The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

hairs have at last brought his Lordship wis-
dom. After the incessant meddling of a
quarter of a century. he has come to the con-
clusion that the S lards must be left to
settle their eiwn a 1:s, and that in the wreck
of his Libel* poli his duty is to do 'Midi*
but remain °omen with the support he
gain frog the Ititbiral party through
Eur on the credit of a forged security.

il
BISHOI INCOMES.
IT has been general y understood during the
last twenty years that the Bishops of the Eng-
lish Church were henceforward to enjoy a part
only instead of the whole of the large revenues
of their sees. Nobody thought it a very impor-
tant matter that their incomes should be
reduced to an exact uniformity, or that five
hundred a year, more or less, was a point
worth contention. The essential advantage of
the original change was, that bishops should
no longer be in the possession of incomes
extravagantly iisproportioned to the rest of
the Church, and while the Church herself was
daily making appeals to the public for pecu-
niary aid in extending her influence. But
this once effected, it was manifest to most of
us that the real point was gained, and that
no one need trouble himself about the exact
details by which the change was to operate.
To divert a portion of the episcopal revenues
to the general wants of the Church was one
thing; to alter the tenure of Church lands
was altogether another. Whether a bishop
should be in the receipt of thirty thousand
a year, or of three, is a question which does
not affect the essence of his position. But,
whether he should be a paid functionary, or
a landed proprietor, obviously does affect
it most materially. It is, we presume,
to the recognition of this difference that we
owe the fifth clause of the recent Report from
the Select Committee on the Ecclesiastical
Commission :
That it is desirable that landed estates sufficient to afford
a clear statutory income of each bishop should be secured
to each see, that the management of such estate should be
in the bishop, but that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
should provide for a periodical inspection of such landed
estates, in order to the maintenance thereof, by and at the
expense of the bishop, in proper repair and condition ;
that any difference of opinion between any bishop and the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners as to repairs and the condi-
tion of such estates, or as to the outlay from time to time
required thereon, should be decided by arbitration.
There is no doubt that if it could be shown
to be desirable that the incomes of the Bishops
should be rigidly fixed to the minutest fraction,
this clause would be deserving of great con-
sideration, and possibly even censure. But
we cannot see what practical inconvenience
can arise from it. If every bishop in England
were systematically to receive a thousand a
year more than he ought, the surplus would
not amount t.) more than has been received
by one man under the ancient system. Yet to
assume the possibility of so wholesale an
evasion of the law, is to assume that Church-
men as a rule are actuated by a lower tone of
morality than other men—a conclusion to
which people are not, we think, prepared to
subscribe—wbile it implies on the other hand
that the Commissioners themselves must be
men of less than average intellect to be thus
systematically swindled. We cannot see any
but the most purely visionary objections to
the provisions of this clause. On the other
hand, whether we regard the historical ante-
cedents of the English Church, or the present
position of certain branches of the Church on
the Continent, it seems equally to be a strictly
conservative object that our bishops should
continue to occupy their ancient position as
landholders. The fact of a bishop being
compelled to pay over so much of his
income to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners
does not interfere with his position as landlord,
any more than a gentleman being obliged to
hand over certain sums to a mortgagee inter-
feres with his. He is still the person to whom
the tenantry look up—whose place it is to
help them in their difficulties, or give them
counsel in their troubles. Considering the
habits of English society, we do not hesitate