SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY SOCIETIES BILL—COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 24 June 1857)

§ MR. HUTT
did not object to the Amendment; which was adopted, and the clause was agreed to.

§ MR. JOHN LOCKE
said, he rose to move that the word "education" be omitted from the clause. It might be said that institutions for purposes of education ought clearly to come within the provisions of a measure of this nature; but he thought that no particular parish or district should be unduly taxed, in order to exempt establishments of this description. He had presented two petitions on this subject from the parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, which was peculiarly situated, as it comprised within its precincts the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, the Blind School, Bethlehem Hospital—to which a school was attached, the Magdalen Hospital, the Queen's Bench Prison, the Marshalsea, the Southwark Literary Institution, the Borough-road schools, the Yorkshire schools, the national parochial schools, six ragged schools, and a great number of schools which were not self-supporting. All these establishments were partially or entirely exempted from rates, and when he stated that out of 7,000 rated houses within the borough, 4,000 were below the rateable value of £10 a year, the Committee would see that it was a great hardship upon the poorer inhabitants that so large a portion of the area of the parish should be relieved from liability to rates, and a more severe pressure created upon them as would be the case if this clause passed in its present form. And as it was inexpedient to push the principle of exemption any farther, he hoped that the Committee would assent to his Amendment.

§ MR. SPOONER
said, he was disposed to go further in amending the clause than the hon. Member who last addressed the Committee, and to contend not only that buildings occupied for purposes of "education," but also buildings occupied for purposes of "science and literature" should be debarred the privilege of exemption from the payment of rates, which the clause as it stood gave to them.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, he could see no reason why the Committee should alter the existing law in the manner proposed by this clause. The law as it stood at present laid it down that buildings erected for the purpose of teaching science, literature, or the fine arts, and occupied by any society exclusively for those objects, were to be exempted from the payment 320 of rates. But this Bill went a great deal further than that, for it declared by implication, if not in terms, that so long as any society instituted for any of those purposes occupied a building, such building need not be at all confined to the objects of the society. For example, a society instituted for the promotion of the fine arts might devote their premises to the purpose of a club, which would be exempt from the payment of rates by the clause under consideration. He did not see why the Athenæum might not be exempted under the operation of such a clause. He could not understand, indeed, why premises devoted to scientific, literary, educational, or artistic purposes were to be exempted at all from the payment of rates, and he warned the House that if they went on from year to year multiplying exemptions of this kind, and applying that principle to this building and the other, there would be eventually no end to exemptions. The result would be that a kind of reaction would set in, and they would have the whole of their exemptions swept away. Instead of supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. John Locke) he would rather move, as a better way of meeting the question, that the clause be entirely expunged.

§ SIR WILLIAM HEATHCOTE
said, he perfectly agreed with the hon. Member for Southwark, and he hoped the President of the Poor Law Board would interpose to protect the parochial rates all over the country from the inroad which this Bill would make upon them. He would remind the Committee that there could not be an exemption from taxation without somebody else being taxed to make up the deficiency, and that the money given up in consequence of those exemptions must be raised some-where. Why, under the very next clause in the Bill to the one under consideration any of the societies in question might make money of their property, and yet be exempt from the payment of rates. Besides, if this Bill passed into a law, all parishes where such buildings were likely to be established would look with suspicion upon them. He submitted that the Committee would do wisely to pause before proceeding further in legislation of that character, and to enable them to do so, he begged to move that the Chairman do now leave the Chair.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, having been appealed to by the hon. Baronet who last addressed the Committee, he was bound to say that, though he did not offer 321 any opposition to the second reading of this Bill, he entirely concurred in the grounds on which it was now opposed by the hon. Baronet; and he might state to the Committee that in the last Parliament, when a similar measure to this was brought under the consideration of the House, he objected very strongly to the extending exemptions of this kind, and endeavoured to persuade the House that they were wrong in principle. It was true the House had already admitted these exemptions to a certain extent, but he thought the time had arrived when they ought to make a stand against the multiplication of them. He might add that the practice under the existing law, though that law had not been long in operation, had already given rise to litigation. He understood it was the practice for the certifying barrister to give a certificate of exemption to literary and scientific societies when they were entitled to exemption—he would not say indiscriminately, but, at least, with no great discrimination as to the right of exemption—and hence suits had been brought before the Superior Courts of common law with the view to determine what constituted a right to exemption in. particular cases. That kind of litigation had been increased by attempts having been made to extend the area of exemption. For instance, he believed there was recently a case before the Court of Queen's Bench which turned on the question whether a society, called a literary society, but whose premises had been devoted to theatrical representations, could claim exemption under the existing law; but the court very properly, in his opinion, held that the certificate of exemption given in that case by the certifying barrister was invalid, inasmuch as the society did not appear to be one contemplated by the Act of Parliament. For these reasons he should join in supporting the hon. Baronet (Sir W. Heathcote) if he persisted in his Motion for reporting progress. But he could not support the Motion of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner), inasmuch as literary and scientific institutions now enjoyed exemption from rates, and it would be unjust by a side wind to deprive such institutions of an advantage which they now enjoyed.

§ MR. PULLER
said he wished to remind the Committee that by the Poor Law Act of Elizabeth the amount of property occupied by a man was considered as the measure of his ability to pay. He submitted 322 that the case brought under the consideration of the Committee by the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. John Locke) was an exceptional one, and that when they came to look at the 12,000 parishes of England they would be of opinion with him (Mr. Puller) that it was clearly for the benefit of each of those parishes that a public school should exist in every one of them, and that no obstruction by legislation or otherwise ought to be thrown in the way of the education given in such schools, He contended that educational institutions in particular had an especial claim to an exemption of this kind. If a distinction could be drawn, he would say it was only the wealthy who were specially interested in the fine arts, but it was the poor who were mainly concerned in public educational institutions, and it was for that reason that he could not fall in with the suggestion made by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Spooner). But at the same time, all experience and all history showed that the advancement of a nation was identical with its progress in the fine arts and in science, literature, and education; and he held that societies established for the promotion of those objects were, above all others, entitled to the countenance and consideration of the House.

MR. NAPIER
said, he thought it was an inconvenient course when a Bill, as in this case, had been read a second time, and the Committee were considering one of its clauses, that they should entertain objections to its principle and should discuss the whole code of exemptions. The principle on which this Bill was founded, was that institutions established for a public object, and from which no private benefit was derived, should be exempted from rating. That principle had been recognized in another measure which had recently been passed; and as long as that measure continued unrepealed he did not see how the Bill before the Committee could be legitimately opposed.

§ MR. W. EWART
said, he should support the clause as it stood, as he contended that the more the people were educated the less pauperism there would be. He would also submit that the Bill was of a remedial character merely, and intended to supply defects in an existing Act, and that consideration ought to disarm all opposition to it from either side of the House.

§ MR. DRUMMOND
said, he was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. W. Ewart) repeat the fallacy, long ago exploded, that there was any necessary connection between pauperism and the want of education. Why, did any one ever hear that a man's stomach was filled by reading a page of Homer or of Virgil? Education had nothing whatever; to do with pauperism. A man did not starve because he was uneducated, but because he had nothing to eat. Let the Committee observe the extent to which they were going. There was not a single parish in the country that had not at least one, if not four or five places of education, and by this Bill all those parish schools were to be exempt from the payment of rates. Then, again, the house of the schoolmaster was to be exempt. ["No, no!"] Then, if his house was not to be exempt they must increase his pay. He contended that this was a most foolish measure, and that institutions which had produced the greatest amount of public benefit, such, for example, as the Royal Agricultural Society, the British Institution, the Society of Arts, and the Society of Painters in Water Colours, were precisely those which had never recived one farthing of the public money. He believed that in this, as in many other cases, the more there was paid, the less was there obtained.