Committee report Progress; to sit 1, line 14, after "decreet," insert "civil again upon Monday 19th June.

Report Union of Benefices (London) (101- | was joined. The Bill, as it stood, would 118); Imprisonment for Contumacy (103). do no one any harm. Third Reading Inclosure (Arkleside) Provisional Order (92); Inclosure (Bettws Disserth) Provisional Order* (93); Inclosure (Cefn Drawen) Provisional Order * (94); Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (95), and passed.

*

UNION OF BENEFICES (LONDON) BILL (The Lord Bishop of London.)

THE EARL OF POWIS begged to move, after Clause 14, to insert as a new Clause

(Provision for special services.)

"On the application of the patron of any church, and with the concurrence of the bishop of the diocese, the Commissioners may by any scheme under this Act provide for the appropriation of such church for holding services for sailors or any other special class of population, and for nominating and licensing, and for the

(NO. 101.) REPORT OF AMENDMENTS. Amendments reported (according to remuneration of any spiritual person or persons

order).

to serve such church, subject to the provisions of section nineteen of the Act twenty-third and twenty-fourth Victoria, chapter one hundred ments, and also for the application of any reand forty-two, with respect to repair and monu

church in furtherance of the objects of the scheme: Provided that on a representation by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to the effect that such appropriation has become unnecessary, Her Majesty in Council may at any time approve any scheme to determine such appropriation and provide for the future use and appropriation of the church and its endowments, if any."

THE BISHOP OF LONDON said, he had no objection to the Amendment. The object of the Bill was to remove the churches which had no adequate use; but if churches could be made useful for services for sailors and the like, by all means let them stand. If an appropriation of that kind was found on trial to be inexpedient, power was given to the Commissioners to determine it.

EARL NELSON said, he wished to ask a question as to Clause 10, which said that certain sections of a certain Act al-pair funds or endowments belonging to such ready in existence should be incorporated into this Act. That mode of legislating was, he was sorry to say, now very often adopted; but it was a slovenly and objectionable way of proceeding. In the first place, it was very difficult for a person who did not know the old Act to understand what was done; and, in the second place, it was very hard to amend the imported clauses. Under the section with regard to the appropriation of seats in the case of the church of a united parish, while reserving half seats free, power was given to the Bishop to appropriate the remaining seats. In the City churches there were a great many old appropriated seats. When he was a Member of one of the Committees on this question, he found that the Sheriffs and Lord Mayor had certain rights to seats in a great number of those churches. If their rights were taken away in regard to other churches, the Bishop had the power by this clause to make up for the deprivation by giving them seats in the churches of the united parishes. As many of the old churches were doing good work, because they had entirely thrown open the seats, it seemed very hard, when the parishes were united, that the Bishop should turn half these seats into appropriated seats.

THE BISHOP OF LONDON said, it appeared to him that the difficulty was a small one, as no church would be pulled down where there was any large body of parishioners; but where there were a few persons left in a parish, who were entitled to appropriated seats in the church pulled down, they should be in the same manner accommodated with seats in the church to which their parish

Amendment agreed to.

Bill to be read 3 on Tuesday next; and to be printed as amended. (No. 118.)

IMPRISONMENT FOR CONTUMACY

BILL.-(No. 103.)

(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.) REPORT OF AMENDMENTS.

Amendments reported (according to order).

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE said, that having made his protest against the Bill on the second reading, believing that the measure would encourage lawlessness in the Church, he did not propose to offer opposition to it on the present occasion. He desired, however, to move an Amendment similar to that brought forward by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, and in

troduced into the Public Worship Act (1874) Amendment Bill, an Amendment enabling the ecclesiastical authorities to deprive contumacious clergymen of their livings. He did not see anything in the circumstances of the Bill of last year to warrant the addition of this provision, which was not to be found in the circumstances of the present measure.

Moved, after Clause 2, insert the following Clause:

(Party not to be released from further observance of justice.)

"Such party or person shall not by reason of his discharge in manner aforesaid be released from further observance of justice in the suit in which he has been pronounced in contempt: Provided always, that no further proceeding shall be taken in such suit unless the bishop of the diocese certify in writing under his hand that the party or person has since his release from custody had an opportunity of submitting

year

THE LORD CHANCELLOR said, he had not receded from the view he held on this point last year. The law must be enforced, and disobedience to it could not be by that House allowed, whether in an ecclesiastical or any other matter. But this Bill was differently framed from the one of last Session, both in other respects, and particularly because it contained a provision under which the released clergyman would be liable to be imprisoned again if he should again be guilty of contempt or contumacy, and if the promoters of the suit should apply for it. Besides, this Bill was only a temporary one, and was intended merely to provide a remedy for an imprisonment of unreasonable duration until the Commission now inquiring into the Ecclesiastical Courts had reported upon such alterations as they might recommend to be made in the law, and until Parliament should have had an opportunity of considering such recommendations. This Bill would practically apply to only one special case, and there was no reason to apprehend that any other case would have to be considered while the measure remained in operation. The effect of the Bill would simply be to release the cler

to his admonitions and has failed to submit to the same. And upon such certificate being filed in the registry of the Court in which such suit shall be depending (whether the same shall have been instituted under the Act for better enforcing Church Discipline passed in the fourth of Her present Majesty, or under the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874,) the said Court shall issue against such party or person, being an incumbent within the meaning of the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874, for the purpose of enforcing obedience to the monitions or moni-gyman referred to; and if he, after his tion, orders or order, previously made in such suit, an inhibition, which shall have the same force and effect in all respects as if the same had

been a second inhibition issued within three years from the relaxation of an inhibition under

the thirteenth section of the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874; and from and after the time when such inhibition shall have been duly served upon such party or person, or after the expiration of the time (if any) during which the effect of such inhibition may have been postponed by the bishop, pursuant to the power in that behalf given to him by the said thirteenth section of the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874, every such benefice or other ecclesiastical

such inhibition had been a second inhibition

release, repeated his contumacy, he must immediately be put in prison again, if the promoters of the suit thought fit to to press for it.

There was nothing in the Bill which permitted contempt and contumacy to pass unpunished, although it was true that no other punishment but imprisonment could be inflicted under it. On a former occasion, he (the Lord Chancellor) had stated, that the inhibition in the case of the Rev. F. S. Green was issued on the 16th August 1879, and consequently, that, unless he complied with the provisions of the Act, he would be deprived at the end of three years—namely, on the 16th August next. Since he made that state

preferment held by such party or person as is mentioned in the thirteenth section of the Public Worship Regulation Act, 1874, shall become void in the same manner and with the same effects and consequences in all respects as if duly issued under and by virtue of the thir-ment he had seen an opinion expressed teenth section of the last-mentioned Act: Provided also, that in any case in which such inhibition shall have been issued, no further signification of any sentence of contumacy or contempt shall be made against the same party or person with a view to the issuing of a writ De contumace capiendo under the provisions of the Act passed in the fifty-third year of King George the Third, intituled An Act for the better Regulation of Ecclesiastical Courts in England, and for the more easy recovery of Church Rates and Tithes,' or of any Act amending the same."(The Lord Oranmore and Browne)

by others, that the three years should run from the monition, which was in this case issued on the 27th day of June, 1879; and, therefore, that the three years would expire on the 27th of this month. But the clause was very singularly worded; it spoke of the inhibition as "remaining in force" for three years from the date of the monition. It ought not to be construed loosely against the subject; at all events, there was room

for serious difference of opinion as to | Second Reading. Local Government (Ireland)