The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-12 00:00:00

SANI rARY CONFERENCE.

In reply to questions fronaMl:-.UIIQVHART,
Lord PALMERSTON said that the British Govern-
ment had accepted the invitation of the French Govern-
ment to take part in a sanitary conference which
was to open in Paris on the 18th of tho present
month, fur the purpose of deliberating on measures
to relax the present severity of the quarantine regula-
tions of Europe. A medical man and a consular agent
had been deputed by the British Government. With
regard to the Greek claims, the commissioners appointed
by England, Franca, and Greece had decided that 1501.
should be paid to Mr. Pacifico in compensation
for the expenco to which he had been put in sup-
plyirg the place of certain documents relating to his
claims on tho Portuguese, documents which had been
destroyed by them at Athens.

COURT OF CHANCERY AND JUDICIAL CONE-

MITTEE BILL.

On the motion for the third reading of this Bill,
Mr. M. MILNES rose for the purpose of giving a
denial to the statements which had been made with re-
g,arcl to the Biehop of St. David'6 ; but he was inter-
rupted by
The SPEAKER, who informed the Hon. Gentleman
that, the remarks he was making had no reference to the
subject before the House.

Lord J. RUSSELL suggested that the lion. Member
should defer the subject until the motion for going into
Committee of Supply.
The question that the Court of Chancery and Judicial
Committee Bill should be read a third time having then
been put,
Sir H. WILLOUGHBY said he did not object to the
Bill, but he objected to the proposed mode of paying
the new judges. He thought that payment ought not
to be made out of the suitors' fund. He repeated that
he did not mean to oppose the passing of the Bill, but he
protested against its being considered a measure of Chan-
cery reform, for it would merely strengthen the judicial
staff in the Court of Chancery, while it would leave the
flagrant abuses of the court wholly untouched. He hoped
that for these abuses some efficient remedy would yet be
devised.

Sir G. STRICKLAND said he agreed with the Hon.
Baronet opposite (Sir H. Willoughby) that that could not
be considered as a measure of Chancery reform such as
the public had at length began loudly to demand. He en-
tirely concurred in the statement of the Right Honourable
Baronet the Member for Ripon (Sir James Graham) that
the Bill began at the wrong end, for it merely increased
the means of carrying out the present most imperfect Chan-
cery system, instead of effecting a complete reform of that
system. He knew a case in which the Court of Chancery
had spent nine years in deciding upon the,preliminary points
of a suit, while the real merits of the suit had afterwards
been settled by a common law court in the course of nine
hours.

Lord J. RUSSELL said, that undoubtedly the Bill could
not be considered as a reform of the Court of Chancery ; but
he should observe that, in order to obtain that reform, it
was desirable that the heads of the Court should have at
their disposal some time for considering the best means of
carrying it into effect.
Mr. SLANEY said he did not mean to oppose the Bill.
But as he had been the Chairman of a Committee for in-
quiring into the mode in which the suits of persons engaged
in commercial transactions were conducted, he felt it his
duty to warn the House and the Government of the pressing
necessity of passing some measure for facilitating the settle-
ment of those suits. No judicial arrangements could be
more cumbersome, expensive, and unsatisfactory, than the
present mode of terminating before the Court of Chancery
disputes which arose out of commercial partnerships.
The Bill was then read a third time and passed.
SUPPLY.—THE BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S.

The order of the day for the House resolving itself into a
Committee of Supply having been read, and the question
having been put that the Speaker should leave the chair,
Mr. M. MILNES said he had been requested by the Bishop
of St. David's to give his unqualified contradiction to an
assertion which had been made the other evening by the Hon.
Baronet the Member for Marylebone. The Hon. Baronet
had asserted without proof that that distinguished prelate had
forbidden his archdeacons to visit that diocese. Now he
(Mr. M. Milnes) was authorised by the Bishop of St.
David's to say that he had never forbidden any arch-
deacon to visit any portion of that diocese. When he had
been raised to his present position in the diocese he had
found that the archdeacon generally had not been in the
habit of visiting it. He had found that one of the arch-
deacons had been the vicar of Carmarthen, with a large cure
and a small living; he had found that another archdeacon
had been the master of an academy at Edinburgh, and had
been residing altogether out of the diocese; and he had found
that the third archdeacon had been in the continual habit of
visiting his archceaconry. He (Mr. M. Milnea) was sure
that that distinguished prelate would be the last person to
wish to impose on that House in any way as to the con-
dition of his diocese, and he believed that the Right Rev.
Prelate agreed with the Hon. Baronet in all fundamental
points as to the duties of dignitaries of the Established
Church. It should be remembered that the archdeacons had
not been appointed by the Right Rev. Prelate, and that the
melancholy state of a large portion of his diocese had arisen
from circumstances over which he had no control. In his
(Mr. M. Milnes's) belief, the Hen. Baronet had no just
grounds for bringing forward a charge such as that he had
adduced against a prelate not more distinguished by his Eu-
ropean reputation for learning than by the simplicity and
frugality of his life and his Christian virtues.—(Hear,
hear.) The Hon. Baronet had on a former occasion charged
the Right Rev. Prelate in print with having appointed him-
self to the deanery of Brecon; and as the Hon. Baronet had
afterwards withdrawn the former charge, he (Mr. M.
Nlilnes) trusted that he would also think it his duty to with-
draw the assertion he had recently made.
Sir B. HALL said he had been asked to withdraw the
statement he had made the other evening, but he declined to
do any such thing. The statement he had made was this :
In discussing the condition of the diocese of St. David's, and
quoting from the reports laid before the House by the Com-
missioners appointed by the Right Hon. Baronet the Member
for Ripon to inquire into the state of education in Wales,
which report showed a most lamentable condition of the
churches in that diocese, he said, that notwithstanding the
fact that these reports had been laid before Parliament, not-
withstanding the fact that the greatest publicity had been
given to them, notwithstanding the fact that they had been
brought under the notice of the Right Rev. Prelate himself,
he had reason to believe that of the four archdeacons in that
diocese, not one had made a single visitation during the
eleven years Dr. Thirlwall had been bishop of the diocese.
He had further said that he had been informed, in the course
of conversation, by one of the archdeacons, that the Bishop
had prevented him from making a visitation. That was the
statement he had made to the House, and by that statement
he abided. It was for the Right Rev. Prelate himself to settle
the matter with the archdeacon who had given to him (Sir
B. Hall) the information on which he had founded his state-
ments. It so happened that that very morning he had
received a communication from the archdeacon to whom he
referred, enclosing a letter from the Bishop of the diocese,
and he thought his Hon. Friend would have done better if
he had waited till he could see the answer which he (Sir B.
Hall) was prepared to make to that communication, before
he had brought the subject under the notice of the House.
That answer to the archdeacon he had just concluded, and
had brought down with him to the House. In it he recalled
to the archdeacon a conversation he had with him in his
(Sir B. Hall's) own house, in the course of which he ex-
pressed his regret at the lamentable and disgraceful condi-
tion of the diocese of St. David's, as well as his regret that
the archdeacon had not made any visitation in the diocese;
while the rev. gentleman had told him in reply that he bad
been prepared to make a visitation, that he had got his
charge ready in the Welsh language, but that he had been
prevented by the Bishop from making the proposed visita-
tion. That was his statement, and by that statement he was
prepared to abide. He should further say that he bad never
seen any diocese or any place in the United Kingdom in so
disgraceful a state as the diocese of St. David's as regarded
the state of the churches. That declaration was corrobo-
rated by the evidence of the Government Commissioners, to
whom he had always referred. Any gentleman travelling
in that diocese will find the churches there without windows
and without roofs ; and yet the archdeacons were not allowed
to make any visitation.
Mr. MORRIS had never heard of the Bishop of St.
David's preventing his archdeacons from visiting their arch-
deaconries. He bore testimony to the excellent manner in
which the Bishop discharged his duties.