I am particularly anxious that the question of glebes should be settled, and beg that you will communicate with me as soon as possible on the subject. My own opinions with reference to them is this. If we had funds sufficient to provide for page 211clergy by investment in Government securities, I very much prefer that the Church should have no territorial endowments; but if we cannot otherwise provide for the clergy whom we have engaged, I think it better that there should be an endowment in land which may produce the means of subsistence for them at a future time, than that they should have no endowment at all, but be left to voluntary payments for the means of living. Under any circumstances, however, I think that land devoted to Church purposes ought to be strictly a Church endowment, not a glebe in the ordinary sense of the word, such as thirty acres surrounding a parsonage would be. This latter plan merely tends to transform the clergyman into a farmer or manager of land, without obviating the necessity of providing him with a money payment from other sources. If there must be Church lands, the utmost care ought to be taken to prevent any part of them from being appropriated to the use of individuals; they should be considered as corporate property, and their proceeds distributed by the corporate authorities. The topic which I am now treating of leads me naturally to the general consideration of clerical endowments. Very great alarm is felt by the colonists at the arrival of such a large number of clergy, for whom no permanent endowment has been provided. I enclose a communication which I have received from the Colonists Council on this subject, and beg to express my entire agreement with the tenor of it. I venture specially to express my entire agreement with the request that for the present no further clerical appointments may be made. It is far better even that vessels should be without chaplains if the Association cannot afford to send them out and pay their passage home, than that a number of clergymen should accumulate here for whom there is neither employment nor means of subsistence. If persons wishing to become settlers should happen to be clergymen too, it is of course desirable that their clerical character should be taken advantage of, so as to have the duties of chaplain performed on board ship; but I cannot conceal my own very strong opinion that those who, being page 212Invested in the office and character of priests are compelled to be primarily agricultural colonists, and to make their clerical functions subordinate and secondary are not, generally speaking, the fittest persons to select for the performance of their functions. I should wish as much as possible to dissociate the clergy of the colony from secular occupations and secular ties, and therefore I cannot consent to the views expressed in your dispatch on this subject, views which are equally opposed to the Bishop, and, so far as I can recollect, to those of the Canterbury settlers. As regards the mode of investing the sum devoted to clerical endowments, I am of opinion that New Zealand Government debentures bearing 8 per cent. interest, and now about par, are sufficient securities for the purpose; and I find that the Bishop is of the same opinion. I therefore recommend that I be authorised to purchase from time to time debentures to the amount required.