VESTRIES' ACT AMENDMENT BILL. (Hansard, 23 January 1832)

Sir John Hobhouse,
moved the second reading of the Vestries' Act Amendment bill. Its object was to improve the former Bill in certain matters of detail; without such improvement, indeed, the present law would be inoperative. In the late Act it was enacted that it should not be compulsorily adopted in any parish except one half of all the parishioners attended the Vestry and voted for its adoption, but that no parishioner should be at liberty to vote until he had paid up all his arrears of parochial taxes. It was not stated in the Act what were to be deemed parochial taxes, and he immediately thought difficulties would arise on that account, and he, accordingly, had moved for certain returns to elucidate the question; by these returns he understood, that in the parish of St. James's, West-minister, out of 2,850 persons who were rated, only 135 persons would be qualified to vote. In fact, the whole power of the parish was in the hands of those who refused to attend the Vestry, or even to qualify themselves to vote, because the existing law had not specifically defined what were or what were not to be considered parochial taxes. His great object by the proposed Bill, therefore, was, to declare and define exactly the qualification of a voter, and he hoped the House would allow the Bill to go into a Committee to have that question fully discussed. He had one or two further Amendments to propose of a trifling nature, he therefore begged leave to move, that the Bill be read a second time.

§ Mr. Mackinnon
said, he had been intrusted with a petition against the Bill, by some of the most respectable land and house holders of Marylebone parish; he had been prevented from presenting that petition at an early period of the evening, 764 by the long discussion which took place on the Irish tithe petition. As the rules of the House prevented him from then presenting it, he would proceed briefly to state his reasons for opposing the second reading of the Bill. The Vestry Bill that passed last Session, enacted that two-thirds of the rate-payers in any parish must give their consent, in order to carry its provisions into operation. This was a fair majority of the parish, and an equitable enactment. But the present Bill upset the whole of that clause, and gave the entire control and choice of the parish to the majority of those who might be assembled at a vestry meeting, on four days notice being given. Could any provisions of an enactment be more preposterous than this? It was notorious that, in the metropolis, in the months of August and September, most of the upper and middle classes went out of town, and those who did remain commonly at that season of the year, left town on a Saturday and returned on the following Monday. If notice, therefore, of a vestry meeting for this purpose was given on a Friday, the parties most interested, from their wealth and station in life, might be absent on the Saturday, Sunday, and part of Monday; and on Tuesday the meeting would take place, and be attended, perhaps, by ten, or fifteen, or twenty persons, little above the station of those who received parish relief; and a majority of such persons, so assembled, was to be considered as conveying the sense of the parish under this Bill. Again, the Bill enacted that the parishioners paying poor-rates alone should be entitled to vote, without specifying that all other parochial rates must also be paid. What did this distinction amount to but an attack on the Church, and an inducement to those (already disinclined in many places to do so) not to pay the Church-rate? There was also a proviso inserted in one of these clauses, that all parishes out of the city of London or liberties of Westminster, should have the qualification reduced from 40l. to 25l. The parish of Marylebone, the most populous and wealthy parish in Great Britain, was thereby left out of the exception, and placed on the same footing as a small petty parish in a country town, while the other parishes in London and Westminster were to retain the qualification of 40l. How was it possible for the hon. member for Westminster to reconcile himself to such monstrous absurdities as these? The 765 fact was, that the hon. Gentleman got the last bill passed in order to obtain popularity with his constituents, the radical portion of whom, however, were not satisfied with it, and now urged him on to carry this new republican Bill through the House. This Bill, in short, was quite the prototype of the Reform Bill; which, if it was passed, would please no one, and its framers would be obliged, in order to secure their mob popularity, to amend it next year by one still more popular, till at last the proposed Universal Suffrage and Election by Ballot be carried. He intended to oppose both these measures, and he now moved that this Bill be read a second time this day six months.

§ Mr. John Weyland
said, that if the 2,800 rate-payers mentioned by the hon. Baronet would only pay up their rates, they would be able to vote under the last Act. The only effect of the Bill would be to promote the ambitious views of those persons who desired, for their own purposes, that every parish should be placed under the control of the lowest class of the householders.

Mr. Lamb
joined with the hon. Gentleman opposite in requesting that the hon. Baronet would not press the Bill. It seemed to him to be a very premature piece of legislation, for the bill which passed last Session had not yet been tried. It would not come into operation until March next, and it ought to have a fair trial before the House agreed to set aside its provisions for the Amendments proposed by the hon. Baronet.

§ Sir Charles Forbes
also thought, that the Bill passed in the last Session ought to be fairly tried before the House entertained any new proposition.

Mr. Hume
was sorry to see so much opposition offered to the Bill in its present stage. The bill of last Session was a good Bill when it went up to the Lords, but some of its best provisions were destroyed in the other House. If the Bill should be sent to a Committee up-stairs, or if evidence were received upon it at the bar, he would undertake to prove, to the satisfaction of the House, that the last bill, unless amended as the hon. Baronet proposed, could never be brought into operation in many parishes.

§ Mr. Hunt
supported the original Motion. He was satisfied that the Act in its present shape could be of no use.

Sir John Hobhouse
contended, that many parishes would be wholly excluded from the benefits of the bill passed last session, 766 unless the Amendments proposed by the Bill now before the House should be adopted. That Act stated, that every individual, to be qualified to vote at a parochial meeting for the adoption or rejection of the Act of last session, must have paid up all parochial rates within six months. Supposing, therefore, that the existing parochial authorities intended to oppose the adoption of the Act, they would make a rate which the parishioners would resist. The question between them must then be decided before the Courts of Law, and until it was so, the Act could never be adopted by the Parish. Was it to be believed the House of Lords calculated by their amendments that the effect of them would be to throw this possible power into the hands of the parochial authorities? Certainly not; but this late Act gave it to them, notwithstanding. Then as to the question of what were parochial taxes, did hon. Members know that the land-lax had been decided by the Court of King's Bench to be a parochial tax. In Marylebone, this tax was very trifling; in St. James's it was a shilling in the pound; in other parishes it had been redeemed; but when that was not the case, questions of very great nicety might, and did frequently, arise. The House of Lords could have had no desire, when they amended the late bill, to involve the parishes in such questions. He had frequently inquired in the proceedings relating to this question, if there was any Act of Parliament to be found in which those who did not vote had been given an effectual power to oppose those who did. But, by the operation of the late bill, those who stayed away from a vestry meeting had a negative power of that sort. Again, all those who gave their votes might be examined by the proper authorities to prove their having duly paid their rates; but those who did not vote were exempt from the same examination. These considerations would, he hoped, prevail on the right hon. Gentleman, the Under-Secretary of State, when he reflected upon them, to withdraw his opposition to the present measure. That right hon. Gentleman had approved the bill of last session, and his only objection to this was, that it was necessary to try how the former would work before they attempted to amend it; but as it stood at present, it never could be carried in to practice. He must further state to hon. Gentlemen, that if they would condescend to give due consideration to the question, they would find that those who 767 had money to pay, both for public and parochial purposes, required to have some control over those who were to dispose of it. He had as great an objection to turbulence as any hon. Member in the House, but he would advise, as an improvement upon the existing state of affairs, that, instead of always shutting the valve downwards, they should direct it upwards, and, by that means, allow the effervescence to escape. He should, therefore, from all these considerations, press the second reading of the Bill.

§ Mr. John Weyland
explained, that the hon. Baronet had left the main argument against his Bill untouched, and that was, that a small proportion of the parishioners, both in number and amount of rate, might, by the means of it, transfer the government of a parish to themselves; whereas the former bill enacted that only a majority of the whole rate-payers of the parish, being present at a Vestry, whether high or low, could adopt that Bill. This was the great difference between the Bills.

List of the NOES.
Althorp, Visc.	Lamb, Hon. Geo.
Baring, F. T.	Mangles, J.
Burge, W.	Palmerston, Visc.
Campbell, T.	Peel, Rt. Hon Sir R.
Copeland, Aid	Ponsonby, Hon. Geo.
Courtenay, Rt. Hn T. P.	Porchester, Lord
Crampton, P. C.	Praed, W. M.
Duncannon, Visc.	Rice, Rt. Hon. T. S.
Dundas, R. A.	Robinson, G. R.
Estcourt, T. G. B.	Rose, Rt. Hon. Sir G.
Forbes, Sir C.	Ross, C.
Freshfield, J. W.	Russell, C.
Fresmantle, Sir T.	Sandon, Visc.
Goulburn, Rt. Hn. H.	Smith, R. V.
Graham, Rt. Hn. Sir J.	Somerset, Lord G.
Grimston, Visc.	Stanley, Rt. Hn. E. G.
Herbert, Hon. E. C. H.	Stormont, Visc.
Hodgson, F.	Wason, W. R.
Holmes, W.	Willoughby, Sir H.
Hughes, Hughes	Yorke, Captain
Jenkins, R.	TELLERS.
Jolliffe, Sir W.	MacKinnon, W. A.
Inglis, Sir R. H.	Weyland, John

List of the AYES.
Benett, J.	Brougham, W.
Blamire, W.	Carter, J. B.
Blackney, W.	Calcraft, G. H.
Briscoe, J. I.	Calley, T.
Blunt, Sir C.	Ellice, E.
Bouverie, Hon. H. P.	Ewart, W.
Bourke, Sir J.	Gordon, R.

Hoskins, K.	Strutt, E.
Hunt, H.	Stuard, Lord D. C.
Lefevre, C. S.	Talbot, C. R. M.
Marshall, W.	Thicknesse, R.
Marjoribanks, S.	Venables, Ald.
Noel, Sir G.	Walker, C. A.
Nugent, Lord	Warburton, H.
O'Connor, Don	Williams, W. A.
Paget, T.	Wood, John
Pendarvis, E. W.	Wyse, T.
Phillips, Sir R. B.	Wilde, T.
Ruthven, E. S.
Sanford, E. A.	TELLERS.
Spence, G.	Hume, J.
Strickland, G.	Hobhouse, Sir J. C.