STATE CHURCH.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 841, 16 March 1903, Page 2

STATE CHURCH.

THE BISHOPS’ VETO.

STRONG SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright

Received 5 p.m., March 15. London, March 15. Mr Melver’s bill, which was read a second time by I‘JO to 160, proposes to strengthen existing machinery and deprive contumacious offenders oi benefices instead of imprisonment, and abuhsff tho uislups’ veto. The hill was not treated as a Government questiou. Mr Balfour, expressing a personal view, blamed the extremists on both sides. Tho bishops, he said, had striven to repress illegalities, but bad not fully realised tho depths of bitterness in tho City, and tho feelings towards Romanizing practices. Laxity, had boon allowed to grow up, aud it was impossible to suppress it by a violent stroke. Personal influence had effected a groat improvement. In no instance hs;d Bjere been an exercise of tho veto by tLu j Present bishops, aud abolition of the rigCFwould not remedy the difficulty. Ho would not consent to transfer the laity's rights to the common informer. Illegalities must bo suppressed, but not by alienation of tho great body of opinion absolutely loyal to tho church. Ho emphasised tho Archbishop of Canterbury’s declaration. He blamed the groat historio moderate high church party for not assisting the laity in the past. He would have supported the second reading of the bill had Mr Molvers' followers agreed to send this aud Mr Gripp’s measure to a select committee. Spiritual authority alone could keep the church within propor lines. Sir W. V. Harcourt declared that tho abolition of the veto would produce different results in different dioceses. Mr Cripp’s bill providos for a collective voto.

The minority included Mr Balfour and most of tho Ministers, ten Nationalists, Buxton, and Burns. Tho mujority included fiity Radicals. Sixty Unionists abstained from voting.