A deputation, introduced by the Bishop of Rochester, waited on
Wednesday en the two Archbishops on behalf of the Convocations Bill. Bishop Barry, who spoke in favour of the Bill, called to mind the fact that in the Colonies the Churches had "full synodical government in which clergy and laity co-operated." There was, he declared, very little friction between the lay and clerical elements in the Colonies. " The lay element was distinctly conservative, and innovations came mostly from the clergy. The effect, on the whole, was to give power to the Centre party, which in our Church had nething
like the influence which it ought to possess." The movement, he declared, would not prejudice, but rather consolidate, the Church as an Establishment. Mr. Chancellor Smith dealt with the form of the Bill. They wanted the Church to frame, subject to the approval of the State, its own machinery. The Bill proposed to ask the Convocations to prescribe the method of election to the Houses of Laymen. " The Bill did not ask that powers in excess of the existing powers of Convocation should be conferred on the new bodies. But if and when satisfactory bodies had been created, Parliament should be approached and asked for further definite powers. A Bill for enlarging such powers would have to run the gauntlet of all the proceedings on an ordinary Bill."
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