§ Order for Committee read.
§ House in Committee.
THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORDsaid, he had no intention to deviate from the understanding which had been come to that the Committee should be only pro 426 formâ for the purpose of introducing amendments, and that the measure should proceed no further during the present Session. He wished, however, to state shortly the effect of the alterations which he proposed to introduce. It had been proposed, in the first place, that a separate account should be kept of the different estates which would he brought under the management of the Commissioners by this Bill. This, however, had been objected to by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Goulburn) as interfering with the principle laid down by Parliament of a "common fund," in which the proceeds of ecclesiastical property should be invested. In order to obviate this objection, he proposed that all the clauses—
THE CHAIRMANhere interposed, and said, he must remind the noble Lord that it was not usual to make a statement when a Bill was in Committee pro formâ.
§ The noble Marquess thereupon resumed his seat, and the Bill passed through Committee.
§ House resumed.
§ On the Question that the Bill be recommitted that day three months,
THE MARQUESS OF BLANDFORDsaid, he would avail himself of that opportunity of explaining the nature of his alterations. With respect to the separate management of property, he proposed that all the proceeds of ecclesiastical estates brought within the operation of the Bill should be paid at once into the common fund of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and form part of that common fund, and that out of that common fund the incomes of the several dignitaries of the Church should be paid. With respect to the security of those incomes, he proposed that they should be secured upon the whole property of the common fund, whereas in the previous Bill it was proposed that the security should rest upon the separate properties themselves. The clauses by which it was proposed to transfer the management of these transactions to the Estates Commissioners had been struck out, and the clauses relating to local claims had been extended so as to meet not only the cases of those localities in which tithes were situated, but those in which there were any hereditaments whatever. He had taken the opportunity of making this short statement, because, although it was not his intention to proceed any further with the Bill this Session, he should rein- 427 troduce it without further alteration next year, unless the Government should take the matter up.
§ Motion agreed to; Bill recommitted for this day three months.