MR. WILLIS'S MOTION ON THE BISHOPS.
MR. WILLIS is to move on Friday next the following resolution :—" That the legislative power of Bishops in the House of Peers, in Parliament, is a great hindrance to the discharge of their spiritual function, prejudicial to the Commonwealth, and fit to be taken away by Bill." We observe, moreover, that the Society whose great object it is to promote the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church, gives its cordial support to this resolution, which is public- spirited in its managers, seeing that our own conviction,—that no step would have a greater tendency than this to diminish the public support given to that Society,—is, we are sure, shared by a great many of its leading adherents. Indeed, it is obvious enough, and almost self-evident, that any change which at one and the same time promoted a better organi- sation of the Church, and also diminished materially the number of invidious positions which the Bishops now find them- selves compelled to take up, would greatly contribute to their own popularity, as well as that of the Church, and attenuate the cry against the Church. Just as the Burials Act, which was carried against the angry protest of many of the Bishops, and certainly not in consequence of the hearty initiative of any of them, has unquestionably reduced extremely the active opposition to the Establishment, so the retirement of the Bishops from Parliament in order to promote the proper work of their dioceses, would still further reduce the aggressive feel- ing with which the Established Church is viewed by those who fret under what they deem the narrow-minded and sometimes narrow-hearted Conservatism of its rulers. We entirely believe that the Liberation Society recognise this, and that they well know that if, by good-fortune, the Bishops should be excluded from the House of Lords before the general question of the Establishment comes up for practical discus- sion, the Liberation Society would be greatly losers, and not gainers by the result. It is creditable to them that, in spite of this, they are willing to push forward the agitation of a subject on which success, if success could be achieved, would be injurious to their larger hopes. For our own parts, we should desire to see all• the Bishops (excepting, perhaps, the two Archbishops), excluded from the House of Lords, partly because we believe that it would materially strengthen the Establishment to exclude them, and partly because we are convinced, in spite of a remarkable testimony of -Mr. Gladstone's to their value as life peers, that they do not, and in all probability could not, properly discharge their general duties as life peers, while they un- questionably discharge in a most one-sided fashion their special duties as spiritual peers. The best of all the Bishops are for the most part "conspicuous by their absence " from the House of Lords, and for the best of all reasons,—that their diocesan work is so heavy, that they have not time to give to the debates of the House of Lords, still less, time to prepare for those debates in the only way that would enable them to take an efficient part in them. When they do appear in the House at all on a question of general policy,—which is now oftener the exception than the rule,—they only vote, and almost always vote with the Conservatives. In other words, as general life peers they are either useless, or only swell the phalanx of Lord Salisbury. They hardly pretend even to apply spiritual principles to the discussion of foreign policy, or the game laws, or the land laws, or the representation of the people. We do not reproach them with this, because we recognise fully that they have other more urgent duties which interfere with these ; but then, that is just the reason why it seems to us impossible to plead their claim as life peers to a seat in the House of Lords. They are prevented by their chief responsibilities from worthily discharging the responsibili- ties of life peers. And therefore, it is clear that if we are to get good life peers at all, they cannot possibly be Bishops. No doubt, a number of really efficient life peers sitting in the places of the Bishops would greatly in- crease the efficiency of the House of Lords. But the Bishops can never increase its efficiency in this way. They have not the training, they have not the time, and apparently we may say that they have not the courage. Nor do we even affirm that they ought to have the courage for such a task. It may be quite true that a great episcopal life peer who should speak his own mind without the smallest regard to the scandal which he might produce amongst the clergy by speaking it, would sacrifice needlessly a real influence over the clergy which he ought to possess, for a rather unreal influence in the House of Lords, which it might be of very little use for him to gain. We rather think that the Bishops are right in eschewing general politics as much as they do. Indeed, we believe that they would do better to vote on general politics much less frequently than they do. But this is only saying in another form that for nine questions out of ten the Bishops are, and must remain, very inefficient Members of the Legislature. And that is precisely the truth.
But even on the tenth question,—which may concern (say) the law of burial, or the law of marriage, or the law regu- lating the sale of intoxicating liquors, or the law affecting Sunday recreations,—the Bishops are not, in our opinion, in their place as members of the House of Lords, though they are quite in their place in doing whatever they think needful to influence the minds of their clergy and the convictions of the laity in their dioceses. The reason why we do not think them in their places in the House of Lords in determining legislation on this kind of subject is, that they are almost necessarily re- garded by the English public as advocates, and not Judges in relation to them ; while if they are advocates, then the advo- cates on the other side, advocates of the religious views of Non- conformists and Roman Catholics, ought to be admitted too. No doubt, this deficiency in impartiality is characteristic of the House of Lords in general when it is dealing with territorial questions, or with questions of rank and aristocratic privilege. A disqualification for impartial judgment is, to some extent, indeed, inseparable from the very constitution of the House of Lords. But it is, in our opinion, very much more pre- judicial to the proper influence of the Bishops that they sit as Judges in causes in which they are necessarily advocates, than it can be to .the territorial aristocracy that, in dealing with property in land, they do the same. The proper influ- ence of the Bishops should be spiritual. The proper influence of the territorial aristocracy is not chiefly of that nature. It may be said that the latter are in the House of Lords for the very purpose partly, of defending their own interests,--and though by doing so they may sometimes alienate the sympathy of the nation, yet they do not injure any important extra- Parliamentary influence of their own by thus alienating the
nation. The territorial Peerage has no such influence outside Parliament, that they have need to be very cautious what they do in Parliament, lest they should injure it. But the Bishops often have, and always ought to have, such an influence ; and unquestionably they greatly diminish it, instead of increasing it, as a class, by bringing on themselves the poli- tical odium of throwing out Burial Bills, Marriage Bills, Bills for diminishing intoxication, Bills for enlarging the number of Sunday recreations, and so forth, in relation to which their influence as advocates would be all the greater, if their influ- ence as final arbiters in the Legislative Chamber were not so great. This is especially true, for example, as regards the in- fluence of the Bishops over the question of the Establishment itself. Who does not feel that it makes it much more difficult to defend the Establishment, that there are so many Peers of Parliament who would lose their high position in life by Disestablishment, and whose votes, therefore, against Disesta- blishment will always be regarded with suspicion and dislike?
But, after all, the great reason for excluding the Bishops from the House of Lords is the worldly importance attaching to their position as Peers. Even now, does not every one recognise the far higher spiritual influence possessed in the Church by the Bishop who never plays the magnate in the House of Lords, but who is only the most hard-working of all his clergy, and shares equally in all their difficulties and tasks It is the pomp of the Establishment which makes the Establishment difficult to reconcile with that Gospel to the poor,.—first published by poor fishermen,—which the Established Church preaches ; and the pomp of the Establishment is chiefly illustrated by the posi- tion of the Bishops in the House of Lords. We do not feel the smallest doubt that that position is one of those " deck cargoes" which endanger the safety of the Church, and make it an anxious question how far her connection with the State will weather the next storm. A class of magnates in the Church who occupy positions in Parliament which they do not even pretend to fill, who have the power not merely of expressing unpopular opinions on the greater religious questions of the day,—to that they have a right which no one would challenge,—but of giving effect to that opinion by a legislative vote, which represents only one of the many Churches into which England is divided, though all the other Churches think themselves at least equally entitled to pass their own judgments,—such a class of magnates excite a jealousy and aversion entirely different in kind from the feelings which they excite as the mere trustees of that part of the national property devoted to spiritual purposes. We may de- pend upon it that if this "deck cargo "were thrown overboard, the ship would be far more seaworthy than before. It would be something that the Bishops of the Established Church would provoke much fewer jealousies and hatreds than before. It would be a great deal more that the clergy would perform their explicit duties so much more effectually under the steady superintendence of Bishops who did not live half the year in London. It would be most of all that the fathers of the Church would inspire a vast deal more personal reverence and regard. Hence, we heartily wish to see such a resolution as Mr. Willis's carried in the House of Commons.
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