LEAVE. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 2 February 1860)

§ MR. HUBBARD

, in asking for leave to introduce a Bill to amend the law of church rates, said he trusted he should need no other justification for bringing before the House the question of the law of church rates than the importance of the subject itself, the wide difference of opinion which prevailed respecting it, and the general desire that was felt to come to some settlement. The Bill he had prepared proposed to take a middle course between the extreme views which were entertained on 496 either side. But it was not in the nature of a compromise. True, it occupied a middle ground which might fairly be the meeting place of those who held the most contrary opinions) but he repeated that it was not a compromise so far as he was concerned, for in the Bill which he begged to move nothing was conceded which he did not believe to be required by justice, and nothing was retained that could be lawfully conceded. The measure had been framed with a sincere desire to meet and to satisfy every complaint which could be fairly urged by those who were dissatisfied, and who were not members of the Church of England. But, on the other hand, it abstained from needlessly injuring the interests of religion by interfering with those settled means which Churchmen possessed for raising amongst themselves the funds which were requisite for the sustentation of their religious edifices, and for the maintenance of the services within them. The House would permit him briefly to explain the nature of the few clauses of which the Bill was composed. In the first place, it contemplated that those who did not conform to the services of the Church of England might, upon due notice given of an intention to make a rate, state that they did not conform to her services, and were desirous of not contributing to the rate. These two positions were not always concurrent, but if any persons should be at once dissidents from the communion of the church and unwilling to pay the rate, they should then be relieved from any liability to contribute thereto. These hostile elements being thus eliminated from the vestry, that body would then consist of a church vestry so called, and in that vestry, as a matter of course, no nonconformist would find his place, for he could not very well be excused from contributing to a rate for a special purpose, and yet claim a right either to take part in raising that rate or in disbursing the funds so raised; and in the church vestry thus constituted no other question would be raised than that which related to the raising and the application of such rates. It had long been the complaint that in various parts of the country, and particularly in towns, many churches and district chapels were forced to contribute to rates which were levied and disbursed by the mother church, whilst they themselves had in addition the onus imposed upon them of providing for their own expenditure. One of the clauses of his Bill would remedy that inequality in the existing practice—it would constitute every such district church or 497 chapel an ecclesiastical district, and recognize in it a power of raising a rate for its own purposes; and upon the raising of such rate every such church or chapel would be exonerated from contributing to any other church whatever. The only other clause which he need mention was one that would assimilate both the assessment and mode of collecting church rates to that which prevailed with regard to poor rates, and would withdraw the cognizance of such cases entirely from the ecclesiastical courts. He would say no more descriptive of the contents of the measure. He was anxious that the House should permit the Bill to be printed and laid before it, and he would only-say in conclusion that it had been prepared with an earnest desire to contribute towards the settlement of this long-litigated question, and individually he might add that in the part he had taken in the matter he was influenced by two feelings that were perfectly compatible—one, an entire and frank admission of the principle of civil and religious liberty; the other, a dutiful allegiance and loyalty to the Church of England.