HC Deb 31 March 1882 vol 268 cc495-518
MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

, in rising to call attention to the Lands in charge of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England and Wales; and to move— That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the position of the Ecclesiastical Commission with reference to the Lands and other Property vested in the Commissioners, and also into the work, in connection with real property, of the Church Estates Commissioners and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England and Wales, said, he wished to call the attention of the House to the affairs of the largest, the most wealthy, the most widely-operating, the most powerful, and the most dignified Corporation under the Crown. The business of the Ecclesiastical Commission was conducted by gentlemen of much respectability, while in the Commission were included 52 persons who were the highest functionaries in the State, the Church, and the Judiciary. The connection of those great personages with the Ecclesiastical Commission was, however, simply ornamental, except in the case of the Bishops. Five Ministers of the Crown were placed upon it to show that the Commission had public and official sanction; and it was on record that Lord Palmerston, while occupying the Office of First Minister of the Crown, did on one occasion attend the business of the Board. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I have done it.] That occasion was one in which this House had given some attention to matters connected with the Deanery of York; and what Lord Palmerston experienced on that occasion was that, whatever his power in this House, he was in a hopeless minority at the Board of the Ecclesiastical Commission. But for the information with which the Prime Minister had just honoured him, he was not aware that any Prime Minister had since entered the offices. Judges were placed upon the Commission in order to give the public confidence in the operations of the Board; but no Judge, with the exception of Sir S. Lushington, whose Court was a sort of half-way house between Church and State, had ever attended the meetings. It was supposed, at the outset of the Commission, that the Judges would attend and give their opinion upon matters of law; but no one would regret that they had thought it inconsistent with their duty to attend at the office of the Commissioners when a question might be referred to them which would afterwards have to be submitted to them in their judicial capacity. The Bishops and Deans had practically been, and were at this moment, the governing majority; and the House would not greatly err if it arrived at the conclusion, in regard to the Commission, that it was practically only another form of Upper House of Convocation. His remarks would deal wholly with the landed estates and other property in charge of the Commission. It was, as it were, by an accident that in 1843, by the instrumentality of Sir Robert Peel, this great Commission obtained the power of sale and purchase of land, under which it had conducted such vast operations. Sir Robert Peel proposed that a loan of £600,000 should be advanced from Queen Anne's Bounty to the Commissioners; and, in order to give better security for that loan, power of sale was given to the Commissioners, under which they had conducted their operations for the last 30 years. The Commissioners had, at the present time, investments in the Three per Cents amounting to over £5,000,000, of which a sum of £1,500,000 was derived from the proceeds of sales, which they were bound to re-invest in the purchase of land, but only "so soon as it might be convenient." The House would probably be aware that after the full development of the work of the Commission in 1850, the design and scope of their operations assumed this form—that they were prepared to take over from Ecclesiastical Corporations, from Bishops, Deans, Chapters, and Incumbents, their separate estates, guaranteeing to them a certain statutory income, authorized and fixed by Order in Council; and ultimately, having enfranchised their land and re-arranged those properties, to return the estates to their hands in sufficient extent to provide in perpetuity the income arranged by Order of Council to be given to them. What had been the results in reference to the endeavours of the Commission to go forward in this great undertaking? In the process of enfranchisement the area of Church lands—now including more than 500,000 acres—had been considerably reduced, because, while the Commissioners had been active in purchasing outstanding terms of leases for lives, they had over large areas sold the reversionary interest to the life tenants. From time to time episcopal and capitular estates had fallen into their hands, and there were only two Bishops—those of Llandaff and Bangor—whose estates had not passed on to the books of the Commission. In the operations of the Commission it had been assumed, as a matter of public policy, that Bishops and Deans and Chapters should have estates; and it was always held that when these estates had been enfranchised and had been "ring-fenced," they would pass away from the Commission into local control, under these conditions—that should the income prove more or less than the statutory salary, it would be for the profit or the loss of the incumbents. A Bishop, who took his estate back from the Commissioners—an estate supposed to yield his statutory income—farmed it, in fact, upon a lease for his life, and took it for better or worse. He had no interest in his successor, nor could it possibly be of interest to him to execute upon it the improvement which landed property must at all times require. It was assumed by the Commission that this work would be soon accomplished, and that the surplus in the hands of the Commissioners would have been determined long ago. In 1863 a Select Committee of that House was appointed to inquire into the then state of the Ecclesiastical Commission. One witness of authority gave his opinion that this re-disposition of estates would be completed in 1870; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge, who was for many years, from 1855, a responsible Member of the Commission, deliberately gave it as his opinion that all dealings with these estates would be ended in 20 years, and that then all these transactions would be completed. He did not regret, for reasons which he should presently state to the House, that the evidence upon which that Committee proceeded had been disappointed; and it was impossible to conceive a state of things more utterly unlike a realization of the predictions of the right hon. Gentleman than that which now existed. There were at present 30 Bishops, including two Archbishops, in England and Wales, and they were all Members of the Commission. Of these, only three—Canterbury, Hereford, and Lincoln—had taken back the re-arranged estates from the Commission; and it was a fact of great significance that no fewer than nine Bishops, whose estates had been rearranged and returned into their hands by the Commission, had handed them back again into the permanent custody of the Commission, making them, in fact, a permanent agency for the management of episcopal estates. Those Bishops were York, Durham, Carlisle, Chester, Ely, Gloucester and Bristol, Norwich, Worcester, and Peterborough. The estates of Rochester, Salisbury, St. Davids, St. Asaph, Ripon, and Oxford, were in the office undergoing rearrangement, so that, since the last Committee of Inquiry, there had been a wholly new departure, and the Com- mission had a practically permanent work upon its hands, and had now charge of nearly all the episcopal and a great number of the capitular estates. The system of accounts was condemned by the Committee of 1863, and had never been reformed. It was not easy to get at what was the real income of the Commission; but it appeared certain the rental of the estates vested in the Commissioners was not less than £880,000 per annum. The rental of agricultural land was about £300,000. The Commission derived nearly £150,000 a-year from rents of houses and premises in and about London; £270,000 a-year from tithes and corn rent charges; more than £200,000 a-year from mineral rights; and, in addition, large sums were received from ground rents and manorial fees. From the episcopal estates, given back after enfranchisement, they received more than £40,000 a-year, and £32,000 a-year from estates to be applied to specific purposes. Lord Chichester stated to the Duke of Richmond's Commission that the extent of the agricultural land managed by the Ecclesiastical Commission was 250,000 acres; but he thought his Lordship must have omitted the estates given back, and now permanently in the hands of the Commissioners. At all events, it was certain that the Commissioners dealt with an income in connection with real property not far short of £1,000,000 per annum. The Select Committee of 1863, which included Mr. Lowe, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Bouverie, and Lord Robert Cecil (the Marquess of Salisbury), arrived at two conclusions, which he desired especially to press upon the attention of the House. He frankly admitted that he would much rather his request for a Committee were negatived than that it should not be plainly understood that the design of a Committee, if a Committee be appointed, was to devise means for carrying into practical effect the two neglected conclusions of the Committee of 1863—namely— (1.) "That the system of throwing permanently the administration of large properties scattered over the whole country into the hands of one central body is objectionable; and— (2.) "That, independently of the political objection to such a concentration of property, this system unavoidably consumes a considerable part of the revenues of the Church in the expenses of valuing and re-valuing lands, and in the maintenance of a large establishment of secretaries and clerks. Your Committee are of opinion that this excessive expenditure is to be attributed in some degree to the fact that estates so widely dispersed are placed under the management of one Corporation. He was not indifferent to the welfare of the Church; but he did not profess that that was the mainspring of the action he was taking that night. He was moved to ask for the appointment of this Committee because he thought that the ownership of land by Corporations was, in the words of the Select Committee, "highly objectionable," because he thought that such tenure of land was contrary in the highest degree to public policy and injurious to public interests. As to the limit he sought to impose in that respect, he held it to be a cardinal maxim of public policy that dispositions which took land permanently out of the ordinary conditions of proprietorship were to be defended only by showing that the particular dedication was of such necessity, or of so much value to the common wealth, that an exception should be made in its favour. His main object was thus plainly declared. He did not desire the appointment of a Select Committee without an understanding that the execution of that public policy was to be a main line of its inquiry. He need not hesitate to recommend a purely economic policy on the ground that it would be productive of great material advantage to the Church. He ventured to say that the Ecclesiastical Commission was unrivalled amongst all the Public Offices of the country for what he might term respectable extravagance, though he did not mean that there was extravagance within the office of the Commissioners. The golden stalls of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners seemed to him to be filled with solicitors and land agents. So far as he could make out, the expenses of the Commissioners for last year, including £55,000 for the erection of buildings and works and for drainage, amounted to about £170,000—that was to say, a charge of about 20 per cent upon the gross revenue of the Commission. If, instead of £5,000,000 of Consols, the Commissioners had all their property similarly invested—with the exception admitted in his statement in definition of public policy—their expenditure would be reduced by nearly £150,000 a-year. He was not one of those who thought that the value of land in this country would fail to increase. He believed that at the present time land was a good investment, and that at no very distant time it would tend to increase in value; and those who, having regard to the cost of the Commission, might be unwilling to part in any way with their landed property, should bear this in mind—that while undoubtedly there was a probability that the value of land would increase, he did not think there was a probability that the value of the estates in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would augment by an accretion of £150,000 a-year. But, looking as he did at this matter from the point of view of public interest and policy, he turned his attention to the far greater advantage which, in his opinion, would accrue to the public from giving freedom to this vast area, which included some of the most fertile land in the country. He was a determined opponent to life tenancy in lands; but he believed the most disastrous to public interest was clerical tenure. He had observed with interest that one of the Assistant Commissioners had informed the Duke of Richmond that glebe lands were among the worst farmed lands in the country. Lord Spencer, before he quitted the Commission, asked Mr. Coleman—"What have you to say about Church estates?" to which the Assistant Commissioner replied— Take glebe lands; are there any estates that are much worse managed than they? I say, for this reason, that the tenant is a life owner and in the most limited degree; it will not he his son or any relative of his own who will succeed him, and he gets as much as he can out of it during his life. A fact worthy of notice was that the Duke of Richmond had received a Report from one of the assistants to his Agricultural Commission, stating with something very like complaint that "up to the present time the Commissioners have not adopted a tenant-right agreement." He gave his opinion deliberately that the remuneration of solicitors, surveyors, receivers, and architects, who last year appear to have charged in all something like £80,000, had been a very near approach to a scandal in the business of the Ecclesiastical Commission. There had been involved a continuous and needless waste of the funds of the Church. One great cause of the waste had arisen from the practice of paying their solicitors by fees instead of by salary. Why could not the Ecclesiastical Commission, which was at least 20 years behind the fulfilment of the expectation of its founders, adopt the same principles of payment as the Post Office or the Treasury? It had been said that the present system conduced to the quick despatch of business; but, considering its dilatory proceedings, he did not think much could possibly be lost in that way The business of the Treasury and Post Office was conducted by salaried solicitors and surveyors, and was quickly and satisfactorily done. He had always heartily believed in the doctrine set forth by Edmund Burke, who said— That all public estates which are more subservient to the expense of perception and management than of benefit to the public revenue ought, upon every principle, both of revenue and of freedom, to he disposed of. He would give an example of one of the 937 "Special Accounts" of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The very considerable estates of the vicarage of Rochdale long ago passed under the control of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Commissioners were managing those estates, which were, or would be, worth more than £25,000 a-year, with very considerable ability; but they were doing it under conditions to which he made the most strenuous objection. There were politicians of all sorts in the borough of Rochdale—including, no doubt, men who were in favour of that policy which was called the Nationalization of Land—who were prepared to recommend that a Department of State should deal with farm leases and building leases, with sites for churches and for public-houses, and with all the claims of priority and pre-emption. He had always opposed those ideas as visionary and impracticable. He had always maintained the advantage of the institution of private property in land, and he had always contended that private property in land was the means by which they could secure its best cultivation, and the largest production; but if the farming of the Rochdale Vicarage estates by this Department in Whitehall, on a system which must, of necessity, be most inconvenient and expensive, was to be defended, what answer were they to give to those working men who were asking them to undertake the Nationalization of the whole land of the country? Were they to say that the Nationalization of Land was bad, while they contended that Corporations could farm and control estates like these in all parts of the country? There was no hon. Member in the House who did not know that this system was bad; that with the best intentions such management from Whitehall must be extravagant, dilatory, and tending to an imperfect use of the land. One singular feature of the Ecclesiastical Commission had been that when public opinion was turned upon it there was an immediate disposition to reduce expenditure. Within 30 years the Commissioners had spent more than £1,000,000 in agricultural improvements. There was a strong stimulus in that direction. The land agents received 5 per cent—£50,000—upon that outlay. Well, he had put this Notice on the Paper in 1880, and again in the Session of 1881. It was a curious coincidence that in February, 1881, the Estates Committee came to the conclusion that, as a general rule, the commission of 5 per cent on such improvements should be discontinued, and should be covered by the 4 per cent commission upon the rents. They had made further savings in the same direction. That showed the inevitable extravagance and development of a great land agency department. Next, as to tithes. According to present appearances the tithes in the charge of the Commission would, at no distant date, be trebled, and would exceed £600,000 a-year; and thus nearly one-sixth of the whole tithe-rent charge of England and Wales would be administered by the Commission. He should hope that, in these circumstances, if a Committee were appointed, they might entertain, perhaps through the machinery of this Commission, the question of the redemption of tithe. That would be a measure advantageous both to owners and occupiers of land. Then there was the question of copyholds. The Commission was lord of many manors, and by a curious practice the deputy-stewards gave no account of a moiety of the fees. He hoped that, while preserving the existing right of lord or tenant to compel enfranchisement, a general Statute might bring about the extinction of copyhold tenure within a period from the date of such a Statute of 10 years. He did not doubt that the case was made out for the appointment of a Select Committee; for not only had the propositions of the Committee of 1863 been neglected, but the evils against which those propositions were directed had immensely increased. The case was strong beyond denial; because the evidence upon which that Committee rested as to the termination of the estate business of the Commission had been utterly falsified by the results. He would fortify himself with a venerable authority with whom he did not often agree—namely, Lord Grey. In 1861, Lord Grey, alluding to the Greenwich Hospital Estates which had since been disposed of, said— The proper mode of guarding against the evils anticipated is by selling the property. I am persuaded that the public is essentially a bad owner of landed property. He hoped that sentiment would meet with general assent in that House. He acknowledged that it was most creditable to the distinguished ecclesiastics and Members of the Legislature who had guided the business of this great Commission for 40 years that he was constrained, not by considerations of personal courtesy, but by honest recognition of facts, to say that this vast business, set in the midst of so many and great dangers, had been free from scandalous report.

MR. JAMES HOWARD

, in seconding the Motion, said, the management of the ecclesiastical property of this country was a very great scandal; and, moreover, the plan adopted with regard to its management had a tendency to retard agriculture. That such was the case might be seen from a very interesting Report on the agriculture of Durham, published in the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. Although improvements in the management of the estates of the Ecclesiastical Commission had taken place of late years, it would be seen from the Report of the Assistant Commissioner, Mr. Coleman, that very great improvements were still needed. While £8,700 had been put down for drainage in the Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, £33,000 had been put down as the cost of official management, and £16,000 as the amount of charges by actuaries and others. If the estates were in the hands of private owners, most of these official expenses would be saved, and a considerable addition, by the sale of the lands, might be made to the number of the landholders of the country. He contended that it was undesirable that land should be held in perpetuity; and especially that in England, where the amount of land was most limited, Corporations should have such a grip on our broad acres.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "a Select Committee he appointed to inquire into the position of the Ecclesiastical Commission with reference to the Lands and other Property vested in the Commissioners, and also into the work, in connection with real property, of the Church Estates Commissioners and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England and Wales,"—(Mr. Arthur Arnold,) —instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. GOSCHEN

remarked, that there was but one part of this large subject on which he desired to say a few words, and that was the broad principle of the possession of land by Corporations such as the Ecclesiastical Commission. His hon. Friend had covered a great deal of ground, and nearly all the ground he covered was interesting and well deserving the notice of the House. He meant such points as the management of the property by the Commission, the question of the redemption of tithe, and many others which had been alluded to; but he wished to confine his remarks to that part of the speech which dealt with the question whether it was to the public interest that these Corporations should have so large a portion of the soil of this country? Now, upon that subject he had long had a very decided opinion, and it was, he thought, in 1874 that he called public attention to this matter, not only as regarded the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, but also as regarded most corporate bodies which held so much land. He raised the question at that time whether it was desirable that the Statute of Mortmain should practically be entirely neutralized? He was glad to think that there was a very considerable consensus of opinion on this point—that it was to the interest of the country that these Corporations should begin to sell their land. When he had the honour of being the First Lord of the Admiralty he acted, with the consent of the Government, upon the principle he had previously enunciated, and they sold a considerable part of the Greenwich estates, which at that time belonged to Greenwich Hospital, and that policy was continued by their Successors, the Conservative Government. He asked himself, when he was at the Admiralty, whether it was right for a Department which had charge of the enormous interests of the British Navy to be troubled at the same time with the management of vast estates, and to have to settle questions of leases and improvements, and generally to occupy the position of landlords? Fortunately, at that time the Civil Lord (the Earl of Camperdown) was very conversant with the management of estates; but it would have been a great anomaly for a Civil Lord who did not happen to be conversant with such subjects to have to consider questions of leases, drainage, and improvements. In the case of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners things were so far different, that here was a body of gentlemen who were trained to the work; but he thought his hon. Friend had, to a great extent, established that it was exceedingly difficult for them to manage these estates with all the advantage of private landlords. He did not mean only the advantage to the owner of the land; but he also alluded to the advantage to the tenant occupying the land and to the public interest. He was glad his hon. Friend had brought forward this question now; because it appeared to him that if there were previously foundation for a change of system as regarded the ownership of land by Corporations, the events of the last four or five years, and the general turn which agriculture had taken, had strengthened the argument for the change which ought to be made. All that they had heard during the agricultural depression seemed to show that land was a less desirable kind of property for these Corporations to hold than was believed before. The fluctuations in the rents, the lowering in the value, and all the difficulties that had surrounded the ownership of land were all difficulties in the way that were not thought of when agriculture went smoother. They had seen that many questions had been raised between landlords and tenants during the last four or five years; and he did not think it was probable that the discussion upon those questions would be lessened during the next four or five years, although it was to be hoped that better times for the agricultural interest would smooth the way in many respects; but, at the same time, he would ask the House if it was desirable these Corporations should have to undertake with their tenants the decision of the very complicated questions which had now arisen between landlord and tenants? There would be the question as regarded the Agricultural Holdings Act. Public bodies had been in this position—that they had not known whether or not to carry out that which had been the intention of the Legislature. They had been unwilling in some cases to avail themselves of those contracts which had been pointed out by that House as most desirable as forming an arrangement between landlord and tenant. He looked at this question upon the principle that it was undesirable that these Corporations should occupy so great a proportion of the soil of the country; and also upon the more modern ground that the pursuit of agriculture had become more and more a difficult business, requiring more scientific knowledge and more constant attention, both from the landlord and tenant. Upon these grounds, it seemed to him there was a case made for establishing the principle that these Corporations ought by degrees, without creating a depression in the price of land, to pursue the policy of selling rather than purchasing. He did not know what might be the best plan to pursue with regard to the Committee asked for; but whether the Government thought fit to grant the Committee or not, his hon. Friend had done good service by drawing the attention of the public to this most important question.

MR. GLADSTONE

I think it would be for the convenience of the House that I should, at this early period, state the position of the Government with regard to this Motion. I should be very glad, indeed, if I could regard it as a subject entirely dissociated from the position of the Government. I do not think it is so. It appears to me that its magnitude, its complexity, its relation to the large question of principle, are such that in- evitably cause it to assume an aspect of inquiry whether the Government are at the present moment prepared to deal with it or not. I do not think it would be advisable for the Government to assent to the appointment of this Committee as a mere matter of examination into the prudence of the detailed Rules under which the detailed business of the Ecclesiastical Commission is conducted. It is obvious that the question of the constitution of the Commission is open to a good deal of observation. It is rather constituted upon the basis which was the favourite one in former times that of filling bodies of this kind with large numbers of persons already charged with heavy duties and great responsibilities, under the notion, which modern experience has not favoured, that a composition of that sort was not the way to secure an efficient and satisfactory transaction of Business. It is, however, one of the few propositions of my hon. Friend with which I cannot agree, that the Commission assumes, in its practical character, the aspect of another Upper House of Convocation; because, if I am correctly informed, the Bishops, with the exception of one or two, and especially the Bishop of London, who is on the spot, rarely attend its meetings. The attendance of Her Majesty's Ministers is also rare. I myself have attended one or more meetings of the Ecclesiastical Commission as a Minister; but upon the special occasion when Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, we attended a meeting on the question of principle as regarded the salary of the Dean of York, and I am sorry to say on that occasion there was a considerable collection of Bishops, and we had the misfortnne to be left in a minority. Upon the whole, it would be a mistake to consider this Commission as one, in the main, under ecclesiastical influences. I am bound to say, in my belief, the Commission, when its transactions come to be examined, would not come badly out of the inquiry. I mean, if you grant the principles upon which the Commission was founded; if you grant it is right that Corporations of this kind should exist to be the largest landowners in the country. It is, therefore, no discredit to the Commission at all if I admit that inquiry into the management of a Body of this kind by Par- liament is not only a thing perfectly natural, and to be expected, but it is almost the duty of the Legislature that such inquiry should be made. It implies no discredit, no suspicion as towards those who are charged with the practical management of this Commission, and who, I believe, have applied themselves with zeal and general efficiency to the transaction of the business which it has in hand. I believe that in their capacity as landlords they have made great efforts to improve their estates. In the county of Durham, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have expended in improvements upon farms in the shape of buildings, £120,000; and in the shape of drainage, about £70,000. That is no inconsiderable sum within the limits of a single county. That does not touch the question which is the main subject of my hon. Friend's Motion. If this were only a Motion for Inquiry into the management of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, I should feel that inquiry was one of so limited scope that it might be within the power of independent Members of the House to conduct it to a satisfactory conclusion; but it is obvious, and my hon. Friend makes no secret of it—in fact, he rather makes it the main point of his Motion—this object is to raise the question whether the holding of land, to a large extent agricultural, by a Body of this kind is an economical management of the public resources, and whether it is for the advantage of the country the land should be held. Now, upon that subject, I must say I agree entirely, in my own personal conviction, with what has been stated by my hon. Friend, and the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I am adverse to this method of holding land. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners offer to us one large case; but my hon. Friend very well knows that there are other cases which, likewise cannot fail at some time to draw seriously the attention of Parliament. I do not speak now of the Crown Lands. In my opinion, the Crown Lands form a case by themselves; and it would not be perfectly accurate, in my opinion, to speak of the Crown Lands as held under mortmain. I give no opinion upon that subject at the present time. It involves a multitude of considerations quite apart from those raised by the present Motion. I am extremely glad my hon. Friend has raised this question alone; for, undoubtedly, it has been matter sufficient to draw our attention to. But when I consider the question whether the appointment of this Committee would be expedient at the present time—if it is to consider not merely the detail of the management of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, but the basis on which that institution stands, the question raised is one for the consideration of the Government, who are virtually asked to say whether they are in a condition at the present time to charge themselves, in the face of the House and the public, with the responsibility as well as the labour of conducting an inquiry into this kind of property. Well, I am bound to say that this is not the case. The unfortunate topic on which we were engaged last night, viewed in its largest aspect—namely, the incapacity of the House, under its present arrangements, to transact Business, and to meet the calls which naturally belong to its province—is a topic which returns upon us at every point. We have charged ourselves, in the face of the country, with obligations to endeavour to deal with certain subjects of great public interest; and now, when the Session is somewhat advanced, instead of being able to add to our obligations, we have to admit that our means of action seem month by month to diminish. Everything, so far as our view is concerned, must depend upon the efficiency, energy, and completeness of the arrangement which the House may make affecting its own procedure, and affecting its own method, in order to enable us to get at this question in a satisfactory manner. My hon. Friend will feel that it would not be creditable to give an engagement to undertake this subject, unless we were prepared with the means to redeem that engagement. We cannot afford to make such an addition to the labours with which we are charged. We sympathize entirely with the purpose of my hon. Friend—at any rate, to this extent—without seeking to pledge Parliament beforehand, that we would ask Parliament to recognize that the subject of the holding of land in mortmain by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners was a proper and fit subject for searching investigation; but we cannot see that our powers enable us to carry forward an inquiry of the kind at the present time. There is a plan which seems to promise very large advantage. The money invested in best securities at moderate rates of interest would be a profitable investment, as compared with an investment in land held under unfavourable circumstances. Strong as the Ecclesiastical Commission is, when we compare its position with the perfectly deplorable position at this moment of the individual clergy who happen to be dependent upon the land for their income—although its position is strong in comparison with theirs, its position is weak in regard to the general management of its estates. A body of this kind has not that independence in the face of its tenants which a private landlord has; and I believe the reductions which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have been obliged to make under pressure to their tenants have been larger than those which private landlords have had to give. Nor can I fail to agree with the advantage of bringing into the market a considerable portion of the surplus, which, instead of being held under the present limitations, might pass into the hands of private proprietors, and become naturally the subject for the exercise of the energy and application of the capital which they would apply to their private purposes. I am glad that this question has been raised by my hon. Friend. I regard with goodwill the operation that he has taken in hand. I wish we were in a position in which we could promise the House to become responsible for the institution of this important and searching inquiry; but I must not shut my eyes to facts, or to the question, how much can we redeem of the promises that we have already made? And I feel convinced that my hon. Friend will admit that there is force and justice in my plea when I say that, in these circumstances, we ought not to offer a new promise. Sir, I shall be very glad when the House is restored to some part of its natural freedom, and is able to put forth those energies—which, so far as the capacity of its Members is concerned, or the goodwill of its Members is concerned, I believe never were more abundant—to put forth those energies at a time when we could be said to have emerged from the difficulties in which we are engaged. I feel that the premature appointment of a Committee of this kind, unless it could be followed promptly to its natural conclusion, by carrying forward for a very important end the legislation for which it would probably lay, as, I think, sufficient and ample grounds, might, instead of advancing, retard the progress of the views which my hon. Friend wishes to propagate; and, therefore, I hope he will not be surprised, and will not think it implies any inadequate appreciation of the subject or any want of sympathy with the views that he is inclined to propose, if I say that I trust we shall not be called upon to give a vote at the present moment on the Motion that he has made; and that, at any rate, the Government would not be parties to the responsibility of entering into an engagement which they doubted their present capacity to redeem.

SIR JOHN MOWBRAY

said, he wished to point out several inaccuracies in the speech of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Arnold.) First, it was desirable to remember that the four last Bishoprics—namely, Manchester, Truro, Liverpool, and St. Albans—were without landed estates, so that the inquiry could not refer to them. The hon. Member said that the total land reached 250,000 acres, and his right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) said it was time they began to sell. The House would be, perhaps, surprised to hear that during the existence of the Commission, taking sales on the one side and purchases on the other, no less than 416,117 acres, formerly the property of the Church, had been enfranchised, and were now in lay hands. The land now held by the Commission, in their own right and in possession, was not 250,000 acres, but 190,000. The hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard) quoted some figures about drainage. Why did he begin with drainage? He looked to the Report of the Commission for 1881, and he found in that year £47,000 spent on farm buildings, and the year before £52,000 on the same item. Was that a fair way of stating the case—to give the small item about drainage, and leave the larger items alone? Since the Commission was instituted up to the 31st of October last the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had spent a total on farm buildings and improvements of £1,032,715, and on drainage £242,995. As to the surveyor's charges, he did not deny that the figures were large. The object of the Ecclesiastical Commission had been to keep the expenses of their operations within the lowest possible limits, and to revise and reduce them from time to time as occasion arose. The scale of these expenses had been originally settled on what was then regarded as a moderate ratio in 1851. It was settled by Lord Chichester, who was universally recognized as having the greatest knowledge of estates' management, as he (Sir John Mowbray) could testify, having had the honour of being associated with him for eight years. The scale of charges was reduced in 1857, again in 1864, again in 1873, and again in 1881. The late Mr. E. J. Smith—and he could not mention the name of Mr. Smith without expressing his sense of the great services rendered to the Church and the Commission by that eminent man—stated to the Committee of the House in 1863 that the total costs of the change of system from beginning to end would scarcely exceed a single year's income from the gain thereby obtained. After the Report of the Select Committee in 1863, Her Majesty's Government called the attention of the Commissioners to that Report, and the Ecclesiastical Commission went fully into every question raised in it; and their statement, embodied in the Annual Report of the Commissioners, was laid before Parliament in 1864. Since that there had been no proposal in either House of Parliament for a change in the constitution or practice of the Board. In that very year Parliament gave the Ecclesiastical Commission additional power; and since then more than 100 Acts had been passed, affecting the Commission more or less, and giving new or altered functions to the Board, some handing over property, as at Rochdale and elsewhere; others, such as the Endowed Schools Acts and New Bishoprics Acts, giving them very considerable discretionary powers. Parliament had thus, over and over again during 18 years, exhibited the utmost confidence in the judicious management of the Commission. No doubt the Commission had committed many faults; but, on a review of their situation, he challenged the hon. Member to show that they had in any way abused the important trusts that had been committed to their charge, misapplied their revenues, or mismanaged their property. Were they, then, not entitled to the confidence which the country had reposed in them for so many years? What was the great object with which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were appointed? It was that they might, by a judicious management of ecclesiastical property, increase the Church revenues, so as to enable them to relieve the spiritual destitution of the country. And what had been the result of the Commissioners' efforts in that direction? They had augmented the value of the livings in upwards of 4,700 out of the 15,000 parishes into which England and Wales were divided. Then, again, did the hon. Member know the difference between the estimate which was originally made of what the action of the Commissioners would produce and what had been actually realized? During the period the Commission had been in existence they had added a sum of £19,000,000 to the property of the Church, besides having elicited a further sum of £4,000,000 in the shape of contributions from private sources—thus making a total sum of £23,000,060, for which the Church was indebted to the exertions of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners during the past 40 years, representing an annual income of £690,000. Let the House contrast this with the state of things anticipated in 1836 or realized in 1863. In 1836, a Royal Commission reported that they anticipated that the property which would accrue to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would leave about £134,000 a-year available for augmenting small livings. In 1863 his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole) stated to a Select Committee that the amount already actually exceeded that sum, and reached £146,000; and he (Mr. Walpole) added his belief, if the Commissioners went on, they would ultimately be able to realize to the Commission for the purposes of the Church a further surplus income of £150,000—making a total of nearly £300,000. But in 1881 they had doubled that sum. They had added to the property of the Church and re-distributed funds to the extent of £690,000 a-year, and the work was still going on. They were advised by their very cautious and experienced actuary that for some years to come there was every prospect of their being able to do what they had done for many years past—namely, adding year by year an additional capital sum of £600,000, representing an annual income of £20,000 in perpetuity to the Church. Such a work as the Commissioners were now doing had not been accomplished since the Reformation; and the question was, should they be allowed to go on or not with that beneficial work? The great object of terminating the wasteful system by which Church property was divided between lessors and lessees was not yet entirely accomplished, and could not be so for many years. Some leases would expire in 1884, others granted on lives or for 40 years' terms had longer periods to run. The expenses, it was said, were great, but the work was arduous. There was every conceivable kind of holding and every conceivable sort of property, from Northumberland to the Land's End, and from Wales to Norfolk. They had manorial rights, with an endless variety of customs—foreshore rights, mineral rights, and fisheries. The Commissioners were owners of coals, lead, ironstone, agricultural land, building land, tithes, and woods. There were surveys to be made, titles to be investigated, rights to be asserted, rights to be defended, and liabilities of every kind to be discharged. The work, he maintained, was, upon the whole, well done; and until Parliament had decided the great question of the tenure of land by Corporations, let them not interfere by Committee and stop the great work which had been so long going on to the benefit of the Church and the nation.

MR. PUGH

, who had an Amendment on the Paper to add— And also into the management of the Crown Lands in Wales, by the Department of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, said, that, after what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister and from the hon. Member for Salford, he should not think of taking the sense of the House upon that Amendment on the present occasion; but he hoped to have an opportunity at another time of bringing the important question which it raised before the House. He thought there could not be any question as to the undesirability of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners continuing to ad- minister estates. That administration was only carried on at a very great expense. He was exceedingly sorry to hear from the Prime Minister that he did not think the Government would be in a position at present to take up the question; but he felt sure that as soon as the Government were able to take it up it would give unqualified satisfaction, not only to the people of the country generally, but also, he believed, to the Church itself.

MR. J. G. HUBBARD

contended that the Commissioners must not be regarded as an entity like other Corporations. They were, in fact, stewards who had for their clients not only every Bishop in the Church, but a great number of the clergy also. There could not be better evidence of the good management of the Commissioners than had been given by the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Sir John Mowbray). Not only had they maintained the value of the property as it was intrusted to them, but they had increased it by exchanges and enfranchisements and good management. The Prime Minister had suggested that money payments would be more convenient than land as ecclesiastical endowments; but nothing was so fluctuating as money, and nothing so permanent as a representative of value as land.

MR. J. W. PEASE

said, that, as he represented a county (Durham) in which the Commissioners had a great amount of property, he felt obliged to say that, so far as his observation went, the management of the Commissioners was in all respects excellent. The Commissioners had lost an able and devoted servant in Mr. E. J. Smith, whose death was severely felt throughout the whole county of Durham. He wished also to bear testimony to the political impartiality always manifested by the Commissioners. In his county Party feeling ran high; but the agents, solicitors, and other persons connected with the Commission did not allow themselves to be influenced in the slightest degree by political considerations. He admitted, however, that in small transactions the expenses were very high; he had seen cases where the law costs, in the case of the redemption of copyholds, &c., exceeded the whole value of the property. But the real question, as had been stated by his hon. Friend the Member for Salford and the Prime Minister, was the general policy of so much land being owned by Corporations in mortmain. He fully agreed with his hon. Friend on that subject, and hoped he would be able on a future occasion to bring the question in a riper and more general form for the consideration of the House.

MR. DODDS

expressed his regret that the Commission had lost the valuable services of Mr. Edmund James Smith. Probably there were few men in the House who had had more to do with the Commission than he had, and he must say that in every department there was scarcely anything which he did not admire in the management of that Commission. But it appeared to him that the point of the Resolution of the hon. Member for Salford did not refer so much to the general management of the Commission, but to the management of their landed estates. The Motion really had reference to lands and other property vested in the Commissioners, and the work of the Commission in connection with real property, and when he told the House that the episcopal, capitular, and other estates in the county of Durham, now under the management of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, extended to upwards of 40,000 acres, with an increase amounting to over £109,000, the House would imagine that they were largely interested in this question. What he felt was that the management of these estates would be better left in the hands of individual owners than under the control of the Commissioners, because the former would be persons living in the county, and knowing the best means of utilizing their holding. He, however, hoped the present Motion would be withdrawn, and that on a future occasion it might be brought forward again in an amended and more advantageous form.

SIR HARRY VERNEY

said, while he believed the Commissioners had done their duty, he thoroughly concurred in what the Prime Minister had said, that no Corporation could properly do its duty to the land. The personal residence of the landowner, when that could be obtained, was of more value than any charitable pecuniary contribution. He fully concurred in the remarks of the Prime Minister, and of the right hon. Gentleman behind him (Mr. Goschen), as to the great importance of getting these landed properties out of mort-main.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

, in asking permission to withdraw his Motion, disclaimed any desire for the appointment of a Committee merely to inquire into the business and general management of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and expressed his gratification at the statements made by the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friend the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen).

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.