§ MR. M'LARENsaid, he wished to ask the Lord Advocate, Whether his attention has been called to the Report of the Select Committee on the Annuity Tax (Edinburgh) 1851, which—
Recommended the transference of the teinds, now appropriated to the Deans of the Chapel Royal, towards the payment of the stipends of the Ministers of Edinburgh, considering that these funds have always been applied to ecclesiastical purposes;and, seeing that a vacancy has now occurred in one of those deaneries, whether Her Majesty's Government are prepared to carry that Report into effect as far as can be done under present circumstances?
THE LORD ADVOCATE, in reply, said, he had made inquiry, and found that 1890 in 1846 a third of the teinds was taken for the endowment of a Professorship in the University of Edinburgh. In 1860 and 1863 four additional Chairs were established in that and other Universities, and payments from these teinds, exhausting the whole amount, were provided, in favour of these Professors and their successors in office.