Mr. Cross's Benefices Bill proposes to enact that if any
.pereon obtains a next presentation, either by purchase of
sthe next presentation- simply, or by purchase of the advow-son with an arrangement for procuring a vacancy, or by purchase of the advowson when the incumbent is known to he in extremis, the presentation shall be void, and the 'bishop (not the Crown, as in " simony " cases) shall present. But the Bill is not to interfere with a presentation made in good faith by a mortgagee of the advowson as trustee for the mortgagor. We should support this measure heartily if we could think that it would cure the disease, but it --seems to us that the proposed law could and would be evaded every whit as easily as that which now exists. Somebody or some Body -must present ; what we want is, that the presentation shall be a Zonci ,fide selection of a fit person. The clerical purchase system -as it obtains at present is objectionable not simply as such, but because it offers no guarantee that the transferee of the prefer- -meat is a fitting person to fill it. If that objection can be got rid -of, purchase may be no more objectionable than any other means -of selection. Is it not possible that the remedy may be found by -entrusting a supervising authority with the duty of investigating, more accurately than is now done, the competency (and not merely the morals) of the presentee, and, if necessary, of vetoing the presentation ? Suppose no clergyman could accept a living until he had served, say, a given number of years elsewhere, and that he should satisfy the supervising authority AS to his efficiency 'there?
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