asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the prohibition by the Lord Chamberlain of the performance of sacred music in the theatres on Good Friday last; whether he can state to the House the reasons for this change in practice; and, whether the Government propose to take any steps, by legislation or otherwise, to prevent in future such interference with the enjoyments of the people?

, in reply, said, the Lord Chamberlain's power with respect to performances of any kind, whether secular or sacred, on Good Fridays were defined by 6 & 7 Vict. c. 68, and the licences for music were granted by the Justices under 25 Geo. II. c. 36. The Lord Chamberlain had made no change whatever in practice with regard to the issue of licences for stage plays. The following days had always been excepted from such licences:—Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Christmas Day, and Sundays. On these days theatres were unlicensed houses, and no performances for hire could lawfully be given within them, nor could the Lord Chamberlain grant a licence for performances in theatres on those days. If at any time there had been such performances, they had been given without his sanction or assent. There was no necessity for any fresh legislation for licensing music-halls and concert-rooms for the performance of music, as the magistrates had the power, if they thought fit to exercise it, excepting on Sundays.

Do the Government intend to take any step in the matter?

No.

asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he can inform the House as to the amount he expects to receive, during the present financial year, from the Railway Passenger Duty?

£700,000, Sir.

By a printer's error the Question I am about to ask is not on the Paper. I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is in a position to make any re-assuring statement to the House with reference to the recent alarm as to the relations of France and Germany?

Sir, I may take the opportunity of stating that I have just now laid upon the Table of the House the Correspondence that has passed between the Governments of Germany and Belgium. In answer to the Question of the hon. Baronet, I am happy to say that Her Majesty's Government has this morning received from Berlin assurances of a thoroughly satisfactory character, and we are of opinion that there is no further cause for apprehension as to the maintenance of European peace.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether two inquiries at the public cost into the Bye-laws of the Severn District have been granted, and what other similar inquiries have been held at the public cost; whether an inquiry into the Bye-laws of the Wye District, made in 1874, was refused at the public cost; whether any inquiry has been held into the Wye Bye-laws, and what has been the result; whether he will lay upon the Table Copies of the Correspondence which has passed between the Home Office and the Conservators of the Wye District; and, of the Reports of the Inspectors of Salmon Fisheries relating to the Wye Bye-laws?

, in reply, said, that there had been two inquiries at the public cost—the first related to the size of the mesh to be used in fishing with nets; the second as to the use of nets for other fish than salmon. There had also been an inquiry in 1873, before the passing of the Fishery Act, at the public expense, and in the preceding year there had been a public inquiry into the general question. As to the Correspondence, he had no objection to lay a Copy of it on the Table, except that it happened to be very bulky, and he could not consent to produce only part of the Correspondence. He would lay the whole of it on the Table if the hon. Member moved for it.

said, in that case he should move for the whole of the Correspondence on the subject.

asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, in the event of an Adjutant of Militia signifying his intention of retiring before the 1st of October 1875, such retirement would be carried out at once; or, would he be permitted to remain, provided the brigade depôt was not formed, and he was recommended by his commanding officer and the Colonel of the Brigade Depôt to be retained until the depôt was formed.

, in reply, said, that under the circumstances stated the adjutant would not be permitted to remain until the brigade depot was formed, but his retirement would be carried out as soon as his successor could be conveniently appointed. Perhaps he might be permitted to explain a statement he had made yesterday in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for South Ayrshire (Colonel Alexander), the purport of which appeared to have been somewhat misapprehended. The hon. and gallant Member had asked him whether adjutants of Militia regiments who decline to avail themselves of the new retirement scheme would be required, as the alternative, to perform the duties of adjutants to brigade depôts at the head-quarters of the sub-district? To that Question he had replied that the adjutants of Militia who declined to avail themselves of the new retirement scheme would be required to perform all military duty the same as other officers belonging to the brigade depot, and that the appointment of adjutants to a brigade depôt did not exist under present regulations.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Local Government Boards for Ireland, under the Act of last Session, intend to appoint a Special Inspector for the four Chemical Works in Ireland, independent of the Inspectors at present acting under the Alkali Act, 1863?

, in reply, said, that looking at the small number of chemical works in Ireland, there appeared to be no necessity for appointing special Inspectors for them.

asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he will explain to the House upon what principle the Fishery Commissioners in Ireland have acted in defining the mouths of rivers, with respect to the right of putting out nets for the purpose of catching salmon; and whether the principle is the same in all the salmon fisheries in Ireland?

Sir, by the 32 & 33 Vict. c. 92 the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries are empowered, subject to the approval of the Lord Lieutenant and the Privy Council, to define or re-define the boundaries of the mouths of rivers, if after local inquiry they are satisfied of the expediency or necessity of such action. The principles on which they have acted in carrying out this power have had regard in all cases to the physical circumstances of the locality, without respect to the right of putting out nets for the capture of salmon.

I beg, Sir, to ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Minister of the Crown a Question, of which I have given him no Notice, but which probably he will be prepared to answer at once. It is, Whether it is his intention on this day fortnight to move that this House adjourn over the Derby Day?

Really, I must consider this subject.

said, he rose to move that the Bill be read a third time on that day six months. It was not his intention, at that stage of the Bill, to enter with any minuteness into the subject; but he felt it his duty to make that Motion, and to take a division upon it, by way of protest on his own part and on that of many Irish Members around him. Not only did they believe it to be unnecessary, but they objected to the form in which it was ultimately passing, continuing, as it did, for five years, powers over which the House would have no control during that period. The Bill, also, would outlive the House itself—a fact which, in his view, constituted a dangerous precedent. The continuing of the power of imprisonment for more than one year, whilst the writ of Habeas Corpus was suspended, was in itself a power so dangerous that he felt it his duty to divide the House upon the question before it, not with any expectation that he should be able to maintain a majority in favour of his Amendment, but with the intention of placing on record the protest of opponents.

said, that all that had been urged by the majority of the Irish Members had not been wasted upon him; but he had felt it his duty to vote for the Bill on every occasion, and for this reason—that the majority of the Members for Ireland had, for a series of years, expressed an opinion that Ireland was not to be governed upon the same principles as the rest of the United Kingdom. They had demanded the disestablishment of the Protestant Church in Ireland. They had expressed extreme satisfaction at the establishment of a different code of laws for land tenure for Ireland, as distinguished from the landlord and tenant law which prevailed in England and Scotland, and they had appeared in that House as the representatives of an organization which distinctly intended to establish a system of Home Government in Ireland, different from that which prevailed in other parts of the United Kingdom. When the majority of the Representatives of one section of the Kingdom expressed a firm determination not to be governed according to the laws which prevailed in the other sections, he considered that the Legislature of the United Kingdom was justified in establishing a different system of Government for that section, according to the best judgment of the House, and the requirements of the case.

said, he did not mean to reply to the remarks of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, but he had risen for the purpose of directing the attention of the House to the danger of passing a Bill of this kind. The offences against which it was directed were not specifically named or described in it; so much so that he ventured to say there were not 10 Members of the House who understood the Bill. It was, in fact, only to be understood by the careful study of several other Acts of Parliament—of no fewer than 12 other Acts—which were referred to in the first part of the Bill alone; but the reference to those Acts afforded to the readers of the Bill now before the House no information either as to the offences they created or the penalties they imposed. This absence of information on the face of the Bill was the more objectionable, as the penalties enacted by the Bill were for the most part directed against the lower and more ignorant classes; but it would in every case be necessary in order to understand the Bill, to refer to the statutes of which he had made mention, no information concerning whose provisions was contained in the Bill itself. In fact, those Acts had to be carefully read by everyone who desired to know what the present Bill meant. Though himself a lawyer of some years' standing, he did not profess to recollect what was contained in those Acts; and if it was possible that persons in his position should not know the law, it was only fair that the Bill should give the information which all were supposed to have who had to obey the law. To do that might give rise to a little more trouble in drafting the Bill; but that was no reason why the Bill should not give full information as to the acts which might constitute offences against it and their consequences. The omission of which he had spoken had grown into a practice, and if it was persisted in—if previous enactments were to be embodied in Bills by simply stating the titles of the Acts which contained them—great public inconvenience must arise. Bills might be made a little longer by their being fully set out; and Her Majesty's Government might perhaps congratulate themselves on the rapidity with which they had got through this Bill; it had, in fact only occupied three weeks in Committee; but the discussions would not be greatly lengthened in consequence of adopting his suggestion, and all whom the law concerned would exactly know what it was.

said, he hoped the House would bear with him whilst he made a few remarks on the Bill; for though he was an Irish Member, he had as yet taken no part in the long discussions into which it had led them, and if he remained altogether silent upon it, his silence might be misapprehended. Having given his support to the Government on this Bill, he thought it only fair to his constituents that he should state the grounds upon which he had given that support, on all points of the Bill excepting one only, on which he had voted against the Government—that which gave the Government the power of keeping a man in prison for more than 12 months without his being brought to trial. He claimed this indulgence from his hon. Friends opposite, because he had before now proved that he was no friend to Coercion Bills. He had before now voted against their continued operation for more than 12 months; and last Session he declined to vote for including the Coercion Act in the Continuance Bill, on the ground that the House had had no authoritative statement from Her Majesty's Government as to the grounds upon which they desired the continuance of the statutes objected to. Who, indeed, he would ask, could be a friend to a Coercion Bill, except under the dire necessity of the case? None of them hiked to have to go back to their constituencies and tell them that they had taken part in passing a Coercion Bill. It would not be a pleasant duty even for an English Member; and he claimed for the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government that he had not, throughout his whole career, shown himself in any way a friend of legislation of this kind. Finding these Acts, the work of his predecessors, on the Statute Book, he had felt it his duty to do that which the circumstances appeared to demand and to warrant; but in doing so the Government had entirely separated themselves from a policy of mere continuance. They had endeavoured, in the interests of personal liberty, to see what previous enactments of the kind they might dispense with, and, in the interests of order, to see what it was absolutely necessary for them to retain and to re-enact. It was well that that should be stated, in order that it might be understood in Ireland that the Bill had not been conceived in any spirit of hostility, or of undue repression, but that the most liberal and patriotic judgment had been exercised upon it. ["Oh!"] He would remind the House that in the Bill two of the most important provisions to be found on this subject in the Statute Book had been dispensed with—the Press Clauses and the "Curfew" Clause—the power of arresting suspicious persons at night. The power of search warrant lasting for three months had been cut down to the reasonable period of 21 days; the arbitrary power of the Lord Lieutenant to close public-houses without assigning any reason had been destroyed; the power of the police to arrest strangers in a proclaimed district had been entirely destroyed; and the absolute power given to the Attorney General to change the venue in criminal cases had been destroyed. Now, he would appeal to those who had formed hasty and censorious judgments upon this Bill, whether the Government were not entitled to the credit he claimed, and whether they were at all justified in describing this Bill as the perpetuation of a brutal and bloody code? The whole conduct of the Government in reference to the Bill was the best answer that could be made to such a charge. Every suggestion of amendment, no matter how hostile the source, received in the course of the debate the most careful attention from the Chief Secretary and the Solici- tor General for Ireland. In Committee the Government had also made various material concessions, among which were these—Licences must now be granted by resident magistrates on the certificate of two justices; night domiciliary visits had been prevented; a warrant to search for arms must be executed in the presence of the responsible person to whom it was addressed; a restriction had been placed on the period of imprisonment on summary convictions, while hard labour in the case of those summary convictions had been done away with; and, last and most important concession of all, the right of having the writ of Habeas Corpus had been restored. It must, however, be understood, that these concessions had been made by the Government in no spirit of weakness or of vacillation. They had been fully debated and considered with fairness and candour, and the Government had shown their desire, while making the law a terror to evildoers, not to place any unnecessary inconvenience or restriction on the liberty of the subject. He had been struck with one observation which had been made by the hon. and learned Serjeant who had just sat down, and he thought the hon. and learned Member must have been joking when he made it. The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the limited extent of the discussions on this Bill. Now, he was under the impression that this was the 12th sitting of the House upon which the Bill had been discussed for hours togother. He himself believed that there never was a discussion before which had been carried on so long without any attempt to restrict it. No attempt had been made to restrict the discussion on this Bill, in the smallest degree, or the extent to which the opposition was designed to go. No sort of impediment had been thrown in the way of fair and impartial consideration of every Amendment which had been placed before the House, even though the same Amendments had been repeated two or three times. At the same time, he did not hesitate to say he would have preferred to see two other alterations made in the Bill. He thought it an unfortunate circumstance that they should have to continue this Bill for a period of five years, and would much prefer that it should have been continued for only three years; but when asked to support its continu ance for two years he felt that he could not conscientiously vote for a repetition of these discussions in so short a time. He believed, however, that many of the provisions of this Bill might be left with the greatest possible safety and satisfaction in the hands of the present Lord Lieutenant. The Duke of Abercorn was an Irishman, above all other things desiring the prosperity and welfare of the country; and he (Mr. Lewis) was sure he would not continue a proclamation a month longer than he believed to be necessary under his sense of duty, or by the requirements of public order. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, also, from the sympathy and cordiality with which he had entered into unquestioned Irish grievances, and the care with which he had attended to Irish measures, had entitled himself to the consideration and good feeling of his opponents. It was, undoubtedly, an embarrassing subject, and he had received from his constituents letters complaining of their being placed under these oppressive laws. Like good citizens, however, they had resolved to submit themselves to them, and to surrender their individual freedom, in the belief that the sacrifice was needed for the welfare of the State.

said, he thought that not more time than was necessary had been consumed in the discussion of a Bill which was to suspend for five years the constitutional liberties of the subject. He remembered that for a long time last year they were marched and countermarched through the Lobbies of the House on the clauses of the English Liquor Bill, and he did not believe that any honest, intelligent Englishman would grudge them an opportunity of expressing their views. The Prime Minister said, on the second reading of the Bill, that it was a measure of necessity framed in a spirit of conciliation. Why then did he ask to renew it for a period of unprecedented length? Nothing could show more clearly the increased confidence felt by all portions of the community, than the fabulous sums of money the farmers were willing to invest in land. A few years ago a farm of 50 acres, let at £3 an acre, was sold, and its occupation value obtained £1,500, or £30 an acre. Two years ago, another farm, 54 acres in extent, rented at 50s. an acre, obtained for its occupation value on being sold £2,500, or £46 an acre. In another instance last year, 7¼ Irish acres on a lease, of which 15 years remained, were sold for £540, or £77 per acre. It was in the face of facts like these that the Government asked the House to renew a Bill of this kind for a period of unprecedented length. He hoped that some better reason would be given for re-enacting this measure for a period of five years than the mere stifling discussion or avoidance of an unpleasant subject. He should certainly oppose the third reading of the Bill.

said, he did not rise for the purpose of following the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry (Mr. C. Lewis) into the various topics upon which he had addressed the House, but rather for the purpose of calling the attention of the Government to certain points in the Bill which seemed to him to require notice. He would, in the first place, observe that there were many places in Ireland where two magistrates did not attend petty sessions. Without wishing to introduce sectarian considerations into the debate, he might further remark that in his own part of the country, though the large mass of the people were of the Catholic persuasion, to which he also himself belonged, they held opinions contrary to those of the magistrates. In the course of the debate many observations had been made on the Irish resident magistracy, and he should ill perform his functions as Member for an Irish county if he did not testify how much the Irish people owed to their resident magistrates for their administration of the law. For the satisfactory fulfilment of the duties of a magistrate it was absolutely necessary that such an officer should have a thorough knowledge of the habits of the people, and even of their wants and their thoughts; and the generally satisfactory administration of the law in Ireland was highly creditable to the magistracy of that country.

said, he had listened with some astonishment to the speech of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate). To use a French phrase, he thought he might say of him, "Il a perdu une belle occasion de se taire." If the hon. Gentleman had not spoken, he would not have supposed he had such poor reasons for the course which he said he had taken in reference to the Bill. Those who had taken part in opposing the Bill had done so, because they believed it necessary to defend their constituents from a system of legislation which was certainly different from that which the House passed for England and Scotland. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire told them again, that they had concurred in passing the Disestablishment Bill. Those who passed that Bill, however, were the great Liberal Party, then in a majority, who bowed to the demands of the Irish people. Another charge that the hon. Member had brought against them was, that they desired that the Irish people should legislate for themselves. Why, that ought rather to be a cause of thankfulness to the hon. Member. Both parties alike ought to rejoice at being relieved from the necessity of bowing to the demands of Irish Representatives, and from a tyranny which he deemed so grievous. But in regard to the general policy of the Bill and the Ministry by which it was promoted, he had a large fish at the end of his line and he wished to play it a little. The noble Lord then read an extract from a speech of the Prime Minister, who speaking of the Coercion Bill of 1846, stated that in less than a century there had been no fewer than 17 Coercion Acts for Ireland, which might lead some persons to doubt whether violent legislation always proved efficacious; the Prime Minister further said that Bills of that description should always be accompanied by remedial measures, to redress the evils out of which the necessity had arisen, and that Ireland ought to be governed as nearly as possible on the same principles as England. In this case he must call on the right hon. Gentleman to be true to his own policy. He not only did not bring in any remedial measures himself, but helped to prevent the passing of others which Irish Members brought in for the benefit of Ireland, and his Government strangled the Municipal Corporation (Ireland) Bill. He exonerated the right hon. Gentleman himself—he believed he hated Coercive Bills as much as anyone in that House, for nobody on the eve of the late General Election could have spoken more strongly, more violently, or even more ferociously, against such Bills; but he regretted to say that while the right hon. Gentleman had been silent and courteous throughout the progress of the present measure, the only argument he had advanced to prove the existence of Ribbonism was, that those who believed in it ought to regale themselves by drinking dry champagne.

defended the remarks of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), and said, that while others pretended to be ashamed of belonging to a nation which suspended the securities for personal liberty, he, for his part, should feel ashamed of belonging to a country in which men were shot down in the high road by ruffians with blackened faces who hid behind hedges, and then scampered away in safety, and he should feel still more so were he to live under a Government so weak and pusillanimous as to refuse to take steps to put an end to so monstrous a state of things. He believed if the hon. Gentlemen opposite, below the Gangway, had a Parliament of their own on College Green, it could not exist for a week or a day without passing a measure every bit as severe as that under discussion, in order to maintain the indispensable and primary condition of all Governments—safety to life and property. The noble Lord (Lord Robert Montagu) had complained of the introduction of coercive measures without remedial measures; but he seemed to have forgotten that nearly the whole of last Session was spent in the consideration of remedial measures, and if Parliament had shrunk from granting Home Rule, it was only because it was averse to the dismemberment of the Empire.

said, it was perfectly true what the hon. Gentleman had just stated, that if there were an Irish Parliament in College Green, it would itself enact coercive measures if proved to be necessary, but under the English Government coercion was the normal state of things in Ireland. And it should be borne in mind that while a child might accept correction at the hands of its own parents, it resented being chastised by a neighbour. The whole history of Ireland showed that her people had never yet obtained a single concession except by disaffection and sedition. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen who knew nothing about the history of Ireland might cry "Oh, oh;" but he challenged them—as he had often challenged them before— to point out a single concession which had been granted to Ireland during the last 100 years that had not been granted from the apprehension of an outburst of civil war or from some Imperial necessity. The people of Ireland had never obtained a single concession until the echoes of the guns in the Revolutionary War in America were heard here. Again, in 1792, when they asked for justice, the Relief Bill was thrown under the Table of the House; but no sooner was the declaration of war made by the French Directory in 1793 than all that was asked was at once conceded. In fact, he challenged them to go through the whole catalogue of concessions and point out one of them which had not been wrung from the fears of England or Imperial necessity. What had they now done? They had re-cast an Act which handed over the government of Ireland to the police, to the county magistrates, whom the Government itself did not trust, and to that cloaca maxima, the Castle of Dublin. In fact, the Irish people were deprived of their liberties by corruption and by force, and he did not at all wonder at the support given to this measure by the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, for the noble Lord was then the Leader of a Party—a party of Constabulary, who indulged themselves in illegally breaking the skulls of the Queen's loyal subjects, holding a legal meeting in the Phoenix Park, and no doubt he appreciated the law that would allow him to do so with impunity. The Royal Irish Constabulary, however, were not a police, but a military force. They were very useful in rural districts where beaus were scarce, and they were excellent hands at organizing archery and cricket matches. They were toasted, too, at public dinners, after the Army and Navy, and he had suggested to many of his friends in the Army and Navy who drank this toast that an equally deserving force with which many of them were more familiarly acquainted, the sheriffs bailiffs, should be similarly toasted. Government did not trust the Irish magistrates, and the Irish magistrates did not trust the Government.

expressed an earnest hope that the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt) would not insist on a division. He thought it would be a most melancholy thing for the House to divide on the present occasion, especially after the speech of the hon. Member who had just preceded him—a speech which he had, with great sorrow, to submit would do more harm than all the concessions of the Government would do good. That speech forced him to admit that we could not dispense with Coercion Bills in a country of which even the intelligent, benevolent, and educated men could be found capable of making use of language so wild and violent. Every clause, he might say every word, of the Bill had been debated, and the Irish Members had had full scope in bringing forward their Amendments, which he did not hesitate to believe were sincere. But there could be no doubt as to what the result of a division would be, and he thought it would conduce to the existence of good feeling between Ireland and England if matters were not pushed to that extremity. It was a very undesirable thing to give a factious opposition to the third reading of the Bill. [Murmurs.] A division now would, he maintained, be regarded by the country as a flag of defiance rather than as a honourable expression of opposition to the Bill, and it would compel hon. Members who, like himself, had assisted the Irish Members to go into the Lobby against them.

said, that, as he recognized in the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Waddy) a friend to the Irish people, he had listened with great attention to the observations he had made. The only question at issue with the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Ronayne) was upon a matter of historical accuracy, and he had yet to learn in what particular it was violated by his hon. Friend. It was certainly true that the Duke of Wellington, when Prime Minister, in introducing the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill, asked the House of Lords to pass that Bill in order to avert a threatened civil war in Ireland. Was it not also a fact that another Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone), stated when canvassing Lancashire, that his attention had been drawn to the grievances and oppressions of Ireland by the intensity of Fenianism. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Butler-Johnstone) had defended this Bill on the ground of the facility with which landlords were shot behind hedges in Ireland. The hon. Member evidently thought that it was the rule in Ireland to watch for landlords and to shoot them behind hedges. Now, he contended that was not the rule in Ireland. It had been sufficiently established during these discussions, and had been, indeed, admitted by the Government, that no language of that kind could accurately describe the present state of Ireland. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government would not turn a deaf ear to the appeal made to him by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Robert Montagu), and that he would remember his declaration that a coercive measure for Ireland ought to be followed by remedial measures. Several opportunities would arise in the course of the Session—as, for example, upon the further discussion of the Bill relating to compulsory sobriety in Ireland, the reclamation of waste lands, &c.—when the right hon. Gentleman could act up to the spirit of this declaration. He made this appeal to the right hon. Gentleman with the more confidence because he had introduced for the first time a Coercion Bill, the provisions of which would remain in force for a period of five years.

said, that as the Irish Members would probably be outvoted in the division, he would respectfully but earnestly appeal to Her Majesty's Government to make the measure as little injurious and obnoxious to the feelings of the people as possible. He would also say for himself and others who acted with him, that they would endeavour, each in their several spheres, to reduce as much as possible the discontent and dissatisfaction which they knew would arise from a measure forced upon Ireland in spite of the opposition of its Members. He trusted that a Coercion Bill would not be the only message and gift sent to Ireland by Her Majesty's Ministers.

I believe that an alteration is necessary in the title of the Bill, and I move to insert, after the word "Ireland," the words, "and to grant an indemnity in certain cases."

did not consider the words necessary, but would not object to their insertion in the title, as they could not do harm.

, in moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said: Sir, I wish, at the outset of the observations I intend to address to the House, to refer to an objection which may probably, and not unnaturally, have occurred to the minds of many hon. Gentlemen on seeing the Amendment I am about to move standing in my name. It may be thought that, as a Nonconformist, I have no right to meddle in a matter that relates to the internal organization and government of the Church of England. But then, unfortunately, in the eye of the law, we are all members of the Church of England, whether we like it or no, and cannot shake ourselves free from that relation and the obligations it involves. Besides which, we must remember that Parliament is the supreme Governing Body of the Church of England, and we, upon whom this high function devolves, are bound to fulfil it according to the best exercise we can of our judgment and conscience. I acknowledge the anomaly. I confess that it appears to me a flagrant absurdity, that a Body constituted as this House is—and it cannot be otherwise constituted, if it is to be a fair representation of the people of this country—a House consisting of members of the Church of Rome, of the Greek Church, of Presbyterians of various denominations, of Independents, Baptists, Wesleyan and Calvinistic Methodists, members of the Society of Friends, Unitarians, Jews, and I know not how many other forms of religious faith or no faith, should have committed to it the duty of regulating everything pertaining to the faith and practice, to the doctrine, discipline and worship of a Protestant Episcopal Church. With my conception of what a Christian Church is or ought to be, this is a condition of things which is to me inexpressibly painful and deplorable. And I have no doubt that there are many thoughtful and earnest members of the Church of England in this House who are deeply distressed by it, and would gladly, if they could, find some way of escape. I remember the right bon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) some years ago, under the pressure of this difficulty, suggesting that the Roman Catholic and Nonconformist Members of the House might be asked to abstain from taking any part in discussing and voting on questions connected with the Church of England. But that, of course, was only a momentary thought, extorted by the sense of embarrassment which he felt, for the right hon. Gentleman could not have seriously meant that we should divide ourselves in this House into sections or large Committees, according to our religious belief, for in that case we should claim reciprocity. If Roman Catholics and Nonconformists are to abstain from taking part in discussing and deciding Church of England questions, then the members of the Church of England must in like manner abstain from interfering in questions affecting the rights and interests of Roman Catholics and Nonconformists. I remember, also, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone), on the same or a similar occasion, saying that ecclesiastical legislation has become very difficult in this House, and that it may become impossible. But all this is inevitable so long as we have the Church connected with the State. For, as Bishop Warburton says—

"The Church has resigned her independency, and made the magistrate her supreme head, without whose approbation she can direct, order, and decree nothing."

Such being the ease, what can we do when matters of this kind are thrust upon us—for thrust upon us they are—without any will of our own? I can say, with all sincerity, that it is no pleasure to me to have to discuss questions of this nature in this House; because I feel it is very difficult to do so without wounding the susceptibilities of hon. Gentle- men, whose conscientious convictions differing from mine, I wish to treat with honour and respect, and between whom and myself there are, I have no doubt, many points of sympathy on matters of far greater importance than those pertaining to ecclesiastical polity and organization. I wish to say, that in opposing this Bill I have no special antipathy to Bishops. I may not look upon them in the same light as many hon. Members of this House probably do. I do not believe that diocesan Episcopacy was any part of primitive Christianity, but rather an excrescence that has grown upon it since. Neither do I believe—though I am far from wishing to treat with ridicule, or disrespect those who do—in those mystic spiritual powers which Bishops are supposed to possess, and to be able to communicate to others. Still, as Pope says—

"Even in a Bishop I can spy desert."

There are many Bishops of the Church of England whose names and memories I hold in as deep veneration as anyone in this House. The names of such men as Hooper and Latimer, of Leighton and Usher, of Taylor and Beveridge, or Berkeley and Butler, and many others who, by their saintly lives, or their admirable writings, have rendered inestimable service to the cause of Christianity in this land. But I object to this Bill, because it asks this House to concur in perpetuating and extending the creation of a class of politico-ecclesiastical State officials, whose existence, in my opinion, is not to the advantage of either Church or State. That an Episcopal Church should have Bishops, and have them in sufficient number to meet all its requirements, is a position so obvious that it admits of no doubt, and needs no argument. And, perhaps, nothing more shows the utterly crippled and helpless condition of the Church of England, than the fact that, though it has been in existence for upwards of 300 years, it has made only one addition to its Episcopate in the whole of that time. Compare this with the state of things in the United States of America. There is an Episcopal Church in that country—and a vigorous and flourishing Episcopal Church—of which the venerable Dr. Pusey says that—

"Severed from the protection of the State, it first struck root when it was deprived of all human support, and long ago it quadrupled, while the population doubled only."

In 1830, the number of dioceses in the United States was only 12. Now it is 41, besides 9 missionary Bishops, the sphere of whose operations is also, I believe, in their native country; while, as I have already said, with one exception, no addition has been made to the number of English Bishops for more than 300 years. Why is this difference? The reason is perfectly simple. One is a free Church, and can expand and adapt itself to the growth of population and the changing circumstances of the times; while the other is a Church in bondage to the State; and in this—as in a hundred other matters, is "cabbined, cribbed, confined" by that relation. I have been told by some hon. Members since my Notice has appeared on the Paper, that this is only an act of the Episcopal Church to extend and perfect its own organization. If it had been that, not one word would have fallen from my lips in opposition to it. But it is as far as possible from being that. In fact, the Church has nothing to do with it. It has no part or lot in this matter. It has no voice in the new adjustment of dioceses, no voice in the re-distribution of patronage, no voice in the election of the new Bishop. The new Bishop will be a State official, and although not sitting for the present in the House of Lords, he will have the right to do so in rotation, and that gives a political character to the appointment, which will, no doubt, be influenced—as most such appointments are—by political motives. For, how are Bishops appointed? Of course, by the Prime Minister, and very generally for political reasons. One of the Ecclesiastical journals says—

"A Bishop is a mere nominee of the Crown or Prime Minister: comes to his flock as a governor appointed over them without their concurrence or consent. What amount of cordial sympathy can he expected to exist between pastor or people in this state of mutual relationship? The pastor, only too naturally, fails to feel any responsibility towards those who have not reposed their confidence in him hy choosing him as their leader and guide, or even by consenting to his appointment. But he does feel—and the less fervent his piety the more keenly does he feel—a sense of the responsibility towards the power that did nominate him for consecration. Hence we ever find, with rare and noble exceptions, Bishops siding with the Crown or Parliament against the real spiritual needs their flocks, sympathizing with Acts of Parliament, out of sympathy with zeal."

And although for the present the appointment is to be made by Her Majesty the Queen, by Letters Patent, yet as the Bill evidently contemplates the ultimate creation of a Dean and Chapter, we shall then have the shocking profanation of an election by the congé d'elire, when the Dean and Chapter solemnly meet to invoke the Divine guidance to enable them to choose a chief pastor of the diocese, when the choice has been already made for them by the Prime Minister, and that choice is imposed on them in so peremptory a fashion that, in ease of refusal, they are liable to heavy penalties—such as forfeiture of land and imprisonment. But there is another objection I have to this Bill, and there I have a distinct. locus standi as a Nonconformist—that is, that it proceeds on the assumption that practically, as well as theoretically, the whole population of this country are members of the Church of England. The promoters of an increased Episcopate always quite coolly take this for granted. They point to a particular district or country, which has so many hundreds of thousands of souls, and they say, there is only one Bishop to take care of all these souls, while it is perfectly well known to everybody that there are millions of people in this country—I am sure it is no exaggeration to say more than one-half of the church and chapel-going population—who have renounced their allegiance to the Church, and who, therefore, do not require, and will not accept, Episcopal supervision. Now, as a Nonconformist, I protest against keeping up this fiction. Take, for instance, the case of Cornwall. Much was made in "another place" of the destitution of Cornwall, when a similar Bill to this was under discussion. It was said that another Bishop was imperatively demanded for that part of the country. And immediately the Lord Lieutenant of the county got up in his place and declared that they did not want any Bishop, as the great bulk of the people were Nonconformists. This view of the matter has been so forcibly put in an article which appeared a few weeks ago in The Times, that I ask permission of the House to read a few sentences from it. After referring to some objections made by Lord Shaftesbury to Lord Lyttelton's Bill, the article proceeds—

"But if Lord Shaftesbury seems to go a little further than becomes a professed Churchman, the great majority of the inhabitants of these Isles, for one reason or another, go a good deal further in their objection to any functionary who assumes to combine in his own person spiritual with political power and authority. They do not like being any wise committed to it, even if themselves be absolutely protected against it, and their body, soul, and estate, be in no wise threatened. The feeling of a Nonconformist, a Presbyterian, or a Roman Catholic is that if a man choose to call himself the Bishop of Colchester, we will say, and is so called by his co-religionists, they have no objection; but they do object to their representatives in Parliament giving any national sanction to the exclusive assumption of that character. If we suppose any town or district where one form of Dissent or any other now seems in full possession, it may very consistently object to Parliament permitting anybody to claim, by his very title, authority over the souls whose lot is cast within those boundaries."

But does anybody want more Bishops of the same type as those now existing? I fail to see any evidence of that. Who wants them? Certainly, not the Nonconformists, who refuse to acknowledge their authority or to accept their services. But do members of the Church of England ask for more? I believe that considerable machinery has been set in operation to get up Petitions in favour of an increased Episcopate. But in the last Report of the Committee on Public Petitions it would appear that the Petitions hitherto presented had an aggregate number of signatures not amounting to quite 3,000. But the best proof that there is no demand for more Bishops is the Universal dissatisfaction expressed by all parties in the Church with the present Bishops. And what renders this the more striking is the fact that no one pretends to deny that the Gentlemen who occupy the Bench are not only gentlemen of irreproachable personal character, but of most exemplary diligence in the discharge of their laborious duties. And yet how are they spoken of by the organs of the various parties in the Church? I will take first The Standard, which is understood to be the organ of the Conservative Party generally. In 1864, that journal said—

"The Bench of Bishops is filled with the Ministers' creatures who openly avow, with an elasticity of conscience to which only Episcopacy can attain, that they are bound to vote even for a falsehood, rather than not magnify their makers."

Then take the organs of the High Church Party generally. I find in The Church Times these words—

"There is probably no body of men in the world who, so far as outward evidence goes, care less for the furtherance of religion than the English Bishops."

The same journal in April, 1868, said—

"A sad and lengthened experience has taught us that there is little to be hoped for from the present Bench of Bishops, when cowardice and unfaithfulness prompt the evasion of a plain duty."

The Church Herald again, the organ of another section of the High Church party, says—

"There never was a time when the members of the Episcopal body were held in less respect and repute than at present, or when their power to control the clergy except by legal process was so weak."

And what makes the fact of the existence of this feeling among the class represented by The Church Times and The Church Herald more significant and remarkable is the fact that they regard the Episcopal office with an almost idolatrous veneration. I remember when the Oxford Tracts first appeared, they spoke of the Bishops in language that seemed to me, I own, to be extravagant. They said—

"The Bishops stand in the place of the Apostles so far as the office of ruling is concerned; and whatever we ought to do, had we lived when the Apostles were alive, the same ought we to do for the Bishops. He that despiseth them despiseth the Apostles."

Again, addressing the clergy—

"Exalt our holy Fathers, the Bishops, as the representatives of the Apostles and the Angels of the Churches, and magnify your office as being ordained by them to take part in their ministry."

And yet, in spite of this profound reverence for the office, such as I have quoted is the language they use in reference to those who now fill that office. There is another powerful Party in the Church, the Evangelical Party. The judgment pronounced by the organs of that Party is no less emphatic. Thus I find The Rock speaking in 1869—

"Do our Bishops sit in the House of Lords to maintain the rights of their Order? If so, they have betrayed them. Do they sit there to maintain the cause of the Established religion which they profess? This, too, they have betrayed with the spirit of a craven, and with a baseness that has no parallel in the annals even of Paganism. Do they sit there as the guardians of the Protestant interest, of a Protestant Empire? These, too, they have betrayed, and not only betrayed, but have thrown the full weight of their position and power into the opposing scale of Popery."

The same unfortunate journal, on another occasion, speaks in the following accents of despair:—

"The life of a Protestant journalist, always one of constant labour and anxiety, is rendered doubly harassing by the action of the Bishops. One or other member of the Episcopal Bench is for ever doing something that he, if faithful to his Ordination vows, ought not to have done, or leaving undone something that, as the overseer of a Protestant Church, he ought to do. And all this while there be some amongst us who raise the cry of 'More Bishops,' to which the nation's response will shortly be, 'Save us from those we have.'"

The Record, another important organ of the same party, said in 1869—

"The Prelates have acted in direct opposition to the cause of Protestantism, and instead of maintaining', like their forefathers, a firm protest against 'the Man of Sin,' they have invited the bitter gibes of Liberationists, who have said that the 'almighty dollar,' and not Christian Protestantism, is now the watchword of the Bishops."

And in regard to the latest act of the Bishops—the issue of their allocution on the state of the Church—I find one of the Church journals, The Church Herald, giving a sort of résumé or summary of the judgment pronounced by the whole Ecclesiastical Press of the country on this act, which is represented as one of universal dissatisfaction. It gives extracts from The Guardian, Record, John Bull, Church Times, Church Review, Church News of Scotland, and Literary Churchman, and then sums up the whole in the following words:—

"Whatever this response may reveal as to the relations between the clergy and the laity, it leaves no doubt upon another matter which is hardly of less importance. It makes it unmistakably clear that the great alienation under which we are suffering is that of the whole Church, clergy, and laity alike, from the Bishops. It is manifest that all confidence in them is gone—happily not as Bishops, but only as men. Their office was never so highly esteemed as at present, and it may be added that their inherent claims as Catholic Bishops were never so firmly established. But no one trusts them. The all but universal judgment upon them (and of course as we are all compromised by their proceedings, we are all entitled to form one) is that their rule is not equitable and impartial, that their speeches and letters are not straightforward and truthful, and that, being the Church's highest officers, they are, unhappily, too ready to sacrifice her rights and claims, and even her doctrine, to popular clamour or for the sake of standing well with the world."

Now, I offer no opinion as to the cor- rectness or justice of these opinions. I merely refer to them as indications of the state of feeling that exists in the Church itself in regard to the existing Bishops, and as a strong presumption that at least there is no desire for an increase of the same class of Bishops. But I think I have proof that there is not merely indifference, but positive hostility against the present projects for an increased Episcopate. Some one has sent me a paper containing an account of a remarkable meeting lately held in Exeter, and Exeter is a sort of Mecca of Episcopacy. We are told that it was called by a circular largely signed by laymen and clerics belonging to all schools and parties in the Church. After long consultation the conclusion in thus stated—

"In the discussion which followed the greatest unanimity was evinced as to the scandalous injustice involved in the present mode of appointing Bishops, and as to the particular injustice contemplated in Lord Lyttelton's Bill by denying to Churchmen any voice in the election of the Bishops of the new Sees for which Churchmen are expected to provide funds. The meeting was also unanimous in considering that now or never was the time for the Church to assert her right in this matter. Indeed, the only difference of opinion was as to whether the demand should not he made applicable to the whole system of appointing Bishops, instead of being confined to the new Sees to be created under the Bills of Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Cross, and ultimately an Amendment, placing the demand on the broad and general basis, was carried by a large majority."

With regard to the particular arrangements made under the Bill, I have not much to say. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, in introducing the measure, was eloquent as to the generosity of the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester, the one for giving up his country, and the other his town residence to form the nucleus of a fund for the endowment of the new Bishopric. He said that it was really a gift offered to the Church by the Bishops. With all respect this does not appear a very accurate description of the matter. These Bishops at most had only surrendered their interest in two residences during their term of office. Beyond that, they were merely liberal with other people's property. Why, Danbury, the residence of the Bishop of Rochester, was bought for him or his predecessor some 30 years ago by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for £28,157. And with regard to the great sacrifice made in re- gard to these houses, one of the clerical journals says—

"Great praise has been bestowed upon Dr. Harold Browne and Dr. Claughton for their very generous and most noble offers; but the truth seems to be that the palaces which they have offered to give up are of the nature of white elephants—that is to say, of possessions which, in the present state of Episcopal incomes, are rather an embarrassment than a benefit."

Besides which, each of them gives up £500 a-year, not from his own salary but from the salary of his successor to augment the income of the new Bishopric. So that their generosity rather reminds one of the inscription which some wag placed on a bridge built by a Mr. Brown—

"Mr. Brown, of his great bounty,

Built this bridge at the expense of the county!"

Some years ago, an attempt was made to increase the Episcopate. But the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Liskeard (Mr. Horsman) opposed it in so powerful and convincing a speech that he seems for the time to have defeated theproject. That, like the present project, did not propose to ask any money direct from the coffers of the State for endowing the new Bishoprics, but to do so by manipulating existing ecclesiastical funds. The ground taken by the right hon. Gentleman on that occasion was ground which I think may be fitly taken by conscientious Churchmen on the present occasion. He contended that if they had funds at their disposal by the better administration of ecclesiastical property, the money could be turned to better account in the augmentation of small livings, than in the creation and endowment of new Bishops. He stated some most startling facts as to the condition of the working clergy; and although, no doubt, much improvement has taken place since then, there is still ample room for further improvement in this matter. Canon Gregory, at a meeting of the Curates' Augmentation Fund, lately held at Willis's Rooms, stated that there are 1,742 beneficed clergy who receive only £100 a-year; 2,035 who receive between £100 to £150; and 1,796 between £150 and £200. So that there are 5,573 beneficed clergy whose income is below, or only £200 a-year. The condition of the curates is still worse, and this being so, if you can economize anything out of the revenues of the Church, is not this a better direction for its use than in the multiplication of Bishops? When I consider the formidable assaults that are made in these days upon the foundations, I will not say, of the Christian religion, but of all religious faith, so that men's minds are filled with trouble and anxiety on the most important of all questions, and then see how those who are, or who claim to be, the official representatives of the national Christianity, omitting the weightier matters of the law, are busying themselves with what I call the "mint and anise and cummin" of religion, with questions of postures, and gestures, and garments—when I think of the masses of our population that are lying outside the pale, I will not say of the Church of England, but, unhappily, of all our Churches—and I could quote an eloquent passage to this effect from a book lately published by the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope), a book in the views of which I do not agree, but which I have read with admiration of its ability, learning, and temper; and when I further think of the hundreds—nay, thousands—of the working clergy of the Church of England—godly, learned, and laborious men, who are leading a life of pinching penury which it is most painful to contemplate, and then hear the cry for more Bishops, more Bishops for the House of Lords, more Bishops for whom large salaries and sumptuous palaces must be provided, and who have to be clothed in purple and fine linen, I feel inclined to say—

"Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istia Tempus eget."

I have no wish to put any obstacle in the way of the increased efficiency of the Church as a spiritual institution. On the contrary, I can with my whole heart wish it God-speed in all work of this nature that it is doing. But if the Church of England wishes really to develop its forces—and I believe there are great forces capable of development in that Church—it can only be on one condition, and that is freedom—freedom from that entangling alliance with the State which cripples its energies, sullies its purity, compromises its dignity, impairs its efficiency, and gives rise to many occasions of scandals, which bring reproach, not on the Church only, but on our common Christianity.

said, no doubt, the hon. Gentleman, from his own point of view, was right in his general argument at first; but he strayed away from the points with which he had a right to deal when he brought forward trumpery rubbish from old articles in The Rock and The Church Herald, as if they were the voice of the real parties in the Church of England. As a High Churchman he repudiated The Church Herald, and he would like to see any member of the great Low Church party get up and say he was not ashamed of The Rock. If he had cared to come down with his pockets stuffed with all the little contemptible so-called religious organs of the various sects of Nonconformists, he could easily have capped any of those quotations which the hon. Member had given, or could give, from the most flimsy utterances of any little section in the Church of England, by language even more outrageous from those foolish periodicals, and equally written to sell and not to convince. If they wanted the real opinion of the English Church they must look elsewhere. The question must be treated on a broader ground; and in occupying it, the hon. Gentleman had, in fact, destroyed his own argument by his candour in appealing to them to look upon the Church as a spiritual organization. His contention answered itself, because he failed to disprove that this Bill was intended to develop in the truest sense the spiritual organization of the Church of England. The Church of England was an Episcopal Church, by which was meant that it considered Bishops to be an integral portion of the Christian ministry: working ministers with definite religious duties as much as the pastors of any congregation. So by the essential principles of that Church, a Bill to increase the Episcopate was a Bill to strengthen the Christian ministry. The hon. Gentleman rode off by denouncing Bishops as pompous worldlings, and tried to derogate from the unselfish generosity shown by two of that body in respectively offering to give up a town and a country house, on the score that those were only official residences, as if the abandonment of an official residence was not a personal sa- crifiee to an office holder who was living in it. The hon. Member had no right to bring such charges against the Episcopate, before he could prove that the Bishops of our Church had not largely and habitually contributed out of their own means, and even sacrificed their own private fortunes for the good of the Church. He had found much comfort for his opinions in some spasmodic resolutions passed at a meeting at Exeter. Now, no Bishop had in his lifetime the character of being more prelatic than the late Bishop of Exeter, but whatever might have been thought of the theological opinions of Bishop Phillpotts, of his splendid munificence there could be no doubt; and when he remembered the gigantic, unresting work of a Wilber-force, and the deep learning of a Thirlwall, he could not patiently listen to comparisons between the general body of the clergy and the Bishops, as if the latter were rich drones and the parish clergy the only people who sacrificed life, health, time, and comfort to the service of their Lord and Master. It could not be denied that this Bill was a private re-arrangement within the lines of the Church of England of its own resources, and in that character it ought to be safe from such opposition as had been offered to it. He (Mr. Beresford Hope) took the present Bill as it stood, and he thanked all who had been concerned in bringing it forward. He said that with the more feeling, because he had himself charge of another measure which had been carried through the House of Lords by his noble Friend Lord Lyttelton, and which he hoped would be accepted in that House also. He saw no discrepancy between the two Bills, which had the same object of increasing the efficiency of the Episcopate. They were drawn on different lines; but the lines were parallel, not clashing. This measure provided for a peculiar and exceptional want, which there were peculiar and exceptional means to meet; and the other provided for no new Sees by name, while it supplied a general machinery for the creation of new dioceses when means were forthcoming from private sources. The ancient See of Rochester, having by the growth of London been brought close to the metropolis, it was an eminently practical step to make a Bishopric of South London attached to Rochester. Surrey was now partly a rural and partly an urban county, and wherever the great community of London had surged over and spread itself, those old county distinctions had disappeared, and the Capital only remained to be treated in its great unity by all the special appliances needed to provide for the spiritual necessities of the population. Rural Surrey still remained attached to the old princely See of Winchester, and he thought it well that, for the present, at least, that famous diocese should retain so much of its former amplitude. Rochester, too, had a magnificent Cathedral and great traditions, and there was already a teeming Kentish London under its administration, and these considerations justified placing urban Surrey under the charge of the Bishop of Rochester. He had ventured to make these remarks because he believed that a feeling natural in itself, though, he thought, overstrained, had shown itself in some Surrey quarters against any dismemberment of the county. Essex and Hertfordshire, which had been by the strange management of Church reformers in the bygone generation, joined to the diocese of Rochester, were clearly marked out as fitting space for a Bishopric, even if the area had not contained a church so historical and artistic as the Abbey Church of St. Albans. There was there the largest church in the Realm, and one of the grandest, which marked the spot where the first Christian blood in the Island was shed. On that spot, the historical, the practical, and the sentimental met, and such a place was eminently fitted to become the head-quarters of a new diocese. If Surrey wanted a Bishop Lord Lyttelton's Bill showed the way to provide one. Let that Bill become law, and the Surrey people would then only have to find the means. Surrey could thus become a diocese with its cathedral at St. Saviour's, and West Kent would be quite a sufficient area for the pastoral care of the Bishop of Rochester. But in the meantime, let the friends of the Church take the good thing that was offered in the present measure, and seek to supplement it by the wider provisions of the pending enabling Bill. He thanked Her Majesty's Government for this good beginning, and he trusted to see further progress made in the same direction.

said, he was one of those who concurred in the conclusions at which the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had arrived, although from different and almost opposite reasons. He had never been in favour of the disestablishment of the Church of England, which he had always thought had been a great advantage to the country, because the Church of England was regulated, governed, and, he might almost say, created by Parliament and the State. The reason why he should support this Bill was that, in the most distinct manner, it pointed out that situation of the Church of England. The reason that he approved of this Bill was that it was founded on what was sometimes attacked as Erastianism. But for this Bill there could be no Bishop of St. Albans. His appointment and authority were to be regulated by Act of Parliament, and the nomination was to be made by the Chief Officer of the State in this country. That might be a right or a wrong theory. He thought it a right theory, and he should approve the Bill. The Bill having proposed to create a Bishopric by Act of Parliament, and a Bishop by patent, proceeded to lay down other regulations which were to be made by the Queen in Council. Now anything more accurate than that constitutional view of the nature of a national Church, he thought, it would be impossible to conceive. The hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Richard) pointed out that the Church had nothing to say to the Bill; that neither Convocation nor the clergy generally had been asked their opinion as to whether there should be a new Bishop or not, or as to where the new Bishopric was to be situated. That very fact, however, furnished the strongest possible vindication of the argument of those who maintained that the assent of Convocation was not necessary in such cases. The Bill, in short, brought forth in the clearest way the principles on which Church legislation was really founded. It asserted the absolute authority of Parliament that it was the prerogative of Parliament to deal with the affairs of the Church on its own authority without consulting the clergy or anybody else. But for the very same reasons for which he should give his support to the present measure, he should certainly object to that roving Bill for the creation of impecunious and eleemosynary Bishoprics throughout the country which the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. B. Hope) was about to bring under the notice of the House. The Bill under discussion seemed to him to be a practical proposal founded on sound principles, assuming the propriety—a question which ought not to be argued on that occasion—of the existence of an Establishment. Whether or not an establishment was capable of being defended, they ought not to argue the question on a Bill like that. This was not a question of whether they were to help a Bishopric by holding a bazaar, or handing the hat round. He agreed with the hon. Member (Mr. B. Hope) in his disapproval of the use which had been made of the extracts from newspapers. Prom his experience of the semi-religious and semi-ecclesiastical papers, he should think that they were among the most foolish to be found among the periodical press. Reference had been made to the language used in The Standard newspaper in the year 1864, and though he did not remember all the leading articles which for 20 years past had appeared in The Standard he should judge that the language referred to was used the morning after some Party division, in which the Bishops had voted on the wrong side. He should rather choose to refer to a more recent copy of that paper, and take the number which appeared the other day, in which that well-informed journal stated that the only two Bishops who voted were in favour of the Government Army Bill, and on that occasion The Standard expressed a more favourable opinion than it had set forth so many years previously, and therefore he did not think they ought to judge the authorities of the Church by extracts picked out of newspapers in such a manner. An objection had been made to the appointment of the Bishops being intrusted to the Minister of the day. But who was the Minister of the day? He was a person elected by a majority of the Representatives of the people, and the object of placing the appointment of the Bishops in his hands was that their election should be made in accordance with the national sentiment. He believed this plan would be likely to secure the nomination of sensible and temperate persons, while if the power was vested in the clergy themselves the ap- pointment would represent nothing but the violent opinions of the majority which happened to be dominant in the Church at that particular time. For these reasons, he was not at all unfavourable to the political nomination of Bishops. This Bill had been framed strictly in accordance with the general principles, whether good or bad, on which the Church stood—namely, the right of Parliament to deal with the affairs of the Church absolutely and without control—and, therefore, it should have his support.

reminded the hon. and learned Member for Oxford that though the Crown could nominate to a Bishopric the person nominated did not become a Bishop until he was consecrated, so that it was not correct to say that the Crown could make a Bishop. It was right enough that the Crown should make territorial arrangements for the Church; but dealing with faith and doctrine was altogether a different matter. The Bill of last year did not refer to these matters. With reference to the demand of a Bishopric for Cornwall he should say that the fact of there being so few Churchmen there, was owing to the want of a Bishop. He hoped the Government would meet the necessity in a practical manner. He desired to express the opinions of his constituents in Essex in favour of the Bill, and though they did not all approve the territorial arrangements in their details, they were in favour of the Bill as a step in the right direction.

agreed very much with the views expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford. He considered that it was better that a new Bishopric of St. Albans should be created than that a Suffragan Bishop should be appointed. He thought no one would deny that the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester had shown great consideration in depriving themselves of their residences and of part of their incomes in order to help to endow the diocese of St. Albans. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary in this Bill had dispensed with the appointment of a Dean and Chapter for the election of the first Bishop—he had recurred to the practice of appointment by Letters Patent, which obtained in the reign of Edward VI., and had entirely given up the principle of election by congé d'élire. When the Bill went into Committtee it was his intention to move that it was inexpedient that any Bishop of St. Albans should be appointed otherwise than by Letters Patent from the Crown.

claimed for the large population of Surrey that it had a right to be heard in this matter. The hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Richard) urged that there was no strong feeling for the appointment of a Bishop, because Petitions had not been sent up; but the truth was, that most people who took an interest in such matters preferred to make their views known through their Representatives. If they analyzed the statistics in relation to the population of the districts to be effected by the change, they would find that the new Bishop of Rochester would be practically the Bishop of Surrey, for out of 1,250,000 souls which the diocese would contain, it would be found that 1,000,000 of them would live in two of the divisions of Surrey; and, as one of the Members for Surrey, he hoped the House would allow him to say a word or two upon the subject, because he must admit that most of his constituents, who felt interested in the matter, had been much opposed to this Bill, because they thought that the importance of the county, from population and position, was such that Surrey should have a Bishop to itself, and they were very much opposed to any division of their county, as well as to its being simply tacked on to Rochester. At first, he was inclined to agree with them, and to think also that that alteration of the dioceses was done simply for the benefit of the Bishops of St. Albans and of Winchester, and looking at it as a question of population only, there could be no doubt that it was a direct benefit to them, as they were relieved of the largest mass of their population without any practical reduction of their incomes, while the new diocese of Rochester would have a far larger population than either of the old bishoprics, but would only receive half the emoluments. Looking, however, to area, it would be found that the old bishoprics would still have far larger dioceses than the new one, and quite as large as they could properly work, and as to income, the new diocese of Rochester would, at the death of the present Bishop—who would, it was believed, exchange his Bishopric for the new see of St. Albans—receive the same income that was assigned to the majority of the other bishoprics. While, if they did not accept the scheme which was undoubtedly a great improvement of the existing state of things, he could not see his way to any improvement being made for many years. They ought to look to the practical rather than the particular and sentimental result of the measure. The inhabitants of Surrey ought, therefore, he thought, to accept the Bill, and be thankful to the Home Secretary for the efforts he had made to meet their wants. With these views, he should support the Bill, but he would suggest that the name should be altered from the Bishopric of Rochester to that of Rochester and Southwark. There was in Southwark one of the finest churches (St. Saviour's) in the South of England, and the new Bishop would therefore find a suitable Cathedral church for his ministrations. The best answer that could be given to the hon. Member for Merthyr, that instead of creating bishoprics measures should be taken for increasing the incomes of the clergy, was to be found in the establishment of the Bishop of London's fund and a similar one in the diocese of Winchester, which funds were entirely owing to the work of the respective Bishops of those dioceses.

said, that although he could not agree with the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. B. Hope), and the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt), in their very different reasons for supporting the measure, yet he should support the second reading of the Bill. He would first trouble the House with a brief chapter from his own ecclesiastical biography. He was born in the town of Hertford, where he lived for a time under the mild reign of Dr. Kaye, Hertford then forming part of the diocese of Lincoln. Before he was confirmed, and without his consent, he was transferred to the more vigorous administration of Dr. Bloomfield to the diocese of London, and again, without his consent, he was transferred to the diocese of Rochester. It was, however, obviously inconvenient to be governed by a Bishop so distant as the Bishop of Lincoln, and also equally inconvenient to be governed by a Bishop living on the other side of the Thames, and he therefore accepted the Bill as a mere re-arrange- ment of dioceses, so that Hertford and Essex might be more efficiently governed under a resident Bishop. He thought the Home Secretary had done well to bring in this Bill.

said, he did not intend to enter into the broad question raised by the hon. Member (Mr. Richard) as to the existence or not of the Established Church. He fully agreed with those who held that the nation gained more from its connection with the Church than the Church gained from connection with the State. At the same time, he was fully alive to the advantages which the Church derived from its connection with the State. Persons of all denominations also gained much from the established existence of a Church celebrated for its moderate doctrine, and in which, in the main, every one was kept practically to that doctrine. He need not refer to the great benefits which the Church of England had conferred upon Christendom by the position it had taken in regard to the doctrines of the Reformation, and in setting an example to all other religious denominations in regard to the work of the poor. Assuming that the Church of England was to continue to exist, and that there were to be Bishops in it, then, if there were three large dioceses in it like London, Rochester, and Winchester, the Bishops of which had more work on their hands than they could possibly get through, and if they came to an arrangement beneficial to the Church by dividing those three dioceses into four, and by that means the work could be better carried out both with respect to the Church and the nation, then this Parliament would be wise to accept it. Upon that practical ground he based this Bill. His hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Grantham) had stated with perfect truth that there was at first considerable opposition in that county to the Bill because the inhabitants of that county had done a great deal towards providing a Bishop of Surrey; but he believed that now the common sense prevailing in the county and other parts of the diocese was that this was a practical measure for meeting the present purpose, and would be a great relief to the Bishop of Winchester, and insure due episcopal supervision for that part of Surrey which would be transferred to the diocese of Rochester. With regard to his hon. Friend's proposal that the Bishop should he called the Bishop of Rochester and Southwark, there was, he was informed, a practical objection. He did not wish to create by this Bill a Bishopric of Southwark as well as Rochester. He knew of no precedent for a Bishopric being called by two names, unless there had been two Sees previously in existence. If he called the Bishopric by the two names, he would be creating practically a Bishopric of Southwark. He had met the people of Surrey so far that there was a clause in the Bill providing that the residence of the Bishop of Rochester should be in Southwark. That would be a position from which the diocese would be very easily worked, and it would give great satisfaction to that part of the country. He trusted the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) would not think it necessary to encumber the Bill by an abstract Resolution on the subject of the congé d'élire, because he had made no provision in the Bill for the establishment of a dean and chapter, having no funds for that purpose. The dean and chapter could not be created without an Act of Parliament, when the hon. Member could state his objections, and mean-while the Bishop of St. Albans would be created by the Crown by Letters Patent. These three Bishops deserved the thanks of the Church, and, above all, of the inhabitants of the diocese over which they presided, for the arrangements they had made for dividing the dioceses and for the sacrifices they had made. As the character of the Bishops generally had been somewhat impugned, he must say that he did not think there could be found a body of men of an equal amount of learning and intelligence who were animated by a more direct and single-minded wish to devote their lives to the performance of their duties or who worked harder than the Bishops of the Church of England.

moved, in page 7, line 5, after "by," to insert "the Inland Revenue Department, Somerset House, whose certificate shall be final." He believed the trade were extremely jealous of the certificate given by the analyst at Quarter Sessions, but would be contented with the certificate of the Inland Revenue Department.

said, his hon. Friend in his Amendment had somewhat confused the function of the Judge and analyst. He could not accept it, on the ground that it proposed to leave the final decision on questions of adulteration with the Department of Somerset House. That decision must rest with the Courts of Law. He would prefer that the hon. Member should allow the hon. Member for Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) to put his Amendment on the same point, as it seemed to him to meet it better. He was willing on the part of the Inland Revenue Commissioners to undertake the duties of analyzing, without, however, giving to their decision any character of finality if it could be challenged on any subsequent analysis.

said, it was admitted that there were very few competent analysts to be found, and believed that there had been several miscarriages of justice throughout the country. Speaking on behalf of traders he had to say that they were not at all disposed to object that their goods should be thoroughly examined; but they desired that the examination should be made thoroughly, certainly, and sensibly. In the majority of cases the examination had been neither thorough, nor certain, nor sensible. In one case a gentleman who had filled the office of high sheriff of the county of Anglesey had been fined for selling the finest green tea, and in the county of Northampton several traders had been fined for selling coffee adulterated with acorns. Some samples of the coffee were sent to London to be examined, and it was found that there was not a particle of acorn in the coffees, whereupon the local analyst admitted that he had made a mistake. In regard to cocoa persons had been charged with adulterating it with sugar, flour, and honey—in no civilized country was it prepared otherwise—and on the certificates given there had been many convictions. He believed that all pepper contained a certain amount of silica; but a certificate had been given that a sample of pepper contained 1 per cent of siliceous matter, on which a trader, but for wiser counsels prevailing, would have been fined. Personally, he should rather like to see all the analyses which might be necessary under the Act left to the Department at Somerset House. This would be a cheaper and more satisfactory course than the one proposed in the Bill. He quite agreed in the observation that if the chemists at Somerset House were made the sole analysts for the purposes of this Bill, it would largely prevent adulteration, while the ratepayers would be gainers by the change. He did not think that it was fair that the same magistrates who in Petty Sessions had the appointment of the local analysts should afterwards at Quarter Sessions determine appeals from the reports of those persons. He should therefore support the Amendment.

remarked that the scarcity of competent analysts now complained of was owing to the sudden demand for their services, which was the consequence of recent legislation. It would, however, be every year less and less felt. The personnel at the laboratory at Somerset House consisted of a principal, a deputy principal, eight permanent assistants, and eight temporary assistants, and it was impossible that such a staff could get through the enormous amount of work that would be thrown upon it under the proposal of the hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Muntz), and it could not be increased without great cost to the country. With regard to the finality of the Somerset House certificate, the view of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board was, in his opinion, the true one. An analyst was not a Judge, nor had he to find a trader guilty of adulteration. He had simply to report upon the samples submitted to him. The method of appeal provided for England was not so satisfactory as that provided for Scotland; but the proposed Amendment was not the way to remedy matters. In Eng- land the appeal was to be from Petty Sessions to Quarter Sessions, whereas in Scotland it was from the Justices to the Sheriff. He suggested that the County Court would be the most suitable court of appeal.

said, that in accepting the proposal that all the analyses should be conducted at Somerset House the Government were incurring considerable responsibility. He should wish to know what security the Government had that the assistants at Somerset House were properly qualified for the discharge of such important duties as were about to be thrown upon them by this Bill, because it was evident that the salaries they received were not such as the first chemists in the country would be entitled to. He, however, should not divide the Committee on the Amendment, because he merely wished to point out to the Government the dangerous responsibility they had taken upon themselves in accepting this Amendment.

said, he was willing to waive his Amendment in favour of that of the hon. Member for Leicestershire.

moved, in page 7, to leave out line 6 and to end of Clause, and insert—

"By persons to be appointed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, who shall thereupon make the analysis, and give a certificate to such justices of the result of the analysis; and the expense of such analysis shall be paid by the complainant or the defendant as the justices may by order direct."

He was very glad that the right hon. Gentleman had accepted his Amendment.

would accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Leicestershire, and Her Majesty's Government were quite aware of the responsibility they were taking upon themselves by so doing.

observed, that the analyses conducted at Somerset House would command the confidence of the country.

said, he was glad the Government had consented to give a better security for the skill and competence of the analysts, inasmuch as practically the decision of the Justices would always be governed by the analyst's report.

said, he thought cases might arise in which it would not be desirable to make either the complainant or the defendant pay the expense of the analysis, and that some discretion in this respect ought to be left to the Justices. Up to this time the public had not had confidence in the analysts, but he hoped the result of the debate would be to restore that confidence. He thought the Amendment would be better without the alteration of the hon. Member for Leicestershire.

was of opinion that the terms of the Amendment were too vague. He suggested that the words "the chemical officers in the employment of the Inland Revenue" should be substituted for the words "some persons to be appointed by the Commissioners."

suggested that the clause should be withdrawn for the present in order that the Government might have an opportunity of re-considering it.

said, he thought it of importance that analysts should be examined as to their literary as well as their scientific qualifications.

approved of the suggestion that the articles should be sent to the Inland Revenue Office for examination.