chairs; the alteration, therefore, was not required.—
Mr. HUME supported the bill, conceiving that parliament
should make the institutions of the country consonant
to the wants and wishes of the people.—Sir G. CLERK,
on the other hand, looked upon this as the first step in
the course of mischievous legislation, as regarded not
only the educational system of Scotland, but that of
England. Attempts had been made to separate the
Scotch primary schools from the established church, and
if that end should be accomplished a dangerous
latitudinarian spirit would be introduced into Scotland.
No case, he contended, had been made out for so serious
an alteration.—Lord J. RUSSELL was surprised at this
declaration after the full, complete, and convincing
argument of Mr. Moncreiff. The opponents of the bill,
whilst alleging that the retention of these tests was
indispensable, pleaded that they were constantly relaxed;
but this power might be capriciously exercised. The
object of the tests was to exclude episcopalians, whilst
practically they admitted episcopalians and excluded
presbyterians. A state of the law so anomalous and
absurd ought to be got rid of as soon as possible.—After
some further debate the second reading was negatived
by 172 against 157.

On the order for the second reading of the Colonial
Bishops Bill, Mr. GLADSTONE defined its object, which
was, that in the colonies included in the schedule and
others declared by her Majesty in council, what was
called the church of England in the colonies should be
put, in regard to its own ecclesiastical affairs, on a footing
of equality with all unprivileged and unestablished
denominations of religion, subject to such restraints as
parliament thought fit. The bill in no respect trenched
upon the rights of colonial authorities; it meddled not
with religious opinions; it had no relations, notwithstanding
its title, to colonial bishops apart from the
members of their communions; and its principle was to
leave the colonies, subject to any restraint upon imperial
grounds, to the unrestricted management of their own
colonial affairs, ecclesiastical or civil, without infringing
the religious liberty of members of any other communion.
After noticing the objections urged against a similar bill
introduced in a former session, he applied himself to show
the reality of a demand for legislation upon this subject.
There were no ecclesiastical courts in the colonies, and it
would be absurd to introduce them. The colonial bishops
had powers, but they were of a bad kind, and his object
was to enable parties in the colonies to frame regulations
for themselves, instead of remaining, in this respect, in a
state of anarchy, tempered only by that good sense which
regulated the great bulk of these communities. He read
various declarations from bishops, clergy, and laity, in
seven or eight colonial dioceses, in favour of mixed
synodical conventions for the administration of church
affairs; and, assuming that a want existed, he examined
the two opinions which prevailed as to the mode in which
the want should be supplied. The proposal that it should
be done by a parliamentary constitution for the church
in the colonies he repudiated; the other plan was that
which he had embodied in this bill.—On the motion of
Sir J. PAKINGTON, the debate was adjourned until the
19th of May.

On Thursday, the 29th, the Marquis of BLANDFORD
moved for leave to bring in a bill to enable her Majesty
further to Regulate the Duties of Ecclesiastical Personages,
and to make better Provision for the Management
and Distribution of Episcopal and Capitular
Revenues. Adverting to the satisfactory and encouraging
answer of her Majesty to the address he moved last
session on the subject of spiritual destitution throughout
England and Wales, he stated that the motives for this
motion were twofold—first, the acknowledged necessity
of enabling the established church to extend its ramifications
amongst the masses of our rapidly-increasing
population; secondly, a desire to provide a practical
remedy for abuses known to exist in the establishment,
arising from the want of a sufficiently active legislation
in matters of this nature. He showed that, from the
reign of Henry VIII., parliament had evinced a desire
to secure religious instruction for the people, and at a
later period had laid down the principle, that spiritual
destitution was one of those national calamities for which
parliament was bound to provide a remedy. He then
referred to the inquiries which had been made into the
revenues of the church, and to the appointment of the
ecclesiastical commission, noticing the principles adopted
by parliament in relation to church reform, what had
been done by the ecclesiastical commissioners, and the
paucity of bishops, and the deficiency of the clerical
staff. The modifications he proposed related to the
constitution and duties of chapters, which would leave a
disposable revenue of nearly £60,000 a year. He
proposed to erect two new dioceses, Westminster and Bristol,
and to give permissive power to divide existing dioceses.
He explained the manner in which he proposed to
effect these divisions, and specified the respective
incomes which it was intended by the bill to assign
to the future occupants of the old as well as of the
new sees, the result of which would be that a surplus of
£27,000 a year would be applicable to the general
purposes and wants of the church. In the last place, he
proposed that the capitular property, and the episcopal
property under certain limitations and conditions, not
the fee, but the management, should be transferred to
and vested in the ecclesiastical commissioners.—Lord
R. GROSVENOR seconded the motion.—Mr. WALPOLE
expressed the assent of the government to the bill being
brought in; and Sir R. INGLIS expressed his regret
that this assent had been given. Leave was given to
bring in the bill.

Mr. HEYWOOD moved for the appointment of a select
committee to consider the Preservation of the Crystal
Palace, with a view to its applicability to purposes of
public recreation or instruction; and Mr. HUME seconded
the motion.—Lord J. MANNERS stated the reasons which
induced her Majesty's government to think that the
original condition, under which the building was to be
removed, ought to be adhered to. But for this solemn and
positive engagement, he thought it very probable that the
building would never have existed. He read the terms
of the stipulations, and the official correspondence which
had taken place with reference to this subject, in which
it was clearly understood that the building was to be a
temporary one, and to be removed immediately after
the close of the Exhibition; and he insisted that the
evil which would result from so manifest and flagrant a
violation of public faith and engagements would greatly
outweigh any possible good that might result from its
retention. The noble lord read passages from the evidence
of professional witnesses to show that the building, in
its present state, was unfit for the purposes of a permanent
structure, and he enumerated the schemes of
appropriation suggested by various projectors, one of
which assumed that the building must be opened to the
working classes on Sundays. He considered it impolitic
to concentrate attractions for the people, which should
on the contrary be diffused, and he thought it would be
well to consider whether the building might not be
erected on such a site as Battersea Park, for which
object the co-operation of the government would be
cheerfully and readily afforded. He asked the house to
reject the motion.—After a debate, in which the motion
was supported by Mr. G. Cavendish, Mr. Macgregor,
Lord Palmerston, and Sir R. Peel; and opposed by
Mr. Labouchere and Lord Seymour; the motion was
negatived by 221 against 103.

On Friday the 30th, in a committee of Ways and
Means, the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER made his
Financial Statement for the ensuing year. He had, he
said, a difficult task before him, as any minister must
have who found that owing to the cessation of a large
source of revenue he had to deal with a deficit, and to
devise means, the least unpopular, for supplying that
deficiency. Looking to the source from which that
deficiency might be met, he believed that it was hopeless
to expect that it could be supplied by the customs,
when it was recollected that since 1842 an aggregate
amount of no less than nine millions of customs duties
had been repealed. It was equally hopeless to expect
to make good the deficiency from the excise duties,
because one million and a half of excise duties had been
reduced within the same ten years since 1842. The
next mode to which they might be supposed to turn
was a system of direct taxation, but the temper of the
house upon the subject of direct taxation was so
unfavourable that when the income tax was established