Lords Sitting of 12 May 1882

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Consolidated Fund (No. 3)*.
Second Reading—Commonable Rights* (73).

EGYPT (POLITICAL AFFAIRS).

  NOTICE OF QUESTION.
  LORD LAMINGTONgave Notice that on Monday he would ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention had been called to the language of M. de Freycinet in the French Chamber on May 11—
  "Two things have pre-occupied us. The first, to preserve to France the justly privileged situation she has in Egypt; the preponderating influence arising from her work in Egypt of every kind for a century back, and from the presence of a French colony, which worthily upholds in that country the flag of our nation. Yes, the presence of that colony, an outpost of France, imposes on us duties from which we are determined not to swerve."
  and, whether Her Majesty's Government are prepared to recognize the preponderating influence of France in Egypt?
  EARL DE LA WARE, in pursuance of private Notice, desired to ask the Foreign Secretary, Whether it was convenient to him to give any information relative to the state of affairs in Egypt?
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, the noble Earl has given me Notice of this Question; I have also received a Notice from the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) to the same effect; and I am still more anxious to give the House what information I can on this subject. But it would be highly disadvantageous to the Public Service that I should do so at present. If the noble Earl will permit me to postpone answering his Question, I will, at the next Sitting of the House, give as full a statement of the circumstances as is consistant with the interests of the Public Service.

UNIVERSITIES OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ACT, 1877 (LINCOLN COLLEGE STATUTES).

  MOTION FOR AN ADRRESS.
  THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN: My Lords, I rise to move the following Resolution:—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying Her Majesty to withhold
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  Her assent from the Statutes, now on the Table of this House, for Lincoln College, Oxford."
  I venture to submit this Resolution to your Lordships in my capacity as Visitor of Lincoln College, and as the Representative of two of my Predecessors in the See of Lincoln, by whom the College was founded and endowed. I am aware, my Lords, that in moving this Resolution I must expect to be encountered by two objections. First, it will be alleged that I am contravening the wishes of the College itself, as expressed in the Petition from the Rector and Fellows, which has been presented by the noble Earl. My Lords, I have a great respect for Lincoln College, and for the opinions of its members; but I submit that this Petition is hardly to be regarded as an authentic and adequate representation of those opinions. It purports to come from the Rector and Fellows. But what, my Lords, are the facts of the case? It was adopted at a meeting consisting of eight persons. The Rector, who presided at the meeting, declined to vote. The total number of the Fellows in favour of it was four; two of these are non-resident; the third was a Commissioner; and three Fellows, who are resident, voted against it. I need hardly say more in reply to the first objection. The second seems to be more formidable. It will be urged that my Resolution involves an animadversion on the proceedings of a distinguished body of persons, nominated by the Legislature in 1877—namely, the Commissioners for the University of Oxford. And this objection becomes more serious when it is remembered that the President of the Oxford Commission was the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and that next after him was the noble Earl (the Earl of Redesdale), the Chairman of the Committees of your Lordships' House. I may, therefore, expect to be charged with presumption for challenging their acts. But, my Lords, I hope to be relieved from this imputation when I remind you of certain facts. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack had resigned his seat in the Commission—much to the regret of many persons at Oxford—before the Lincoln College Statutes came under consideration. Next, your Lordships will remember that the Oxford Commission, properly so called, was not an independent body, but was swayed by influences from without. In

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  preparing Statutes for any College, the Commissioners were required by the Act of 1877 to admit into their counsels three persons, as Associates, elected by the College, who became Commissioners pro illâ, vice, and who had equal votes with the Commissioners. In certain cases this provision was, I venture to think, unfortunate. In cases where the votes of the Commission itself were nearly balanced, it enabled this Collegiate triumvirate to sway the Commission, and practically to become the Commission; consequently, three persons, elected it might be, as in Lincoln College, from a Governing Body of only about 12 in number, might stereotype their own peculiar sentiments on the Statutes of the College, and might determine its destinies for future generations. Now, my Lords, that this is not an imaginary hypothesis in the case of Lincoln College may, I think, be shown from the animus which appeared in the original draft of the Statutes of the College forwarded to me, as Visitor, by the Secretary of the Commission. The first thing which I observed in that draft was that it was proposed to deprive me of the office of Visitor—an office which had been held by Bishops of Lincoln for 400 years—and to transfer that office to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. I wrote a letter of inquiry to that noble and learned Lord, and he assured me, in reply, that he was not cognizant of the proposal. I then inquired of the Commission what the reasons were for the proposed transfer. The answer which I received was that the functions of a Visitor are judicial, and that they would be more fitly vested in the Lord Chancellor than in a Bishop. To this I rejoined that those functions were not merely or mainly judicial; that the Bishop of Lincoln was Ordinary of Lincoln College; that the College Chapel was built by a Bishop of Lincoln, and was consecrated by a Commission from him; and that so recently as in 1871 it had been enacted by the Legislature that the superintendence of the religious services of the chapel should be vested in the Bishop as Visitor, and that, therefore, it would be an irregular proceeding to transfer such ecclesiastical jurisdiction, exercised for 400 years, from the Bishop of Lincoln to a judicial functionary, however eminent. The Commission at length yielded to my remon-
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  strance, and restored me to the office of Visitor. The next proposal which I remarked in the new Code of Statutes was that I was to be deprived of the patronage of a Fellowship in Lincoln College. That patronage has been administered by my Predecessors for three centuries and a-half. Lincoln College owes its existence and endowments to the Diocese of Lincoln. It was founded and endowed for a Rector and 15 Fellows by the bounty of two Bishops of Lincoln and of an Archdeacon of that diocese. The College itself freely and gratefully acknowledged those benefactions by engaging in a solemn compact that one of the Fellowships should be for ever in the patronage of the Bishop of Lincoln, and this compact was confirmed by the Parliamentary Commissioners so recently as in 1854. But now it is proposed in this new Code that, without any proof, or even any allegation of abuse in the administration of this patronage, the Bishops of Lincoln should at once cease to be patrons of this Fellowship as soon as these new Statutes became law. My Lords, let me be allowed to ask—What property is safe if such acts of spoliation as this are proposed by persons in high place, and are authorized by the Legislature? Will they not be a precedent to be soon followed by similar acts of confiscation? Most of your Lordships are patrons of ecclesiastical benefices; Church patronage has been abolished in Scotland. There is at present an energetic movement, as shown by recent debates in "another place," against lay patronage, on the plea that ecclesiastical advowsons and first presentations are often sold by auction for money. If such patronage as has never been abused is abolished, what will become of patronage for which, in some cases, such a defence cannot be made? But, it is argued, all College offices ought to be elective, and in the hands of the Fellows, and, therefore, a Bishop ought to be deprived of his nomination to a Fellowship, secured by a prescription of more than three centuries, and by a recent legislative provision. My Lords, the Mastership of one of the noblest Colleges in the Kingdom—that of Trinity College, Cambridge—is not elective, but it is in the nomination of the Crown. Is the appointment to a single Fellowship out of many to be taken away from a Bishop, and yet the nomination to the Master-

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  ship of the greatest College in Cambridge to be reserved to the Crown?—
  "Ignoscit corvis, vexat censura columbas."
  But I pass on to a still more important point—the provision made in the new Statutes of Lincoln College for religious worship and instruction. Here, I venture to think, that the Commissioners—including, of course, the three chosen by the majority of the 10 Fellows of the College—have not complied with the instructions they received from the Legislature in 1877 which appointed them. In those instructions they were required, in framing new Statutes, to have primary regard to the "main design of the Founder." The "main design" of the Founder of Lincoln College is clear from the words of the Preamble of the Statutes—"To the glory of God, the increase of the Clergy, and the welfare of the Universal Church." In fact, Lincoln College was intended to be a seminary for Ministers of the Church. The Hector and all the Fellows were to be in Holy Orders; and this provision was continued with some relaxations in the Statutes of 1854, by which the Rector was to be in Holy Orders at his election, and all the Fellows, except two, were to enter Holy Orders within 10 years after their election or resign their Fellowships. But what, my Lords, is to be the future constitution of the College under the proposed New Code? Neither the Rector, nor any one of the Fellows, need be in Holy Orders; nor need they be members of the Church of England, nor even to be professors of the Christian religion. Nor is this all. The Commissioners were required, by the Acts of 1871 and 1877, to make some provision in the College for religious worship morning and evening, and for religious instruction. And what provisions do they propose to make in the new Statutes? If neither the Rector, nor any one of the Fellows, are disposed to undertake the duty, then two Chaplains are to be appointed, with a salary of £50 a-year each, to conduct the daily religious services of the College; and these Chaplains are to be hired from year to year, and to be dismissed at the discretion of the Governing Body. These Chaplains are, in fact, to be placed in a humiliating and ignominious position, much inferior to that of any curate in deacon's orders in the Church of England, who generally receives a
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  stipend of £120 a-year, and is under the protection of his Bishop, and cannot be dismissed without his consent. Lincoln College, which was designed by its Founders to be pre-eminently a religious College, has been treated by the Commissioners far less favourably than other Colleges—Brasenose, for instance, and many others—in this respect. My Lords, I have ventured to invite your Lordships' attention to this subject, because it seems to me to be one of vital national importance. The future destinies of the English nation depend much on the education given to the sons of the nobility and gentry of the land in our two ancient Universities. If the religious worship and instruction provided in our Colleges should sink into disesteem and contempt, and should cease to exercise a salutary influence over the hearts and minds of those young men who are trained within their walls, I tremble for the future of England. But, my Lords, I must not trespass longer on your time by entering on so vast a subject. I will, therefore, conclude by endeavouring to answer a question which may reasonably be asked, and which is this—What will be the condition of Lincoln College, if your Lordships should think fit in your wisdom to assent to the Resolution which I have now the honour to submit to you? The reply is—The College will not be thrown back on any obsolete Code, but on Statutes which are not 30 years old, and which were revised and approved in 1854 by the Commissioners then appointed by your Lordships and by the other House of Parliament for that purpose; and when I remind your Lordships who those Commissioners were in 1854, you will feel a reasonable assurance that the Code of 1854 was wisely framed. Among those Commissioners were the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Longley—then Bishop of Ripon—the Earl of Harrowby, Sir John Coleridge, Sir John Awdry, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis; and it was provided by them that those Statutes might be amended from time to time by the College, with certain consents, which, I think, have been enlarged by Section 56 of the recent Act of 1877. It is quite clear, therefore, that while anything that is objectionable in the proposed Code of 1882 may thus be removed from it after mature deliberation, it will be quite competent for the College, with the co-ope-

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  ration of the proper authorities, to adopt such recommendations in that Code as may be shown to be improvements on the Code framed by the Parliamentary Commissioners in 1854. I heartily thank you for the patient indulgence with which you have now favoured me, and I beg leave to move the Resolution which I have submitted to your Lordships.
  Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying Her Majesty to withhold Her assent from the Statutes, now on the Table of this House, for Lincoln College, Oxford."—(The Lord Bishop of Lincoln.)
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN, who had a Notice on the Paper to call attention to a Petition from the Rector and Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford, praying that the Statute made for Lincoln College by the Oxford University Commissioners may be allowed to proceed, said that, although that Statute was drawn up by the University Commissioners, it would more properly be described as the Statute of Lincoln College itself. That College had taken the only means available to it at this juncture by presenting a Petition which brought the facts of the case under the notice of their Lordships. The right rev. Prelate had made light of that Petition, alleging that it was only signed by four persons. He fully agreed with him that the meeting at which the Petition was signed was not numerously attended; but there was an excellent reason for that. The College had received no notice whatever from the right rev. Prelate of his intention to move the rejection of the whole of the Statute. The right rev. Prelate had referred to the fact that the Rector did not vote on that occasion. He was desired to say by the Rector that, although that was the case, he was opposed to the Statute being overthrown. One point referred to by the right rev. Prelate was that by the Statute the Bishop was to be deprived of the privilege of nominating a Fellow without being heard. But that was not so. That question was dealt with by the Universities' Committee, to which Committee the right rev. Prelate petitioned, with the result that the Petition was dismissed. The main ground of objection to the Statute was that by it insufficient provision was made for religious instruction. But why had not the right rev. Prelate availed himself of the power of appeal which he possessed to the Court specially ap-
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  pointed by Parliament for that purpose? The right rev. Prelate understood the situation perfectly well. He had appealed in the analogous case when the privilege of appointing a Fellow was taken away from him, and why did he not do so in this case also? When Parliament was passing the Universities' Bill of 1877, it intended distinctly that their Lordships' House should not be a Judicial Body with regard to this Statute. Accordingly, it created a Universities' Committee judicially to consider individual points in the Statute; and it was for their Lordships either to reject the Statute as a whole, or to pass it as a whole. In the first instance, Parliament clearly intended that such appeals as related to one portion of the Statute should be brought before the Universities' Committee, who possessed advantages for hearing them which Parliament did not command. The right rev. Prelate, having neglected to avail himself of his power under the Act, now came before their Lordships and asked them to throw out the whole of this Statute, mainly because he objected to one portion of it. This point, although not brought before the University Committee, had been specially considered by the University Commission, who had decided that, under the existing Statutes of the College, they had no power to enforce clerical restrictions with regard to any Fellowship in the College. The effect upon Lincoln College of throwing out this Statute would be not to permit the College to reconsider their Statutes, and to bring them before the University Committee, because that Committee was as dead as the University Commission, but to throw the College back upon the Statutes of 1854, by which the privilege of the Bishop to appoint a Fellow would be revived in the face of the declarations of both the University Committee and the University Commission that such a privilege ought no longer to exist. Moreover, throwing out this Statute would enable the two Fellows at Lincoln College who had been appointed recently to hold their Fellowships in perpetuum, instead of for seven years. The University itself would suffer from the throwing out of this Statute, inasmuch as the emoluments of the recently-appointed Lincoln Professor of Classical Archæology and Art would be cut off. He trusted that their Lordships would accede

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  to the prayer of the College authorities and would allow the Statute to proceed.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYsaid, he would venture to ask the noble Earl behind him what was the exact duty, in reference to Statutes of this character, which he deemed the House had to discharge? If the House had no right to consider them, why had the Legislature directed that such Statutes should be printed and circulated among their Lordships before they became law? The noble Earl had pointed out that, in the event of this Statute being thrown out, the Lincoln Professor of Classical Archæology and Art would lose his appointment; but, for his own part, he could not help feeling that some of these Professorships were possibly more ornamental than useful, and that the study of the University need not necessarily suffer very greatly even though this Profesorship should be suspended. He granted that if they were compelled, by the success of this Motion, to fall back upon the Statutes of 1854, the Rector and Fellows of Lincoln College would not be entirely masters of the situation, free to make such Statutes as they pleased; but there would be still a way open for making just as good Statutes as those which had now been suggested. It was true that in some great Colleges, such as All Souls' and New College, no such expressed clerical restrictions had been imposed with regard to Fellowships. It might be taken for granted that where there was such a large number of Fellowships some among the Fellows would always be in Holy Orders. It was a very different matter, however, in the smaller Colleges, with regard to which it was absolutely necessary to make some provision for the performance of Divine Service. Having regard to the construction of the existing Statutes of Lincoln, it was as open to anyone to contend that all the Fellows should be in Holy Orders as to contend that none should be. All of them were required to be in Holy Orders after a limited number of years. It was also provided that the Service of the Church of England should be read in the chapel by one of the Fellows. The intention clearly was that the Fellow should be in Holy Orders. Again, two Chaplaincies, as they were called, which were really parochial cures, were to be held by Fellows, and in the event of one of the
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  holders ceasing to be Chaplain he was to resign his Fellowship. Could anything be more obvious than that it was intended that an indissoluble bond should exist between the Chaplaincy and the Fellowship held in conjunction with it? On the whole, it appeared to him to be the common sense view of the Statute of 1854 that Clerical Fellowships should exist in Lincoln. He should be sorry to do anything which might injure the College; but it seemed to him that no great harm would result if it fell back for some little time upon the system inaugurated in 1854, instead of being hastily reformed upon an untried modern system. Whatever disadvantage might now be experienced, it might, he believed, be amended by powers already existing.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he recognized fully the desirability of securing religious instruction in Colleges; and he agreed that, when it could be done, that instruction ought to be given by members of the Governing Body. But he wished to point out that the Commissioners were hampered in regard to the appointment of Clerical Fellows by certain legal impediments placed in their way by the Act of Parliament from which their powers were derived. It was a mistake to suppose that what had been done in the case of Lincoln College was capricious and exceptional. The very clause which called their attention to the duty of providing for religious instruction and for Chapel Services contained a negative and prohibitory provision, to this effect—that in any Statute made by them they might not make the entering into Holy Orders, or the taking of any test, a condition of the holding of any office or emolument existing at the time of the passing of the Act, to which such a condition was not at the time of the passing of the Act attached. Hence there was necessarily a difference of treatment required in the case of different Colleges. What was done in Lincoln College had been done, and for the same reason, in larger Colleges, such as New College and Merton, and in a smaller College, Wadham. There were, in 1877, no Fellowships in any of these Colleges subject to any Clerical test or qualification, present or prospective, at the time of election; and, therefore, the Commissioners could impose none for any purpose. At Lincoln, as in those other

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  Colleges, they had done all they could. He would read the very words of the Lincoln Statutes—
  "The Rector and Fellows shall yearly nominate, out of their own body, two persons, being in Holy Orders of the Church of England, one of whom, at least, shall be in Priest's Orders, to act as Chaplains."
  And a little later—
  "The Rector and Fellows shall provide religious instruction for all members of the College in statu pupillari, being members of the Church of England, and shall charge one or more of the Tutors or resident Fellows with the duty of giving such instruction. The Rector may likewise, with his own consent, be charged with this duty."
  The provision, which is at the same time made for the discharge of these duties by persons not members of the Governing Body, is only to meet the case of there being no persons among the Rector and Fellows duly qualified and willing to serve as Chaplains, or no Tutor or resident Fellow who, being a priest or deacon of the Church of England, can be charged with and undertake the duty of religious instruction, the Rector being either not in Holy Orders or not willing to undertake it. The salaries provided in that case were not, as had been suggested, illiberal—£100 being the minimum, not the maximum. Under the previous constitution of the College all the Fellowships were tenable for at least 10 years, without any obligation to take Holy Orders; and two of them—not necessarily the two senior Fellowships, but according to an option, the exercise of which would, of course, be regulated by seniority—might permanently be held by laymen. The Commissioners, therefore, had no power to make a Statute requiring any Fellow of this College to be in Holy Orders before the end of 10 years from the time of his election. Under the new Statutes, there would be only a maximum number of four Fellows—all tutorial—and the Professor of Classical Archæology, who could retain their Fellowships for so long a period as 10 years; and to require two of these to take Holy Orders at the end of 10 years, or then vacate their Fellowships, might deprive the College of the services of, perhaps, its best Tutors, without securing the object in view more effectually than under the new Statutes as they had actually been framed. He thought the right rev. Prelate had implied some unmerited want of confidence in the Col-
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  lege Commissioners concerned in the preparation of the Statutes in question. One of those gentlemen had now been elected to the Presidency of Corpus Christi College, a College of which he was not previously a member, and during his residence at Lincoln he and another distinguished member of that College, Mr. Merry, had discharged the duties of Chaplain and Divinity Tutor; and there was no reason to suppose that men equally well qualified might not be found under the new Statutes. He had heard with some regret the observations of the right rev. Prelate, who seemed to think that there was some special evil purpose in the framing of the Statutes of Lincoln College, because they proposed to change the Visitor. He was glad that that change was not to take place, and that important duties, which, in his opinion, might be better discharged by the right rev. Prelate the Bishop than by the Lord Chancellor, were to remain in his hands. He had, therefore, heard with some degree of surprise the remarks of the right rev. Prelate on that subject; and he thought, considering the circumstances, they were hardly necessary. He had also heard with surprise the objection made by the right rev. Prelate, on the ground that the right to nominate one Fellow, which had hitherto been exercised by the Bishops of Lincoln, was now to cease, and was to be transferred to the College. The right rev. Prelate considered this to be an act of spoliation, and a violent departure from the main purposes of the founders and benefactors, who were Bishops and an Archdeacon of Lincoln. But in those days the See of Lincoln embraced a vast tract of country now separated from it, and now transferred to other dioceses, of which Oxford was one. The Fellowship in question was not an open Fellowship, but was to be filled by a native of Oxfordshire; and all such local restrictions had now been done away. To reserve to the Bishops of Lincoln, under these circumstances, a nomination either to an open prize Fellowship tenable for seven years, which—according to the principle universally adopted elsewhere—ought to be the reward of distinguished academical merit, ascertained by free competition, or to one of the Tutorial Fellowships in the College, which it was most important to have filled by men specially qualified, in whom the College might place confi-

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  dence, would have been to interfere inconveniently and unreasonably with the new, without preserving the old, constitution of the College. The right rev. Prelate had appealed, on this point, to the Universities' Committee of the Privy Council, and that authority had decided against him. No doubt, it was competent for this House to interfere; but to interfere for the purpose of reversing a decision of a judicial, or quasi-judicial, tribunal, in favour of one, however eminent, who had taken his chance of success there and failed, would not appear to him to be worthy of their Lordships' wisdom. The consequence of objecting to the Statutes before the House, which, as they stood, were not substantially different from those of any other College in the University, would be most prejudicial. They belonged to the same general scheme and plan as those of the other Colleges; and in some respects the Commissioners thought it of the highest importance to maintain an uniformity of plan. They had advocated the creation, in every College, of a limited number of Fellowships to be filled by gentlemen who would perform official duties in their Colleges, and of other Fellowships to be held as prizes, not upon the wasteful system of life annuities, but for seven years; and they desired, as far as possible, to make them of uniform value, in order to prevent money competition between the various Colleges. Scholarships, too, were placed upon a uniform system; and if assent were withheld from these Statutes Lincoln College would be placed in anentirely different position from other Colleges. The contributions to be made by Lincoln College to the revenues of the University would be lost, as well as the Professorship of Classical Archæology, to which—whatever the most rev. Prelate might think about it—great value was, to his knowledge, attached in the University by those who well understood its present wants. He was far from saying that there were not in these and the other College Statutes some changes, the value of which could only be tested by experience; but that would not be a reason with their Lordships for rejecting them; and he put it to their Lordships whether they were prepared to say that a particular College, whose Statutes, in no substantial respect differing from the rest, had been rejected by Parliament, should have the power to make
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  alterations, however dissimilar from the rest, with the consent of the Visitor; whether they wished to render necessary further legislation concerning that particular College; and whether they considered it desirable that there should be constant legislation affecting the Colleges and the University?
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, he must protest against a use which had been made of the existence of the Universities' Committee—a use which might mislead the House, because, from the nature of it, it was incapable of a direct reply. In the case of the decisions of other tribunals it might be possible to show the causes and the grounds of them, and to point out how far they were influenced by legal and by political considerations; but the peculiarity of tribunals issuing from the Privy Council was that they were forbidden by an old rule from stating the grounds on which their decisions were given, or giving the votes of the persons who constituted the tribunal. He was, therefore, incapable of answering directly what had been advanced; but that very fact showed that there ought not to be imported into the discussion the consideration of facts which could not be stated. He was sure that the legal Lords would not support the view which had been advanced of the relation of the Universities' Committee to that House, and that the House was precluded from exercising an authority which it derived from the same Act of Parliament. As to the view that the House ought not to go against the decision of the Commissioners which Parliament called into existence, the Commission of the House derived their powers from the same source; the Parliament which created the Commission of 1877 created the appellate judgment of the House of Lords, to which appeal was now being made; and the one was, as potent as the other. The main question was, what was the effect of these Statutes on Lincoln College, and what would be the effect if it were rejected? The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack had told their Lordships that their operation was not substantially different in the case of Lincoln College from other Colleges; but everything depended upon the definition of the adverb, and whether the management of religious instruction was a matter of substance. If it were, the

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  difference between the Statutes was that one set dealt satisfactorily with the subject, and another set unsatisfactorily. Originally the majority of Fellows in the University were in Holy Orders, and, with comparatively little modification, that state of things continued down to 1854. The Commission of 1877, although there was nothing in the Act of Parliament to indicate that so large a revolution was contemplated, went the enormous length of sweeping away all the Clerical Fellowships in all the Colleges, making only the reservation, which they applied to the majority of Colleges, that the Principal and Fellows might, if they thought fit, elect to a Fellowship a person in Holy Orders who appeared eminently qualified to give religious instruction; and if at any time there appeared to be no Fellow in Holy Orders, there should, on the occurrence of a vacancy, be an election under the former clause. In effect, they were imperatively charged with the duty of supervising religious education. It was true the clause was not inserted in all the Statutes, and that no College was treated precisely as Lincoln was; in all the others religious education was more favoured. The question was not whether the Commission ought to have inserted in the Lincoln Statutes that precise provision, to which technical objection might exist, but whether they ought to have so entirely revolutionized the character of the College that, whereas all the Fellows except two were at one time bound to take Holy Orders, now not one was bound to take Holy Orders. It was quite clear it was not necessary for them to exterminate the clerical element of the College in the way they had done. They might have left things as they were; they might have modified them; they might have adopted many alternatives. What the House was asked to say was that they did not approve of the exception to the general rule made in the case of Lincoln College, and that there should be among the Governing Body men whose duty it should be to supervise religious education. There was no similarity between this and the derisory appointment of a Chaplain at £50 a-year. What they were asked to say was that they did not approve of religious instruction being pushed aside in that contemptuous manner, and that they did approve of
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  the minimum of general provision for religious education inserted in the Statutes of the Colleges generally, and that they wished to place Lincoln College on an equality with the rest of the University on the vital question of religious instruction.
  LORD COLERIDGEsaid, he desired to point out the position in which the matter would be left if the view of the noble Marquess were adopted. It had been suggested in the concluding words of the noble Marquess's address that Lincoln College was to be left until it could discover some means of placing itself in regard to religious education on the same level, or in the same position, as the other Colleges in the University. The noble Marquess, however, had not suggested any means by which Lincoln College could place itself in that position.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It can stay as it is now.
  LORD COLERIDGE: No doubt; but the answer to this suggestion had been already given by his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack. If there were no necessity for change, why did the noble Marquess create his Commission in 1877 for the purpose of effecting changes? The right rev. Prelate, or those who acted with him, could, no doubt, have informed the House on what ground the right rev. Prelate objected before the Universities Committee, and whether the point of religious education, which had been so prominently pressed on the present occasion, was brought before the Committee at all. If it had been, the Universities Committee would have had the power, notwithstanding the fact that the University Commission was extinct, to disallow the Statute in that regard, while it might have passed the rest of the Statute. If that objection were not raised before the Universities' Committee, it seemed hard on the College and on the University to raise it before their Lordships, who did not possess a judicial power, although they could, if they pleased, disallow the whole of the Statute. It would be most unfortunate if Lincoln College should be left to stand alone in the whole of the University. Considering that there were clergymen living in Oxford who probably had other benefices and means of support, he did not think the minimum sum named in the Statute for the chaplain's stipend

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  was unreasonably low. It certainly was intended as an ignominious sum. Many College chaplains, in his time, discharged these duties for less than £100 a-year. He felt it would be a great pity to reject the Statute on these grounds.
  VISCOUNT CRANBROOKsaid, it had been admitted that the Fellows were under the old Statutes to be in Holy Orders, and that the new Statutes made an entire alteration in that respect, and were not at all consistent with the intentions of the founders of the College. The only way to do what the Commissioners would have done, but for a technical difficulty, was for their Lordships to agree to the Address in order that the College might do for itself what was right and necessary under the powers of its former Statutes.
  THE BISHOP OF CARLISLEsaid, he much regretted that he could not support the Motion of his right rev. Brother. He fully assented to what the noble Marquess opposite had said as to the importance of intrusting the religious instruction of the College to a member of the College. He felt strongly that the influence of a member of the Governing Body who mixed with the undergraduates would be much greater than that of a person from without. In Cambridge, wherever the chapel was served by clergy outside the College, the result was found to be very unsatisfactory, and he should be glad if the possibility of such an arrangement could be avoided in Lincoln College. But the Lord Chancellor had shown that there were special legal difficulties in respect of Lincoln College, and that the Commissioners had done their best in the matter. In some of the smaller Colleges of his own University, where there was no Clerical Fellow, the proposal of the new Statutes was to appoint a Dean from outside, and on the occurrence of a vacancy among the Fellows, to appoint the Dean to the vacancy, and he thought it would have been well if that practice could have been more generally followed. There were great and obvious disadvantages in entirely upsetting the Statute; and as there was apparently a legal impossibility of effecting the purpose of the Motion without doing so, he should vote against the Motion.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, he was of opinion that this Statute was an anomaly, and the only course open to their Lordships' House was to address Her
  546
  Majesty, praying her to withhold her assent.
  On Question? Their Lordships divided:—Contents 71; Not-Contents 42: Majority 29.

  CONTENTS.

  Canterbury, L. Archp.

  Ely, L. Bp.

  York, L. Archp.

  Gloucester and Bristol, L. Bp.

  Marlborough, D.

  Hereford; L. Bp.

  Northumberland, D.

  Lincoln, L. Bp.

  Richmond, D.

  London, L. Bp.

  St. Albans, L. Bp.

  Hertford, M.

  Winchester, L. Bp.

  Salisbury, M.

  Brabourne, L.

  Amherst, E.

  Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

  Beauchamp, E.

  Belmore, E.

  Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

  Cairns, E.

  Carnarvon, E.

  Colchester, L.

  Clonmell, E.

  Denman, L.

  Coventry, E.

  de Ros, L.

  Dartmouth, E.

  Dinevor, L.

  De La Warr, E.

  Forester, L.

  Feversham, E.

  Foxford, L. (E. Limerick.)

  Jersey, E.

  Lathom, E. [Teller.]

  Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

  Lucan, E.

  Harlech, L.

  Mar and Kellie, E.

  Hylton, L.

  Milltown, E.

  Lamington, L.

  Morton, E.

  Leconfield, L.

  Mount Edgcumbe, E.

  Norton, L.

  Powis, E.

  Penrhyn, L.

  Selkirk, E.

  Poltimore, L.

  Sondes, E.

  Ross, L. (E. Glasgow.)

  Stanhope, E.

  Rowton, L.

  Strathmore and Kinghorn, E.

  Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

  Wharncliffe, E.

  Silchester, L. (E. Longford.)

  Cranbrook, V.

  Stanley of Alderley, L.

  Hardinge, V.

  Strathspey, L. (E. Seafield.)

  Hawardon, V. [Teller.]

  Melville, V.

  Tomplomore, L.

  Strathallan, V.

  Trevor, L.

  Tyrone, L. (M. Waterford.)

  Bangor, L. Bp.

  Chichester, L. Bp.

  Windsor, L.

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Selborne, L. (L. Chancellor.)

  Sherbrooke, V.

  Bedford, D.

  Carlisle, L. Bp.

  Saint Albans, D.

  Westminster, D.

  Aberdare, L.

  Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.)

  Lansdowne, M.

  Calthorpe, L.

  Camperdown, E [Teller.]

  Carlingford, L.

  Clermont, L.

  Clarendon, E.

  Coleridge, L.

  Derby, E.

  Hammond, L.

  Ducie, E.

  Hothfield, L.

  Granville, E.

  Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)

  Kimberley, E.

  Morley, E.

  Lawrence, L.

  Northbrook, E.

  Lovat, L.

  Sydney, E.

  Methuen, L,

  547

  Monson, L.

  Rosebery, L. (E. Rosebery.)

  Mount Temple, L.

  O'Hagan, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

  Strafford, L. (V. Enfield.)

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Sudeley, L.

  Thurlow, L. [Teller.]

  Reay, L.

  Tweedmouth, L.

  Ribblesdale, L.

  Waveney, L.

  Resolved in the affirmative.
  The said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

RUSSIA—THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF BELMORE, in rising to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, If he has received any communication from the Marquess of Normanby respecting a statement which appeared in the Melbourne "Age" newspaper of 23rd March, concerning a statement made by a Mr. Bryant to the Colonial Government with regard to alleged designs of Russia upon the Australian Colonies; and, if so, whether he attaches any importance to that statement? said, he was rather inclined to believe Bryant was not this person's real name, but that he was a Frenchman who had been in prison, or, at any rate, in confinement in New Caledonia. He wished to make only a few remarks. The person referred to informed, as alleged, the Colonial Government that the Admiral who commanded the Russian ships which were at Melbourne and in the Australian waters had been instructed to inform himself of the positions of the capitals in Australia, so that in case of a war arising such knowledge would be useful; and he stated that he had been employed by the Admiral to make certain sketches. He anticipated that his noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Kimberley) would say that he had received a communication on the subject from Lord Normanby, and that his reply had been that he did not attach much importance to the question; but whether the noble Earl attached much importance to it or not, knowing the localities, he (the Earl of Belmore) was sure of this, that in the event of a war with a great Power the surprise of Australia by the enemy would not be at all improbable. Twelve years ago the Imperial troops were removed from the Australian Colonies. The Colonies
  548
  themselves were altogether to blame for this, because Her Majesty's Government had offered to retain the troops if the Colonies would pay for them. They had not given an answer in a reasonable time, and the result had been that the soldiers were taken away. Perhaps, as to the number of troops, this did not matter; but what did matter was that the General who was in command of the troops was removed, and in the event of a war breaking out there was no one to take his place. The only forces in the Island were Volunteers, with a few men at Melbourne and Sydney that the War Office called Militia, and there were no officers of experience attached to them who could be at all classed with British Generals. Moreover, there being no bond of union in the Colonies, they would not be of much assistance to each other; but each Colony would be left to itself in certain events, and then the want of a general officer would be felt. He would now ask the Question of which he had given Notice.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, he should confine himself to answering the Question asked him by the noble Earl. On the 23rd of March Sir Bryan O'Loghlen, the Premier of Victoria, in the absence of Lord Normanby from the seat of Government, telegraphed to the Colonial Office the purport of the statement made by Mr. Bryant to the Colonial Government as reported in The Age. He informed him, in reply, that the relations of this country with Russia were of an altogether friendly character, and rendered such a report incredible. On the 24th of March Sir Bryan O'Loghlen telegraphed that a counter-statement had been made to the effect that Bryant was a disappointed torpedo inventor, whose invention had been declined by the Russian Government, and that the copies of Russian despatches were pure fiction. Lord Normanby had not made any communication on the subject.

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.

  ADDRESS FOR PAPERS.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY, in rising to call the attention of the House to the proceedings of the Legislative Council of Singapore on the 16th of February in opposition to the proposed disendowment of the Church of England in the Straits Settlements, and to move for

  549
  "Copies of the despatch of the Governor of the Straits Settlements in reply to the Secretary of State's despatch of 30th September 1881, and of the Secretary of State's reply thereto,"
  said: My Lords, on the 16th of February last the Legislative Council of Singapore met to consider a despatch of the Secretary of State, recommending the disendowment of the Church of England in the Straits Settlements. The Council consisted of the Governor and six officials and six unofficial Members.
  "The discussion was commenced by Mr. Shelford, who said that 'he wished to ascertain upon what grounds the Secretary of State, unsolicited, seeks to apply to this Colony a principle that obtains elsewhere.' He objected at some length to the proposed change, and said that the decision of the Secretary of State appeared to have been taken without a knowledge of, or at any rate regardless of, surrounding circumstances. Mr. Currie spoke next as a Dissenter, and objected to the proposed change, the immediate effect of which, he said, would be to curtail the revenues of the churches dependent upon voluntary contributions. Mr. Graham followed with regrets that the existing religious harmony would be interrupted by this introduction of Church and State strife. The Acting Colonial Engineer said that it was with feelings of much sorrow and regret that he had perused the Secretary of State's despatch. Mr. Sandilands, a Presbyterian, opposed the proposed change, which, he said, they had not wished for, and which he thought would be a very great blow and hardship. Mr. Bond then said that, though he was not now a member of the Church which it was proposed to disestablish, he should vote against the proposal, and he failed to see any good ground in the Secretary of State's despatch urged for disestablishment, either in Ceylon or in the Straits. The Chief Justice next spoke at length against the proposal, and looked with great mistrust at the misplaced economy of the Colonial Office in the matter of the small payment of 12,000 dollars to the Church. Mr. Bishop next opposed the proposed disendowment; from what was said by another speaker, he also appears not to belong to the Church of England. The Colonial Secretary said that, 'as a Member of the Executive Government, he had great doubts whether it was open to him to criticize, as he wished to do, the despatch upon the table; but he could not conceive that temperate remarks of a Member of the Government would be misplaced on a subject of this kind. He believed that in depriving the Church of England of State aid a great harm would be done to the Service to which he belonged.' Last of all, the Governor, who is a Roman Catholic, stated that he had not been consulted by the Secretary of State on the question of disendowment, and said that when he was Prime Minister of New Zealand, the organization of the Church of England was settled by a Bill to which he gave great attention, and which met with the special approbation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In a case like this, he said, oven if 'levelling up' be set aside, he would not disendow. He con-
  550
  cluded by saying 'he had much pleasure in acceding to the Motion for Correspondence.'"
  Thus it appears that the Secretary of State's proposal of disendowment was unanimously repudiated by the Legislative Council of Singapore, and that it was objected to by four Nonconformists and by the Catholic Governor. It further appears, from the Singapore debate, that the Secretary of State did not consult, nor even sound, the Colony upon this matter, and that he gave the Colony no reason for his decision. I trust, therefore, that as the noble Earl's despatch to the Governor of the Straits Settlements does not contain the reasons which induced him to make his proposal, the noble Earl will now give your Lordships some information as to his reasons. It might have been supposed that the reception which his proposal of disendowment met with last year in your Lordship's House would have discouraged him from renewing such an attempt this year in another Colony. I am confident that disendowment was not pressed upon the Secretary of State by the Permanent Staff of the Colonial Office; and I am equally confident that the noble Earl is the last person to have recommended such a measure merely on account of a pedantic infatuation for symmetry, and the desire to model all the Colonies on a uniform pattern, notwithstanding that the noble Earl's despatch of September 30 does mention incidentally that the principle of disendowment has been adopted in other Colonies. From Paragraphs 5 and 6 of the despatch of the Secretary of State it might be inferred that he considered it an injustice that $12,000 should be allotted out of taxation to the Church of a minority of the total population; but, in the first place, arithmetical justice is not considered in this country in the matter of appropriating the proceeds of taxation. Highway rates are paid for roads used by those who do not contribute to their maintenance; heavy education rates are paid for teaching Latin and Algebra under pretence of teaching the "three R's." And this argument loses sight of the fact that the great bulk of the 300,000 of Asiatic population flocked to the Straits Settlements after that Colony was founded, and the appropriation to the Church made. Unless the State is to be made to appear as unbelieving and careless as to religion—a state of thing which is abhorrent to

  551
  the Asiatic mind—some such appropriation must be made, and it is most natural and fitting that it should be made to the State Church. Several of the speakers in the Singapore Legislative Council had said that the proposed measure would be disapproved of and misinterpreted by the Natives. Last year I spoke of the opinions of the Mussulmans and Buddhists on this subject, with reference to Ceylon. I have lately read in a Hindu newspaper expressions favourable to the Missionaries in India, on the ground that they keep a check upon the Civil Service and Europeans, by keeping up the tone of public morality. If the Governor had not stated that he had not been consulted on this question, I could not have believed that the Secretary of State would have rushed into this unwelcome proposal without having previously ascertained the facts and the ground he stood upon. The only plausible explanation that remains is that the Secretary of State for the Colonies has wished to imitate the Prime Minister, and has trimmed his sails to the wind that blows from Northampton, and that he has mistaken that wind for a steady trade wind, whereas it is only an irregular and transitory gust, such as that which sank the Eurydice, and which will assuredly cause the Government ship to founder if they set their sails for it.
  Moved, "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for copies of the despatch of the Governor of the Straits Settlements in reply to the Secretary of State's despatch of 30th September 1881, and of the Secretary of State's reply thereto."—(The Lord Stanley of Alderley.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY, in reply, said, that he was very glad of the opportunity which the noble Lord had afforded him of stating the course he had pursued, and which was a very plain and straightforward one, and one that he did not think would sink the ship, as the noble Lord seemed to fear. His noble Friend had been a little hard upon him in regard to this matter, and he thought he could not have read the despatch he sent out on the subject, acting upon the information which he had received. What he had stated was as follows:—
  "It appears, as far as is shown by the information before me in the Blue Book for 1879, that out of a population of 308,097 there are only 1,730 Europeans, excluding Americans, and 5,772 Eurasians, the rest being Malays, Chinese, Hindoos, Klings, and people of other
  552
  Eastern races, and that the number of persons generally attending Christian services were—Church of England, 749; Roman Catholics, 6,683; Armenians, from 30 to 50; and miscellaneous, from 190 to 320."
  The total amount of the grant was about $12,700; and on general principles he thought that where the Church of England population bore so very small a proportion to the general population it was only natural to expect that they should provide necessary funds for maintaining public worship by voluntary contributions. In those parts of the Colonial Empire where that plan had been adopted the result had generally been to strengthen that Church and to infuse greater energy into it. In the case of Singapore, however, the Members of the Legislative Council of all denominations had concurred in expressing a desire that the annual grant for the endowment of the Church of England at that place should be continued, and he had much pleasure in stating that that desire would be carried into effect. The policy of disendowment and disestablishment of the Church of England in our Colonies had not been initiated by himself. His noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Carnarvon), who was the last person to take any course unfavourable to the Church of England, was, by force of circumstances, the first Secretary of State to take a step of that kind, and the case with which his noble Friend dealt had reference to the West India Colonies. The Papers asked for would be laid upon the Table of the House.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, he thought that the noble Earl who had just sat down had exercised a wise discretion in not adhering, for the sake of consistency, to the terms of his original despatch. He wished to explain that, so far from having voluntarily initiated the policy of disestablishing and disendowing the Church of England in our Colonies, the measure he had brought forward some 12 or 14 years ago on the subject had been forced upon him by the circumstances of the time. He should like to bear his testimony to the manly and straightforward manner in which this subject had been discussed by all Parties in the Legislative Council. There were two sets of circumstances in which it was most undesirable that a policy of disendowment and disestablishment should be carried into effect—the first was where there was a strong feeling in

  553
  the Colony against the adoption of such a policy; and the second was where a small White population was surrounded by a large Native population, in which latter case carrying out such a policy might lead to much misunderstanding and misapprehension.
  THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYremarked, that, although it was satisfactory to know that the feeling of the inhabitants of the Straits Settlements had been consulted in this instance, it was desirable that these things should be done on some recognized principle and by some recognized authority.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYreplied, that it was impossible to lay down a rule in such cases, as the various Colonies of the Crown differed in their constitutions. Matters of that kind had to be settled according to the circumstances of the Colony concerned.
  Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.