THE PARSONS STOP THE WAY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5016, 21 April 1877, Page 3

THE PARSONS STOP THE WAY.

(From The Times-)

It ia [difficult to contemplate with equanimity the proceeding we have now to record, day by day, in our law report. Great complaints, it will be remembered, have recently been expressed in our columns respecting the block of business by which the administration of the law is now obstructed. At the commencement of the present sittings about sixtyfour causes with witnesses and sixty causes without witnesses were waiting to bo heard in the Rolls Court : but it was stated the other day that the presence of the Master of Rolls would be required in the Court of Appeal during some part of the present sittings, and that while ho is so engaged the Rolls Court will bo closed, except for interlocutory business. Similarly, on Monday last, the Lords Justices James, Brarawell, and Amphlett were sitting at Lincoln’s Inn to hear an appeal requiring somewhat lengthened arguments, and it was announced that as two of their Lordships were engaged elsewhere after Monday, tho Court of Appeal would not sit at Lincoln’s Inn again for some days. It was asked on what day tho hearing of the appeal would again be taken, and Lord Justice James replied,—“No human being can toll when we shall be able to resume the hearing.” Tho reason for this obstruction of business, with the immense inconvenience it inflicts, is readily apparent from a glance at our Law Report. It is there seen that tho Judicial Committee of tho Privy Council are hearing an appeal in tho case of “Ridsdale v. Clifton,” known as “ tho Folkestone Ritual case,” and it has been thought necessary, for reasons to be presently noticed, to constitute a Court of exceptional strength. No fewer than ten Judges are included in it. The present Lord Chancellor and his predecessor, Lord Selborne, Lords Justices James, Brett, and Amphlett, tho Lord Chief Baron, Sir James Colville, Sir Robert Phillimoro, Sir Montague Smith, and Sir Robert Collier composed the committee, while the Archbishop of Canterbury and throe Bishops are sitting as assessors, and the Lord President of the Council has attended on two occasions. Tho committee have now sat four days, and three and a half of those days have been pcoupied by a single speech on behalf of the appellant. Another counsel is to-day to be heard on the same side ; there are two others with them, and two distinguished counsel have then to bo heard for the respondents. It ia evident that

Lord Justice James spoke with litoral accuracy when he said that no “ human being could tell” when the arguments iu the ca-.o would be exhausted. This is the reason why the sittings of the Court of Appeal at Lincoln’s Inn are suspended, and it is obvious that tiie judicial strength of the other Courts will be'tstraiued to the utmost.

What, it mast be asked, is the momentous matter for which the whole of our legal business is thus disarranged and obstructed ? Before answering this question it may be observed, in tlie first place, that whatever the character of the suit, it seems very unnecessary it should be heard before so large a Court. Beyond a certain number, little, if any, authority is named, and much convenience is sacrificed by increasing the number of Judges. Four or five Judges are sulliciont to iamre in almost any case a satisfactory decision, and the waste of judicial power now witnessed is therefore to some extent gratuitous. But it was found necessary, at all events, to constitute a Court of unusual strength ; and what, we repeat, are the matters to be decided ! Simply whether a clergyman of the Church of England ought to stand looking 'south or looking east, whether he may wear a garment more or loss, and use broad for sacred purposes in the form of a wafer instead of that of ordinary broad, and whether a crucifix and “twenty-four metal candlesticks with caudles” may bo placed cm the screen before the Chancel, It is understood that a considerable section of the clergy of the Church of England are intensely excited upon these points. One of them is now in gaol, not for offences against the law in these particulars, but for disobedience in some little ceremonies closely akin to them. It is apprehended that the peace of the Church may be imperilled and Establishment threatened witli a convulsion if the ruling ,by which those points are at present regulated is upheld. The time and the energy of all the Judges are consequently eimage’d in listening to arguments on such questions as whether a table not standing at a wall can be said to have any front or back to it ; whether, as Sir James Stephen thinks, two persons who are at opposite sides of such a table can both be said to be before it ; what is the definition of a wafer, as distinguished from ordinary bread ; whether the word “ wafer ” describes any substance at all, or simply a mere form ; whether when a man is ordered to wear a surplice he is forbidden to wear a chasuble, which is “ a dress of an expansive character, with a hole cut in the middle, through which was put the head of the wearer, audit”—not, we are sorry to say, the head, but the dress—“ fell down behind,” or whether the direction in question is equivalent to telling a man to put on a clean shirt, leaving him free to wear a waistcoat or not, as he likes. It may bo necessary to assure our readers very positively that wo are simply quoting from the speech of the learned counsel who opened the case.'. It .is our painful duty to read these minute and prolonged disquisitions, and it is also, unfortunately, our,duty to place them on record; but we have ,too much respect for the understanding of the great majority of our readers to suppose that they peruse a single lino of such reports after they have once discovered what they refer to. It is, however, a fact which' they may, if they please, verify for themselves, that two Lord Chancellors, three Lords Justices, a Lord Chief Baron, five other Judges, an Archbishop, and three Bishops are giving up time incalculable to listen to hairsplitting on those points, and that for this purpose, and this only, the whole judicial business of the country is obstructed. Wo wonder whether the consideration which occurs most readily to the public at large has over crossed the minds of the clergymen and clerical laymen who arc responsible for this spectacle. It is with extreme reluctance that wo say anything that may seem disrespectful to practices or conviction? in behalf of which the reality or the name of conscience is invoked. We need hardly, moreover, disclaim any intention of intimating the very slightest prejudice or opinion with respect to any of the points in dispute. Wo listen at a distance, and shall be only too happy to accept any decision which will prevent the dispute being raised in a court of law again. Our neutrality is insured by an unqualified indifference to the points at issue. But the time has come when it may not be undesirable to inform the clergy to whom wo refer that th l , main result of such an exhibition as the present is to bring discredit and almost to provoice contempt for the subject with which such disputes are identified. There are some points on which the common sense of men in general will refuse to be deluded; and it is one such point that nothing of the least real importance can, by possibility, be involved in such trivialities as the Ritualists contend for. Men in general will never bo persuaded that the cause of morality or religion is in the very smallest degree involved in the dresses which a man- wears,'the place in which he stands, the 'candles and candlesticks he uses, or the composition and form of the bread bo employs for sacred purposes. No real interest, in fact, of whatever character can be involved in such matters. When, therefore, wo sec ministers of religion disturbing the Church and the whole community for the sake of these follies, and contending for them as if they were vital necessities of the religion they profess, wo must either think very unworthy of the cause to which such trivialities are essential, or we must come to iv very,unwelcome conclusion respecting those wluvthus misrepresent and abuse it. If, in a word, a number of clergy of the Church of England are prepared to pull down the whole Church Establishment rather than forego a vestment more or less, it is difficult to speak of the proceeding in terms of decent respect. It is no reply to these strictures to observe that they cut both ways. To some extent they do. ‘But those who are moat to blame who make a difficulty of submitting to the law, when once decided on such matters, by whomsoever it may be determined or whatever it may be. It is really intolerable, and a scandal to religion itself, that the business of the country should be brought to a standstill by such nonsense. If in days when theolo-' gical and moral questions of the profonndeat interest are being discussed, the only matters which', absorb the attention of the clergy are such as are raised in “ the Folkestone case,” they will soou find out that the nation cares very little for anything they may do or anything they may say.