HC Deb 10 May 1870 vol 201 cc529-34
MR. GLADSTONE

moved that the Select Committee do consist of the following Members:—Mr. Villiers, Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Jessel, Mr. Thomas Chambers, Mr. Matthews, Mr. Howes, Mr. Cogan, Mr. Pemberton, The O'Conor Don, Mr. Bourke, Mr. Sherlock, Mr. John Gilbert Talbot, Mr. Pease, Mr. George Gregory, and Sir John Ogilvy.

Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.

Motion agreed to.

MR. EYKYN

moved— That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to include in their inquiries, Anglican and other religious institutions in Great Britain of a Conventual or Monastic character.

MR. HIBBERT

took exception to the word "Anglican." It was rather hard upon the Anglican denomination to he named in this particular manner, and he suggested that the word be omitted. The Instruction would include all such institutions, whether named or not.

MR. EYKYN

said, he could not accede to this proposal.

MR. COGAN

said, that as he did not think the wrong and insult that would by the proposed inquiry be put upon the Church to which he belonged could be at all lessened by extending the inquiry to other religious bodies, he was not prepared to adopt the proposition of the hon. Member for Windsor.

MR. J. G. TALBOT

said, he thought the wording of the proposition rather vague. The hon. Member for Windsor proposed that it be an Instruction to the Committee to include within the scope of their inquiry all Anglican and other so-called religious institutions.

MR. SPEAKER

said, that the Instruction of the hon. Member for Windsor, as amended, referred to "other religious institutions in Great Britain of a Conventual or Monastic character."

Motion agreed to. Instruction to the Committee that they have power to include in their inquiries, Anglican and other religious institutions in Great Britain of a Conventual or Monastic character.—(Mr. Eykyn.)

MR. MATTHEWS

said, he wished to correct a misunderstanding which had arisen in regard to the Instructions to the Committee which he intended to move. Every member of a monastic order in England in which vows were taken was, under the existing laws of the country, guilty of misdemeanour, and liable, as a consequence, to banishment for life. Further, every trust under which property was held for the maintenance of such orders was, in law, void, because it enabled men to live under vows forbidden by the law. This being so, any person who felt so inclined might, by application to the Court of Chancery, have the trusts set aside, and cause the property to revert to the heirs-at-law of the donors, or to be applied to such purposes as the Crown might appoint. Therefore, he wished that the Committee should be so instructed as that no member of an order who might be called upon for evidence should be compelled or called upon to make minute statements that could lead to the property of his monastery being forfeited by its being shown to be held under a title that was bad in law. He had no intention to re-open the discussion on the broad question of the appointment or non-appointment of the Committee, but simply to guard against the inquiry being turned into a mere inquisition. To effect this object he, therefore, moved— That it be an Instruction to the Committee not to inquire into matters which would involve a criminal charge against any person, or the forfeiture of any legal or equitable interest in property. He had placed upon the Paper a second Instruction, to the effect that the Committee should Inquire and report, in the first instance, on the state of the Law respecting Conventual and Monastic Institutions or Societies in Great Britain, before proceeding with the other subjects of inquiry referred to them. This he had done because he found that authorities like the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. T. Chambers), and the Solicitor General held different views on the legal aspects of the question. At present, however, he moved the first of the two Instructions.

SIR JOHN GRAY

seconded the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That it be an Instruction to the Committee not to inquire into matters which would involve a criminal charge against any person, or the forfeiture of any legal or equitable interest in property"—(Mr. Matthews,)

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, the hon. and learned Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Matthews) had referred to him, probably because he anticipated that he (Mr. Newdegate) would object to any further limitation of the scope of the inquiry, and was suspected of being able to put an interpretation on the Motion of the First Lord of the Treasury which would involve danger to the tenure of property now held by monastic orders in this country. With regard to these questions he wished to explain. In a previous debate on this question he adverted to the monastery of Mount St. Bernard, in Leicestershire, and to the leniency which the Legislature had manifested in matters connected with that monastery, and its property. His having done this had led to a correspondence between himself and Mr. Harper, a gentleman connected with the management of a reformatory school which the Government had at one time placed under the control of the monks of Mount St. Bernard, who received the usual allowance for each of the boys placed in the school, the condition being that they should be employed upon a farm, of some 450 acres in extent, belonging to the monastery. In 1863, in consequence of the unsatisfactory state of the school and of certain evils connected with it being brought before the House, the Home Secretary made an arrangement, under which a certain number of persons, including Mr. Harper—all being Roman Catholics, and the chaplain of a school, a member of the monastic order, hired 100 of the 450 acres from the monks and continued to employ the boys upon it. Now, he put it to the House whether, if the danger of legal annoyances as to the possession of land by these monks which the hon. and learned Member seemed to apprehend from the proposed inquiry were likely to result, pending the inquiry the House had directed, it would not be clear that, prior to 1863, at any rate, there was already in the Library of the House, contained in a Parliamentary Return presented by the Home Office in 1864, direct evidence of the property having been, and being, in the possession of the monks inhabiting the monastery of Mount St. Bernard? That was a case directly in point, and if the danger which the hon. and learned Gentleman anticipated, should accrue, it could be no greater than that which had existed for the last eight or nine years. The apprehensions of the hon Gentleman, therefore, were quite groundless. The second Instruction related to the laws with regard to conventual property. Undoubtedly this subject was contemplated in 1860 in the debates on the Charitable Trusts Act; and one of the great arguments then used was that conventual property ought to be brought within the compass of the law, and the Act contained provisions for legalizing it on certain conditions. It was desirable that the House should know how far the provisions of this statute had been complied with or evaded. He perfectly admitted that that Act revived the clauses of the Catholic Relief Act of 1829 against the establishment of the; male Orders of the Church of Home in this country. But he had shown that there was no danger to the property in question pending the inquiries of the Committee, because in his own district property of this very kind had been exposed by a process as public as the inquiry of the Committee, and the hon. Member would find in the Library a Parliamentary Paper which had been there for the last six years, giving all the details with respect to it. He could not look upon the Instruction as anything else than an attempt to limit still further the inquiry of the Committee and to that he was decidedly opposed.

MR. GLADSTONE

Having made the Motion to which the House has agreed, and which effected a great limitation to the field of inquiry originally propounded, I feel it my duty to give an opinion upon the Motion of the hon. Member. I think it a most unfortunate I Motion, and I am extremely sorry that I it has been made. The hon. and learned Member (Mr. Matthews) indicated that he had found in private conversation a great objection to this Motion, and I do not think the remarks he made tended in the least to diminish it. As the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) said, there is no ground for apprehension about property. That is not the spirit in which the inquiry of the Committee will be conducted; and if any persons were inclined to conduct it in that spirit the hon. and learned Member and others will be there to prevent it. But the Motion is unfortunate, because it seems to show a disposition to chock the Committee in a field of inquiry which the House has marked out by a very largo majority, and I, having had something to do in limiting the inquiry as at first proposed, do not feel myself at liberty to introduce further limitations when there appears to me to be an absence of any practical object. The proper guards and limits of inquiry must be judged of by the discretion of the Committee and by the privilege of the witnesses. If a witness is asked questions which it would be injurious to him to answer, let him claim his privilege. If any course of examination is likely to lead to matter that would be inconvenient, the discretion of the Committee—which can be invoked by any Member at any time, at any point of the examination, is the only manner in which the difficulty can be met. I am very sorry, indeed, that the Motion has been made, because I think the very refusal of the House—and in my opinion they can have no hesitation in refusing it—will leave the Committee in a less advantageous position than they would otherwise be in.

MR. HEADLAM

said, it was his lot some years ago to preside over a Select Committee of that House to which was intrusted an inquiry of the very same description—he meant the Select Committee on the Law of Mortmain. Upon that occasion he had the good fortune not to meet with any opposition from any Roman Catholic Gentlemen who were Members of that House. On the contrary, a noble Lord, the late Duke of Norfolk, then Earl of Arundell and Surrey, and also the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Limerick (Mr. Monsell) were Members of the Committee. On that occasion he was careful to make everything general, so that there should be nothing in the form of reference, and nothing in the inquiry or Report which could be said to be directed against any particular portion of the community. There was no limitation whatever to the discretion of the Committee, and, of course, in the progress of the inquiry they had some delicate questions to determine. The late Cardinal Wiseman appeared before it. But he was happy to think that the whole inquiry was conducted in such a form that no Roman Catholic gentleman ever complained that anything harsh or illegal was done. The House could perfectly trust his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. P. Villiers) to conduct the present inquiry in the most unexceptional manner.

MR. CHARLEY

said, the hon. and learned Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Matthews) was fighting a shadow, for it appeared from Sir Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice that witnesses, petitioners, and others were protected by privilege from the consequences of any statement they might make to either House, and that any molestation to which they might be subjected in consequence of such statement would be treated as a breach of privilege.

MR. SHERLOCK

said, that a witness might refuse to answer any questions tending to criminate himself, and if questions were put to him involving the title of his property he might respectfully decline to answer. Lord St. Leonards last year, in a Court of Justice, had declined to state what his title was, and he recovered notwithstanding his refusal. The case referred to by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) as to the number of acres held by a particular monastery was one on which the hon. Gentleman himself could give the information required. The Motion, to say the least of it, was unnecessary.

MR. SYNAN

said, he could not see what possible objection there was to the Motion; but, at the same time, he did not recommend that the hon. and learned Gentleman should go to a Division on it. It would, however, prove to the House and the Committee that the inquiry ought to be two-fold—first, into the law as to its exempting persons and property from the penalties of confiscation, and afterwards, an inquiry into the other part of the order of reference.

MR. MATTHEWS

begged leave to withdraw his Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. WHALLEY

rose to move— That it be an Instruction to the Committee also to inquire into the existence, character, and increase of Conventual and Monastic Institutions or Societies in Great Britain.

MR. SPEAKER

ruled that the Motion was irregular.

House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock.