SIMONY LAW AMENDMENT BILL. (Hansard, 13 July 1853)

§ VISCOUNT GODERICH
said, in the absence of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Tavistock (Mr. R. Phil- 151> limore), he begged to move the Second Reading of this Bill. The subject was one of the utmost importance and ought not to be lightly treated by that House. It would, he thought, be presumptuous on his part to touch upon the legal questions connected with this subject; but he would merely ask the House to consider whether the arguments of the hon. and learned Member for Weymouth (Mr. G. Butt) had justified his opposition to the measure. In his (Viscount Goderich's) opinion, the hon. and learned Member had made out no case whatever against it. The Bill was consistent with the spirit of past legislation, by which remedies had been from time to time applied to evils that had grown up in the course of years. He would not advert to that part of the subject which the hon. and learned Member had treated so lightly—the question of what might have been the canon law in former times; but he would ask the House to look to what had been the character of legislation on the subject since the Reformation. The first opinion expressed in any manner since that event by authority—for be did not think that the hon. and learned Member would deny that it was held illegal to sell presentations to livings previous to the Reformation—was contained in an instruction issued in the reign of Edward VI., by which this sale was forbidden. If the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman were sound, it seemed to him that they were opposed to the continuance of the existing law, for if objection were taken to the Bill now before the House on the ground that it contained a violation of the rights of private property, it seemed to him that that objection applied equally to the present law, which prohibited the sale of a living after the death of the incumbent. It was not, however, he thought, a mere question of private property; the right to present to a living was in its nature essentially different from other descriptions of property, for it involved the exercise of the duty of providing for the spiritual welfare of a portion of the people. In his opinion the measure of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Tavistock was consistent with the course of past legislation, inasmuch as it merely endeavoured to extend the law in the same spirit in which it had been enacted in former times. The hon. and learned Gentleman who opposed this measure was doubtless a great legal authority; but he believed that there were many gen- 152 tlemen belonging to the legal profession who would give it their support. But he was most anxious that the House should not look at this question merely in a legal point of view, but should also observe the important moral and social considerations which it involved, What was it, he would ask, that the right of presenting to a living conferred? It was the right of selecting a man who, as a minister of the Church of England, was to be intrusted with the spiritual guidance and instruction of his parishioners, who was to preach the doctrines and perform the rites of the Church, to discharge the duties of visiting the sick, comforting the unfortunate, and defending the oppressed; and he could not conceive any duties of a more sacred nature. The law prohibited the sale of a judgeship, and any Minister of the Crown so offending would be impeached. The law prohibited the sale of the smallest public office, and any Minister so offending would have to quit his post. The law prohibited the sale even of a cadetship in the East India Company's service, and all persons involved in such a transaction would be liable to punishment by fine and imprisonment. He asked, therefore, since such had been the course of our legislation in these cases, that that House should prohibit the sale of presentations to livings. For what in truth was this sale? It was putting up to auction to the highest bidder the right to preach the word of God; and to sell that sacred trust was, in his opinion, a monstrous scandal on the Church, and upon that common faith which all the members of that House professed. He would ask to those who were not members of the Church of England, what they would think of their ministers paying a sum of money for the right to preach in a certain district; and he entreated them to assist in removing from the Church of England a scandal and a stigma which in their own case they would not for a moment permit. It was not uncommon that on a living becoming vacant, a minister was presented to it whose sole recommendation was his precarious state of health. Now that was a scandal which, in his opinion, the House of Commons had a right to endeavour to prevent. It was not only the rights of the patrons which had to be considered; those of the parishioners seemed to him to claim at least an equal degree of consideration. What must be the feelings of the parishioners, on the death of an incumbent whom they had respected, to find their spiritual affairs in- 153 trusted to an old and incapable man; and, in addition to that, to see an advertisement in the newspapers, that the next presentation to the living was to be sold, and to discover that it had been given to a man whose ill health would enable him to serve as a mere warming pan for the purpose of evading the law prohibiting the sale of a void term, and would thus secure a living for the son, or a portion for the daughter, of the patron? A system of this nature, by which a man was able to buy the next presentation to a living, and thus provide a means of livelihood for a son who might be too ugly to go into the army, or too stupid to go to the bar, was surely calculated to reflect discredit upon the Church. When his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Tavistock had asked him to allow his name to be placed on the back of the Bill, he recollected that in all probability he would have at some time the right of presentation to a living; and he felt the responsibility which would thus devolve upon him, and with these feelings he had considered it his duty to endeavour to promote a measure calculated to remove what he felt to be a great scandal on the Church of England. He had no doubt whatever that the hon. and learned Member for Weymouth was a friend to the Church, and ready to maintain all its rights as far as they were consistent with the rights of private property; but he thought that there was one Member of that House who must have heard his speech of last Wednesday with the most lively satisfaction, and that was the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Miall), the able and persevering, advocate of the separation of Church and State. He had felt considerable difficulty in bringing forward this Motion for the second reading of the Bill in the absence of the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock. But he trusted that the House would assent to the measure, for he believed that it would tend to remedy a great and crying evil, and remove a great scandal from the Christian faith.

§ MR. G. BUTT
said, he would move as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time that day three months. He did so because of the character and the certain effect of the Bill. He had last Wednesday had an opportunity of expressing the views which he entertained of this measure, and the objection which be entertained to it, and which be trusted would be shared by hon. Gentlemen who considered its nature and object. The noble Lord (Viscount Gode- 154 rich) had regretted the absence of the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock (Mr. R. Phillimore); but that hon. and learned Member had on a previous occasion stated very fully the object which he had in view in introducing this measure. The noble Lord appeared to him to forget completely what the object of the Bill really was, and assumed that object to be what it really was not. The noble Lord assumed the object of the Bill to be to provide that by some special legislation a better class of clergymen should be presented to livings; and he stated one of the evils which it endeavoured to prevent, was that of old men, utterly incompetent, becoming clergymen of the Church of England; but if he had looked carefully at the Bill, he would have found that such was not its object at all. He would remind the noble Lord, that the law, as it at present stood, provided a most effective safeguard against the evils of which he had complained. The noble Lord must be aware that it was the duty of the bishop of the diocese, when a clerk was presented to a living, no matter by whom such presentation were made, to judge of his age, learning, and general qualifications; and, he would ask, what better security could there be for the appointment of persons duly qualified? He quite agreed with the noble Lord that it was most essential that the persons appointed to livings should be those persons who were best adapted for the discharge of the necessary duties. But how did the noble Lord secure the fitness of the minister and the due performance of his duty? By taking away the sacred title of the lay impropriator to his tithe. The title of the lay impropriator to the tithes was as sacred and secure as the title of the noble Lord to his estates. His main objection, then, to the Bill was, that it destroyed the rights of property, without accomplishing any beneficial object, or remedying any existing defect. The hon, and learned Member for Tavistock had stated that the Bill did not attack advowsons, but it attacked the next presentation, and an advowson was simply the right to every next presentation. If this Bill were passed, next presentations, purchased some time back, would, as property, be destroyed. The measure was not, in his opinion, prospective, as stated by the hon. and learned Member for Tavistock, but retrospective. A man who purchased five years ago the next presentation to a living held it as a chattel interest, 155 going to his executors, which they were bound to sell to pay off debts on the estate; but this Bill would prevent the sale. When the noble Lord said that his measure was not an interference with the rights of private property, he should like to know what he meant, for in all cases next presentations were liable to be sold by the executors to pay off the debts on au estate, and in many cases they were made the subject of mortgage security; and if the sale were prohibited, the mortgagee lost all security. Whatever might have been the state of the law on this subject before the Reformation, he would not, at present, touch upon that matter; but there could not, he thought, be the slightest possible doubt that since that period advowsons and presentations to livings had been always looked upon and considered property, just like any other chattel. The old laws of simony were full of absurdities. The noble Lord was anxious to secure good clergymen, and so was he. He would conclude his remarks by saying, if any parties wished to get the property of the Church into their hands, and wished to promote a scheme by which they could get advowsons and presentations cheap, all they would have to do was to get such a measure as this, and then they could get such property for a mere song. The introduction of such a Bill, which destroyed property without remedying abuse, was only productive of unmixed evil; and he trusted that the House would see that it ought never to have been brought forward, and would not allow it to be read a second time.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, that while he concurred with the hon. and learned Gentleman in his Amendment, he did not participate in his fear of the danger to property from passing this Bill. His objection was that it was a very trifling and insignificant change in the law, utterly unworthy the consideration of the House. The noble Lord (Visct. Goderich) contended it was undesirable, on spiritual grounds, that any layman shonld have the power to dispose of next presentations; but that is sue was not raised by the Bill. That was much too wide a question to be discussed incidentally; but as to this proposition, he could not see why men should not acquire by purchase that which they 156 could acquire by intestacy, as heirs at law, or by will. This Bill aimed a blow at the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage in lay hands; but he believed the patronage was exercised quite as much for the interests of the Church in lay as in clerical hands. The Bill, as now framed, prohibited only Eases of Most unfrequent occurrence, where the next presentation to a living was purchased by a layman for him self. He believed the House would agree with him that it was very unusual for a layman to purchase the next presentation with a view to go into orders, and then take the living himself. The case was so exceptional that it did not require the interposition of Parliament. He cordially concurred in the Amendment, as he objected to disturb the law in this infinitesimal degree without further consideration

§ VISCOUNT GODERICH
said, he felt that with the opposition which the measure had received, it would be impossible to pass it through Parliament that Session. He should therefore withdraw his Motion for the second reading of the Bill.