HL Deb 03 March 1887 vol 311 cc1027-49

Order of the Day for resuming the Adjourned Debate on the Amendment to the Motion for the Second Reading, read.

Debate resumed accordingly.

THE BISHOP OF LONDON (Dr. TEMPLE)

said, the speech of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Grimthorpe) in opposition to this measure was one which it was extremely difficult to answer, and so clever that, although their Lordships did not like to be kept from their dinner, they stayed to listen. For himself, he should have given up his dinner altogether for the mere intellectual treat. He felt, however, under some disadvantage in replying to the speech because of the absence of the noble and learned Lord through indisposition. The noble and learned Lord had complained that the Bill had not been sufficiently discussed. The fact was that a Bill of this kind was never thoroughly discussed in that House, and in its present form, until it came up for second reading. But the subject with which the Bill dealt had been very largely discussed by the people at large, and especially by those who were attached to the Church; it was a subject that had been discussed for years, and a Bill like this was really the fruit of that discussion. It was through the discussion which had taken place that they had come to know what were the feelings of the people generally, and of the mass of the laity of the Church of England, on the question. The objections to the present working of the Church of England were of four kinds—first, to incompetent and immoral clergymen; second, to the inequality of the incomes of the clergy in respect to the work they had to do; third, to the sale of advowsons; and, fourth, to the fact that under the present system of patronage the inhabitants of a parish had no voice whatever, or any chance of being consulted, in the selection of their clergyman. The Bill did not deal with all these points. With regard to the question of the sale of advowsons and the necessity of allowing the people to have something to say as to the appointment of clergymen to their parishes, the Bill was an attempt to deal fairly and justly, as far as it was possible to do so, with all the interests concerned. With respect to the complaint on the part of the parishioners that the clergyman was forced on them without their having any voice whatever in his appointment, and without their having any opportunity of making any objections to it; he could not for himself understand how anyone could deny that that was a very natural and reasonable feeling on the part of the parishioners. Considering how serious the matters involved were, how they affected the kind of religious teaching which their children were to receive, and the character of the public worship carried on in their parish church, it was impossible not to see that the appointment of their clergyman was a thing that closely concerned the parishioners. It was not very easy for those in the position of their Lordships quite to understand how strong a feeling of that sort there was in the minds of people to whom the character of the clergyman was of far greater importance than it could ever be to any one of them. The way in which the question touched their domestic life and their dealings with their children brought it home to them in a manner which their Lordships would hardly realize. The parishioners felt about it with a keenness which to their Lordships might appear to be absurd; but anyone who had been in the habit of hearing the talk of ordinary laymen would not think he was exaggerating when he said their strong conviction was that their claim to be listened to in that matter was only bare justice. Now, in order to meet that demand, this Bill provided that the parishioners should have the power to make objections; but it did not provide that the objections so made were in all cases to prevail. The objections were to be made to the Bishop, who was to act upon them, or not, as he thought best. If the Bishop thought the objection was of sufficient importance to be so dealt with, he would place them before a Council, which was to be provided to assist him in the inquiry. That Council was a Council only to inquire and report to the Bishop their opinions on the objections. The Bishop then had to decide what he would do. If he thought, after inquiry, that the objections were well founded, then he could act upon them. But even then there might be an appeal to a higher authority, if the patron desired it. That plan had been suggested as the best mode of securing that the Bishop should not act strictly on his own motion; and provided that they secured that the parishioners should be heard, and that there should be some power of considering their objections, whether it was done by a Council, or by the Bishop, or by referring the matter to three other Bishops, he did not think that the Episcopal Bench would regard it as a very vital point. It was not the wish of the Bishops to decide the question without appeal, or that if there was an appeal it should be to three other Bishops. He felt sure that there would be no objection on that Bench to any reasonable arrangement. What they thought was that the people should feel that they were to have a voice in the appointment of the clergyman, who was to take care of the spiritual interests of themselves and their children. The noble and learned Lord had objected to all that, and had described it in the way that a very skilled advocate would do by supposing that, in every instance, there would be objections made by parishioners who had no real ground for making them; that they would rake up all sorts of gossiping stories and press them on the Bishop; that these stories would be brought before the Council, that the Council would sit in public; that the clergyman would be very thin-skinned and sensitive, and would be absolutely skinned alive in the presence of the parishioners by the questions put to him. The fact, however, was that probably in nine cases out of ten there would be no objections made at all, and in many instances the Bishop, after hearing them, would dismiss them. Al- though there was a good deal of harm done by the present system, it was not of such a kind that if they made arrangements for dealing with it they were certain to find that the whole country would be immediately thrown into turmoil by all sorts of inquiries into the characters of all sorts of clergymen. Nothing at all like that would happen. Here and there objections might be made to the appointment of a particular clergyman, and those objections would be heard by the Council; and there was no reason at all for supposing that clergymen would be unwilling to meet them. That was the way in which, taken as a whole, the measure would work. Whether the Council would sit in private or public the Bill did not determine, though he ventured to think they would sit in private in certain cases. The highly coloured picture of the misery and torture which the noble and learned Lord the other night drew as probable to occur under the Bill was not at all likely to be realized. The objections to the working of the Church of England in respect of patronage were of two kinds—that of having no voice in the selection of the clergymen, and that relating to the sale of livings—the latter an objection which seemed even stronger in the hearts of the people. Could they get rid of the sale of advowsons with complete and perfect justice to the owners, he confessed he did not think they ought to hesitate about stopping them altogether, and at once. But that was the difficulty, and must always remain the difficulty. The owners of advowsons said—"Why, this has gone on for many years. It has been recognized by the State in every possible way; and, therefore, if it is something wrong, have you not recognized it, and are you not participators in it? You cannot put the whole burden of stopping it on us." The sale of advowsons had been felt to be odious to the public at large for this reason. It seemed as if persons dealt with the nearest and dearest interests without any regard whatever to those interests, and without regard to anything but the money to be got out of them. People thought it a very iniquitous state of things that such matters should be dealt with altogether regardless of the feelings of the parishioners. It was quite clear that there were two very different purposes for which these sales might be effected. A man might buy a living because he wanted to provide a comfortable berth for some particular clergyman, and it would be quite clear, in that case, he was not regarding the interests of the parishioners; or a man might buy for a very different reason, because the inhabitants were of great interest to him, and because he desired to secure the best provision for the people. They could not put these two proposals on the same footing. The purchase of a living with the view of securing a better clergyman was not the same thing as purchasing a living regardless altogether of the views of the parish, which was regarded as a great insult. And this showed very much the way in which this Bill proposed to deal with the sale of advowsons. The tendency of the Bill was to discourage those sales which shut the interests of the parishioners out of sight. That was why it was proposed not to allow sales by auction, where it was proclaimed before the whole world that they did not care about the parish, but all for money. That was in the nature of the case a very insulting thing. It was a very grievous insult. There was a scandal about it. It was an illustration of the reasons why the parishioners objected to such sales. It was for this and similar reasons that the very existence of the clerical agents was felt to be a blot upon the Church of England, which the great mass of the people could not tolerate. Recurring for a moment to the objection taken by the noble and learned Lord to the power given to parishioners to object to a presentee as over 70, he could conceive that a man of 70 might very rightly be put into a place where he had much less work to do than in his old parish. He did not believe that the Bishop could fail to recognire such a case, or that he would be unwilling to accept a man who had done hard work, and came to do easy work in some light parish. But they knew from experience that it was by no means always wise to translate such men from their old parishes in which they had laboured many years. While they remained where they were there were ties between them and their parishioners of the sweetest kind, and although they did little work their very presence was a great blessing. Put such a man where he knew nobody and he became a failure. They must give a cer- tain amount of discretion to the Bishop. He did not mean to say that there might not be certain points in the Bill which were worthy of examination in Committee; there might be restrictions which might be differently worded; but he thought, on the whole, unless they meant to maintain to the last that a patron was to treat a living as a property and in no sense as a trust, they could not have fewer restrictions than were to be found in this Bill. As to Scotland, they had few of these sales north of the Tweed. They had not the practice there. In Scotland the people had a strong belief in the right of the congregation to have avoice in the selection of its minister; and as soon as it was known that the parishioners had very little voice they commenced the agitation which led to the dismemberment of the Church, and the sweeping away of all the private patronage, which might have remained still if only private patrons would have consented at first to some modification of their rights. They were certain to have to deal soon soon with the question of Disestablishment—within, should he say, the next 20 years. He expected that it would be within a shorter period even than that; and he considered it was the duty of all who valued the Church to see that the reasonable demands of the people were carefully considered and as far as possible conceded. He believed that the refusal to pass a Bill of this sort, and especially a refusal by that House, where it was supposed that the interests of the Church were specially guarded, would cause very serious risk to the Church hereafter. It would leave it open to be said that those who professed to care about the Church cared still more about their own private interests in the Church, and that they were unwilling to assent to changes or modifications of their rights which had been shown to be reasonable. It was essential to the acceptance of the labours of a clergyman in his parish that he should not be appointed without regard to the wishes of those to whom he was to minister; and the disregard of their feelings was coming to be regarded more and more as an insult. For these reasons he felt that the rejection of the Bill would seriously hurt the Church of England, to whose interests he was deeply attached.

EARL COWPER

said he spoke with the sense of responsibility which natu- rally attached to one who had the good fortune, or the misfortune, as some might think, to be the patron of 17 livings. No one could deny that there was need for reform of various kinds in the Church, and in considering what ought to be done they ought to have regard less to the attack of enemies outside than to the remedies for evils which were suggested by the experience of friends within. There was no primâ facie evidence that a man who bought a living was necessarily unfit to hold it. On the contrary, if he or his friends were willing to give money to procure him a benefice, it would appear at first sight that in his own belief or that of his friends he was adopting what he felt to be his vocation. He knew in his own neighbourhood a living occupied by a stranger for whom it was bought by a relative, and he made a most admirable parish priest. There was nothing iniquitous in paying a worn-out man to retire. It was one of the gravest scandals to the Church that men without energy should moulder in country parishes, when paralyzed either by age or by the monotony of their lives. The supersession of such men by younger and energetic men was a benefit to the Church. Perhaps there were shocking cases of sale by auction; and this was very wrong. But so far the supporters of this Bill had refrained from mentioning any of these scandals, perhaps from anxiety to avoid sensational speeches. Those who sold livings by auction must be men altogether devoid of all sense of responsibility. It was improbable they would make better appointments if they gave livings away, for if they were disreputable men they would be very likely to appoint their boon companions. As long as private patronage existed these risks must attend it. He was not sure that so great a grievance was connected with what were called family livings, some of which were held by most admirable clergymen. Still it had been said that these livings were reserved for the fool of the family who could not make his living in any other calling. The fact was, no system of patronage was altogether unattended by evil. The way to get at the evil was to take care that unfit men were not appointed, either by private presentation or in any other manner. The only way he could see was that of strengthening the hands of the Bishops, in the appointment of whom all Prime Ministers have felt a strong sense of responsibility. This was true not only of the noble Marquess at the head of the Government, and of Mr. Gladstone, but even of Lord Melbourne, of whom it was said he could hardly sleep at night when he had to appoint a Bishop. And there was not a Bishop on the Bench whose character and position would not secure public acquiescence in the increase in his powers. He did not like the idea of appointing a jury of Bishops. The matter had better be left to each Bishop in his own diocese. Party feeling in the Church was much exaggerated; and Christians of all denominations were beginning to make common cause against a common enemy. He did not think that Party spirit was so bitter as it was in the days of our forefathers. His own idea was that instead sometimes of being too anxious to interfere with and stop bad appointments, the Bishops were a little too humble and diffident of their powers. He hoped that if power were given and they were entitled to exercise it, something would be done to stop the appointment of unfit men. He also wished that more power existed of getting rid of incompetent men. That was a difficult matter, no doubt. It was an invidious duty to ask a man to retire and to surrender a portion of his income. He observed that the Bill gave the Bishop power to remove a clergyman who was lunatic for two years; but he thought that no hardship would be entailed in compelling every clergyman who had been unable from any cause to attend to his duties for two whole years to retire on one-third of his income. A provision of this kind he thought would be unobjectionable. Whether their Lordships could go any further than this he did not know. The matter was one which required very careful consideration. The subject of the lay element proposed to be introduced by this Bill was a very wide one; but in the opinion of many persons it was considered desirable to associate laymen in Church work. He was not quite sure, however, that to appoint a merely consultative council of this kind with no power and liable to be over-ruled by the Bishop,—the Bishop, indeed, being able to take action without them—was a good beginning for the introduction of this lay element. He was not at all sure that they would succeed in getting the men they wanted—men of business habits, clear heads, and active dispositions. Such men, as a rule, were pretty well occupied. They might be induced to come forward by a sense of duty if they were to have any real power; but it was a question whether, if they were merely to be a consultative body, they would come forward. In this case they would only be able to obtain the services of second-rate men. No one was more impressed than he was with the necessity of consulting the wishes of the parishioners; but he thought this would be best done through the Bishops who should have more power of objecting to the appointment of unfit men. He believed the right rev. Prelates were anxious to pass this measure, and he was willing to pay great deference to their opinions in this matter. Some persons were of opinion that it was the kind of Bill to read a second time and refer to a Select Committee. But as the Bill had already been before a Select Committee it was doubtful whether it should again be referred to such a body. He did not know whether the Bill was presented to their Lordships, either to take it as it stood, or to have nothing to do with it; if that were the case he felt very much inclined to have nothing to do with it.

THE BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH (Dr. Magee)

said the discussion that evening had recalled to his recollection the time when, 13 years ago, a Bill almost similar in its terms was passed through their Lordships' House, and he then advocated reforms in the Church of England. On this occasion, however, he addressed their Lordships with a feeling of extreme anxiety, because what they were asked to do by the noble and learned Lord (Lord Grimthorpe) was to refuse now and at once the second reading of this Bill. This measure had occupied the thoughts and the minds—and he did not think it was even unbecoming to say in that place, the prayers of those who had desired the reform of the Church of England for years in this matter. The main provisions of the Bill had the consent of the Primates, all the Bishops, and all the representative assemblies of the Church. The noble Earl who had just sat down (Earl Cowper) said they had to choose between this Bill as it stood or rejecting it altogether. He and his right rev. Friends were anxious to hear objections and criticisms and to withdraw clauses which were undesirable; but they, at the same time, felt deeply, painfully, how serious would be the injury to the Church, how great the encouragement given to the Church's enemies if, in that House—which might be called a House of Patrons—an admittedly needful reform in Church Patronage was met by, he would not say contemptuous, but a curt and brief rejection of the measure which sought to accomplish it without even an attempt to discuss its clauses, for some noble Lords were not willing even to discuss the clauses of the Bill; they thought it so mischievous and rash that they were willing to reject it altogether. The noble and learned Lord who addressed their Lordships on Monday evening, seemed to put forward this idea of the Bill—that it was a rash, crude revolutionary measure suddenly evolved out of the consciousness of the Bishops, and that no such revolutionary measure had been known since the days of the Long Parliament. He asked permission to be allowed to state the true history and genesis of the Bill and to test this assertion of his noble and learned Friend by a few facts. This was a Bill founded very largely upon the lines of a measure which he had introduced to the notice of their Lordships many years ago, and for which he obtained their Assent. More than one clause in this had been taken from that Bill. In regard to the charge of its rash and revolutionary character, the proper test on the second reading of a measure was the principle as distinguished from the details. He would therefore take one enactment on which a great deal of the noble Lord's displeasure and criticism was expended. In 1874 he (Dr. Magee) himself moved for a Select Committee to consider Church Patronage. That Committee was composed of, among others, the Archbishop of York, the late Duke of Marlborough, the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Earl of Selborne, Lord Overstone, Lord Stanhope, the Marquess of Lansdowne, and Earl Nelson. There were only five Bishops on that Committee out of 19 Members; and a less rash, less revolutionary, more cautious, and thoroughly independent Committee was probably never got together. What was the principle of dealing with the Church patronage unanimously accepted by this most in fluental and most able Committee? The noble and learned Lord made very merry over the idea of being defined as a trust patronage. He said there was no such thing as a trust in patronage; and he seemed to have no idea of anything but a cestui que trust. What was the principle that was laid down by that Committee? The noble Lord had laughed at the idea of there being a trust in favour of the parishioners. But when the Committee were asked what were the principles upon which the subject of Church patronage should be based, they replied that they were of opinion that any legislation affecting Church patronage should proceed upon the principle that its exercise partook of the nature of a trust and that all existing rights must be dealt with in connection with that principle. The noble and learned Lord appeared to prefer the words "limited rights" to the word "trust;" but whether the former or the latter term were used they both meant to convey that the exercise of Church patronage was the discharge of a public duty, inasmuch as the man who was to be selected for a living was to be the holder of a public office. It was a most miserable view of the question to say that when a man bought a living under the existing system it was just the same as if he had bought a doctor's practice. When a man bought a living he undertook to discharge certain distinct and very important public duties. It could scarcely be said even in the present very depressed state of the Exchequer that it would be a good thing to allow a power of appointment of a Judge to be sold; and it would not be very creditable if the person appointed was a barrister who had only the year before just managed to scrape through his examination. It was not desirable for the public policy or for the public interests that the right of appointment to livings in the Church should, be sold. In his opinion the principle that ought to be laid down was that the right of patronage was to be exercised with a regard to the spiritual wants of the parish, and that a patron should be restrained by law from appointing an unfit person to a living. The noble and learned Lord had very severely criticized the action of some Bishops for having appointed their sons or sons-in-law to livings within their gift. But, in the first place, this Bill was not aimed against nepotism on the part of private patrons; in the next place, it must be remembered that Bishops lived under a brighter light of public criticism than most men, and that any shortcomings in this respect upon their part were at once marked down. In his view, the principle of restrictions and limitations on Church patronage should be carried out equally in all cases, and should apply as much to the patronage exercised by Bishops as to that exercised by private individuals; and if there was any inequality in their favour in the restrictions and limitations of this Bill, the Bishops would be most willing and most desirous that it should be removed. He (Dr. Magee) trusted, therefore, that it would not be supposed that this Bill was intended by the Bishops to be an attack upon private patronage. He would now consider the point involving the rights of the parishioners to object to the appointment of any particular person to a living in their parish. The Committee had expressed their opinion that there should be some check exercised by the parishioners to prevent the appointment of unfit persons, and that they should have the right not to veto, but to object to the appointment of a man known to be grossly and shamelessly immoral. He himself had some doubt whether debt should not also be a ground for exclusion. The noble and learned Lord had drawn a picture of the scum of the parishes gathering together at the Blue Boar to discuss the character of their parson. The noble and learned Lord probably knew very little about the scum of our parishes. Those who laboured in our parishes could assure him that when the scum went to the Blue Boar it was for other purposes than to discuss the character of their parsons. It was earnest, pious, moral Churchmen who were grieved, shocked, and sick at heart, when men were thrust upon them of more than doubtful character, and their hands were paralyzed when they were called upon to defend the Church at fair or market. His only fear respecting this clause was that it would be practically inoperative. It was the most difficult thing in life when a Bishop received private information about the misconduct of a clergyman to get the person who sent the information to come forward publicly. He almost always said, "Oh, leave me out, do not mention my name; you must not rely upon me." In a short time afterwards perhaps they heard it said, "The clergyman of so-and-so is leading a scandalous life. The Bishop has all the facts, and he will take no steps." Now, what he (Dr. Magee) wanted was to place the responsibility on the person who ought to bear it. He believed that nothing would tend more to satisfy the public sentiment than to give the parishioners some power of stating their objections, strictly limited to facts, and made before a properly constituted tribunal. It was hardly fair, hardly reasonable, to put the whole burden on the Bishop's shoulders. "Why should Bishops be mulcted in sums varying from £1,500 to £2,000 or £3,000 in instituting and carrying on proceedings in the case of unfit presentees? Before concluding, he would say a word as to the history of the case. When, as he was glad to say, the Bill passed into the hands of the most rev. Prelate who brought it before their Lordships, the same clause which gave the parishioners power of objecting was contained in it, and it passed through Committee in their Lordships' House. The Bill had been laid before both Convocations and the House of Laymen. It was very freely canvassed and amended, and it now came before their Lordships as the Bill approved by the House of Laymen. It met with the all but unanimous assent of the Church representatives and of Lay Church opinion, and their Lordships were now only asked, to consent to give it a second reading. He most earnestly entreated them, whatever they might think of details—and the Bill was, he admitted, very much a Bill of details—not to inflict upon the Bishops and the Church the pain and disappointment of a total rejection of the Bill. Let them do what they thought right in Committee, but he entreated them to pass the second reading. The noble and learned Lord (Lord Grimthorpe) had made a strong appeal to the fears of the Members of their Lordships' House. That was not the kind of argument he himself would like to address to the Peers of England. If he believed that this Bill would seriously injure private patronage, instead of believing, as he did, that it was the only measure which could preserve it, he would nevertheless say to powerful and wealthy patrons, "Show your attachment to the Church and make some sacrifice, not only of money, but of family influence in the interest of the Church and of the country." But this Bill inflicts no such injury. Believe us when we tell you that those who seek a reform of patronage, a wise and kindly reform, are not the enemies of private patronage. They were the enemies of private patronage who scornfully rejected every proposal of reform. Hoc Ithacus velit, hoc magno mercentur Atridœ." The hearts of the enemies of the Church would leap with delight if they heard that the Bishops could not induce the House of Lords to pass the second reading of a measure to reform admitted and notorious abuses in the Church of England. Rather than appeal to their Lordships' fears, he would appeal to their sense of justice—their impartial sense of justice—and to their attachment to the Church of England. Some of the details of the Bill might be distasteful to their Lordships. The Bishops were not strong enough to prevent them from Amending it. In a House of 500 Peers the Bishops were 25—and not 85—and there was but one Irishman amongst them. The Bishops were willing and anxious that their Lordships should deal as they thought right with any provisions of the Bill, but they entreated their Lordships, for the sake of the Church of England, to give the Bill a Second Reading.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

said, he did not think that the responsibility of recommending the second reading of the Bill ought to be left entirely to the Episcopal Bench; he would therefore give some reasons why he thought their Lordships should not reject the second reading. He agreed with the noble Earl behind him (Earl Cowper) when he said that their Lordships ought not to pass the Bill with the view of conciliating people who would not be conciliated. Their Lordships ought to do what they thought right. But he disagreed with another part of the noble Earl's speech in which he said it seemed to him that their Lordships had nothing to do but to take the Bill as it was, or else to have nothing to do with it. He did not think that their Lordships should take a Bill of that importance in that spirit—they should exercise their own judg- ment on its details. If they objected to the principle, let them reject the Bill on the second reading, but let them not do so under the idea that they must take the whole Bill as it was or reject it. The Bill was of a preventive character, and he fully believed that if its more important provisions became law it would very effectively tend to prevent the evils now complained of. It would consequently be more useful in its indirect than its direct operation; and he thought that so strong would its effect be in this way that few objections would be necessary or would be taken under it by parishioners. This was very desirable, because it was much more difficult to deal with the case of an unfit clergyman after he had entered on a particular sphere of duty than before. The difficulty of proceeding against a criminous clergyman was admitted on all hands; but that difficulty would be obviated if a charge against him were brought forward by the persons most interested, the parishioners, at the time when the clergyman's name was submitted for presentation, and if notoriously bad reputation, as well as proved criminality, were admitted as a ground of objection. The Bill did not give a power of veto to the inhabitants of a parish; but it would afford them full opportunity of submitting to the Bishop of the diocese objections—not all sorts of objections, but objections upon specific grounds defined by the Bill—which they might have to a particular clergyman before his appointment was made. Parishioners would not asperse the characters of innocent men, under such circumstances, by spreading evil reports; but, if there were evil reports, the Bishop should certainly know of them. He could not approve the view that there was no reason whatever why livings should not be bought and sold. He had always thought, however, that there was a broad distinction between the sale of advowsons and of presentations. The sale of an advowson, apart from any particular or proximate appointment to the office, did not seem to offend against any principle; but the sale of presentations was open to all the objections which could be offered to the sale of any public office or any private trust. On the same principle a man might buy a seat in Parliament, or an elector might sell his vote; but the law prohibited this, because the office and the vote were important public trusts, with great public duties attached to them; and the man who entered upon the office, or exercised the vote, should do so not for money, but by open, regular, Constitutional methods. He could see no difference in principle between buying directly and buying indirectly—between buying a vacant living and one about to become vacant: the same thing was bought in each case, namely, the office of a parish clergyman, with cure of souls; the only difference being that between a sale in possession and a sale in reversion, even when there was no bargain or secret understanding for an early vacancy. Whether a man bought for himself, or for another, the buying, as it seemed to him, equally contravened the principle that should govern selections for offices of public importance. All the principles which prevented trafficking in other offices applied strongly to the case of the clergyman. There were two sorts of sales of advowsons—one to persons who wanted to keep them; the other to people who only wanted the next presentation. The object of the Bill was to cut off that indirect mode of selling next presentations, and to interfere with sales to purchasers whose object was not to sell again after a presentation had been made, so far only as might be necessary to accomplish that object. If their Lordships would accept the main principles of the Bill, all its details might, and ought to be, open to discussion in Committee, upon their merits.

THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AEFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)

I agree with the noble and learned Earl (the Earl of Selborne) who has just sat down that the House will do well to read the Bill a second time; but I say so with a full sense of all the criticism passed upon the Bill and with the feeling that the Bill will require very careful attention in Committee; and I hope it will receive that attention from your Lordships, and that it will undergo great alteration. The idea was thrown out by one speaker that it should be referred again to a Select Committee. I think all that Select Committees can do for this Bill has been done, and it has emerged from them so altered, that I can hardly hope any additional advantage can be gained. We must, therefore, attend to it in a Committee of the Whole House, and I have no doubt a useful measure can eventually be made out of it, though not, perhaps, without very freely amending it. The Bill consists of two parts essentially—I do not speak of those small, scattered provisions in detail towards the end of it—the part affecting the sale of advowsons or of presentations, and the other part affecting presentation itself. With respect to the sale of presentations, I have come to practically the same conclusion as my noble and learned Friend who has just sat down, though not perhaps exactly from the same premisses. I cannot help being struck—as the noble Earl was struck—with the practical fact that a great number of the best clergymen are people whose relatives bought them livings in the Church. It is a mode of entry into the functions of the Church which, I admit, according to strict logical principles, it might be hard to defend. But considering that the other modes consist entirely in the exercise of patronage of one sort or another—that is to say, that those who do not buy livings must obtain them by asking for them—I cannot but look with regret upon the necessity for putting an end to that mode of obtaining livings which has largely prevailed, and, in the experience of most of us, to the advantage of the Church. But, unfortunately, there is also this disadvantage, that unquestionably there is an amount of abuse connected with the sale of livings—with the agencies and with the auctions—an amount of abuse so real in its character and at the same time so crying and flagrant, and attracting so much public attention, and wounding so deeply public morality and sentiment, arousing so much discontent in the Church and a deep sense of wrong on the part of parishioners themselves; that I do not think it is consistent with the safety of the Church of England to allow things to go on as they are. I heard the other day of an instance of a kind of tenure of advowsons and the kind of agency which exists which gave me a very vivid idea of the feelings with which parishioners must regard the exercise of the existing right. It was in the West of England. There was a bank which had, I think, obtained an estate, with an advowson attached, for a bad debt. The estate was sold, and the advowson remained with the bank, and as regularly as possible—it was a bank in Dublin—just before the living fell vacant, the next presentation was sold by the bank in Dublin, with the knowledge of the parishioners themselves, who knew perfectly well the operation that was going on in the sale of their spiritual interests. There is a feeling among many to whom their spiritual interests are most dear, that, dealing with spiritual affairs in this cold-blooded, commercial spirit, would be enough to drive great numbers from the Church, and to leave a bitter sense of wrong and resentment in those who remain. I think it is a question of feeling more than of logic, but feeling in all countries, and in this country especially, must be regarded as a fact; and where a strong feeling of this kind exists—in reference to an institution depending so largely for its usefulness upon the amount of sympathy it can excite—it is a duty to pay regard to this feeling, and to act as nearly as possible in sympathy with the people. On this ground I do not take practical objection to the part of the Bill which deals with the sale of next presentations and of advowsons; although there are questions of detail into which I will not go. But I am not so satisfied with that part of the Bill which deals with presentations themselves. I confess that the more I look at that elective Council the less I like it. It is a very clumsy device; it will be exceedingly difficult to elect; it will be an enormous amount of machinery for doing very little; and you will never get the people to attend it. It is most dangerous to introduce the elective principle into presentations. But, besides these objections, there are two which are much more serious. One of the main duties of this Council will be to hear grounds for refusing presentation to a man who has been nominated; and among the grounds that will be given will be such things as mental incapacity, debt, and some moral stain. You may call the inquiry what you like, but it will be putting that man on his trial; it will be well known he is on his trial, that his character in these respects is being canvassed by this body, and the decision at which they arrive will cling to him through life. If his moral character be stamped as bad, if his mental qualities are declared to be inefficient, even if it is stated that he is heavily burdened with debt; by the verdict of this Council, not only will he lose that presentation, but he will have little chance of any other, and any hope of promotion, or preferment, or distinction in the profession will be closed to him for ever. It is, therefore, a very grave duty—the duty of trying a man—that this Council will have to discharge. And who are they? They are men elected by the ratepayers. In what other of your institutions do you have elected Judges to try men? We have had to change many things and alter many things in accordance with theories of an advanced character; but we have hitherto contrived to maintain the nominated character of our Judges. We have kept our elective principle at bay in respect of the Judges, and I earnestly trust we shall continue to do so. The elective principle has succeeded well in other matters; but I believe that, applied to Judges, it has terribly failed; and it has certainly been always earnestly repudiated, both by traditions and by the sound sense of the people of this country. I should be very sorry to select the machinery of the Church for the first occasion of introducing a principle so dangerous; and I think it would be hard that you should apply it, not to the cases of men who are culprits, not in the case of men accused of any crime, but in the case of men who were merely put upon their trial because they had aspired to be permitted to serve their God and their country as spiritual pastors of congregations. I feel that this is a deep objection to this principle of elective Councils. But I have another objection. The Bill takes away from Bishops their proper functions. Bishops can. refuse institution if a man is unfit to hold the living to which he is presented. If the law does not give them sufficient support in that, alter the law. I speak for myself; I do not speak for anybody else. As a patron I should not be in the least afraid of entrusting a Bishop with the power of rejecting all candidates for institution, on the grounds stated in this Bill, with an appeal, of course, to the Archbishop. I believe they might be safely entrusted with that power. Whether you agree with that view or not, whether you care to provide other securities or guards, at all events let the principle of episcopal responsibility remain intact The right rev. Prelate who spoke with so much eloquence admitted that the use of the elective Council was principally for the purpose of screening the responsibility of the Bishops. They can only gain by assuming their proper duty, and I cannot conceive why they should shrink from doing it. That they should shrink from expense I entirely understand. I earnestly hope that something in that direction will be done. I cannot understand why they should not step forward and assume their proper responsibility in this matter. Their power is sufficient. They have the right, if any men have, to exercise their office upon their own responsibility in behalf of the only authority to whom they are really responsible; and considering how they are protected by the law—how little of any public criticism can reach them—I never could understand why so much effort should be made to cover them by special securities, or to spare them from the duty of exercising their powers on their own responsibility. Of course I do not wish to press unduly the idea of giving to them this exclusive power if it should not meet with the views of others; but I do earnestly hope that the duty will not be removed, from them, and that their responsibility will not be effaced by furnishing them with an elective Council which will either be a nonentity or, if it acts at all, will entirely supersede their power and take it out of their hands. It is all very well to say that the Council will only advise just as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council only advised; but in due course of time that advice will become peremptory, and if the spirit of the Bishops is not equal to asserting their own responsibility now when they have nothing but public opinion to deal with, what chance is there of their asserting it against an organized elective Council? I fear the effacement of the episcopal office will be the necessary result of this introduction of the elective principle. There is only one other remark which I wish to make before I sit down. This anxiety about first appointments to the Church is open to the criticism that it does not touch the real danger and remove the principal evil. Undoubtedly we do suffer, not I believe to any great extent, not so much as we did in past times; or as they suffer in many other religious bodies. Still we do know that there is a certain number of clergymen who are wholly unfitted for the duties which they have to perform, but whom we have no power to remove, and who, if we leave them in their positions, must go on disgracing their pastoral office and misusing the powers given them. This Bill does not touch that evil. Lord Palmerston once said that all children were born good. I will not run the risk of imitating his observation; but to a certain extent it is true of clergymen, that when they are first appointed they are good. When they first begin very little is known of the seeds of evil within them. The tendency to get into debt, the laziness, sometimes even drunkenness, which mark, not, mind you, a large number, but, I may say, a very small number proportionately of the clergy, have not been, I think, if your Lordships will consult your own experience and local knowledge, distinguishable when these men first came into their livings. They are developed later under the temptation of independence, and under the wear of that monotony of life of which the noble Lord spoke; and it is that evil which, developing later, forms the blot and danger of the Church. You will not remove that evil by the care you are taking with regard to first appointments. The real evil lies much deeper, and it will tax all your legislative skill much more severely, and it is a much more arduous task to undertake; but until we have provided some means by which the rulers of the Church can get rid of clergymen who are, either from moral or physical reasons, no longer fitted to minister to their flocks, we have not dealt with the greatest evil which afflicts the Church.

EARL FORTESCUE

said, he agreed with what the noble and learned Earl and the noble Marquess had said, so he need hardly detain their Lordships at all. There were excellent provisions in the Bill—(1) the suppression of the sale of livings by auction; (2) the appeal to the Archbishop, which he was glad to find conceded here by the right rev. Bench, though they had, unfortunately, succeeded in resisting it; (3) the notice to the parishioners of the intended appointment; (4) the protection of the Bishops in the discharge of their duty, by sending communications on the subject to them as to the patron—privileged communications. The right rev. Prelate who spoke first talked of giving the parishioners a voice in the appointment of their clergymen; he hoped the Bill would continue confined, as it was now, to certain specified objections which alone they were entitled to make. The Bishop also dwelt on the intense interest that was felt by parishioners in the appointmeut of the man upon whose efficient discharge of whose sacred duties and way of performing the services so much of the comfort and well-being of the parish depended. He (Earl Fortescue) doubted whether, except on the occasion of some political excitement, so much interest was felt in the generality of parishes. He had been a patron of livings now more than a quarter of a century; and in the course of that time—he would specify neither place nor date—he had received a numerously-signed memorial from the church warden and many other parishioners, praying him to present to the living a clergyman who for three or four months had done duty there during the incumbent's last illness. He (Earl Fortescue) had ascertained that the memorialists had signed without having taken the trouble to inquire into the character of the clergyman, who came from the next county. He turned out, as it happened, to be respectable, and had certificates from two respectable clergymen. But, as he wrote the memorialists this, no thanks to them for all they knew; he might have been utterly disreputable and deeply in debt, though not having incurred any public censure. He did not present him, having selected another clergyman. But what a lesson did this afford of the carelessness of parishioners in recommending clergymen. Again, one of the recollections of his youth was hearing of a contest for a living, while the parishioners at large were the patrons; and of the scenes of drunkenness witnessed there for days—the two candidates having opened every public-house and beershop. Then, as to Crown—that is, Ministerial—patronage; that was decidedly the worst. Ministers charged with the affairs of the British Empire could not, and ought not, to afford much time and labour upon the selection of clergymen for livings. Nor had the patronage of the Bishops been always well exercised. The Edinburgh Review, years ago, gave an account, unfair and exaggerated indeed, but in the main well-founded, of the nepotism and religious and political partizanship of Bishop Phillpotts in the bestowal of his patronage. The Chapters and Colleges generally exercised them less well than the Bishops did. On the whole, he believed it was acknowledged that the private patrons, with some exceptions, exercised their patronage best of all. And, remembering how little chance any earnest clergyman of what would now be called either Ritualistic or Evangelical opinions a century ago would have had of getting a living, or keeping a curacy, over the Bishops had absolute power, if it had not been for private patronage—he was jealous of the diminution of private patronage in the Church, as that kind of patronage secured some variety and some fairness of dealing towards men of different schools of thought. It was of great importance to the Church of England that there should be a certain amount of independent patronage clear of the prevailing pattern—or rather tone—of religious feeling; and he more than doubted the wisdom of the tendency of this Bill to increase the amount of patronage in the hands of what were called public patrons, and to diminish that in the hands of private patrons.

On Question, "That ("now") stand part of the Motion?"

Resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday the 15th instant.

House adjourned at a quarter past Seven o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Ten o'clock.