The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-16 00:00:00

liVIPER TAir, PARLIAMENT.

Business
this day.

-
HOUSE OF LORDS—(YESTERDAY.)
The LORD CHANC) 3LLOR took his seat on the woolsack
at five o'clock.
The Earl of WIC ICLOW presented a petition from a
place in Donegal awa inst opening the Crystal Palace on
Sundays ; also, fror a the guardians of Rathdown, in
Wicklow, against xvl rat they term a most " unjust and
iniquitous tax"—thei Consolidated Annuities.
Lord CAMPBELL presented a petition from the Lord
Provost and Town Council of Edinburgh, against the
imposition of religiou,e tests on the professors of Scotch
universities.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE presented several
petitions from Belfa st, and other places, to a similar
effect.
Lord STANLEY of Alderley presented a petition
from the London and North-Western Literary Society,
praying for the distribution of Parliamentary papers.
The Marquis of LAWSDOWNE presented a similar
petition from a place b i Wiltshire.
Lord WALDEGP:A.VE also presented a similar ,
petition.
Lord LYTTLETO N. laid on the table a bill to extend '
the practice of gratuitous vaccination.
The bill was read a. first time.
CANADA CLERGY RESERVES.
The Bishop of EXETER said he felt that he owed an
explanation to their 7lordships for bringing before them
to-night any question relative to a measure which the
votes of the other Image had announced that it was the
intention of the Goverrnment to submit that evening to
the House of Commo:o s. It might seem strange, as the
measure so to be ird reduced might afterwards come
before their lordships int the form of a bill, that he should
not await its arrival in that house before he:Presumed to
express an opinion on 'the subject—he must own, how-
ever, that the very reason for bringing the question for-
ward to-night was, th at he had read in the votes of the
House of Commons ti iiit a bill was to be introduced into
that house to-night deatingwiththissubject. He must say
he thought their lordships had a right to express, he did
not say complaint, but say surprise, and he hoped that
some explanation wound be given by the noble duke the
Secretary for the Colonies that the bill in question had
not first been introdu cod into their lordships' house. It
emanated from that department of which the noble duke
(the Duke of Newcastle) was at the head ; and he (the
Bishop of Exeter) thought it might have been hoped
that, instead of causing the bill to be introduced by his
under-secretary in the. other house, the noble duke would
himself have brought. it before their lordships. It was
well known that at this season of the year their lord-
ships were not overburdened with business, and com-
plaints were constantly made on both sides of the idle-
ness of that house in the early part of the session, and of
its being overworked at the close of the session. He
thought, however, it was not impertinent to say, sitting
on that bench, that in a case in which the interests of
religion were so immediately concerned, it might have
been hoped that the bishops would have had an oppor-
tunity of expressing, at an early period, their sentiments
upon the merits of the measure. He thought it very
possible that their lordships might have received some
instruction upon such a subject from his right rev.
brethren. He understood that the bill contained no
provisions which, according to the practice of the con-
stitution would prevent its being considered by their
lordships in the first instance. It was easy to con-
jecture that, in some cases, the motive for pursuing
the course which had been taken by the Government
might have been a desire to obtain not a very
creditable advantage, by seeking to controul their
lordships by the voice of the other house in which
it might be supposed there was a better chance
that such a bill would be successful. He could
easily conceive that a person capable of endea-
vouring to take Such an advantage • might have
preferred introducing the bill in the other house • but
he fully acquitted the noble duke at the head of the Co-
lonial department of any unhandsome intention. The
chief reason why he (the Bishop of Exeter) ventured thus
early to call their lordships' attention to this subject
was, that the whole course of proceeding with reference
to it for the last year or two had lulled the colonists
into full security that it was impossible any measure
could be introduced without an opportunity being af-
forded them of sending deputies to this country who
might claim justice on their behalf. Last year the late
Government returned an answer to the address of the
Legislative Assembly of Canada stating that they could
not sanction the bill which it was wished should be in-
troduced, and that Government did not at all flinch
from maintaining their resolution on the subject. In-
deed, it was notorious that, as the year advanced, the
resolution of the late Government to resist the bill was
strengthened. He had been informed, on no light au-
thority, that the late Government had entertained an
increasing conviction that it would be contrary to the
best interests of the colony and of the empire to assent
to such a measure. The colonists had also the fullest
grounds for believing that a measure of that kind would
not have been introduced by the present Government.
They saw at the head of that Government a noble earl
whose whole life had been given to the support of those
great principles on which the clergy reserves' security
depended. They found also that in announcing the
course of policy that would govern him in his admini-
stration, the noble earl declared his resolution to main-
tain the institutions of this country and of the empire,
and it was naturally conceived that the interests of re-
ligion in the colonies would receive favourable regard
and support from a Minister who rested his Govern.
ment upon such principles. But the name of the noble
duke who sat near the noble earl seemed to the colo-
nists a tower of strc:igth to their cause, and they be-
lieved that he would not con: 3nt to sacrifice the in-
terests of the Protestant Church in Canada by allowing
the clergy reserves to be seized upon and confiscated.
He (the Bishop of Exeter) thought the colonists had
sufficient reason to believe that the noble duke would
support their cause. He was quite ready, at the same
time, to admit, that when a statesman found himself in-
volved in the duties of office it was necessary for him to
review the conclusions at which he had before arrived
on any important matter of public policy. He admitted
that it was the duty of such a person to correct his first
impressions ; and, undoubtedly, if the previous private
impressions of the noble duke had been against this
measure, and he had subsequently changed that view,
and considered that, as 'a Minister of the Crown, he
was bound to support the present bill, he honoured the
noble duke for having yielded to reason and conviction.
He, for one, confessed that the fact of the noble duke
having succeeded to office, and being an important mem-
ber of the new Government, was to him a strong ground
for believing that that Government would prove a
friend to the Church of England and the Protestant
religion as by law established. But, not only was the
noble duke placed at the head of the colonies, but there
was another remarkable circumstance—viz., that the
noble earl who formerly held that office, and who was
understood to be the most hostile to the views of the
colonists on this subject, was no longer a member of the
the Government at all, and this to the colonists must
have appeared as another ground of confidence. Look-
ing to the other members of the Administration, they
would see more than one right hon. gentleman whom
they knew to be faithfully attached to true religion,
especially as embodied in the Church of England. There
was in particular one individual eminently distinguished
by every public virtue, a man of whom it was impossible
even when one differed from him, to speak without
respect—he alluded to Mr. Gladstone, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer—and what did the colonists know of
him ? He (the Bishop of Exeter) was not aware that
that right, hon, gentleman had ever publicly expressed an
opinion upon this subject, but the colonists must have
been aware that he had at first become greatly as well as
favourably known to the world by the publication of a
work on the relations of the Church to the State, in
which he held and maintained the great principle that it
was the first duty of the Government, as such, to sup-
port and advance the true religion. Had they not a
right on that ground, then, to be satisfied that the right
hon. gentlemen would be found among the supporters of
their claims ? There was another very special ground on
which they must have formed some hope of the right
hon. gentleman, and that was the constituency which
had more than once selected him as their representative
—he meant the University of Oxford—a constituency
whose fidelity to the cause of religious truth could not
for a moment be doubted. He mentioned these circum-
stances for the purpose of showing that the colonists had
a fair right to expect that the present Government would
have pursued the same line of policy on this subject as
that which had been adopted by their predecessors,
and that, therefore, they must be totally unprepared
for the bill which was to be brought into the other
house that night for the purpose of confis-
cating the religious endowments of the colony. He ob-
served that the noble duke (Newcastle) was taking down
his words, and therefore he would anticipate his objec-
tion, and admit at once that the bill would not confiscate
the endowments, but would merely allow the Canadian
Legislature to confiscate them, if they wished. But he
did not think, after all, that there was much difference
between the two statements. It could not be denied
that every member of the Canadian Ministry had com-
mitted himself in his place in the Canadian Legislature
to the secularisation of the clergy reserves, if they had
the power. (Hear, hear.) He begged to say, too, that
the colonists had a right to expect that an opportunity
would have been afforded them, before the passing of
this measure, of sending deputies here to plead their
cause. It so happened that there was a right rev, pre-
late connected with Canada at present in this country,
but it was peculiarly unfortunate that, being alone and
without the necessary documents, he was unable to resist
the measure in the manner that was to be desired. He
(the Bishop of Exeter) must say, without ascribing any
unfairness to the Government, or to the noble duke who
was especially responsible for the measures that whether
intended or not, the result was a grievous injustice to
the colonists. Their lordships probably knew enough
of the nature of the blergy reserves to render it unne-
cessary for him to detain them at any length in explana-
tion of them. He would only remind them of the gene-
ral outline of the facts. The right rev, prelate then
proceeded to refer to the passing of the 31st George 111.,
c. 31, allocating a seventh of all the land sold in Canada
" to the support of a Protestant clergy," and maintained
that the national faith was pledged by that act to the
maintenance of the reserves for that purpose. What, he
asked, was the inducement for an honest Englishman to ,
migrate to Canada except it was that he knew he was
going to a land where he would find the means of pay-
ing his duty to God according to the forms of the church
in which he had been reared ? When the country
became fuller of inhabitants, it was found that the funds
derived from the reserves were not sufficiently large to
provide religious ministrations for all the population,
and the consequence was that there arose a godless
population, Ue did not mean all the population, but

only a portion of them. Among that portion there had
arisen an agitation against the reserves, principally in
Upper Canada ; for, so far as the Lower Province was
concerned, the agitation was not known till the end of
1849. But were their lordships prepared to accept the
fact of agitation as a reason for passing a measure !
Canada was not the only country where agitation pre-
vailed. They had only to look across the Channel to
Ireland, and there they would see agitation, not of the
mildest form nor the least threatening, nor the least
powerful. (Hear, hear.) He hoped the Government
were prepared to support the Irish church, and, if so, ,
they would certainly add to their own embarassments in
defence of that church by giving such an open en-
couragement to the agitation against the church in
Canada. Oh, but it was said that the reserves were
public property. He knew not if their lordships were
prepared to sanction this principle, but, if they were,
they would be doing what no House of Lords, since the
Heptarchy had ever dreamt of doing, or dared to do.
He warned them also that they would be setting a pre-
cedent which would justify, not merely the spoliation of
the church in Canada and in the United Kingdom, but
the estates of many of their lordships, It was within
his own knowledge that in the case of one of the greatest
and best landowners in this country, who held a large
portion of his property by grant from the Crown, the
land having once belonged to the church, some of' his
tenants were in the habit of saying to each other—" This
land is ours ; it is public property, and we have as good
right to it as he has." He was not saying whether this
was a sound argument or not, but the persons who used
it would, he was sure, be delighted at the precedent
which would be set by the proposed bill on the Canada
reserves. (Hear, hear.) The first paper for which he
proposed to move was the Government Gazette of Canada
of the Bth of May, 1849, or any other document in the
Colonial-office, containing a copy of an address to the
Governor- General of British North America from the
Romish prelates and clergy of Quebec in the year 1849,
and of the answer of his Excellency to that address.
He asked for that document, because he was assured
that it contained an answer of the Governor-General to
an ' address from the Romish prelates and clergy of
Quebec : that the first signature to that addreiss was
" Joseph, Archbishop of Quebec," a see which the Pope
had no right to create, any more than he had a right to
create sees in the mother country, and that the answkr
to the address had been directed to "his Grace ti
Archbishop, his Lordship the Bishop, and the other
Members of the Catholic Clergy of Quebec." If he were
rightly informed upon this branch of the subject, it
would appear that the Governor-General had by that
act 'recognized and sanctioned titles which in the eye of
the law had no existence whatever. The second return
for which he moved was a list of the bills passed by
the Canadian Parliament, whether reserved or not,
in the year 1849, and a statement whether and which of
the same were disallowed by her Majesty. He believed
that this return would show that in May, 1349, an act
was passed in the Canadian Legislature to incorporate
the Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops in each
diocese in Canada. That act could not take effect un-
less the Home Government gave their assent to it within
two years from the time of its passing the Canadian
Parliament, and he was desirous to know whether it had
been allowed to lapse, or whether it had ever been sanc-
tioned by the Government of this country ? Their lord-
ships would observe, that the interval betwe.en the pass-
ing of the act in Canada and the time when, in order to
take effect, it must be sanctioned by the Rome-Parlia-
ment, embraced the period when the famous epistle was
written by the noble lord the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, which shook this country to its inmost
parts, and was made the ground of the strongest expres-
sions of animadversion against the Pope. At that pe-
riod, and when that act of the Pope, so familiar in the
recollection of us all, was being declared by him to be
unprecedented, a bill was actually before the noble lord
from Canada, the object of which was to incorporate an
Archbishop of Quebec. He (the Bishop of Exeter) con-
tended that this was a matter with which it was not
competent for the Colonial Legislature to deal, that it
was an imperial question involving the highest and most
sacred part of our constitutional law, and that it was
one upon which the Imperial Parliament alone should
decide. The Legislature of Canada had shown its re-
gard to religiOn already by completely secularising a
college, which had been founded and endowed for the
purpose of the church in that country, and he did trust
that the Church would not be left to the tender mercies
of such a Legislature. Another act had passed that
Legislature, the 11th and 12th of Victoria, chap. 143,
the object f which was to incorporate a religious order
of persons in Canada, who were bound by their oaths to
do any service which was required by the Pope. That
measure actually had received the sanction of her Ma-
jesty's Government at the very time when there was
such an outcry against the Pope in this country. (Hear,
hear.) There was only one other document for which
he should at present move, and that was a copy of
any official letter from the Lord Bishop of Quebec to
his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, one of her Majes-
ty's Principal %Secretaries of State, on the matter
of clergy reserves in Canada. That latter had been
hastily written ; but it was perhaps, the more
satisfactory on that account, as containing the
deep and earnest impressions of the writer. His
right rev, friend had kindly favoured him with a sight of
the draught of that letter, and he perceived that he de-
clared that no measure could have sacrilege more plainly
stamped upon it than one which provided for the abso-
lute confiscation to godless uses of property solemnly
dedicated to God, in order to satisfy the claims of the
American loyalists. He asked their lordships, were '
they prepared to sanction that sacrilege ? There had
been times when the HOuse of Lords would have spurned
the very notion, and he begged to remind the Govern-
ment that the act would be in direct contravention of
the coronation oath. He knew statesmen did not like
a reference to that oath. It permitted a great deal ;
but one thing it did say—that the Protestant church
should be upheld and preserved in England and Scot-
land, and all the dominions belonging thereto. He con-
tended that it had been properly construed that that
oath bound the Sovereign to the utmost of her power to
preserve the Protestant church and the Protestant re-
ligion in this country and all its dependencies. But,
independently of this, there was another reason why the
proposition of the Government should not be sanctioned.
The whole amount of the provision from the clergy re-
serves was about 20,000/ a year in the upper province ;
and there was a restriction that not more than 1001. a
year should be allowed to any one clergyman. If there
were at present but 200 clergymen receiving 1001. a
year each in that country to support the true church, he
asked their lordships were they prepared to sanction the
disturbance of that property in the face of an enor-
mously wealthy church ? The estates of St. , Sulpice
alone, in Montreal, were estimated at 60,0001. per
annum ; and he might safely say that it was the richest
spiritual corporation in the world. He would be no
party to a breach of the treaty which bound us to hold
inviolate the property of the Roman Catholic church ;
but it must be remembered that that provision was the
very reason which had induced George 111. and his
Ministers to recommend the measure of 1791 to Parlia-
ment, and which had led to its being triumphantly
carried by the Legislature of that day. The right rev.
prelate concluded by moving for the production of the
papers.
The Duke of NEWCASTLE said, that as it would
probably at no distant period be his duty officially to oc-
cupy their lordships at some length on this subject, he
would not now take up much of their time in discussing
the various points introduced by the right rev, prelate.
He did not, of course, complain of the right rev. prelategs
having brought forward the subject on the present occa-
sion, but he thought the house would concur with him in
the opinion that the course so adopted by the right rev.
prelate was not altogether convenient, seeing that, on
the one hand, there was no measure before their lord-
ships on this subject, and that, on the other hand, a
member of the Government was, he believed, at that
very moment stating to the other house of Legislature the
details of a bill by which the Government proposed to
settle the question, which bill, he anticipated, would, in
due season, come before their lordships for regular dis-
cussion. (Hear, hear.) That measure, indeed, the right
rev, prelate, though evidently unacquainted with its
provisions, had thought proper to stigmatize as one of
confiscation, as designed to pervert the clergy reserves
in Canada from their legitimate purpose ; but their
lordships would find, when the bill came before them,
that the right rev, prelate's apprehensions on this head
were without foundation. The right rev. prelate com-
plained that the measure had not been introduced first
in their lordships' house. In the first place, pre-
cedent had established that such bills should originate
in the other house ; in the second place, the state of
their lordships' benches then—as usual at this early
period of the session— showed the inexpediency of
intro-
ducing a measure of so much importance
0_
such circumstances ; and, thirdly, the very character
come
underthe bill itself rendered it desirable that it shoubled fionat
before their lordships, and especially before t ghas
rev, bench, in a condition as discussedmaturely
might be elsewhere deemed fit. Any one
this would imagine
a new subject, on which
the opinion o
it was a question on
from the right rev. prelate's speech. thfattbem lwaonisstqsuirtee.
re-
mained to be ascertained, whereas
he colony had been
which the wishes and feelings
ftrsttebdeolvasetr
3aondyoeavraer, aagandint,hicohf
which hadhtadbebeenenthien subjectagt-i agitation
single exception, of
whom, coonleonial ministers of this
country,r epeated despatches
of
most recent date,
the consideration of the colonial, and
was a matter for
had declared the principe that this
with one
be said • h Canada, it could not with accuracy
not of the Imperial Legislature. With regard to the
clergy of _
g proposed elsewhere,
that they were taken
being proposed
in the Government
bill at that moment e . .
for
Archdeacon Bethune, who was now in this country,
had published a pamphlet on the subject, in which
he declared his expectation that legislation would
take place, and in the very sense now contem-
plated by her Majesty's ministers. As little could
be said that the colonists were taken by surprise
in the matter, for he held in his hand a Canadian
newspaper of recent date, a most respectable and
well-conducted journal, and ong, he might add, of strong
Conservative opinions, which, adverting to the measure
anticipated from her Majesty's Government, spoke of it,
not by any means as a bill of confiscation, but as a
course of legislation to be encouraged and supported in
the most emphatic manner, as confirming the principle
of the indefensible right of the Canadian Legislature to
legislate on this matter, peculiarly its own affair, for
itself---a principle in which her Majesty's Government
fully concurred. The suggestion of the right rev. pre-
late that danger was to be apprehended to the Church
in Canada, because, as he stated, some individual mem-
ber of the Government there had expressed strong opi-
ni9n4 de, the objects wade of AD AYA since, whatever

the private opinions of an individual memb of the
Government might be, • they could in no degrreer operate
against the declared opinion of the colonists through
their Legislature. The right rev. prelate was mistaken
in the supposition that the Bishop of Quebec had been
taken by surprise in the matter. He (the Duke of
Newcastle) had availed himself of the earliest opportu-
nity of conveying to that prelate, who was now in Eng.
land, the intentions of the Government, and he had,
three weeks since, given the same intimation to Arch-
deacon Bethune, with the promise, in each case, to com.
municate the time at which the Government would
bring forward their measure, which promise had been
fulfilled. When that measure came before their lord-
ships in due course he should be fully prepared to satisfy
them, he believed, that it was a bill neither of confisca-
tion nor of sacrilege, The papers which the right rev.
prelate desired would be readily produced. The first
named by the right rev, prelate was already. on the
table of their lordships' house. Of another, the ex-
tract front the colonial Gazette, there was no copy
at present in the Colonial-office, but a letter should be
immediately transmitted to Canada for a copy. He
'thought the right rev, prelate had not been perfectly
candid in his statement, but he attributed that, not to
any disposition on his part to be so, but because he was
not so well acquainted with the facts as he would have
been if he had reserved his opinion until the bill had
been before their lordships. He had received only yes-
terday a letter on the subject from the Bishop of Mon-
treal ; but, 'having considered it with all the attention
and respect due to that right rev. prelate, he was never-
theless bound to say, that in it he found assertions he
could not admit, and arguments it would, on a future
occasion, be his duty to confute. The right rev, prelate
(the Bishop of Exeter) had spoken of the proposed mea-
sure of the Government as sacrilege. That was a charge
of so grave a nature, that, however anxious he was not
to enter into the details of the measure, he felt bound at
once to say he could not recognise its truth or justice.
If this measure were sacrilege, what was the act of
1840 ? The Government did not propose to deal with
the clergy reserves as they wore dealt with in 1840,
transferring from one body to another the arbitrary dis-
position of the property ; but assuming that it went the
whole length the right rev. prelate contended for, and
that the reserves were applied to secular purposes, he
would ask the right rev, prelate what was the character
of the act of 1840, which he had supported ? Sacrilege
,could not be a question of degree. If a man broke
into a church and stole some plate, he would be equally
guilty of sacrilege whether he only took a small quan-
tity or more. But what did the right rev, bench do in
1840 ? He did not attack them for it, but there
must .be consistency in this matter. They supported
an act which took away from the Church of Eng-
land a large portion of the clergy reserves, and it
was applied, not to the purposes of other creeds or forms
of Christianity, but to secular purposes. (Hear.) But
he went further, and asked what were all the preceding
aets that had passed upon this question since 1791 ?
What had been the course taken by the Legislature of
Canada, and the recommendations sent out by the
Gov.ernments of this country? Had they been guilty of
saorilege ? What did Sir J. Pakington say ? lie said
he was prepared to deal with this question—that circum-
stances had occurred, such as emigration and others,
which made it necessary to have a redistribution of
these funds, necessarily taking a part from the Church
of England; and he was therefore just as guilty
of sacrilege as the present Government would be if they
had proposed to hand over the whole of these funds to
secular purposes. Upon this subject, so far as the
Church was concerned, and any religious dues were
involved in this measure, it was as between the present
and the late Government a mere question of degree.
But as regarded the measure itself upon the most im.
portant view—namely, the colonial view, it was a matter
not of degree, but of principle. The whole question
was this--was it to be a colonial or imperial question ?
Were they to fellow out to its true legitimate
conclusion the principle of not merely a repre-
sentative but a responsible Govern-ment, or to
deprive the colony of the full benefit of that responsible
Government and thereby to leave it in an ano-
malous position ? The right rev, prelate had said
that the question had been considered as settled in
1840. The late Government had not so considered it.
The Bishop of Quebec and other bishops of Canada in 1846
applied for a different arrangement of these reserves ; they
wished to reopen the question, though undoubtedly for the
benefit of the Church. They who claimed the finality of the
settlement of 1840 wished to reopen the question in 1846.
How then could they say in 1846 it was not settled as
to part, and yet that it was closed as to the whole in
1853 ? He thought that when their lordships came to
consider this question they would arrive at the conclu-
sion with him that upon purely and 'strictly colonial
views it ought to be settled at once, and in the way pro-
posed by the Government. The right rev. prelate had
spoken of the effect it would have on the coronation
oath ; but he thought their lordships would see, when
this bill came to be printed, that the Queen would have
the same power of veto she now had, and that in no way,
as he conceived, was the coronation oath affected by it.
The right rev, prelate had also entered into a comparison
of the Church of Rome and the Church of England in
Canada. Upon some future occasion he would enter
into the question ; but he could assure the right rev-
prelate that, whatever might be, and he believed it to
be greatly exaggerated—the wealth of the Roman Catho.
lie Church in Canada, that Church would stand on pre-
cisely the same footing as to being dealt with by the
Canadian Legislature as the clergy reserves under this
measure. The right rev. prelate had spoken of the
Roman Catholic endowments in Canada, as though they
had been settled by acts of Parliament which were about
to be left on the statute-book, while the clergy reserves
were disturbed. But the Roman Catholic Church stood
on a much 'weaker foundation. If the right rev, prelate
would refer to the treaty of Quebec, he would find that
the treaty tended to confirm little more than perfect
freedom of worship to the Roman Catholics of Canada;
and as to the very instance put by the right rev, pre-
late—that of the corporation of St. Sul.pice—what was
its title ? It was not confirmed by treaty, but was so
weak that a Oanadian !ordinance was passed, and
it was under that its possessions was now held.
Again, what had the' Legislature already done as
to the Roman Catholic endowments ? They con-
sisted in one form of tithes, but they were not payable
by all classes of the communion—(hear, hear), and so
strictly was that the case, that if a man changed his
religion he became exonerated from the payment by the
mere fact of such change. Moreover, in Upper Canada
the tithes had been abolished ; and in consequence of
that, as he believed, the Governor of Canada had con-
ferred on the Roman Catholic Church a grant out of
the clergy reserves ; and under that grant the Roman
Catholic Church was receiving 1,600/. a-year. That
Church, therefore, stood upon precisely the same footing
as the Church of England. There had been an amount
of mystification and misrepresentation upon this subject
which he hoped by discussion in that and the other
house of Parliament would be removed ; and he con-
fidently anticipated that the •right rev, bench, viewing
this measure not abstractedly as affecting the Church
of England alone, but as a great national concern,
would regard it as one of the greatest advantages to the
Church in Canada. As to the Legislature of the United
States never altering any endowments of this kind, he
doubted much whether in all instances they had adhered
to that rule. In one of the greatest States of the Union
he believed that the endowment of the Church was now
held by an 'Unitarian body, though, generally speak-
ing, the endowments of the Church of England had
been respected in the United States of America,
and he gathered from that precedent this example
and warning,—that if they trusted men with their
own concerns, and placed these matters within the
jurisdiction to which they belonged, they would
disturbed
denbtys
abned mooldre
seinttclliemneedntstotbarnespiefctthepyrevivioeures
long agitationthat and
they
repeatedcouldonly
contests.
act
uponS So b
strongte clear
was
hisconviction
and defined principle of colonial freedom upon all ques-
onuisltdrabtieonof
prepared,thei
own
affairs
—(h
—nttebrnatal
haed ms
without reference to the result, to take the course the
Government were now about to pursue ; but at the same
time he must say he was confident a great deal would
depend, as regarded the future issue of this question, on
the course, the conciliatory course, apart from all bias
and party feeling, from all that irritation which, unfor.
tunately, frequently arose upon any question in which
the religious feeling of the country was involved, taken
upon it by that and the other house of Parliament when
it came before them for consideration. (Hear.)
The Earl of DESART, after expressing his regret at
the absence of a noble earl who had been most anxious
to be present at the discussion of this subject, in which
he took the greatest interest, said that, as an individual,
he tendered his thanks to the right rev, prelate for hav-
ing brought the subject before their lordships, as it was
most important the public should be made sensible of
what he must consider as aigreat blow to Protestantism in Canada, and he said that the more advisedly, ina.e.
much as the Canadian Legislature had made no secret
of their intention to divert these lands from ecclesias-
tical purposes. The noble duke was
right in saying
that Sir J. Pakington had been open to consider any
proposals the Canadians
might have made as to the
redistribution of the clergy reserves, for he considered
the settlement of 184 Q was only final in appropriating
the proceeds of those reserves to ecclesiastical pur.
poses, and thought most justly that the Canadian
people could best judge in what way those funds should
be applied. There was one point which he thought was
not well understood by the public. It was considered
by many that the great majority, or almost the whole
population of Canada, were in favour of the abrogation
of the settlement of 1840. He did not think that was •
the case. On the contrary, he found that among the
members returned by Upper Canada—and, after all, it
was those members who must mainly be considered, for
those of Lower Canada were Roman Catholics and
French people, and had no interest in the
two to four, and also that that minority w m
of the clergy reserves—the minority had
s increasedlinte
actuallyfrl
th th
having received
majority of the Legislature—the minority
only 23,500.
upwards of 24,000 votes, and the majority
returned by a larger number of constituents an e
The right rev. prelate said that this was an agitation of
three or four years, and he thought that was true ; but
the agitation about these funds was the very reason that
forced the settlement of 1840, and prompted the Cana-
diand' I
Parliament to pass
a bill placingthe disposal of
and were anxious it should be
not settle it themselves,or
other, and in 1846, Mr. Price
finally settled
questionone way
being again raised by the Bishop of
the funds in the Imperial Parliament, because they could
upon the
said hewas unwilling to disturb the settlement
had proved so satisfactory and so a,dvan-
feeling of the people of
• to the good
tageous
the people of Canada might justly complain of
must say
being taken by surprise, for, although agitation was rife,
_
it had been met by a refusal en the part of the Govern.
ment, except to reconsider the redistribution of the funds
of 1840, which
for ecolesissitiCAl PurP9Pea a that nothing would have