ever opinion they give in their corporate they said last year; but with regard to capacity is one worthy of the highest the Bill itself, they made no objection, and gravest consideration. This question but proposed two or three amendments. of the Bill of the right hon. Member for In the face of what we knew of the Hampshire was accordingly referred by opinion of leading medical men in London, the Lord President to the Medical Council and of the Medical Council, the Governfor their opinion. We said "Before, as a ment came to the conclusion that it was Government, we give an opinion on the their duty to assent to the Bill of my right medical question, we ask the opinion of hon. and learned Friend the Recorder the Medical Council". it being well for London, taking care to make it clear understood that we did not bind ourselves that it was permissive, not compulsory. to take their advice. We thought it They felt that the Bill, which seemed to greatly due to that important body that be very acceptable to what may be called before we came to an opinion ourselves the two opposing parties, was a very we should be at any rate in possession fair compromise, and might be a useful of the opinion of the Medical Council. measure. None of the corporations That is really the position as between would be obliged to admit women unless the Medical Council and the Government. they liked, and we engaged to see that The Bill was referred to that Council, this was made clear in the Bill. We and it is impossible not to be struck by also engaged to see that a Proviso was their words-that they are not prepared made that if women were admitted to to say that women ought to be excluded the Register, they would not thereby from the Profession. They stated necessarily be qualified to take their various recommendations which they seats on the Governing Bodies of the would make, supposing Parliament de- University Corporations. It will be uncided to admit women to the Profession, necessary to enter upon that wide suband one important observation of theirs ject. That was the decision of the Gowas, that they thought care might be vernment in the matter as to their taken-care ought to be taken-for the being enabled this Session to give that sake of public order, that their education amount of active support which I suppose and examination should be separate entails setting apart a day for the right from that of male students. That hon. Gentleman's pleasure. Nobody rather meets one of the objections to would suppose that we could do so this the Bill, showing, as it does, that the Session; but so far as the Government is mixing of the sexes in the early days of prepared to support a moderate enabling student life would be avoided if the Bill, unopposed as it is by the Medical State thought it ought to be avoided. Council, or, as I may say, supported It would be obviously most undesirable indirectly by the Council and members that students, male and female, should of the Medical Profession in London, bein association in our hospitals together and accepted by some of those ladies during the period of lecturing. At who have made themselves distinguished various periods during the last twelve in this matter, the Government felt it months the Government have also taken right to take this step, and that is the the opportunity of consulting privately position of the matter now. I hope, with leading members of the Profession under these circumstances, my right in London, and have had communication hon. Friend will not press his Bill to a with deputations of those ladies who now division. I have no other alternative, if do practise medicine-and I must be al- he does so, than to oppose it on the part lowed to say that they were well qualified of the Government, as we would not as individuals to adorn any Profession to admit the principle involved in the Bill which they may belong. After these con- of enabling foreign diplomas to give a sultations the Government became aware pass to English practice. that my right hon. and learned Friend the Recorder for London proposed to bring in a Bill to enable the Corporations or Universities to admit women to the Profession. The Lord President referred this new Bill to the Medical Council, who replied, that as to the general principle, they adhered to what MR. JOHN BRIGHT: I have heard the speech of the noble Lord the Vice President of the Council with pleasure; and there is only one sentence to which I could take exception, and that is where he rather discourages the opinion that the Bill could be passed during the present Session. The Minis try has a wonderful power to do anything it likes when it pleases, and from the discussion to-day it is clear the House is in favour of this legislation. We have heard it stated on the authority of the noble Lord that the Medical Council is in favour of the Bill; it is merely a Bill to enable the different Medical Bodies, if they choose, to make such arrangements as to them seems proper for the purpose of admitting women to study medicine, and if they have studied it, to commence practice. Therefore the object is simple; and the House is so far agreed, that I have no doubt, if the noble Lord will only look upon it with a favourable eye, the Bill may even be passed during the present Session. I am the more anxious to press this upon the House, because every year during which this matter is delayed a really serious injustice is inflicted upon somebody. There are, no doubt, some meritorious women who are engaged in study, and who are approaching the time when they may be able to go up for examinanation and commence practice. There are a great many women in this country who are suffering from maladies, or may suffer from maladies, who would be able to have the assistance of medical advisers of their own sex. Therefore, for the sake of meritorious women who are studying, and those who are suffering, the Government, having once made up their mind on this subject, could not do a wiser thing than do what they have to do at once. Though we have come nearly to the conclusion of the Session, there will no doubt yet be Bills of which we have not heard brought in and passed, and the Government can do the same for this. We may thus get rid of a matter which is an extensive injustice in the minds of some persons, and add to the character of our Parliamentary work. SIR HENRY JACKSON also urged the Government to take up the right hon. and learned Recorder's Bill and pass it this Session, and quoted a report written by one of the ladies attached to the Hospital for Women to show that further delay and uncertainty would seriously prejudice the existing arrangements for study and hospital practice, which ladies could not afford to avail themselves of while there was any doubt as to their being allowed to practise when their education was completed. Mr. John Bright DR. O'LEARY said, at the proper time he would adduce good reasons why ladies should not be allowed to qualify at all. MR. COWPER TEMPLE expressed his satisfaction with the debate, as showing that the opinion of the House was in favour of dealing with the subject. He was much pleased with what the noble Lord had said. It made his Bill no longer necessary, and he would therefore propose to withdraw it. Amendment and Motion, by leave, withdrawn. Bill withdrawn. INCREASE OF THE EPISCOPATE BILL [BILL 11.] SECOND READING. ADJOURNED DEBATE. Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [16th February], that the Question then proposed, "That this Bill be now read a second time," be now put :-(Sir Walter Barttelot.) Previous Question again proposed, "That that Question be now put: Debate resumed. MR. BERESFORD HOPE: Sir, I trust the House will allow me very briefly to recall the circumstances under which it is resuming a debate which was adjourned on the 16th of February. On that, the earliest Wednesday in the present Session, I moved the second reading of this Bill, of which I had been in charge during the preceding Session, after it had gone through every stage in "another place" without a single division. I took charge of it under circumstances which have since assumed a very melancholy interest, for I received it from one as to whom however in past times there may have been differences of opinion as to his policy on some specific questions, now that he is gone, no Englishman, no Member of Parliament in either House, no gentleman can look back to without feelings of admiration and regret the late Lord Lyttelton. He was a very old and intimate Friend of mine. He was one for whose loss my regrets are personal as much as public. For many years Lord Lyttelton had devoted his great intellect and unparalleled power of work, among scheme for the erection of a new Bishopric has been submitted to the Commission, it has to go before Her Majesty in Council, and would come, of course, under the purview of the Attorney and the Solicitor General and the Home Secretary, and then it would have to lie upon the Tables of the two Houses of Parliament. Still, the cry was raised that, because it was permissive, it was a vague Bill. Another objection, which, I must say, stands upon stronger ground, is that upon which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter Barttelot) moved the Pre other questions, to this of the increase of the Episcopate. He had laboured at it through good and through evil report, and last year he had the satisfaction of seeing the principle for which he had laboured receive a special recognition in the triumphant and unchecked progress of his Bill through "another place." That Bill in its details was a compromise, and the result of much deliberation. In fulfilment of a promise made to him I have again brought it in in the same shape this year. Its scope is permissive, as I explained at the time. I have no prejudice for the permissive principle; but the question of the in-vious Question, which is immediately crease of the Episcopate, when an onward move was first ventilated, was not in so advantageous a position as it has become since. The matter was not ripe before the country, and the necessity of meeting the needs of the population by a more efficient machinery had not come home to the public mind. Any attempt, therefore, at that time, to bring in a definite measure, declaring that it was expedient to create a new See in this or that place, would in the hands of a private Member have seemed to be, I will not say impertinent, but exceedingly chimerical. It was necessary, however, to put the demand plainly before Parliament, and that was done in the shape of a permissive Bill; while if there is to be a permissive Bill, I must say I think that this Bill is about as safe a one as could possibly be passed. Indeed, the day after the debate, in one of those publications which claim the liberty of telling the truth to Members about themselves, I found myself handled in a way that I could not help being amused at. I was told that I had, first, argued in favour of the Bill, because it was likely to be so efficient, and next because it was so well guarded against any extensive application; and I must say that, trying to look impartially at the matter, that was at least a plausible picture of what the debate might have seemed to a not very enthusiastic backer. The Bill bristled with safeguards. The endowment comes first of all, and then the scheme, backed by the promise of money, has, to begin with, the Ecclesiastical Commission, and I am sure that no man in this House would dare to say that the Ecclesiastical Commission is a very yielding, facile, or sleepy body of men. Then, after a before the House, and upon which at this moment I am technically speaking. This is, the assertion that a measure of this sort, involving a considerable change in the Episcopate, including some modification of the system on which Bishops sit in the other House of Parliament, ought to be in the hands of the responsible advisers of the Crown, and not of any private Member. Now, that is a principle which I should be the last to contend against; only I must plead in reply that I took it up in this House, and that Lord Lyttelton before me took it up "elsewhere," because the Ministers of the day would not undertake it. Neither he nor I, nor any of our supporters, would have thought of putting ourselves in that position, if we had not felt that, unless private Members of the two Houses of Parliament stepped into the breach, public opinion and Ministerial action would not have been adequately roused upon the matter. Thus I contend that the work which we did then was eminently successful. Our Bill was, in truth, a pilot balloon. It was sent up, and I hope it has led the way to something more substantial. In the previous debate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, while urging arguments against the details of this Bill, which, however, I am not now concerned to controvert, I will not say made a promise--I do not hold him to that-but certainly held out a very strong expectation that Her Majesty's Government might see their way to propose a moderate and a specific addition to the Episcopate. I understood those words then, as I stated in the few remarks which I offered on the Motion for Adjournment, made by my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Oxford (Mr. Hall), to imply not that we as six are needed. Still, I will not should have a series of single Bills, how-press Her Majesty's Government to go ever admirable or useful as stop-gaps, so far as that. I merely mention that such, for example, as the Bill which as what is not only my own feeling, but many years ago established the See of that of many other Churchmen who are Manchester, and the Bill of last year-equally interested in the matter, who which established under certain condi- have since, and in consequence of, the tions, unhappily not yet fulfilled, the debate in February, thought over and See of St. Albans; but a measure that investigated the question, and to whom should take in the whole country, and it seems that six new Bishops would place a few more Bishops on spots where not overload the Episcopate with Bishops they were really needed. Since that waiting for their turns to come into the time, my right hon. Friend the Home House of Lords; that it would not create Secretary has apparently deviated from a senile class of Bishops in the House what he said then; but I will do him of Lords; for no one of those Bishops the justice to say that his explanation could not have been made a Bishop shows that the deviation is merely ap- unless the See had first existed, and parent. He has since brought in a Bill therefore the average age of a Bishop on for the erection of a single Bishopric at becoming a Member of the Upper Truro; but the reason which he gave House would not be very much raised. was the practical and satisfactory one On the contrary, it might lead to rather that a large portion of the contingent younger men being admitted into the endowment of the new See was depen- Episcopate. It would not alter the dent upon the chances of a single life, status of the Bishop, but only equalize so that any delay might lose it. This the number of Sees to the population. appeal to us who, in February, had Those who can look back 20 or 30 years trusted to his bringing in a plurality Bill, must remember how an earnest and was clear and straightforward, and there- energetic citizen of Newcastle-on-Tyne, fore irresistible. We shall give our the late Sir John Fife, brought much hearty support to his Bill for erecting public attention to bear upon the necesthe See of Truro; and now, in re- sity of separating the growing and huge turn for that, we hope that he will country of Northumberland, with its give us an assurance which will be area of 1,200,000 acres, its vast mineral equally satisfactory to those who de- wealth and great population, from the sire to see something like a step See of Durham; and every year which taken to meet the increase of the popu- has since elapsed has witnessed an inlation, the increase of commerce, the crease of the population and added force increase of activity in the people of this to the demand. Lancashire, with its land, by providing for a corresponding enormous See of Manchester, and the increase of spiritual supervision. I am important portion of the county innot arguing for a measure to create any- cluding Liverpool, which still attaches thing in the shape of "gig Bishops." to Chester, is a crying evil. Steps, A gig Bishopric may be a very excellent active steps, have been taken in Liverthing in itself; but it would be an alto- pool to meet this want. The separation gether new idea in England, and I am of Nottinghamshire from the See of not suggesting or proposing new ideas. Lincoln may be called a foregone conAll I contend for is that, taking into clusion. A Bishopric for Warwickaccount both the area and the popula- shire, taking in Birminghan and Cotion of the existing Sees, a few more ventry, is a question about the necessity Bishoprics should be created which, so for which there could be no dispute. far from being gig Bishoprics or Bishop- Steps were also taken last year, though rics of a different class from those which they unhappily failed, for the creation now exist, would be Bishoprics with of another Bishopric in the West Riding sometimes a larger area and always a of Yorkshire; and I am sure that my larger population than some of the smaller right hon. Friend the Home Secretary existing Sees-Chichester, for instance, would have thought his St. Alban's Bill Hereford, Bangor, and St. Asaph's. a better and more complete measure if The creation of only two or three more Bishoprics would be a great relief to the Church, though I believe that as many Mr. Beresford Hope whilst leaving the admirably constituted See of St. Alban's for the ecclesiastical supervision of Herts and Essex not feel it to be my duty to press the Bill to a division; but I trust that we may have some further and more definite declaration from the Home Secretary on the subject. At the proper time I will move that the Order for the Second Reading of the Bill be discharged. MR. SPEAKER reminded the hon. Gentleman that "the Previous Question" had been moved as an Amendment to his Motion "That the Bill be now read a second time." He could not, therefore, withdraw the Bill until the Amendment was withdrawn. COLONEL MAKINS said, he hoped the Government would be able to see their way to passing some measure in the larger form in which the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge had presented it. He was sure that the provision of facilities for the increase in the number of Bishops would stimulate private benevolence in providing the funds for their endowment. He could assure the Government that there was a great desire in favour of a general measure for the increase of the Episcopate. MR. ASSHETON CROSS said, he had -he could have seen his way to the creation of a Bishopric of Southwark for the county of Surrey, with its more than 1,000,000 of inhabitants. He could then have assigned all West Kent, of which so much is suburban ground, to the See of Rochester, and thus relieved the Archbishop of Canterbury from a large portion of his diocesan duty, and in proportion left him free for the "care of all the Churches" which specially appertain to the metropolitical See. I do not ask my right hon. Friend whether he would accept such a scheme. I merely throw it out as a moderate suggestion; but if less were proposed by the Government, it would be thankfully accepted by the Church, though that which I have glanced at would be still more acceptable. But, with the quasi-promise of my right hon. Friend before us, with the strong expression of opinion on the part of the House in favour of the principle of an increase of the Episcopate, as shown by the large majority which it gave my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford on the Adjournment, what is the course which has been taken by the hon. Mem-never concealed his opinion that in a matber for Swansea? My hon. Friend is ter so nearly affecting the relations of never tired of telling us that he is a Church and State any measure for the Churchman, and asseverating that he is increase of the Episcopate ought to be not a Nonconformist, while he shows his brought forward by the responsible Minizeal for the Episcopacy, like fanciful sters of the Crown; nor had he ever coninvalids who refuse to send for the cealed his opinion that the time had cerdoctor, by objecting to every proposal tainly come when there ought to be a modefor its extension. His Churchmanship rate increase of the Episcopate. He was seems to be of a homoeopathic charac- not in favour of appointing too many ter, for in looking upon Bishops as the Bishops; but no one who knew what an regular practitioners he is anxious to see immense amount of work the Bishops as little of them as possible. When, were now called upon to perform could on the 16th of February, my hon. Friend doubt that some moderate addition to the Member for Oxford moved the Ad- their number was desirable. No scheme, journment of the Debate, the House however, ought to be brought forward generally was prepared to grant the Ad- by the Government without very careful journment, which I should have ac- inquiry and investigation-because any cepted heartily. That would have been measure of this kind ought to be looked a very satisfactory conclusion of the upon as a settlement of the question and matter; but the hon. Member for Swan-one that ought not to be re-opened again sea would not let well alone, nor keep for some time. The general feeling of himself quiet without forcing a division. the House on the former debate had cerThereby he showed how enormous was tainly appeared to be in favour of an the majority in favour of an increase of increase in the Episcopate :-he did not the Episcopate. Some advocate it in remember, indeed, to have seen for a one shape, and some, like my hon. and long time a greater oneness of feeling gallant Friend the Member for West than was exhibited when this Bill was Sussex, in another, but the favourable under discussion in February last. His feeling is overwhelming. After what opinion was not only that any Bill for has taken place, however; after that ex- the increase of the Episcopate should be pression of opinion by the House, I shall brought forward on the responsibility of |