Melbourne, Victoria, January 18th, 1853.

HIS EXCELLENCY C. J. LA TROBE, ESQ.

SIR, - I have been honored by a communication, of date 18th December, 1852, enclosing a copy of petition addressed to your Excellency, purporting to be "signed by 119 members of the Independent Church, headed by Mr. Odell," with a view "to afford me an opportunity of offering any remarks I may wish to make on this subject to your Excellency."

I would first express my sense of the courtesy which your Excellency manifests to me by this communication, for which I am deeply grateful."

This petition emanates from a meeting which has no validity, as an expression of the sense of the denomination on the subject to which it relates, since it was not summoned under the sanction of the Congregational Union of Victoria, and the Church over which I have the honor to preside ignores the said Meeting.

I have no right to oppose the Rev. Thomas Odell, and any friends that sympathise with him, in adopting whatever methods seem good to them to give expression and effect to their sentiments. But if a clique shall attempt to persuade your Excellency and the public that they embody and express the views of the Independents of Victoria, it is but right that the matter be thoroughly investigated.

The petition purports to be signed by 119 members of the Independent denomination. Many of the names are of persons of whom I have no knowledge, and therefore cannot speak. But of those whom I know, whose names are appended to the document, several are not members of Independent churches, whatever seeming connexion they may have with the denomination; and some have to myself expressed infidel views and sentiments, and do not belong even to the commonwealth of Christianity.

The Petition purports to have been signed by these persons "assembled in public meeting," but this was not really the case, for a large section of them were not at the meeting.

The petition "records the first great ecclesiastical principle of non-conformity." Now, since the Government of this country does not prescribe the number of "articles of religion" which the subjects are to believe, nor the mode and order to which they are to worship God, - to talk of non-conformity in Victoria is to utter a solecism and an absurdity. In this land, happily, there is no place for "church and dissent," "conformity and non-conformity." Hence, many of the esteemed and endeared bretheren, whose names are appended to the petition, caught, I doubt not, by the expression "principles of non-conformity," and excited by the justly founded prejudices which unhappily are fostered by the ecclesiastical relations and State in the mother country, have signed in a real inapprehension of the true conditions of this question in Victoria.

The Independents, your Excellency, as a body, protest solemnly and earnestly against the application of the direct or indirect taxation of any country in support of the Christian Ministry.

First, because they hold that such expenditure is a direct violation of the Positive Laws of both the Old and New Testaments, which leave this matter to the preceptive but spontaneous liberality of both the Hebrew and Christian Churches; and

Secondly, because they hold that such is also an oppressive invasion of the civil rights of the multitudes, which, in the exercise of judgement and conscience, are opposed to the application.

For asserting and maintaining these views both from the pulpit and through the Press of this city, your Excellency may perhaps be aware that I have been attacked by opponents.

But in regard to public Lands this Government, as representative of our Sovereign, is constituted as Trustees. The Trusteeship gives the right to sell to private individuals, by auction, any portion of the land put up for competition; also to grant, for public use, other portions on terms or conditions that infringe no civil or religious rights of individuals or communities; and in the exercise of this prerogative this Government is free from offering any wrong to any religious principles and privileges, or to the community, or any one person in the community, of Victoria.

That the grants of public lands for the erection of religious edifices and schools are strictly of a public nature, as much so as similar grants for a town hall, a botanical garden, a public square, etc., is evident from the fact that these erections are open to all the public within the range of the specific end for which they have been set apart. To object that they are denominational, and therefore private and not public grants, would be about as rational as to assert that because a town hall is not at the same time a police office, it cannot be a public building. Every public grant must have a specific object, and be conveyed to trustees for a specific purpose, which limitation, however, in no wise deprives it of its public nature. The Government, in making these grants for religious edifices, does not shackle them with conditions interfering with denominational views and principles; neither does it assume a power to intermeddle with the affairs of the particular bodies to whom the grants are made, in virtue of such grants. The grant, with the exception that it is public property, and continues to be such inalienably and unchangeably, is as perfectly voluntary as a gift, and as free, as to its conditions, as it is possible that gifts can be. Hence, to talk of the "great ecclesiastical principle of non-conformity," in repudiating grants of land in this Colony, is, I think, to speak most unadvisedly.

The Petition states, that the "Independent denomination possesses no legislative and executive assembly, but maintains the right of each congregation to manage its own affairs." This is correct, but the Rev. Thomas Odell and his friends, by this Petition, endeavour, in violation of this great principle of Independency, to force me and others under their law, and to bring in force the civil arm against our freedom of action. He has attempted most egregiously to infringe my right of conscience, freedom of opinion, and liberty of action, and to hinder me and others from the enjoyment of our prescriptive rights as citizens. While asserting that "person or persons can (may?) apply (as Independents) for grants of land (that is sites for chapels, etc.,) for congregations not yet formed, one his subsequent and latest acts, in the Committee of the Congregational Union of Victoria, was, to move that "we resolve ourselves into a Committee to take measures for the purchasing of chapel sites in the various rising townships of the Colony." These, if not the exact words, are the sense of the resolution, by carrying the which into effect the said Committee will be providing sites for chapels for congregations not yet formed.

I beg to assure your Excellency that it is accordant with the usages of Independents to form branch churches, and the Parent Church is bound to care for obtaining sites and erecting chapels in the localities where the origination of such churches is contemplated, and that it is as open for me and my friends to obtain sites for this purpose out of the public lands, as from the possession of private individuals, so long as thereby no civil or religious right of individuals or communities is invaded, and such is, I maintain, the case in the appropriation of land by the Government of this Colony, and moreover in our Missionary Churches in various parts of the world, the acceptance of land for religious edifices from the governing authorities of these countries is a common practice, and has never, as far as I know, been challenged.

These remarks on the Petition are such as immediately respect myself, and Independents generally. But I cannot withhold from your Excellency my view of the aspect which this document bears towards the Government of which you are the representative head.

I consider that every wise Government will listen, not merely with indulgent attention, but with respectful and serious consideration to any just complaint of grievance, which any subject, or any community or communities of subjects, shall bring under their notice. But if persons, not having any grievance or violation of right to complain of, shall approach the Government by Petition which by implications attributes to that Government principles and practices not recognized nor acted on by them (as this Petition does), and shall direct the Government in the exercise of a recognised and unquestionable prerogative, which, without "interfering with the management and progress of religion," they have heretofore dispensed for purely public ends; then for the Government to entertain such a Petition will be to render themselves parties to the disrespect perpetrated against themselves.

If, further, this Government is acknowledged to be Christian; if religious people in this Colony desire that our Legislature should be Christian, and that the principles of Christianity should pervade every section of the community, I cannot understand why the Government here should not be permitted to be concerned for the advancement of religion.

Neither do I know of any "statement or implication of the New Testament, or any usages of primitive Christianity" which ought to prevent, or even sanction the thought of preventing, the Government from aiding to its best ability the cause of religion and education, so far as it is possible to do this without treading on the rights of subjects, as it can do in the particular instance, against which this Petition is solely directed, viz., giving sites for chapels, schools, etc.

In my opinion, your Excellency, the Petition conveys a false impression, states what is not really true, asserts a solecism, aims at obstructing the enjoyment of conscientiously held rights, and thus violates the cherished principles of the Independent denomination, and attributes principles and practices of the Government which are not recognised.

I have the honor to be,
Your Excellency's
Obliged, obedient, servant,

ALEXANDER MORISON