishop was to perform all the spiritual duties of the diocese at a remuneration of £2,000 a year. Now, if the work could be done for that sum, those who were agitating for an increase of the Episcopate would say that that increase could be easily effected by a redistribution of Episcopal revenues. Another objection he had to the Bill was that the coadjutor of either Archbishop, although the junior Bishop, would be placed at once above all the other Bishops of the province.

§ LORD LYTTELTON
hoped that, whatever was done, it would not be supposed that this Bill in any way touched the larger question of an increase of the Episcopate, the necessity for which, he trusted, would still be borne in mind.

§ THE DUKE OF SOMERSET
was understood to comment on those provisions of the Bill which relate to the payment to be made to a Bishop totally incapacitated for duty.

§ LORD REDESDALE
thought that on a matter of such importance they might give farther consideration to the subject, 147 and bring in a Bill free from the objections attending the present one.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
said, that every difficulty connected with so complicated a subject as this had been well weighed in the framing of this measure, which had been drawn by a skilful draftsman. It certainly was desirable that there should be the power of appointing an assistant or successor in the ease of a Bishop who was incapacitated from performing his duties, instead of the existing arrangement being continued. He did not believe that the arrangement respecting the emoluments provided by the Bill was open to the objection urged against it by the noble Earl. The emoluments were as nearly as possible divided between the outgoing and incoming Bishop; and though it was true in the case of a coadjutor being appointed the retiring Bishop received the larger share, yet it must be remembered that the maintenance of the episcopal residence devolved upon the retiring Bishop — who would also, no doubt, take considerable interest in the charities of the diocese. There were one or two further Amendments which he desired to see introduced. One of them, which was overlooked on the previous evening, was in the case of an Archbishop, whose strictly archiepiscopal duties ought not to devolve upon the coadjutor, but upon the Bishop senior in rank in the province—upon the Bishop of London in the case of the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and upon the Bishop of Durham in the case of the Archbishopric of York. With, the Amendments that he proposed he believed that the Bill would work well, and no one could deny that a strong necessity existed for some such measure.