MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 26 February 1869)

§ MR. NEWDEGATE

^* Sir, the Motion of which I have given Notice, which is, for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the present operation of the Roman Catholic Charities Act of 1860, and into that of the Burials Registration Act of 1864, has been somewhat misapprehended out-of-doors. It has been thought by some persons that this Motion of mine is analogous to the one I made four years ago, and was for a Committee to inquire into the increase of Monastic and Conventual Establishments in this country, into their character and their discipline, with a view to the institution of some system of inspection. At the outset, then, I beg to state that my present Motion is proposed with no such intention as that. The object which I have in view is a very simple one; it is that this House should appoint a Committee for the purpose of ascertaining how far the provisions of the Act of 1860, with respect to Roman Catholic Charities, have been acted upon by the Roman Catholic community; whether the enrolment of trusts, which that Act contemplates, has been carried out in such a manner as to fulfil the intentions of the Legislature; and whether the system of enrolment and the entries in the Rolls Court are such as to afford reasonable security to the public, and the necessary amount of information to those who are desirous of informing themselves with regard to the disposition of the property held under those trusts. In the first place, then, I will deal with that Act; having given my support to Sir Charles Selwyn and Sir William Bovill, when Members of this House, in assisting the then Government, represented by the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in passing it through this House. I will go hereafter into the history of that measure; but I would here observe that this statute is of a most liberal character. It removes the difficulties which were formerly interposed between intending donors of property for Roman Catholic religious uses by the Superstitious Uses Act, an Act that forbids the devising of property for prayers for the dead and other purposes, by means of which the Church of Rome, and I believe other Churches also, have accumulated pro- 385 perty to such, an undue extent in every country in Europe, as indeed was the case formerly in this country, that Legislatures generally have been unanimous in their efforts to limit these devises in mortmain. I shall be prepared to show that the Government of France in particular has had to struggle against this difficulty. The Church of Borne in that country has received endowments and accumulated property contrary to the law; and M. Dupin, having in 1861 reported upon the evasions that were practised by the Roman Catholic hierarchy in France, M. Persigny, at that time at the head, of the Home Office, issued a decree and exerted himself greatly to abate that which had become a growing evil—namely, the locking up in mortmain of a very large portion of the property and wealth of the nation. The evasions of the law in France took a singular turn. In that country, there are certain congregations and societies connected with the conventual system, and particularly la Sociétié de St. Vincent de Paul, who are employed largely in collecting this property, and after having been pursued by M. Dupin and the French Government from one evasion to another, they came to this—instead of creating any trusts, which might fall under the cognizance of the Government, they invested the whole of the property in a certain M. Baudin, who held the securities, and perpetually changed the coupons so as to prevent the property being traced. I do not know what measures have been recently adopted by the French Government, but I refer to these facts as showing, at all events, the need of supervision which is felt in that country. The other statute which the Motion embraces is that for the Registration of Burials, respecting which I may say that it is in pari materia, because it relates to cemeteries which are held by the Roman Catholic community on the same terms as other property; and it has been proved before the courts of law, in the case of "Smee v. The Oratorians at Brompton," that they not only omitted to register the burials in Roman Catholic cemeteries, but had positively refused to do so. It is a principle laid down by the Bank of England, and by other great institutions having the charge of property, that it is essential not only that the death but the burial of the former owner of the pro- 386 perty should be registered, inasmuch as the details afforded by the register of death are not always sufficient to convey the information necessary for the proper devolution of the property. Now, the Burials Act passed through both Houses of Parliament without a division; and last year, at the instance of an hon. and learned Friend, I moved an Address to Her Majesty for Returns with regard to its operation, in order to ascertain how far it had been complied with; but although eight months have since elapsed, and the obligation to furnish Returns, as resting on the public officers, survives the Parliament, the Returns have not been any thing like fully made. I find, in short, upon inquiry at the Home Office, that not more than one-third of the proper number of Returns have been furnished, and that these prove a noncompliance with the provisions of the statute. I may venture to assert this because I am prepared to prove it before a Committee. There are, therefore, two Acts which have been passed in recent years, and in reference to which I can show that in the case of neither have the intentions of the Legislature been carried out. It is obvious that legislation is a farce unless the laws which are passed be complied with; and there is no doubt that the enrolment under the Roman Catholic Charities Act, to which I will now refer, is not sufficient to afford to persons who may consider themselves interested in the property held under those trusts the requisite information as to its extent, or as to the ownership, or, in fact, as to who the trustees really are; because I find that a provision of that Act which, in the most liberal sense validated existing trusts, whether the property was held contrary to law or, in accordance with the law of the Roman Catholic community, after twenty years' possession by the trustees; by mere possession or by mere virtue of use, whether the title was originally a good title or not; that the provisions of this statute have been so construed that persons now say that the words of this clause are prospective, that they were not merely intended to validate existing trusts which I believe to have been the purpose of Parliament; but that any one in possession of such property has only to wait twenty years, and whether their possession of the property be in accordance with law or not, they 387 have a good, title at the end of the term. This provision, therefore, operates as a direct premium against enrolment, although enrolment is the object of the statute. Now this is, in a certain degree, speculative; but I have pretty good reason for relying upon my information. I understand that although under this Act, in order to gain a good title to the trust property, enrolment must take place in the first instance; no sooner has one set of trustees been enrolled than they may either all resign, except, perhaps, one, and he, being a Roman Catholic Bishop or priest most likely, who would thus become sole trustee, or they may appoint entirely new trustees without the necessity of a fresh enrolment. It is manifest that the intention of enrolment is that there should be a record kept of the existing trustees; but, by means of the proceeding to which I have referred, I am informed that the object of the enrolment is defeated. I have explained to the House that the intention of the Act was to validate possession in Roman Catholic trustees, however they may have acquired the property prior to the year 1861; and there is in the ninth Report of the Charity Commissioners—the only Report which refers to the operation of the Act—a passage which, with the permission of the House, I will read, because it speaks with greater authority than I can. Adverting to the previous state of things, the Charity Commissioners in that Report say, that the temporary exemption of Roman Catholic charities from the operation of the Charitable Trusts Act ceased in 1860. And I should remind the House that the Charitable Trusts Act, which is applicable to the charities of every other denomination, was passed in the year 1853; and it was under this Act that the Charity Commissioners were incorporated, and that the powers granted to them by the Legislature over the charities of other denominations were confirmed. Through the pressure put upon Lord John Russell's Government in that year, the Roman Catholic charities were exempted from the operation of the Charitable Trusts Act, and that exemption was to continue for seven years. The passage in the Commissioners' Report of 1862 is in these words— The temporary exemption of Roman Catholic charities from the operation of the Charitable Trusts Acts ceased in 1860. The Roman Catholic Charities Act of the same year created special 388 facilities for supplying the enrolment of existing Roman Catholic endowments, which, though necessary to their legal validity (when comprising real estate), had been omitted during the prevalence of laws specially affecting the Roman Catholic body. Although numerous grants have been enrolled, as in compliance with that Act (approaching to 400 in number), yet the trusts, on which these assurances were made, or which were intended to be attached on the grantees, appear only on a very inconsiderable proportion of the enrolments; and it may, perhaps, be concluded that the administrators of the properties which they comprise have prepared to rely on their practical dedication to public purposes rather than by legalizing their settlement to subject them more directly to the general law, or that the means of making more sufficient enrolments may have been wanting. No Returns have yet been made of the income and expenditure of any such charities, but the time allowed for the transmission of such Returns for the year 1861, the first complete year since the termination of the exemption referred to, has not fully expired. The House might have expected, after empowering the Charity Commissioners to validate these trusts by purging them of any expressions that might be held to be contrary to the Superstitious Uses Act, and after directing them to send schemes in all cases to the Court of Chancery, by which—if not the whole, a portion at all events—should be validated in law; that, after making such a concession as that, these powers would have been used by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Roman Catholic community. But I have been to the office of the Charity Commissioners, and asked why there is no Return in their subsequent Reports of the operation of this Act of 1860; and the answer I have received is that since the Return, from which I have quoted (that of 1862), only in a few trifling cases have the powers conferred by that Act ever been used. I wish to show in as few words as I can the importance of this subject, because the increase of this Roman Catholic trust property has attained a rapidity which has not for centuries been known until within the last twenty years. The accumulation of the property is going on from day to day and hour to hour in mortmain, and as it appears from these Returns, without the proper authorization of Law, as recommended by the Committee on Mortmain in 1852; beyond the purview of the law, and without the facilities for the acquirement of information on the part of persons who may consider themselves heirs, or who are otherwise interested, which the Committee of 1852 deemed to be most 389 desirable, and which have been required, as conditions of possession of every other denomination than the Roman Catholic by the general statute of 1853. I will now proceed to show to the House that there is reason for the exercise of some care in this matter, and that the laws of England do not secure the due enrolment and description of this trust property; that they do not afford the publicity and security against fraudulent misappropriation of such property which the Bequests Act has secured to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. I have in my hand the evidence which was given by the Master of the Rolls for Ireland before the Committee on Mortmain in 1852, and with the leave of the House, and to avoid misunderstanding, I will read one paragraph. He said that he considered the act of 1844 a great improvement, investing as it did this property in a body of Commissioners, and this is his description of the method of enrolment which the Legislature then sanctioned, and which has since been maintained— Do you get a Return from the Courts where wills are deposited of all bequests?—Yes, a Return is made regularly under one of the sections of the Act, the 19th section. Does that Return state the amount of property bequeathed and the purpose of the bequest?—The Returns that have been made to the present Board are fuller than the Returns which were made to the late Board; rather fuller than the Act required. I may mention to the Committee that a Return was made last Session to the House of Lords by the Board of Charitable Bequests and Donations, in pursuance of an order of that House, containing a copy of the Returns made to us from the original constitution of the Board on the 1st of January, 1845, down to last June or July. I can give the Committee the form or Return which has been furnished to the House of Lords. The first column contains the testator's or testatrix's name and late residence; the second column contains the date of the will; the third column contains the date of the death; the fourth column contains the date of the probate; the fifth column contains the name of the executors; the sixth column contains the amount of effects sworn to; the seventh column contains a short abstract of the charitable bequests; and then there is a column for observations. If the Committee will refer to that Return they will get full information on the subject. It is quite clear, therefore, that these Commissioners possessed an accurate knowledge of all those bequests, and of everything connected with, the property under them, which should come within their cognizance, and we have it on the authority of the Charity Commissioners that the Act of 1860 has not provided 390 anything like such accurate specific enrolment. I fear that there is a disposition on the part of the Roman Catholic hierarchy not to comply with this law, and, in order to prove that this is probable, I will quote the statement, contained in a protest, made by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and clergy of Ireland against this Roman Catholic Bequests Act about four months after it was passed into a law. In that protest they say— We, the undersigned Archbishop, Bishops, and priests of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, having studied with attention the provisions of the Act of Charitable Bequests take the earliest opportunity which the unavoidable delay of consultation allowed us to declare our conviction that the measure is fraught with the worst consequences to religion, and it carried into operation will finally lead to the subjugation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland to the temporal power. That is to say, the power of the State. But here comes the most remarkable passage— Instead of a concession it is a new penal law of the old leaven. And why? By forbidding the dying sinner in his most sincere moments—the time of his last sickness—to redeem his sins by the bequest of a single acre of landed property for any religious or charitable purpose in our communion. This, Sir, although the quantity specified is "one acre," which in many cases the Law allows, and even a large quantity, seems to me a distinct denouncement of the law of mortmain. The protest goes on— It enacts that Roman Catholics—perhaps Bishops, should they be found to consent—shall be the persons to carry out the spirit, indeed the letter, of a penal clause in the late Act of Catholic Emancipation, which excluded the religious orders throughout Great Britain from the benefits of that Act, and against which the secular clergy in a petition to Parliament solemnly protested. It provides for the nomination by the Crown of five persons professing the Roman Catholic religion. They may be laymen, who have neither practical religion nor faith to recommend them, and whose province shall be to judge of matters vitally connected with our doctrine and discipline. If Bishops they will be called on, in the exercise of their functions as Commissioners, to interfere and pronounce in spiritual matters belonging to the jurisdiction of other Bishops, which is a flagrant violation of the canons of our Church. In cases within their own especial jurisdiction they will have to decide, not in virtue of the inherent powers of their holy order, but by the licence and authority of the Crown, which would be a virtual surrender of their sacred office and jurisdiction to the authority of the State. We beg leave, therefore, most firmly but most respectfully to protest 391 against a Board so constructed, whether lay or ecclesiastical. If it is to be composed of laymen of state nomination, we must view it as a step towards the introduction of faithless and interested politicians to tamper with the independence of our Church, for the purpose of forwarding the anti-Catholic views of men in power, and of promoting their own personal interests. If the Board is to be composed of Bishops similarly appointed, we must regard the novel project of selecting ministerial favourites from the hierarchy as most calculated at once to create divisions in our body, to the well-being of which union and harmony are so essential, and to weaken and finally destroy the confidence of our faithful people, who having expressed so much feverish anxiety at the mention of their clergy being pensioned cannot fail of being alarmed at seeing them accept places and patronage under the Crown. For these and other reasons, which could not be crowded into a short form of declaration, we protest against the Act of Charitable Bequests, and declare our determination to oppose it by all legal and constitutional means in our power. Let the House consider, then, to what this protest amounts. It is signed by fourteen Roman Catholic Bishops and a thousand priests, and it is a protest against the exercise of the temporal power of the State in any degree over Roman Catholic charitable or conventual property, and is a direct defiance of the law of mortmain, which forbids in this country the validity of any will, made by a dying person within twelve months of death bequeathing property to a religious foundation. The law also invalidates any deed of appointment or gifts to trustees if signed within three months of death for the like purpose. It was a protest signed by the greater part, if not the whole, of the Roman Catholic Bishops and a thousand priests, and it denounces a law passed by this House for Ireland, a law which has been in operation with beneficial effects ever since the year 1844. I am sorry to say that the non-effect or insufficient effect of the Roman Catholic Charities Act passed in 1860, and the non-compliance which we find with the provisions of the Burials Act seems to me to indicate the same determination on the part of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to reject and to repudiate the authority of the State in everything which relates to the property devolving upon that Church. They speak in the protest I have quoted—these Roman Catholic Bishops and clerical protesters—of interference with discipline. Well, Sir, the Legislature of this country has always disapproved of "discipline" being exercised upon the dying for such a purpose as the acquisition of property by a 392 Church, or indeed by any corporate body in the last hours of expiring mortality. Yet to use these means for acquiring property is what these Roman Catholic Bishops claim as a right, and they denounce the law because—like the law which exists in France and throughout continental Europe, aye, and existed in this country, too, from before the Conquest—it imposes a limitation upon the acquisitiveness of clerical bodies, and especially of the Church of Rome. So very liberal were the provisions of the Act of 1860 that I thought, as the then Government and the House thought, there would be a ready compliance with them; but I confess that I am disappointed, for instead of availing themselves of that enormous boon, the validation of all the property held by them in trust, on the ground of twenty years' user, simple possession of it, whether rightfully or wrongfully, up to the date of the Act, it appears that after the first year subsequent to the passing of the statute there is scarcely any evidence of enrolment; that the enrolments are at all events scanty, and that the system of enrolment in the Rolls Court is such as to create and interpose confusion and difficulty when persons, believing themselves interested, seek to ascertain whether the property is vested in trustees who are amenable to the law. I need hardly quote more of this Report of the Committee of 1852; still there is one passage to which I should like to direct the attention of the House with respect to the original Mortmain Statute of George II.— It appears that the fourth requisition which compels enrolment of the deed of gift in the Court of Chancery, is very defective as a means of ensuring publicity, and that there is great difficulty in obtaining evidence of charitable trusts when information is withheld. The general opinion of every witness of importance, with the exception of Dr. Wiseman, who declined to express any opinion on the subject, is that the greatest publicity should be given to all deeds or instruments, settling property for charitable purposes, and to the mode by which the trusts declared by such deeds or instruments are carried into execution. In this opinion your Committee fully concur; and they would suggest that it should be incumbent upon all persons to whom real or personal property is given or bequeathed upon any charitable or religious object, to make a Return either to Commissioners or to some public Board of the nature of the gift and the particular purposes to which it is to be applied. The Committee then proceeded to show the manner in which secret trusts are 393 created, and other methods, by which the law against mortmain is evaded. A general law, the Charitable Trusts Act, founded upon the recommendation of this Committee, was passed in 1853, and ensures compliance with this recommendation by every religious denomination, with the exception of the Roman Catholic, who claimed to be exempted from the law, and obtained the exemption. That exception, Sir, does not seem to be very much like a love of equality. And it strikes me, that, at a moment when we are contemplating something more stringent than a law of mortmain with respect to the Protestant Church established in Ireland—when we are told that the minority in that country is to be deprived of so large an amount of property, which they hold by an undoubted title, it is especially incumbent upon this House to take cognizance of the operation of the Roman Catholic Charities Act of 1860, and to see whether it has not proved the means of accumulating property in the hands of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country to an extent that is not permitted to any other denomination, and by means which enable them to evade the law of mortmain. I will now show you that there is reason to suppose, from the enormous and rapid accumulation of this property, that the relaxation of the law has in practice led to that accumulation of property in the hands of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, that this accumulation has been unprecedented, and that this state of things has been by favour of the law, or rather by an evasion of the law, which restrains all other religious communities in the acquisition of property. I cannot see that there is equality in this. In the year 1864 I brought before the notice of the House the Petition of Mr. Smee, to which I have before referred, who complained that during the last illness of his relative, Mr. Hutchinson, influence was used over him by the late Mr. Faber, the Principal of the Oratorians at Brompton—a society which Mr. Hutchinson had joined—by means of which Mr. Faber obtained a sum of money amounting in all to £40,000, that is to say, by the last bequest, coupled with previous gifts. At that time I quoted an extract from a speech then lately delivered at Malines by the late Cardinal Wiseman, which was to this effect— 394 Allow me now to present to you, by means of statistics, a rapid view of the effect produced by these different measures. The Census gives the population in England—for the year 1831, 13,896,797; for the year 1841, 15,914,148; for the year 1851, 17,927,609; for the year 1861, 20,906,224; an increase of about 2,000,000 in each decennial period. From 1831 to 1841, the population, therefore, increased 14 per cent. In the same period the number of priests increased about 25 per cent, or nearly double. During the following ten years the population increased 13 per cent, the number of priests 45 per cent. Lastly, from 1851 to 1861, while the population increased 12 per cent, the number of priests increased about 37 per cent. Here, again, are the precise statistics which will allow you to judge of the continued increase of the Roman Catholic Church in England. In 1830 we numbered but 434 priests for the whole of England. At present we have 1,242, that is to say, three times as many. The number of our churches, which was 410, has now increased to 872; from 16 convents which we possessed in 1830 in the United Kingdom, we have now, in 1863, 162. Lastly, in 1830, we had not a single religious house of men, in 1850 there were already 11, and to-day their number is 55. Such, is the account, which was given by Cardinal Wiseman, and he, I suppose, must be held an unimpeachable authority; but I have some other statistics here which are not taken from Roman Catholic sources, and the accuracy of which I have no reason to doubt. These represent that— The increase of Roman Catholic institutions has recently been very great. In 1829 there were no monasteries nor convents publicly announced, and there were but 477 priests, and 449 chapels and stations. In 1841 there were but 1 monastery, 16 convents, and 9 colleges. In 1851 there were 17 monasteries and 53 convents. In the present year there are in England and Wales, 1,122 churches, chapels, and stations, 18 colleges, 214 convents, and 67 communities of men, altogether illegal, with inmates probably amounting to 3,000 males and 13,000 females. In connection with such institutions, real or personal property to a very large amount is, no doubt, fast accumulating, as well as for masses for the dead and other superstitious uses of the Romish religion. If each inmate of a convent bring a dowry of say £250, this would amount alone to upwards of £3,000,000. It is perfectly clear that all these communities must have property to sustain them; and I think it is but fair to infer that their property has increased in something like the proportion of the number of priests and of the inmates which these establishments have to maintain, if not in a greater ratio; because it is a well-known fact that the conventual property, held by the Church of Rome is generally of a profitable nature, because the sum required with each nun represents on an average a larger amount 395 than the capital required to provide for her, and that there remains a surplus over and above the expenditure on the maintenance of the establishments. I have adverted to the declaration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland that they claim the right of obtaining from persons, who are languishing on their death-beds, a large amount of property, and that they denounce the law, which places a restriction upon them, in common with the clergy of every other denomination. But there are other means by which the Church of Rome obtains property. I have another case here; and if the House will allow me, as it is very brief, I will state it in the words in which I have it— In January, 1855, a lady of the name of Thompson became a Roman Catholic, was received into the Romish Church by Father Faber —the same person who obtained the property of Mr. Hutchinson, to whom I have referred— who became her confessor, and in November, 1859, she entered the Carmelite Convent at Paris. Father Faber made all the arrangements; the lady paid £1,000 as dowry, she took the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty; and subsequently she assumed the black veil, and executed a deed, by which she assigned the whole of her property to Mr. Hope Scott and Mr. Sergeant Bellasis for the benefit of the Oratory at Brompton. Lord Romilly decided, that Miss Thompson being under duress was not a free agent, —I think we have had some illustrations of this hard by within the last few days— and that the Court would not use its control over the property, until it was satisfied that she had not been influenced by her vows in the disposal of it. Now, when we find such a vast amount of property accumulating in the hands of the Roman Catholic hierarchy; when in our courts of law such cases as this appear; when we observe a systematic determination evinced to evade the provisions of the law which we have passed; when we are informed, that the system of enrolment is defective—and we are so informed by the Charity Commissioners; when it appears, that the Law of England is more relaxed, and unduly relaxed, to the detriment of the families of Englishmen, than the Law of Ireland, although that to a great extent is a Roman Catholic country; surely all this demands and requires careful investigation, and I am not unreasonable in asking the House to accede to my Motion for the appointment of a Com- 396 mittee to inquire into the subject. Were I to adopt another course, and move for Returns, I should be told that I was entailing upon the officers of the Rolls Court an undue amount of labour; and I know that that would be the case, owing to the confused manner in which the trusts are registered; and perhaps I should not have better success than I had upon the Address to Her Majesty requesting that directions be sent to those whose duty it was to afford information with regard to the registration of burials, and whose non-compliance with the Order of the House I have already adverted to. This matter, Sir, has many bearings. I cannot help thinking that this House in 1860, in its anxiety to meet the objections raised by the Roman Catholic Members of the House, adopted words, particularly in the fifth clause of the Act, which afford a loophole for the carrying out on the part of the Church of Rome, in defiance of the Law of Mortmain, a system, to which this country should no more submit than the Government of France or Italy, or any other Government in Europe. There is nothing new in these attempts on the part of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to accumulate this property. No doubt they consider it to be their duty to do so; but unfortunately in the process they bring themselves into collision with the temporal power in every State in Europe. Indeed it seems as if the doctrine they put forth on this subject were adverse to the common sense of mankind. Even our Roman Catholic ancestors resisted much more sternly and much more effectually than we do now all such attempts. If hon. Members would only look back at the statutes passed in the reigns of Edward I. and Richard II., through the dynasties of the Houses of Lancaster and York, centuries before the Reformation, they will find one perpetually renewed catena of statutes forbidding this abuse. In arguing, therefore, that we should take means to inform ourselves as to the operation of our own law, I do it for a purpose, which I have in common with the laity of the Roman Catholic Church in the past and in the present, and in every country in Europe. Look, for example, at what has happened in Italy. There, under the influence of the Papacy, the laws of mortmain were left unenforced, and the result was that such an amount of pro- 397 perty accumulated in the hands of monasteries, not profitable to the State, that at last the time came, in 1850, when the Siccardi law was adopted, and I shall be prepared to show—["Oh!"]—though I do not wish to annoy any Members of the House, the enormous amount of property which the State has recovered for the benefit of the people. Not only was the law of 1850 carried out in 1855, but in the year 1861 another law was passed appropriating to the State a still larger portion, almost the whole of the remainder of the monastic and conventual property; not to be employed for the ordinary uses of the State, the purposes of defence or the requirements of commerce, but to provide for the education of the people. For one of the most remarkable circumstances in Italy was that, although there were thousands of priests who ought to have been the teachers of the people, there was no country in Europe in which the people were so untaught. In Italy, then, the State has, by a violent and convulsive effort, had to make up for its past neglect, a neglect of centuries, in not enforcing the law of mortmain against the undue accumulation of this property by the Roman Catholic Church; and after much pain and trouble, after placing itself in a position of hostility to the Church of Rome, and after being in an antagonism to it that has rocked society to its foundations, the time has come when this abuse of accumulating a large amount of property in the hands of those who do not use it for purposes which are profitable or beneficial to the community, has been put an end to. For, in their case, they did not teach the people; and I can show from statistics that ignorance prevailed most where the monasteries had the largest portion of the property in their possession; in fact, that in proportion to the accumulation of property in their hands did popular ignorance prevail. That was reported to the Italian Parliament, and now the State has resumed possession of the greater portion of the property. I need scarcely say any thing more to prove that the law of mortmain ought to be enforced as much against clerical bodies as against secular. Why, so jealous has the Legislature been on this subject that there is an Act in existence which prevents any lay corporation, associated for the purpose of promoting literature 398 or the fine arts, from holding more than two acres of land, and the Board of Trade is bound to see that they do not acquire more. There is nothing peculiar, therefore, in the restriction. In feudal times the State found that the possession by monastic houses and conventual establishments of these enormous properties had the effect of depriving it of the services of its subjects, and of weakening the defence of the realm. And now, when a trust is created for religious or charitable uses, 10 per cent is charged at first under the succession duty; but never after that is any succession duty paid; whilst, if the property were held by individuals or a family, upon every devolution of the property that tax would be levied. Thus the property in mortmain pays 10 per cent once for all, and never pays again. The right hon. Gentleman the present Prime Minister appears to have felt this, for, two or three years since, he proposed to make charitable property liable to the income tax, although he was met with such opposition that he was obliged to abandon the proposal, Wherever this accumulation of property in mortmain has taken place, it has been found to be detrimental to the nation alike materially, financially, and morally; and, although I am unwilling to detain the House, I am desirous of showing why the House has reason to be careful. When the law of 1861 had passed in Italy, for this disposal of conventual and monastic property, Cardinal Antonelli issued a circular, in winch he warned all purchasers and intending purchasers of that property, that where property had ever belonged to the Church of Rome, no adverse title would ever be acknowledged by the Church; against the acquisition of that property by any layman he proclaimed the doctrine nullum tempus occurrit Ecclesiœ to its full extent; and it was but the other day that Dr. Manning, the head of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country, was in Rome; and whilst at Rome, on St. Thomas's Day, he is reported by the Weekly Register, a Roman Catholic organ, to have said— We are so used to hear the phrase of 'national property,' to hear sacrilegious spoliation spoken of as a matter of State necessity, that we have ceased to be shocked at it as we should. We forget that all that the piety of the faithful has laid at the feet of the Apostles belongs to God, and that no worldly hand can lawfully touch it. 399 Here, then, we have a distinct enunciation of the doctrine that nullum tempus occurrit Ecclesiœ. Therefore it behoves this House to see that the law is not tampered with; for if once property falls into the hands of the Church of Borne, that Church will never acknowledge a good title in any one to whom the State may transfer it. "We are so used to hear the phrase of 'national property,'" says Dr. Manning, "to hear sacrilegious spoliation spoken of as a matter of State necessity, that we have ceased to be shocked at it as we should." When I read this, I could not help feeling that it would have been well if Manning had bethought him of that opinion before he wrote his letter to Lord Grey, recommending the disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland. It appears to me, Sir, that the authorities of the Church of Rome will not accept in their own case the law which is applied to other religious denominations, or acknowledge in others the right which they claim for themselves. It is a spirit against which Parliament has ever had to struggle; and I hope that, by consenting to the appointment of this Committee, the House will inform itself whether the two statutes to which I have referred, and the consideration of which I propose, are not practically insufficient, if not a dead letter, for the purposes contemplated and intended by the Legislature.