Mr. Bell Cox has written to Mr. Hakes, who prosecuted
him for adopting a ritual not in harmony with the decisions of certain Privy Council judgments, offering to conform his proce- dure at St. Margaret's, Aigburth, near Liverpool, to the decision of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Bishop of Lincoln's case, in all respects in which that procedure is not already in con- formity with the Primate's judgment, if Hakes will stay the prosecution. Mr. Hakes, however, is only irritated by the offer. It is evidently the greatest sin of Mr. Bell Cox, in the eyes of Mr. Hakes, that he prefers the judgment of such a Court as the Archbishop's to that of such a Court as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and Mr. Hakes re- plies sternly that it is submission to the law of the land, not to an Ecclesiastical Court which is not the highest and against which an appeal has been lodged, that he requires. If Mr. Bell Cox likes to shelter himself under a Bishop's authority, let him take the Bishop of Liverpool, who is against the Archbishop's ruling. As for Archbishop Benson, or even Archbishop Magee, grim Mr. Hakes will have none of them. So the litigation is to go on.
Previous page
