The Bishop of Natal is to have his arrears of
salary. On Tuesday the Master of the Rolls (Lord Rornilly) -gave judgment in his favour against the Trustees of the Colonial Bishopric Fund. His Lordship pointed out that the said trustees had withheld pay- ment ort grounds which would have equally justified them in withholding it from Bishop Gray or Bishop Selwyn, and that those grounds were bad. The pleadings of the trustees had averred that the Colonial Bishopric Fund had been subscribed to secure the advantages of real pastoral authority in the colonial Churches, and that if, as the judgment of the Privy Council in the case of "The Bishop of Natal versus the Bishop of Capetown " had seemed to declare, neither had the colonial Bishops any power to enforce discipline on their clergy, nor any need to obey their own metropolitan, that end was not answered, and the fund was being misappropriated. Lord Romilly declared that this was a mistaken interpretation of the Privy Council's decision. That decision had only declared the Episcopal patents void so far as they affected to establish Ecclesiastical Courts and ecclesiastical juris- diction in colonies already possessing representative institutions. The patents, however, are good for every other purpose. More- over, the colonial Bishops will have real and effective control. over their clergy by the help of the ordinary Civil Courts of the colonies, which will interpret conformity to the Church of England as a contract to abide by the doctrine and dis- cipline of the Church of England, as interpreted in the English Ecclesiastical Courts and Court of Appeal. A bishop has no judicial position in the colonies, but his reasonable acts, so far as they are in conformity with the English Church by custom and constitution, will be sustained by the Civil Courts and the Court of Appeal,—the Privy Council in England. Thus he has all the practical jurisdiction contemplated when the Colonial Bishopric Fund was formed, and the trustees are bound to pay the arrears of salary to Dr. Colenso. If they choose to maintain that he ha forfeited his contract rights by breaking faith with the Church in his heresies,—that course would be still open to them, and would be matter for a new and distinct action. It is not yet known whether the decision will be appealed against.
