§ LORD J. MANNERSmoved for leave to bring in a Bill to alter and amend the laws relating to the disposition of property for pious and charitable purposes. Last year, the House was kind enough to allow him to bring in a Bill with a similar intent; but when it came to the second reading, many hon. Members imagined it did not sufficiently guard against the solicitation that might be urged upon the deathbeds of languishing persons; and also that it did not take sufficient care to prevent a great increase of land being tied up in mortmain. He had endeavoured to meet these two objections in the present Bill. He proposed to require that all wills or deeds containing bequests or grants of landed property for charitable purposes, should be signed three months before the death of the testator; also, that when such bequests or grants had been made, the property should not go as land to the charity, but that it should be sold, and the proceeds devoted to the purposes of the charity. These were the two main provisions of the Bill; but he further proposed that small portions of land, intended as sites for churches, chapels, and schools, should be exempt from the necessity of being sold. He did not think the present was a time to apologize for the introduction of such a Bill. The Motion which had just been granted (Sir J. Pakington's), amply proved that the State had not done its duty in educating and instructing the people, and that very great reliance must be placed upon private efforts to effect that most important object. The present Bill, he believed, would, to a certain extent, fulfil that purpose; and therefore he hoped the House would assent to the Motion.
§ SIR R. H. INGLISsaid, that retaining all the objections which, in former years, he had expressed to many of the provisions and the general object of the Bill, he did not, on the present occasion, intend to divide the House against its introduction. He regarded the improvements as not inconsiderable, yet they were far from sufficient to mitigate his general repugnance to the measure. At the same time, the House having permitted the introduction of a Bill still more objectionable in former times, and having consented to take the discus- 441 sion and division in a subsequent stage of the measure, he was not unwilling to adopt that course in the present instance also; but he desired, even in giving leave to introduce the Bill, to express as strongly as he could his general objection to the measure. When the noble Lord said, in reference to a speech which had been delivered on the last Motion, that the State had not done its duty in the education of the people, he (Sir R. H. Inglis) asked, what was the tendency of this Bill to supply that omission? As far as he understood the Bill brought forward in former years, there was no provision whatever by which the liberality of a dying Christian might be directed to the maintenance of a school or any other place of education. There was little connexion between bequests which might be made under the provisions of the Bill, and objects which any Member might desire in respect to Christian education. He held that Christian liberality should be exercised in a man's lifetime in respect to property of which he held the personal enjoyment; that he should deny himself, and not deprive his heirs, who might have looked forward for years to succession after his death. If an individual wished to deprive his heir of his fortune, he should do it without the prospect of immediate death, when in the full vigour of life, and in the full exercise of his reason. He did not feel called upon at that moment to do more than express his continued objection to the Bill. He trusted that an ample opportunity would be given of considering the subject, and discussing it, on some future day, in a manner commensurate to its importance.
§ SIR G. GREYwas glad his hon. Friend did not feel it necessary to divide the House upon the Motion for leave to introduce this Bill; but, without prejudicing the discussion that would take place on it hereafter, he (Sir G. Grey) must express his apprehensions that the alterations which the noble Lord intended to introduce into the measure, were not sufficiently extensive to induce him to hope he should be enabled to support it upon the second reading. As to the exception in favour of land bequeathed for sites for churches and schools, he would remind the noble Lord that extensive alterations had been made in the law, by which the object he had in view was already practically attained.
§ Leave given.