Bishops assume sole control.

This "contumacy" on the part of members of both bodies, led to the suggestion, which came in a memorandum from the very Warden under whom the trouble with the scholars had arisen, of getting rid of the clerical and lay members of the Board of Governors altogether. The proposal met with but little support from either Trustees or Governors, but, at a subsequent selection of Governors, at the time of the holding of last General Synod, all the Bishops who had the right to name Governors, except the Bishop of Dunedin, named themselves. It was a monstrous perversion of the right of selection, which could only have been resorted to for the purpose of getting rid of men who had proved themselves not only not pliant, but fearless. All who desire to understand how overbearing and arbitrary this self-appointment by the Bishops was, have but to refer to the terms of Section 3 of Canon II., Title E., which provides for the mode of appointment of a Governor. An appeal against the action of these Bishops was sent forward to the Standing Commission, sitting at Dunedin, a body which interprets Church Laws, the members of which had no hesitation in declaring the Bishops' appointments of themselves as Governors page 13 as absolutely invalid. This appeal, we are glad to be able to place on record, was made by a Clerical Governor who had been displaced and who stated his case with such force and clearness that there could be but one result. Most people would think this decision conclusive, not so these Bishops. Forced to name fresh persons, they reappointed those former Members of the Board, who in the past had been found tractable, and dispensed with the services of the remainder of the old Members. Once more freedom of opinion, judgment, and speech were put aside, when it interfered with the views and designs of high Ecclesiastics. And yet there are to be found good people in our midst who express astonishment at the establishment of a "Laymen's League."