The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—A suit of considerable interest in its
bearing on the question of the Colonial Episcopate
was yesterday decided by the Master of the Rolls
in favour of Bishop Colenso. The proceeding arose
out of the judgment of the Privy Council on the
"Colenso Case in March, 1865"—a judgment of
which the effect was to disturb almost all received
opinions as to the constitutional position of the
Colonial Church. The Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council did not, indeed, negative the right of
Bishop Colenso to assume the episcopal character,
or that of Bishop Gray to call himself Metropolitan
of the South African Church, whatever spiritual
authority such titles may import ; but they denied
that any coercive jurisdiction could be exercised by
either, inasmuch as the patents which purported to
confer that jurisdiction were null and void in law.
They declared that " there was no power in the
Crown, by virtue of its prerogative, to establish a
metropolitan see or province, or to create an eccle-
siastical corporation whose status, rights, and
authority the colony should be bound to recognise."
" It may be true that the Crown, as legal head of
the Church, has a right to command the consecra-
tion of a bishop, but it has no power to assign him
any diocese, or give him any sphere of action,"
either within the United Kingdom or within any
colony which has received legislative institutions,
unless by special provisions of an Act of Parliament.
Upon the delivery of this judgment Bishop Colenso
applied to the trustees of the " Colonial Bishoprics'
Fund" for the arrears of the income annually payable
out of . that fund to the bishopric of Natal, which
had been withheld and carried to a separate account
since his illegal deposition in the previous year. The
trustees, however, among whom are the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Mr. Gladstone, Vice-Chancellor Page
Wood, and Mr. Hubbard, took a different view of
their duty. They contended that, inasmuch 'as
Bishop Colenso was not a suffragan bishop within
the Province of Cape Town, he was not a bishop at
all in the sense contemplated by the original promo-
ters of the fund, and could receive no benefit from
it. They did not, so far as we arc aware, draw the
corresponding inference that Bishop Gray, having
no such metropolitan jurisdiction as was contem-
plated in the endowment of his See, was also disen-
titled to his salary ; still less did they apply the
same principle, by parity of reasoning, to other
colonial diocesans. Bishop Colenso, therefore, sought
redress from the Court of Chancery, and Lord
Romilly has allowed his claim, condemning the de-
fendants in the general costs of the suit. The
grounds of this important decision, though somewhat
complicated in their nature, are happily removed
almost equally from the province of technical law
and of technical theology. It would have been pos-
sible to raise issues of the latterkind had the trustees
, thought proper to rely on Bishop Colenso's alleged
heresy ; but no such defence was pleaded, and the
matter really turned upon two points—the inten-
tions of those who subscribed to the Colonial
Bishoprics' Fund, and the legal consequences of the
Privy Council judgment. Now, as the greater part
of the endowment for the See of Natal was provided
by Miss Burdett Coutts, the simplest plan would
obviously have been to remove all doubts by a refer-
ence to that lady. The law, however, does not
allow legal acts to be modified or reversed by sub-
sequent verbal explanations, and, although a letter
from Miss Coutts was read by the Court, it was not
received as a conclusive piece of evidence. Miss
,Coutts has, perhaps, more reason than any other
person to complain of the blunders which have defeated
in some degree the objects of her munificence, and
she plainly states that she would not have guaranteed
the funds had she not believed that a bishopric, in
the full Church of England sense, and with " effec-
tive jurisdiction," could he established in the colony
of Natal. Of course, she had still less idea of help-
ing to found a Church of South Africa repu-
diating the supremacy of the Crown, and claiming
an ecclesiastical jurisdiction from which there would
be no appeal. Stijl, as Lord Romilly observed,
iynoratio juris neminent excusat, and parties must be
presumed to act subject to the existing provisions of
the law. " Effective jurisdiction," if by that term
be meant a jurisdiction like that conferred by acts
of Parliament on English bishops, cannot be exer-
cised under letters patent in any colony where there
is an independent Legislature, and where there is no
Established Church. On the other hand, Lord
Romilly seems to hold that " effective jurisdiction"
—founded, we presume, on contract—may be exer-
cised by the Bishop of Natal through the agency of
the civil tribunals, so that Miss Coutts's intentions
cannot be said to have been altogether frustrated by
the judgment of the Privy Council. According to
the doctrine laid down by him, the letters patent,
though void for the purpose of giving coercive juris-
diction, are valid for two other distinct purposes.
They enabled Bishop ColenSo, after his own conse-
cration by the archbishop, to confer ordination, to
consecrate churches, and to hold confirmations,
even beyond the limits of his own diocese, since
these:are powers universally belonging to a bishop
as such. But they also made him " a territorial
bishop within the diocese of Natal," with the right
of appointing officers, and of collating persons to
benefices, though without that of enforcing obedience
without recourse to the secular courts. This last
prerogative, valuable as it may be, is not essential
to episcopacy, and the Master of the Rolls declines
to unsettle the whole organisation of the Colonial
Church by pronouncing Dr. Colenso to be no
bishop of Natal, because he does not possess it.
Whether or not Lord Romilly's exposition of
the law be confirmed on appeal, it is much to be
regretted that such a course should have been
adopted, doubtless frcm the most conscientious
motives, by the eminent trustees of the fund. It
was an ill-advised measure to refuse Bishop Colenso
his salary upon his so-called deprivation by a so-
called Synod, owning no allegiance to any recog-
nised power in Church or State. It was still more
questionable, when the illegality of the sentence had
been affirmed by the Court of Final Appeal, to
change the ground of the refusal, and to allege rea-
sons which, if good at all, were equally good against
Bishop Gray. It is inevitable that his success in
resisting a blockade of this kind should be hailed as
a triumph by his friends, while a different result
would probably have failed to dislodge him from his
see. At the same time, it is highly desirable that a
basis should be laid by judicial interpretation of the
existing laws for a legislative settlement of the ano-
malous relation between the British Crown, the
Church of England, and the Episcopal Churches of
the Colonies. The bill introduced last session by
Mr. Cardwell purported to be little more than an
embodiment of principles already sanctioned by the
Privy Council ; but it was received by one party in
the Church with a degree of favour which naturally
aroused the suspicions of the other. It would per-
haps have been well had no attempt been made by
the Legislature to extend the Anglican system of
the mother country to the colonies. The Church of
England is essentially an English institution.; it is
the product of historical conditions which never
existed in any other nation, and are never likely to
be repeated in any future age. Nor is it possible to
watch its adaptation to modern colonial society
without a certain sense of its incongruity. If we
could begin again with the advantage of past expe-
rience, few statesmen and few Churchmen would
fall into the errors which have almost brought about
a dead-lock in the ecclesiastical government of
South Africa. As it is, we must retrace our false
steps as best we may. If the laity as well as the
clergy of Episcopal Churches in our colonies desire
complete independence, let it be conceded freely;
but let us not give the sanction of a Royal Patent
and of a solemn consecration by the Primate of All
England to Bishops over whom no control can be
exercised either by our Civil or by our Spiritual
Courts.

HERALD.—Mr. Bright has drawn down upon
himself a severe rebuke and damaging exposure
from Mr. Pope Hennessy, which will be all the more
effective from the courteous tone and temperate lan-
guage in which it is administered. In the course of
one of his Irish speeches, in which he endeavoured
to lay all the grievances and misfortunes of Ireland
to the charge of the Conservatives, the agitator re-
ferred to Mr. Henessey as a gentleman who had
always acted with the party which supports the
wrongs of Ireland. We have often had occasionito
differ with Mr. Hennessy on Irish questions ; and
the better on that account should we know how

utterly unfounded and unprovoked is Mr. Bright's
wanton attack upon his political course. Mr. Hew
nessy has been from first to last the untiring, bide-
fatigable advocate of what he conceives to be the
rights and interests of his country, and particularly
of her tenant-farmers. He has risked' his position
and popularity in the House of Commons by the
urgency with which, in season and out of season, he
has pressed the importance of Irish questions upon
the Imperial Legislature, and wearied it with ar,
peals on behalf of tenant-right, with deicriptions
Irish distress, and demands for votes of money for
public works in the sister island. It is no slight
proof of presumption on Mr. Bright's part, no nie"
significant symptom of the real motives which inne;
euce his sudden affectation of sympathy with Irish
troubles, that he should have made before an Irish •
audience this groundless and reckless onslaught on
a man who has laboured incessantly in the cause
which he has only taken up at the last moment to
serve ends of his own in which Ireland has little or
no concern. Mr. Hennessy's reply affords a CO?
plete vindication of himself, and retorts with telling
severity on his assailant. The O'Donoghue presided
at Mr. Bright's meeting ; and Mr. Hennessy quote.s
a brief note from The. O'Donoghue expressing hi!
hope that Mr. Hennessy may again be returned to
Parliament, where he has always acted as a tre?,
friend of Ireland should act. Mr. Hennessy recites
the history of his repeated efforts to compel a settle"
went of the tenant-right question ; and he asks
where, on each occasion, was Mr. Bright. Nowhere' -
He never spoke, he never voted, in favour of the
object which has suddenly become so dear to hi"
He always avoided the house when it was to be dis-,
cussed. He never troubled himself to master the
f
facts, or lend his powerful voice to the supPor,o„
the one principle in which, rightly or wrongly, liu"
mass of the Irish people take a keen and eager in-
terest. He can flatter and coax the Irish ; can de
ceive them by ascribing all their misfortunes to ul7,
and malevolent legislation ; can abuse the landlords
who have done more in one year for her welfare
than he in all his lifetime; can insult and strive t°
discredit her most faithful representatives, because._
they do not lend their aid to his selfish aims or act
with the faction of which he is the chief ; but h:
cannot take the trouble to do one stroke of real NW':
for her benefit. Whenever a special Irish interest
has been advocated in the House of Commons Ml'
Bright has either voted with the opponents of Ww
Irish members, or has more frequently stayed aw,l3
to avoid compromising his chance of conciliating
support of Irish ignorant; and prejudice; his fei,
lowers have invariably voted against every attempt
which has been made to obtain relief for Irish di.ei
tress or the expenditure of money on Imp
works in Ireland. He and his followers gave the;
most eager adhesion to the financial nolicy Nvsle„f
cheapened the luxuries of the rich at the expense
taxes levied on the luxuries of the poor ; which I.`"
duced by three-fourths the duty on French wines,
and doubled the duty on Irish' whisky, and thus
shutting up, as Mr. Hennessy affirms, half the dis;
tillers in the country. This is the story of 11l r
man who takes upon him to point out as a trait°
to Irish interests their most earnest, able, lode;
fatigable advocate ; it is by one who has been toe
idle to give an hour of real thought or effort for to;
benefit of Ireland that Irishmen are to be schooled:
in the choice of their representatives, and leeturr.
on the imprudence of trusting a Conservative Irish"
man.