The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-20 00:00:00

Majority
- th,

_ne clause was ien egret . to.
On clause 2 being proposed,

.
N 1 r. S. WORTLEY rose to move the amendment of
which takhad given notice. The question they bad now
t . cot,: ider was, whether it was an injurious precedent
they were about to make in depriving the bishop they
were going to create of all the rights and dignities which
his predecessors in the Church had enjoyed. The only
reason he had heard fur not following out the arrange-
ment was that which had fallen from the Noble Lord—
namely, that, on account of striking out the words ob-
jected to in the preamble, be felt authorised to pre-
vent the Bishop of Manchester from taking his seat
in the House of Lords. lie appealed to the Noble Lord
whether it was worth while to introduce this infrac-
tion on what he would call the constitution, and thus
to set a precedent which might inconveniently and
ejuriously, at a future period, be acted upon. He
put it to the Noble Lord whether it would not be
better to say, as there was to be a new bishop, who
district of which Manchester mightbe
was to have control over the clergy of the populous
the rights and privileges
wasmightbishopshouldbeadeocit
obother bishops?
invested with all
to mix in public life gwith statesmen, so that
bishopstheir shporuol
ce
adbdei called
aga i a
atanytime
conduct of bishops.
fHorecontended that modern
case it should be needed
bishop gave him '
times presented no occasion*
The seat possessed :by the
the
greater power ofgreaterbeing
influence among his clergy, and
feeling dissatisfaction at
admitted that inconvenience
in his ministry. He
bishops being obliged to ten"'arose from the fact of
remain in town during the sit-
ting of Parliament ; but this nucioenvenience amounted to
intraction of the very little in comparison with
con-
stitution which the proposed course. would commit. He
eo urle teb:
should, therefore, move that
t
TTORNEY-GENERALhudefeelnaduedse sthhd
struck The out.A
re
mnr. fLthAeWcted to the clause, as being un °natl.
tio-
oclaoubsj
e
tutional. He hoped the Noble Lord who had brought
forward this Bill, and by it was about to confer a benefit
on the Church and the country, would not be niggardly
in his gift, but make it worthy of their acceptance.
Lord CLIVE asked every Member who felt an inte-
rest in the spiritual welfare of the community, to support
the Government on this Bill, as by doing so they would
have four bishops instead of one.
Mr. NEWDEGATE objected to the clause.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL said that the Bill had passed
the House of Lords, where there were bishops to object
if the Church was likely to suffer by the exclusion of
this bishop from the House, and as they had agreed to
it he did not see that any reasonable objection could be
made to it, for no one could doubt that they were, at
least, competent to give an opinion on the matter. He
could not but agree with the Hon. and Learned Gentle-
man who had introduced the amendment, that, according
to the constitution and the law, a bishop, upon his
being created such, had a right to his writ of summons
to the House of Lords. No man disputed that. But it
did not follow that if Parliament should give the right
to the Crown to appoint to a new bishopric, the Parlia-
ment could not attach to that appointment any condi-
tion which it might see fit. If the Crown were called
upon, ex debitejustitiez, to call all bishops to Parliament,
there would at once be an end to the question of prero-
gative ; but he contended that it was not invaded by the
clause under their consideration. But then, said the
Hon. and Learned Member for the University of Cam-
bridge, raising another objection, the provision con-
tained iu the clause was one not affecting the now

bishopric only, but it went to curtail the rights and pri-
vileges which had attached to old bishoprics for bun-
dreds of years. No doubt that right of sitting in Parlia-
ment had existed since the time of Henry VIII. ; but
the question was, whether, under all the circumstances
of the case, the provision contained in the Bill was not
expedient both for the Church and for the country?
With respect to that question, the Noble Lord the Mem-
ber for Shropshire had laid down the true policy which
ought to be pursued. He (Lord J Russell) believed
that if the interests of the Church required it, they
ought to increase the number of bishops; but he also
believed that, if in that question was involved the pos-
session of further temporal power by the Church—if
they could not add to the spiritual force of the Church,
without also increasing her temporal power, then natu-
rally, and he believed justly, objections would be raised
up to such a scheme. He said justly, because the Church
of Scotland and the great body of the Dissenters in
England would have a perfect right to say that all laws
affecting them were obliged to be considered in the
House of Lords; therefore they objected to any increase

of the power of the Church of England in that branch
of the Legislature. The scheme would be objected
to because of the temporal advantages which it would
give to one body of Christians over all others not
in communion with her, and he would consider
that argument a fair one. The Honourable and
Learned Gentleman had said there was no precedent
for the plan. He considered that the precedent
was !formed in the case of the bishops in Ireland.
By a system of rotation those bishops el joyed a seat in
the House of Lords for a certain period, and then for a
certain nnmber of years that privilege ceased. But,
said the lion. and Learned Gentleman, it is the same
with the temporal Peers. No doubt they were in the
same position, but he did not think that that affected in
any degree the position which he had taken. We see
that that provision takes place is Ireland, and does not
tend to the injury of the Church in Ireland. For these
reasons he was of opinion that the Committee should
adopt the Bill as it then stood. He believed that it was
more for the advantage of the Church to adopt it as it
stood than it would be to introduce the Bishop of Man-
chester as an additional bishop into the House of Lords.
He agreed with the Right Hon. Gentleman that if he
were contented not to contemplate any increase at any
time in the number of bishops, he thought the argu-
ment might remain, and that there should be no intro-
duction of new bishops into the House of Lords ; and
being or that opinion, he did not think' that they ought
now to make an exception which might never again be
altered or liable to variation. He believed that the
scheme now proposed was the best, and he hoped, there-
fore, that the Committee would agree to the clause.
Sir T. D. ACLAND thought the creation of a new
bishopric would be attended with many serious imprac-
ticabilities. However he would accept it as a sort of
instalment of that which they ought long ago to have had.
Mr. ROEBUCK objected to the clime.
Mr. M. J. O'CONNELL thought that it would be the
best thing that could be done to meet the spiritual
exigencies of this country to create the new bishopric,
bur he did not see how the spiritual exigencies
of the community would be met by giving the proposed
bishop a seat in the House of Lords. He thought that
giving it to him would be more likely to distract his
attention from the care of his flock.,

Mr. AGLIONBY supported the retention of the
clause.

The House then divided, and there appeared—
For the clause
Against it
Majority

On our return to the gallery,
Lord JOHN RUSSELL was stating that, with respect
to the third and fourth clauses' he thought they might
well be posstponed.—(Hear.) The third related to the
endowment of deans of York and Salisbury, and the
fourth to the endowment of archdeaconries.
Clause 5 was agreed to.

The remaining clauses were then agreed to, and the
report was ordered to be brought up this day (Tuesday.)
THE LORDS' AMENDMENTS TO THE POOR.