Philip Vernon Smith

“ Shall the members of the Upper House be elected by the Peers? This, if the political power of the Peerage is an evil, would only be to focus and intensify the evil. It would add to rather than detract from the strength of the Lords, while it would destroy that breadth and comprehensiveness in the House which, as will be pointed out later on, is one of the best of its present features. Shall they then be elected by the same constituencies as elect the members of the Lower House? If they are, what claim can one House more than the other make to be the chief representative assembly? ”

“ A clerk who has been admitted to a benefice by either institution, collation, or licence is thereby invested with the cure of souls of the parish, and with the right to the temporalities; and, in the case of admission by licence, nothing more is requisite to place him in full enjoyment of the benefice. ”

“ The glory of our Constitution is that, though never committed to paper, it has been maintained almost inviolate from generation to generation, developing with the development of the nation, and changing just as much as the changes in the condition of the nation require, and no more. In the course of this development and change the House of Lords, which was originally the chief legislative assembly of the country, has come at length to occupy the position which is assigned by all the best political writers and thinkers to a Second Chamber, namely, that of being a check upon the Lower House. ”

“ But if one of our civil courts, in interpreting the civil law, delivers a decision which does not commend itself to the common sense of the nation, it is recognised that the remedy lies not in altering the constitution of the court and endeavouring to obtain a fresh legal decision which shall upset the other, but in obtaining an Act of Parliament expressly over-ruling the unsatisfactory decision. ”

“ For who has ever become a great mathematician without careful training in figures in his youth, if not in his boyhood? Yet we admit among the ranks of our statesmen men like Mr. Chamberlain, who have spent their early manhood in enriching themselves—shall we say at the expense of their fellow-countrymen?—well, at any rate, with the help of their toil, and have only taken to politics at the age of thirty, or perhaps later. Unfortunately, it is not so easy to decide whether a man is a truly sound and wise politician as whether he is an accurate mathematician ”

“ Like all other human arrangements, our English Church law is, of course, far from being ideally perfect. It may be safely affirmed that there has never been either a Church or a State in which the law has actually been what it ideally ought to have been. It is important to recognise the difference between the two positions; for there has sometimes been a disposition on the part of individuals to confuse them, and to treat what they consider to be the ideal law, as if it were the actual law, and as if, as such, it demanded their loyal obedience. ”

“ And, similarly, while the number of our Peers is less than that of the House of Commons, it would be the height of unwisdom to substitute a system of representation for their individual political responsibility. It would not only unnecessarily deprive the nation of the counsels of individuals, whose occasional presence in the deliberations of Parliament is of the greatest service, but it would deal a heavy blow on the present broad and democratic character of our Upper House. ”

“ But an incumbent ought not, without that sanction, to permit a layman to take any other part in any service in a consecrated building. The officiating of a layman in an unconsecrated building does not stand quite on the same footing; but, as a matter of Church order and regularity, the approval of it by the bishop should be procured, through the layman being expressly authorised as a lay reader, or in some other manner, especially if the building is licensed for Divine worship. All such laymen must, of course, act with the consent, and under the direction, of the incumbent of the parish. ”

“ The minister simply exhorts that if any person cannot by his own confession to God, with full purpose of amendment of life and by reconciliation with any neighbours whom he may have offended, quiet his own conscience with a view to receiving Holy Communion, he should come to the incumbent of the parish, or to some other discreet and learned minister of God's word, and open his grief, "that by the ministry of God's holy word he may receive the benefit of absolution together with ghostly counsel and advice to the quieting of his conscience and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness." ”

“ But it is objected that the House of Lords is founded on the principle of hereditary descent, and that that principle is inconsistent with the ideas of our day. Inconsistent with the ideas of our day! It might as well be said inconsistent with the moving principles of human nature; for it is in that hereditary principle that the appeal to many of men's highest instincts lies. A man toils not for himself, but for his son; for him he spends his life, and strength, and energy, as on him he pours out his affections ”

“ For it has been shown above that if every born Peer were a born legislator, the result, instead of being beneficial, would be disastrous to the nation. We should, then, indeed, have too many cooks spoiling the broth of the country's affairs. There are plenty of functions for public men to discharge outside the walls of Parliament; and we may be content if the hereditary principle gives us a certain number of statesmen, of whose services the country would not otherwise have had the benefit. ”

“ A person divorced in England has, therefore, a legal right to require his or her banns to be published and marriage to be solemnised in church in like manner as if he or she were a widower or widow, with the exception that no clergyman is by law bound to marry a person whose marriage has been dissolved on account of the person's own adultery ”

“ Then it was the party of reform who pressed upon the Peers "the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill." Now it is the Peers, who, in requiring that the plan for the extension of the franchise shall be accompanied by the scheme for the redistribution of seats, are insisting on the measure, the whole measure, and nothing but the measure. On the other hand, the motto of the Government policy is in fact, at present, "the part, the little part, and nothing but the part."
It is not difficult to decide on which side lie right and reason. ”

“ The money received in respect of any destruction or damage of a building which the insurance office does not cause to be reinstated at its own expense, is to be paid to Queen Anne's Bounty, and dealt with in the same manner as money standing to a dilapidation account. If the building cannot be reinstated for the amount for which it was insured, the diocesan surveyor is to certify the additional sum required for the purpose, with the same liberty to the incumbent or sequestrator to object and the same final order of the bishop as in the case of a report as to dilapidations. ”

“ I believe that if, like reasonable men, and not like children, carried away by every breath of rhetoric, we look dispassionately at the whole course and conduct of the House of Lords for many generations back, the verdict will be that that House has shown often more liberality, very often more wisdom than, and always as much patriotism as the House of Commons.
The revolution of 1668 was as much due to the English aristocracy and the House of Lords as to any man or men in the country. ”

“ An incumbent has an absolute discretion as to permitting or refusing any other clergyman, not being licensed as a curate to the parish, to officiate within his parish, with this qualification, that he has no right to permit any clergyman to officiate in his parish who by law is debarred from taking duty in the diocese. With regard to this, no unbeneficed clergyman has, strictly speaking, a right to officiate publicly in a diocese, either in church or elsewhere, without the licence or consent of the bishop, and his doing so is an ecclesiastical offence. ”

“ The minimum legal age for contracting marriage is fourteen for the husband and twelve for the wife. In the case of minors the consent of parents or guardians is necessary to their marriage after banns. In the case of the marriage by licence of a minor who is not a widower or widow, the consent to the marriage must be obtained from the father if living, and if he is dead, from some one guardian of the minor (if any) . The mother, whether still a widow or remarried, is by law a guardian of the minor unless she has been removed from the office by the High Court of Justice. ”

“ Of course, among ourselves it is out of the question. We cannot form either the 5,000,000 electors whom we are to have, nor even the present 3,000,000, into a legislative assembly; and, therefore, we are obliged to have recourse to the inferior method, and constitute our House of Commons by representation. But small States, such as ancient Athens, and Rome, in her early and palmy days, would never have dreamt of recourse to representation, while all their citizens could personally attend the assembly. ”

“ If there is any doubt as to the validity of their marriage, he will always be on the safe side in adopting the affirmative view and acting upon the assumption of their being validly married. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the law will presume a valid marriage from the fact of long reputation and cohabitation as man and wife, without actual proof of the ceremony having taken place. ”

“ Instead, therefore, of craving after imaginary improvements, which a closer inspection reveals to be impracticable of attainment, and, to say the least, of but questionable benefit if we could attain to them, let us inquire whether there are not, after all, advantages in the state of things which we actually have. If we do, we shall discover benefits in the much-maligned hereditary constitution of the House of Lords which escape the superficial survey of the Radical mind. ”

“ Assistant unbeneficed clergy are contemplated by the canons, in which they are styled curates; and with the licence of the bishop any incumbent may employ one or more curates to assist him in serving the parish. A curate frequently comes in the first instance on probation without being licensed, and his tenure of office is then entirely dependent on the will of the incumbent. ”

“ It is obvious' that the working of a Senate so elected furnishes no criterion as to the probable working of an elected Upper House among ourselves, when the mode of election, whatever it might be, would certainly be completely different from that which exists in America. The more influential nations of Europe have not adopted an elective Upper Chamber. In the German States, including Austria, some of the members are hereditary, and the rest are nominated for life, or become life members by tenure of office. In Italy, all the members, except the Royal Princes, are nominated for life. ”

“ The incumbent for the time being, whether of an ancient or new parish, has a freehold interest for his life, if he so long remains incumbent, in the possessions of the benefice, and for the purpose of holding them is a corporation sole, with a continuous succession in himself and all future incumbents. ”