HC Deb 30 January 1860 vol 156 cc272-82

THE LORD ADVOCATE moved that the House do resolve itself into a Committee to consider the Annuity Tax (Edinburgh).

Motion agreed to. House in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

THE LORD ADVOCATE

said, that the subject had been often under the consideration of the House, and therefore a short statement only would be necessary of the provisions of the Bill. As the House had been often told, the annuity tax was a rate amounting to 4¼ per cent upon the rental of houses within a certain limited area of the city of Edinburgh, and which was laid upon the occupiers of those houses, the proceeds being applied to the support of eighteen Ministers of the Established Church within the city. He must also explain that the congregations covered a much larger area than the districts taxed; nor did the tax extend to all the occupiers, inasmuch as there was a special exemption of a large and wealthy class, consisting of members of the College of Justice—that was to say, the judges, barristers, and solicitors. Without entering into the question whether the principle of this taxation were right or wrong, no one could deny that it was very unjust in the mode of its imposition. Several plans for modifying it had been introduced into the House, and he would now proceed to state in what way he proposed to make a new attempt in the same direction. His hon. Friend and colleague the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Black) in the last Session and in the Session previous to that, had introduced a measure which on both occasions bad received the assent of the House on the second reading. By the provisions of those Bills the ministers of Edinburgh would be preserved in their existing interests; but when the present ministers were all dead, when the last vacancy occurred, the future ministers of Edinburgh would be dependent on seat-rents, church-door collections, and a sum of £2,000 which was drawn from the Exchequer, being part of a rent-charge levied from the docks of Leith. The principle of that proposal—the final abolition of this impost—had twice received the sanction of the House. Therefore the question was not now as to the continuance of the tax or its abolition, but upon what terms and conditions it should be abolished. The measure he was about to introduce was essentially different from the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Edinburgh last Session, because the plan of the hon. Gentleman of a tax of 4¼ per cent was to be levied to pay the existing stipendiaries. An approximate calculation had been made of the amount which would have to be paid by the citizens of Edinburgh if the principle of maintaining the tax during the continuance of vested interests were acted on. Taking the assumed ages of the present incumbents as a basis, it had been estimated that for the first fifteen years a payment of £3 7s. 4d. per cent would be annually required from the citizens of Edinburgh; and that for a further period of sixteen years—making thirty-one years in all—there would be a total sum paid which would be equivalent to £63,000. Thus it was evident that the Bill of his hon. Friend would not, if adopted, have had the effect of extinguishing this burden for a considerable period. Within the present year two contingencies, which were not foreseen at the time the calculation was made, had taken place—one of these ministers having been appointed to a professorship, and a second translated to another benefice. Such contingencies might, of course, occur hereafter, but they were chances that could not be taken into calculation. With regard to the Bill of his hon. Friend for the total abolition of the tax he would offer no opinion whatever; but it was impossible not to see that the proposal, which to a great extent left the clergy dependent on voluntary contributions, would meet with very strenuous opposition, and that it was doubtful whether it would obtain the consent of both Houses of Parliament. The issue of a contest with the House of Lords might, as in other instances, prove successful, but a number of years would first be spent in the struggle; and, believing that the time and money requisite for that purpose might be more economically employed, he was about to make a proposition which would give immediate relief to the inhabitants of Edinburgh, which would completely extinguish the tax within a limited period, and which would also provide in its stead a just and equitable substitute to the ministers of that city. Some of the sources from which it had been proposed in former years to derive this substitute were no longer available. A law-suit had arisen with respect to the right of the Town-Council to dispose of the sum paid by the railway company for the site of Trinity College Church, which it had been proposed by a Parliamentary Committee that sat in 1851 to apply in aid of the extinction of this tax, but in consequence of the suit that bad arisen this fund was no longer available. There was also a sum payable to the Deans of the Chapel Royal, which it had been proposed to apply to this purpose; but these funds also were now beyond reach, the University Commissioners having recommended that they should be applied to increasing the number and efficiency of the Divinity Chairs in the University of Scotland. The third source was Government money; but he was happy to say he did not propose to have recourse to that. His proposition was one by which the citizens of Edinburgh would be enabled to redeem the tax. At all events, it contained the materials for an amicable settlement of the question. Great scandal resulted from the present mode of collecting the tax. The other day there was a trial for resisting the officers in the execution of these warrants, in which the prosecutor failed to get a verdict; and it was most desirable that the question should be settled. At present the ministers were eighteen in number. Three of the churches were collegiate. It appeared to him that they were not bound to provide for the second charges in those collegiate churches. He did not propose to abolish any of them; but, in providing a substitute for the annuity tax, and providing for existing interests, he did not think that it would be necessary to provide for those second interests; and that opinion was shared by many members of the Established Church. That would leave fifteen ministers—a larger proportion for Edinburgh than was provided for in other towns. He thought it too much. He wished to say nothing invidious against the Established Church, but still his measure was a practical one. In 1837, when the Ecclesiastical Commissioners reported, the attendance at the Established Churches of Edinburgh was very nearly equal to the aggregate of all other denominations put together. In 1843 there was an unfortunate disruption in the Church, and in the Census of 1851, by taking the attendance on a Sunday fixed by the Commissioners, it was found that of 48,000 attendants on Divine service in the mornings, about 8,000 only belonged to the Established Church; showing that the attendance had greatly fallen off. The seat-rents would also show the falling off in the attendance in the Established Church within the last twenty years. The seat-rents in the five years from 1832–37 amounted to £5,835; in the five years from 1853–58 they yielded only £3,235. The surplus derived from that source in the former period was £3,400 against £1,600 in the latter. He had no wish to pare down the revenues of the Established Church in proportion to the number of attendants, but it should be remembered that they were dealing with a question of an equitable adjustment. In the Old Church, Edinburgh, there were only forty-seven seats let, and 641 unlet—and the ordinary attendance was certainly not 200. Of the forty-seven seats let only one was let to a parishioner. The Old Church was under the roof of the High Church, and the High Church was a collegiate church. The Tolbooth Church had only fourteen seats let, against 634 unlet. He did not propose to abolish either of these. The present incumbents would retain the right to share in the annuity tax or in the substitute which by this Bill he was going to propose, as long as they lived; but they were not bound to make provision for future incumbents of those two churches. The Old Church was vacant at present, and he proposed that the minister to be appointed should not have the right to share in the annuity tax, He should therefore give power to the Commissioners to be appointed by this Bill to nominate one of the ministers in the Collegiate Church to the Old Church. His proposal was to the following effect:—An Ecclesiastical Commission to be appointed under the Bill; three members to be appointed by the Presbytery, two by the Town Council, one by the Faculty of Advocates, and one by the Society of Writers to the Signet. To those Commissioners would be transferred the property in the churches, the right to the seat-rents, and all liability for repairs. The seat-rents, now amounting to £1,600 a year, would be collected by them; it was quite certain the amount was far below what it ought to be; in all probability there would be an increase of about £60 a year. It was proposed that that fund of £1,600 a year should be accumulated for fifteen years at 3½ per cent interest, and supposing the fund to increase at the rate of £60 a year, the whole amount would be £33,600 at the end of that time. Then there was a sum of £2,000 a year paid from the Exchequer—part of a rent charge derivable from the docks at Leith. It had been said that, if the annuity tax were abolished, this charge ought to be remitted; but he saw no sound reason for doing that, and proposed that it should be continued. He would allow it to accumulate in the same way for fifteen years at 3½per cent interest, and the amount of the two funds at the end of that period would be about £80,000. He proposed that at the expiration of fifteen years the annuity tax should be abolished altogether, but that there should be laid on by the Town Council during that fifteen years an assessment of from 8d. to 10d. in the pound. The latter was lower than the present rate. A rate of 8d., if levied on the present police assessment, along with the police rate, and paid by all occupiers, would give a surplus produce in the year of £1,520, after paying the stipends of the ministers now chargeable on the fund. This annual surplus, accumulated in (he way he had described, would yield, at the end of fifteen years, a sum of £34,000 or £35,000. Then he proposed that the exemption in favour of the lawyers should be abolished—an exemption which ought never to have existed. If the lowest amount of rate were taken—8d. in the pound—the capital accumulated at the end of fifteen years would amount to £106,000. If 10d., the highest rate, were exacted (and that was lower than the existing rate), the capital would amount to no less than £160,000. That, however, would be more than sufficient; and what he proposed to do was either to take the sum to be collected at £120,000, or the sum to be furnished by the town at £42,000—the two things would be very nearly the same—and the result would be that at the expiration of fifteen years there would be an annual income to the ministers of the interest of £120,000, at 3½ per cent.—£4,200. There would be in addition£2,500 from the seat-rents, and £2,000 the rent-charge on the Leith docks—giving £8,700 a year. To give £600 a year to thir- teen ministers, £7,800 was all that was necessary, and there would still remain a balance in the hands of the Commissioners applicable to expenses. The plan would have this advantage; it would put an end to the tax altogether at the end of fifteen years, unless it should be found that the assessment on the town had not yielded £42,000; but he thought this was sure to be realized. He had made no allowance for the increase of the town, nor for a higher rate of interest than 3½ per cent being obtained on the accumulations. This proposal would not lay a greater burden on the ratepayers than the proposition made by his hon. Friend (Mr. Black) last year; for 8d. in the pound was only £3 6s. 8d. per cent, instead of £3 7s. 4d., and the whole amount of £60,000, payable on the other scheme, would be saved. He certainly did not expect that this measure would satisfy general or abstract views entertained by some on this troublesome question; but at all events it afforded a means of extrication. If the ratepayers considered the rate too heavy they might reduce it by spreading it over a greater number of years—over twenty, instead of fifteen; on the other hand, if they thought it desirable to terminate the tax sooner, they could do it by making the rate 10d. instead of 8d. It had been suggested before, and again to him on that occasion, that the salaries of the ministers might be reduced from £600 to £500, or £550. If the members of the Established Church thought that a more desirable plan, and proposed that reduction in order to maintain the two churches, he had no objection. But he had not made the proposal, because he thought it infinitely better for the Church that thirteen clergymen should be fully paid, though they had to extend their strength over a larger surface. The hon. and learned Gentleman then moved a Resolution. That the Chairman be directed to move the House, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to abolish the Annuity Tax in Edinburgh, and to make provision in regard to the Stipends of the Clergy in that City.

SIR JAMES FERGUSSON

said, that a measure such as that which the learned Lord sketched out, the object of which was to effect the settlement of a question which had excited much bitterness of feeling, was entitled to be received with the utmost respect, and being of that opinion, he for one did not rise to offer any opposition to its introduction. He wished how- ever, to make a few observations. He was, he might say, in the first place, glad to find that the learned Lord in framing the measure had proceeded on a different principle from that which characterized former measures which had been introduced to the House on the same subject. He had recognized the principle that it was the duty of the State to support the Established Church of the country, as well as the obligation which lay upon the people of Edinburgh to provide for the payment of the ministers of the Established Church in that city, the learned Lord had, however, in dealing with that subject passed over very lightly the history of the tax; nor would he (Sir James Fergusson) enter further in the points than simply to state that it was a tax which had been levied on a portion of the inhabitants of Edinburgh for a period of nearly two centuries and a half, and was originally the result of a compromise by which considerable advantages had been secured to the town itself by the voluntary cession of certain lands which had been formerly the property of the Church. The city of Edinburgh, which had so much benefited by that compromise, had the obligation imposed upon it to maintain the clergy of the Established Church within its confines; nor could he understand why they should be left dependant on voluntary support any more than other clergymen of the same communion whose stipends were paid out of the land of the country. The learned Lord, however, he was glad to find, did not propose to take that course, one of the main features of his scheme being to provide a substitute for a charge the complainants against which he (Sir James Fergusson) could not help thinking often had recourse to it as furnishing a sort of cheap martyrdom, and which was a charge, moreover, subject to which every individual who paid it entered upon the occupation of his house. But although it afforded him satisfaction to perceive that the learned Lord did not propose to leave the clergy belonging to the Established Church in Edinburgh dependant upon voluntary contributions, he thought there were one or two objections to the measure which might affect the progress of it. He must confess it appeared to him rather hard that no less than five of the Ministers of the Church in Edinburgh were to be swept away, under the operation of the Bill, and swept away too at a moment when the sphere of their duties was becoming rapidly extended. It had been found necessary to build new churches to meet the spiritual wants of the population, and it seemed to be very inconsistent to introduce at the same time a measure reducing the number of the ministers of the Church. There was, however, another feature of the measure which was even still more objectionable, and that was the proposal to perpetuate the imposition of seat-rents. Those rents were the property of the Corporation of Edinburgh, conferred, he believed, by Act of Parliament when that city was nearly bankrupt, and were so very high as to exclude from many of the churches in Edinburgh the great mass of the poorer classes resident in that city. He might add, that the Established Church was very anxious to reduce rents which so operated, but that it was unable to do so in consequence of their being the property of the Corporation, with whom he trusted the hon. and learned Lord would have no difficulty in coming to some satisfactory arrangement on the subject. If it were really the object of the Corporation to maintain an Established Church it should be one of their first objects to provide accommodation for the poorer classes. In conclusion, he should merely express a hope that the members of the Church of England would not fail to perceive that any attack made upon the property of the Established Church in Scotland tended equally to the prejudice of their own, and that they would, therefore, lend their aid to render this measure as little injurious as possible to its interests.

MR. BLACK

said, he should not resist the introduction of the Bill which proposed to deal with a tax which was of the most obnoxious character; but he thought he had seen other schemes much preferable to this,—indeed he thought that the scheme of the hon. and learned Lord was far from an improvement upon that which he himself had last year submitted to the House. He was, for instance, by no means satisfied with that portion of the Bill which provided for the continuance of the tax for a period of fifteen years and which virtually amounted to its imposition upon those by whom it was at present paid during the remainder of their lives. His opinion was that the people of Edinburgh would not be willing to bear it. He was himself willing to bear his proportion; he was so anxious to see an accommodation of so vexatious a question that he had supported almost every proposition that had been made for its settlement, and would submit to almost any personal inconvenience to get rid of it. The opposition to its settlement had been most injurious to the cause of religion. It had been said how beautiful upon the mountains were the feet of them who published peace, but the ministers of Edinburgh, who called themselves ministers of peace, sent messengers with manacles in their hands for the purpose of handcuffing and carrying to jail respectable men who refused to pay for their support. He thought it unjust that the present generation of the citizens of Edinburgh should bear the whole burden of the measure proposed by the hon. and learned Lord. He doubted, indeed, whether the inhabitants of Edinburgh in general would submit to it. He thought his own scheme—for which, perhaps, he felt the fondness of a parent—preferable. No doubt, some of the town ministers were very long-lived; but suppose a few of them should live to a very great age, yet, when the greater bulk had come under the new arrangement, the few that remained might be expected also to concur. The hon. Member who spoke last talked of what the city of Edinburgh got by the agreement to pay this tax; this only showed that he was utterly unacquainted with the history of this impost. If his argument had been based on a knowledge of facts he would not have made the statements he had done. In fact, the city got nothing for it. It was that religious Monarch, Charles II., who recommended it, and they all knew what was the value of such recommendations in the days of the Stuarts. The hon. Gentleman had also talked about seat-rents, and that seats ought to be free to the poor; but this was mere religious sentimentalism; the churches in Edinburgh were half empty, and the poor were quite welcome to sittings, but the poor would not attend the church if they were charged no seat-rents at all. There could be no doubt that for some time the Established Church in Edinburgh had been sinking. This very tax acted as a wet blanket, and was, to a great extent, the cause of the popular dislike to it, leading! them to regard the institution, not as one for promoting their welfare, but actually doing them an injury. It was impossible to believe that the Established Church in Edinburgh could prosper under such a system. The Bill he proposed did not interfere with the number of the clergy. He did not care what was the number; they might be fifty, provided those who appointed them paid for them. He thought the plan of the hon, and learned Lord would have a more injurious influence on the Established Church than that introduced by him last year. That would have given new life and energy to the Church, because it provided the clergy should be paid according to the talents and vigour displayed. He saw no reason why a man of talent, who paid great attention to his parish, and who was beloved by his people, should not have a higher income than a drone who cared nothing about his parish; hut by the plan now proposed the drones and the working tees would be paid alike. He had no idea of such a system. It was quite possible some modification might be made in the measure so as to render it more agreeable to the inhabitants of Edinburgh, and more useful to the Church; he would vote for the Resolution and see what shape it took in its progress through the House.

MR. W. MILLER

thought, if the Bill had proposed the abolition of the tax on the shipping interests in Leith, which dated from the time of Charles II., for the support of the established clergy of Edinburgh, it would have given more satisfaction. If the inhabitants of Edinburgh complained of the Annuity-tax, much more cause of complaint had his constituents, who were saddled with an onerous burden for supporting a clergy from whom they received no benefit whatever. The tax affected the shipping interest of the whole country. A ship coming from Liverpool to Leith, for instance, had to pay a specified sum for the support of the Established Church of Edinburgh. It would be much more to the honour and credit of the citizens of Edinburgh if they would maintain their own institutions. At a future stage of the measure he should object to that part of the Bill which affected the town of Leith, and hoped he should receive the support of the House.

MR. BLACKBURN

thought the proposal unobjectionable, in so far as the new tax was less than that now in force; but with reference to the appropriation of the seat-rents considerable objections were stated by the hon. Member for Ayrshire (Sir J. Fergusson) and he, for one, also objected to the reduction of the number of Ministers from eighteen to fifteen. It would depend much on the details of the Bill whether he could give it his support, but no doubt there would be every disposition to have the matter settled.

LORD WILLIAM GRAHAM

wished to know whether the Lord Advocate meant the Ecclesiastical Commission to be a paid Commission; if so, from what source would their salaries be taken? Of course, if they were drawn from the Annuity Fund it would pro tanto be reduced.

THE LORD ADVOCATE

said, he proposed that the Commission should be unpaid. He might take this opportunity of supplying an omission in his former statement. The seat-rents, to the extent of £300 a year, formed part of the ordinary revenue of the city of Edinburgh, and it would be necessary to provide a substitute by a rate to that extent, to be levied as a police-rate over the whole community.

Motion agreed to.

Resolution reported.

Bill ordered to be brought in by MR. MASSEY, the LORD ADVOCATE, SIR GEORGE LEWIS, and SIR WILLIAM DUNBAR.