New Zealand Provinces. WELLINGTON.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XV, Issue 79, 31 December 1856, Page 2

New Zealand Provinces. WELLINGTON.

New Bishopric for Wellington. — We are informed by a correspondent, on whom we can rely, in a letter which reached us by the Zingari, that official despatches lately received at Auckland announce the creation of a new Bishopric to include the Provinces of Wellington and Nelson ; and that Archdeacon Hadfield is designated to the new see. Our satisfaction at the news is materially qualified by the opposition of churchmen at Nelson to the union of the provinces in a common diocese, which we fear may obstruct or embarrass the proposed arrangement ; and by the annexation of a condition, for which we were not prepared, and against which, we feel sure the churchmen of both provinces will uni,te in a cordial remonstrance, namely, that the new Bishops (including the one for Christchurch) are to stand in the relation of suffragans, not to the Bishop of New Zealand, but to the Bishop of Sydney ; a consideration which must indefinitely postpone our hopes — nearly realized — of a General Convention, besides being objectionable on other grounds. We shall shortly recur to this subject, and to the question of the Bishopric, which we are aware has been engaging the attention of our Archdeaconry Board ; and we only waited for some settlement of the important business now under discussion by its members, before laying the result of their deliberations before the public. — Spectator, December 13.

We briefly adverted in our last number to the announcement which reached us by the Zingari, of a proposed union of Wellington and Nelson in a separate new see, the designation of Archdeacon Iladfield to the newly-con-stituted district, and its annexation to Sydney in the relationship of suffragan. Subsequent information corroborates the news. So far as relates to the union of the two provinces, it will be in the recollection of our readers that, at the beginning of the present year, we warmly advocated the measure, as the best practical expedient under the circumstances towards a speedy subdivision of the unwieldy diocese of New Zealand. We then saw no wiser solution of the acknowledged difficulty of^providing an adequate episcopal endowment for this southern district than by the appropriation, in equal moieties, of a portion of the Church funds belonging to each province. We admitted the arrangement to be a makeshift, satisfactory only en the principle of a half loaf better than no bread at all, and as a first step, or instalment of a more effectual subdivision, such as would assign to each province a resident bishop of its own. A number of the Church people at Nelson, carrying their provincial antipathies, as we thought, a little too far into purely ecclesiastical considerations, set their faces as a flint against the suggested combination. The result was an appeal to the Bishop of New Zealand. In letters addressed to the Archdeaconry Board in each province, his lordship has succeeded in cutting the Gordian knot, by assenting to the proposal of a Bishopric for each, and pointing out methods of raising the necessary revenue, with a most liberal private offer of a contribution of a thousand pounds, in the case of Nelson, from his own inherited estate ; and in the case of Wellington, from the fund hitherto devoted to Porirua College. We printed a copy of the Nelson pastoral in our last impression. The other, addressed to the Church members of this province, in reply to the numerously-signed memorial sent by them to the Bishop at the beginning of the year, when absent on his voyage to the Melanesian Islands, is still under the consideration of the Archdeaconry Board. At this juncture the news arrives of the fait accompli of the contemplated union, with the accessory circumstances of the designated Bishop, and of the new metropolitan relationship. We accept with unmitigated satisfaction the nomination of Archdeacon Hadfield to the proposed new see ; and this not only on personal and private grounds — though we know no other individual who through local knowledge and expediency would so combine in himself the requisite various qualifications for the office — but as the first instance, we believe, of an election to the colonial episcopate, of a clergyman who has served his apprenticeship in the colonial Church. The condition of an annexation to the metropolitan see of Sydney we most emphatically repudiate, as inexpedient and otherwise objectionable in the highest degree. We pass over the implied slight to the present Bishop of New Zealand, who, though more than others interested in the effect of the arrangement, does not appear to have even been consulted in the matter. We suppose the scheme to be a mere blunder of the Colonialoffice — the offspring of official ignorance of colonial circumstances and needs. We condemn it on the broad ground of extreme inconvenience to the working efficiency of the colonial Church. It practically subjects the Church in New Zealand -to the legislation of the Church in New Soutn Wales, without a representative voice in the legislative body; the geographical distance of the two colonies rendering the attendance of delegates from Wellington at the Provincial Synods held in Sydney next to an impossibility, and the totally different circumstances of the two Churches making the laws aptly passed for the regulation of the one altogether unsuited to the other. Two provinces are not thought too many for the united dioceses of the southern portion only of the single island of Great Britain. The Proctors of York are not required to dance attendance on the Convocations of Westminster or Canterbury. It is no extravagant demand that the lay and clerical representatives of the dioceses of Canterbury, Nelson, Wellington, and the North should unite in a General Convention of the New Zealand Church for the internal regulation of the ecclesiastical affairs of the two islands. To require their attendance at the metropolitan see of Sydney is practically analogous to summoning'the laity and clergy of the English Church to a Synod in some island of the Mediterranean or Ifte Baltic. Such an arrangement had better be scouted by us at once. How far it is now possible to set aside the union of the two provinces in a single separate see without danger to the proposed increase of the episcopate altogether, is a further question requiring more delicacy and tact. For our own part, we shall rejoice to find that the hope of a Bishop for each province is- rather ad-

vanced than retarded by the effect of the news just arrived ; and such an arrangement, if it can he carried out, will, we believe, be most consonant with the wishes of the Churchmen, and most beneficial to the interests of the Church in both provinces. — Id., Dec. 1 7.