The cause of the Welsh bishoprics was early this year advocated by Archdeacon Manning in the English Review, of which the writer is editor. In the last number, however, a suggestion has been made in reference to this subject, which has been attacked in the Morning Post as 'treacherous'. His object in writing is to assure his lordship that the suggestion has been offered, not with any view of checking the exertions of friends to the cause of the Welsh bishoprics, but simply to point out a mode in which the objects not merely of the Welsh but of the whole English Church might be more easily attainable. It was conceived that a plan to move an address for a commission of inquiry into the best mode of augmenting the number of sees in England and Wales might rally a greater amount of force in support of the Welsh church than a plan to repeal the Act. Sir Robert Peel and the Archbishop have never expressed themselves unfavourable to an increase in the Episcopate generally. The Bishop of London told him that he was prepared to make a large immediate sacrifice of income for the object. The Bishop of Norwich told him that his diocese required two or three additional bishops. The Bishop of Ripon has said the same. The Bishops of Exeter and Salisbury have advocated the same. The Universities have given in their adhesion. The only material difficulty - that of Parliamentary seats - might probably be settled on the principle of representation. A friend of his, who is on intimate terms with a Cabinet Minister, informed him recently that this Minister expressed his conviction that the Church will soon succeed in obtaining additional bishops and also regretted that the Earl of Powis had not communicated with the Government before introducing his motion, as some arrangement might have been made. His lordship will be the best judge of the value of such statements, but the Minister in question saved the see of Sodor and Man. Several influential clergymen have told him that they have not exerted themselves on behalf of the Welsh sees because they felt that the general cause of an increase in the bishoprics would thereby be impeded, but if the objects could be combined they would give his lordship their support. Letters have just arrived requesting forms of petition in favour of an increase in the bishoprics. Would his lordship be prepared to sign an unexceptionable form of petition including the preservation of the Welsh dioceses in its objects? Such petitions need not interfere in any way with the efforts made by the people of Wales for their local objects, but it would seem very advisable that the Welsh petitions should include some request for the general increase of the Episcopate. In truth, it would seem that they should seek not merely the preservation of the sees of Bangor and St Asaph but also their division into new dioceses.
