Commons Sitting of 1 March 1871

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Business of the House, Mr. Hunt discharged, Sir John Pakington added.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Citation Amendment (Scotland) [1]; Burials [7]; Registration of Deeds, Wills, &c. (Middlesex) [36]; Private Chapels* [37].
Committee—Report—County Property* [29].

CITATION AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL— [BILL 1.]—SECOND READING.
(Mr. Anderson, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Miller, Mr. Armitstead.)
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. ANDERSON, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that its object was to remedy a grievance arising from the present mode of serving summonses in proceedings in civil actions in Scotland. By the Act of the Scottish Parliament of 1540, entitled "The order of summoning of all persons in civil actions," it was enacted that if the officer gave six knocks on the door of the party
1114
cited, and failed to obtain entrance, and then affixed the summons to the gate or door, that was a lawful and sufficient citation. The service was often executed by putting the summons into the keyhole—which was termed a "lock-hole citation"—obviously a mode by which many accidents rendered it very probable that the summons would never reach the person for whom it was intended: indeed, it had become a very common practice in such cases so to arrange matters that there should be somebody not far off at the time who would take the summons out of the keyhole soon after it was put there; so that there was, in reality, no service at all, and the party was sometimes arrested, or had his goods seized, before he knew anything at all of the matter. The Bill abolished this mode of citation, with one exception, which arose out of the necessity of the case. Where the summons or citation was a summons of removal from any house or premises, and the person to be cited could not be found, or refused admission to his place of dwelling, so that he could not be served, a copy of the summons might be affixed to some conspicuous part of the premises from which removal was sought, and an intimation of such affixing was to be sent to the defender's last known place of residence. The abuse of the process was chiefly experienced in respect of the citations issued by the Small Debts Courts. The decrees of these Small Debts Courts were final and without appeal; but, if the decree was given in the absence of the defender, the law provided a process of re-hearing. Unfortunately, however, the re-hearing depended upon such conditions as often rendered it practically impossible to the defender. In the Small Debts Courts of the justices of the peace, before the defender could get a re-hearing, he must consign the whole amount claimed by the pursuer—a thing which a poor man was frequently unable to do. A decree, therefore, even when given in absence, was almost always practically final. A great deal of injustice was thus often inflicted. The class which was affected by this process was a very numerous one, as was shown by the fact that in the Small Debts Courts of the city of Glasgow in one year there were about 40,000 small debt litigations. Another object of the Bill was to provide against the fraudulent concealment of persons

1115
in order to avoid citations in bankruptcy, or to allow a period of prescription to be completed. In that case the Court might order the summons to be advertized in one or more of the local newspapers, and an intimation thereof to be sent to the defender's last known place of address, which should constitute a legal and valid citation.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the second time."—(Mr. Anderson.)
THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, the measure dealt with a very technical legal matter; but as on the back of it there appeared the name not only of the last speaker, but that of the right hon. and learned Member for Glasgow University (Mr. Gordon), he presumed its provisions had received his consideration and approval as a lawyer. He would not therefore oppose its second reading, although he wished to guard himself against being supposed to admit the expediency or the necessity of its provisions. He was not aware of the existence of the great evils mentioned in the Preamble as attending citation. Several of the clauses appeared to him at present to be wholly unnecessary, while others, as they now stood, would require careful consideration in Committee.
MR. GORDONsaid, a document would be laid on the Table of the House in a few days which would show that certain recommendations, pointing in the direction taken by this Bill, had been made by a Commission with reference to key-hole citation—a practice which had given rise to great injustice, especially taken in connection with the rule of the Justices of the Peace Court, denying the defendant a re-hearing unless he consigned the very sum which might have been wrongfully charged against him. He was not very cognizant of the peculiar forms that prevailed in regard to those small matters of citation in the inferior Courts; but the details of the Bill could, if necessary, be adjusted in Committee; and he had no doubt whatever that its principle ought to be sanctioned by the House.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for Tuesday 28th March.

BURIALS BILL— [BILL 7.]
(Mr. Osborne Morgan, Mr. Hadfield, Mr. M'Arthur.)
BURIALS BILL— [BILL 7.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. OSBORNE MORGAN, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, the House would recollect that last Session he introduced a Bill on this subject early in February. It came on for the second reading on the 23rd of March, and was carried, after a long discussion, by a large majority. A Motion was afterwards made by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary for referring it to a Select Committee—a mode of proceeding to which he (Mr. Osborne Morgan) objected, thinking that if the Bill was once shunted to a Parliamentary siding, there would be great difficulty in getting back again on to the main line, so as to be able to pass it through the House that year. His opposition was, however, overborne, and the Bill was referred to a Select Committee. The Bill came back from the Committee on the 10th of May, and he was bound to confess that it came back a much better Bill than it went in. He had to thank hon. Members for the great pains they had taken in investigating the subject. The principal alterations made were due to a compromise which had been made. The compromise was far from one-sided; but it was not satisfactory to certain hon. Members. When the Bill was returned from the Committee it was re-committed; but, owing either to the greater interest of other subjects, or because this subject was in itself uninviting, its progress was rather remarkable; it was down on the Order Book 13 times; it was actually reached three times; the House divided, on it five times; but with all that labour they only got through six lines and a half of the measure. One evening, though it was called on at the comparatively early hour of 11, an hon. Member, whose liveliness sometimes increased as the night advanced, was somehow seized with such an uncontrollable desire to go to bed that he moved to report Progress three or four different times, and considerable delay was the consequence. This treatment he protested against. Such tactics, though they might retard, could never ultimately prevent the passing of a just measure, neither did they redound greatly to the credit of those who resorted to

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  them: he was glad, therefore, that this year the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot), with a courage more in unison with his profession and antecedents, had come forward to meet the Bill with a direct negative, instead of seeking to get rid of it by the slow and ignoble process of the effluxion of time. A Member who introduced a measure of this kind was bound to do two things. First, he was bound to show that the state of the law which he sought to alter involved a grievance demanding a remedy; and secondly, that the legislation he proposed would remove it. By the common law of England, every parishioner, whatever his religious opinions might be, was entitled to interment in the parish churchyard. But then the canon law stepped in and prohibited the use of any religious service at such interment in three cases—namely, in the cases of suicides, those of excommunicated persons, and those of unbaptized persons, whether the omission of the rite of baptism had arisen from accident, as through the sudden death of an infant, or from the conscientious scruples of the parson himself, or of his friends, or from any other cause. If the rite of baptism had been performed, whether by a clergyman of the Established Church, by a Dissenting minister, or by a layman, or even by a woman, the clergyman of the parish was compelled to read over the body of the deceased—whatever might have been his antecedents, his mode of life, his religious opinions, or the wishes of his surviving friends—the burial service of the Church of England—a service which, eminently beautiful as it was, was in many cases altogether inapplicable and unsuitable. They might, for instance, have the anomaly of a clergyman devoting the soul of an heretical sinner to eternal punishment on the first day of the week, and on any seventh committing his body to the grave "in the sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life." Again, a Dissenting minister was in no case allowed to officiate in a parish churchyard. So that if a Dissenter died in a rural parish the minister who had instructed him in life, soothed his dying moments, and, it might be, consoled his sorrowing relatives, was stopped at the churchyard and not allowed to enter, except in the capacity of a private mourner. One might have thought that every humane man, whatever his
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  own religious opinions, would be only too anxious that poor people in those supremely trying circumstances should have the benefit of such religious consolation as really went home to their hearts, and not be expected to submit to a service which, however excellent in itself, became a hollow mockery when addressed to unwilling ears. The scenes to which that state of the law had led were disgraceful not only to any Christian, but to any civilized country. Last year he had referred to a number of instances in which scandals of that kind had occurred. When he moved the second reading of the Bill of last year he referred to a number of such cases, and more than a dozen had occurred since. He had referred for instance, to the case of the Rev. Mr. Henniker, who rather than read the service over the body of a Dissenter who had been baptized by a Dissenter, actually kept the body unburied for 14 days in the church. The rev. gentleman entirely set at nought his Bishop's expostulatory letter; and the body was at last buried, without his assent, by the curate, who, Mr. Henniker, having locked himself up in the church with the vestments, had to perform the service without his surplice. Many other cases of hardship and indignity were inflicted on Dissenters under the existing law, but few worse than the one in which a clergyman who, finding at the commencement of a funeral ceremony that one coffin contained the bodies of two infants, one of which had and the other had not been baptized, caused the coffin to be opened and the unbaptized child removed from it, and had it thrown like a dead dog into the grave, while he read the service over the body of the other. Last year, when he stated these cases, he gave the fullest particulars in order that his statements might be tested; but, though a perfect torrent of ecclesiastical invective had been poured out upon his head, no attempt had been made to disprove the narrative of facts he laid before the House. He would, upon this occasion, add only one case out of many. At Swilland, a small village near Ipswich, an old man, a Dissenter, of most exemplary life, died; his relatives proposed to bury his corpse in the parish churchyard; but the rector intimated that he considered himself bound in law—the deceased not having been baptized, not to admit the corpse into the church. Under

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  these circumstances, the relatives engaged an eminent Nonconformist minister to perform the last rites to the deceased. This was thus done—the corpse was carried into the churchyard, followed by the family, while the services were performed by the minister standing with his congregation just outside the churchyard hedge. But it was against the law, not against the clergy, that he complained. In Ireland, where such a provision was not nearly so necessary as in England—indeed, before that law was introduced a clergyman in Ireland was at liberty, if he chose, to allow a Roman Catholic priest or a Dissenting minister to officiate in his parish churchyard—a law analogous to that which he wished to see enacted was in force. He wanted to see the law equalized in the whole of the three kingdoms. In Wales, particularly, the present law weighed with peculiar severity, because not only were the majority of the people Dissenters, but they lived in rural parishes, where they had not the advantage of cemeteries containing ground both consecrated and unconsecrated. In the Principality, therefore, this Bill was most urgently wanted. The Bill by which he proposed to remedy these evils was in many respects similar to the one of last year, the points of dissimilarity occurring in places where points had been conceded to the opponents of the measure introduced last Session. The first four sections of the Bill were nearly the same as those in the original Bill. The 1st section provided that any person or persons having the charge of or being responsible for the burial of a deceased person may give notice in writing, to the incumbent or officiating minister of the ecclesiastical district, of the intention that a burial shall take place in the churchyard without the rites of the Established Church, and either with or without any other religious service. Then it was provided that the time proposed for the burial must be stated in the notice, and to be subject to variation within a limited time; and the next section directed that, if no such variation took place, the burial should take place in accordance with the original notice. Then came that most important provision in the 4th clause—
  "That no person shall officiate at any such religious service who is not a minister or member of some religious body having a registered place for public worship."
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  That was new. Next, it was provided that all services were to be conducted decently and solemnly, and that all services were to be religious. The accustomed burial fees were reserved to the incumbent, so that no question could possibly arise as to the Bill depriving the incumbents of any pecuniary payment to which they were entitled. The 8th section merely referred to registration. From the 9th to the end the Bill was entirely new. The 9th section provided that graveyards, wholly or in part unconsecrated, might be provided in any parish by private benefaction, with the approval of the Secretary of State. The 12th section was the material one in the new Bill, and it contained the exceptions. It excepted from the operation of the Act these cases—First of all, cemeteries containing consecrated and unconsecrated ground, established or provided in any parish under any Acts for providing public cemeteries; secondly, any churchyard or graveyard in any parish or district for which such cemeteries had been provided; thirdly — and he thought this was a clause of very wide operation — any churchyard provided entirely by private benefaction within a period of 50 years before the passing of the Bill, and attached to a church erected in a parish or district formed within the same period, whenever the donor or donors, or their representatives, should signify in writing to the Secretary of State a desire that such churchyard should be exempted from the operation of the Act. The fourth exception applied to the churchyard of any parish in which a graveyard had been provided in the manner previously mentioned in the Bill; the fifth to the consecrated portion of any graveyard provided under this Act; and the sixth to any burial ground given after the passing of the Act for the express purpose of having burial service performed therein according to the rite of any religious community. Hon. Members would see at once that this was a very different Bill from that which was considered last year. He did not say that it was a perfect Bill; but he did think it was an honest attempt to settle a vexed question in a fair manner. He would now turn to the objections which had been made against the Bill. The first was the old argument about vested interests. He was told that he was interfering with the freehold

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  of the pastor; that the fee simple of the church belonged to the pastor. People spoke of the churchyard as if it belonged to the pastor in the same sense in which his living, or his parsonage, or his bed belonged to him; as if it was a sort of thing over which he had a right of personal occupation, and which he had a right to enjoy by himself, and for himself, to the exclusion of every other person. The answer to that objection was obvious. It was true that, as the law required the fee simple to be vested in somebody, it was vested in the parson, certainly not for his own benefit, but as a trustee for his parishioners. That constituted the difference between parish churchyards—which were national property—and churchyards belonging to private chapels. That being a public trust, of course, the Legislature could deal with it as it liked. But, coupled with this dry legal estate, the clergyman possessed the barren — he had almost said the odious—privilege of asserting a right over a man's dead body, which he could not assert over his living soul. He did think that was a privilege which every right-minded man would be only too glad to be relieved from. The second argument against the Bill was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. S. Walpole), and he trusted that the alterations which had been made in the Bill would have removed some of his objections. His argument was this—that if the Bill, as it stood, passed into law, you would have not only ordinary Dissenters, but Spiritualists, Materialists, Secularists, Shakers, Jumpers, and Mormons—persons of all sects and kinds coming into the churchyard and desecrating it, without there being any power to deal with them. He (Mr. Osborne Morgan) did not think that was so. It was certainly not so as the Bill now stood, because the 6th section expressly provided that the service should be a religious service. But he thought he was entitled to put the question on a higher ground, to make a demand of hon. Members opposite. A similar law to this had been in operation in Ireland for a great many years. He had given a great many instances in which the present law had led in this country to scenes of the most discreditable kind. Let hon. Gentlemen opposite point out one instance in which their fears had been realized in Ireland, and then he would
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  argue the point with them; but until they did that, he thought he had a right to say he would not enter into a mere hypothetical controversy, or combat shadows which were the creatures of their imagination. The third objection, which was most strongly pressed last year, was that, by this Bill, he was trying to get in the thin end of the wedge. He was told that, in attacking the churchyard, he was really attacking the Church; and that this Bill was nothing more nor less than a Bill for the disestablishment and disendowment of the English Church, under the thin cover of a measure to amend the burial laws. His hon. Friend the Member for South-west Lancashire (Mr. Cross) put this objection graphically and pathetically. He said—"Suppose this Bill were to pass, and suppose that a funeral were to take place under it, and suppose it were to rain, and suppose the people following in the procession took shelter in the doorway of the church. Then if the parson did not wish to be a churlish fellow, Dissenters would then be admitted into the church, and if they were once admitted, neither Queen, Lords, nor Commons would ever get them out again." Those were not the actual words of the hon. Member; but that was the substance of his argument. His answer was, that if Dissenters got into the church, they would not get there by the operation of this Bill. They would get there by the act of the parson, who would not be bound to admit them. No doubt there would be a great deal to be said on the question of the disestablishment and disendowment of the English Church when the time came; but, at present, that question was not before the House in any way—and there was nothing more unsatisfactory than to attempt to meet one question by raising another issue. In the meantime, let him tell hon. Members opposite, that he did not think they would make their citadel any stronger by defending an untenable outwork. Indeed, he believed the hon. Member for Bristol (Mr. Morley) was right when, in the admirable speech which he made at the beginning of the Session, he stated his belief that if the House passed the University Tests Bill, and gave the Dissenters a fair Burial Bill, it would remove the strongest grievances which Dissenters had against the Church of England. He would quote an observa-

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  tion which he heard only the other day, as having been made by a gentleman who was a staunch opponent of the Established Church. He was asked whether he approved of his Bill. He was good enough to say that he thought it a just one; but he added—"I hope it will not pass into law." "Why not?" he was asked. "Because," he replied, "if that Bill passes into law, it will cut away one of the strongest grievances which Dissenters have against the Church." No doubt if, on the one side, there was a strong feeling in favour of this measure, there was also a strong feeling against it in certain quarters, and the compact appearance of the Benches opposite at that early hour of the day proved how strong that feeling was. He thought that the opposition to this Bill was another proof how men's minds might be blinded to the interests of justice and humanity by theological animosities; but it could not be denied that theological differences had enough to answer for in this country. They had stood for years in the way of just and useful legislation. For years they had hung like a dead weight on all our efforts to improve the education of the poor. Even now they barred the access of at least half our fellow-citizens to the emoluments and degrees of our Universities. But if there be a spot on earth from which these baneful influences should be expelled, it was that spot around which in every parish were centred our dearest memories of the past, and our most blessed hopes of the future. He had attended funerals of both Churchmen and Dissenters, and seen clergymen of the Church of England and Dissenters walking side by side, agreeing to forget the dogmas that divided them in the hopes which united them. He must say that, from that simple sight, he learnt a lesson of Christian charity which he could not have extracted from the whole of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England put together. It was in that spirit of Christian charity that he asked the House to approach his Bill, and should that Bill pass into law—as he hoped and trusted it would—he was sure that no Member who followed him into the Lobby would ever regret that, by his vote to-day, he had helped to confer on thousands of poor men and women in England and Wales a boon which would
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  be all the more precious because it would be felt at a time when the wounds of sorrow were still fresh, and when, therefore, the consolations of religion were at once most needed and most welcome.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Osborne Morgan.)
  COLONEL BARTTELOTrose to move an Amendment that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. His duty seemed to him clear. He believed that the Bill would, if passed into law, be a most mischievous Bill, and instead of bringing peace would bring discontent. It would bring to many now happy parishes a state of things which did not now exist. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Osborne Morgan) had referred to some cases of grievance inflicted by clergymen under the existing law; but it did not follow that therefore the whole of our clergymen were oppressive. It was not because the churchyard was the freehold of the clergyman that he objected to the Bill, but because it was the burial ground of the Church, and the Bill would infringe on the rights and privileges of the congregation. He knew that many of the Dissenting ministers were equally honourable with the clergymen of the Established Church; but were there not also many political Dissenters who would avail themselves of the provisions of the Bill to go to the churchyard for the purpose of creating disturbance? The hon. and learned Gentleman said that if the Bill were passed it would not have any tendency to destroy the Church of England; but if a Dissenting minister were allowed by law to enter a churchyard for the purpose of burying a Dissenter, would he not soon begin to think that he had an equal right to enter the sacred edifice for the purpose of marrying or baptizing a Dissenter? He admitted that when the Bill was last year referred to a Committee he hoped that some compromise might have been proposed; but, in point of fact, it came back virtually the same Bill, in the opinion of all Churchmen, because it still provided for the same method of burial originally proposed, and he still hoped that some compromise might be effected. It had been asked—Would you bury a Dissenter like a dog? No. Let Dissenters be decently buried in graveyards of the Established Church,

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  but let the religious service have been first conducted according to the views of the body to which the deceased belonged, and in their own place of worship. If this were done, there would be no cause for the disturbances in churchyards, which would inevitably attend the working of the present Bill. He understood that the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Cawley) was about to bring in a Bill to amend the burial laws by providing for the opening of additional graveyards in localities where they were needed (there being no real grievance in the towns)—it was only in some few country parishes that the difficulty arose—and he thought such a Bill would remedy any difficulties having an actual and tangible existence. The hon. and gallant Member concluded by moving his Amendment.
  MR. STOPFORD-SACKVILLE, in seconding the Motion, said, he had not heard in the speech of the hon. Member for Denbighshire any argument or any grievance that he had not urged or mentioned on the last occasion, when he brought in a similar Bill, with the exception of a case in Suffolk, when a Dissenting minister had delivered a harangue outside a churchyard, the purport of which was that consecrated was no better than unconsecrated ground. Why, then, were Dissenters so anxious to take possession of the parish churchyards? The real complaint of the authors of this measure was that the canon law did not allow a clergyman to perform the burial service over an unbaptized person; but the Bill, so far as he knew, did not attempt to remedy this so-called grievance. Everyone must regret these perpetual religious controversies, and long for the millennium prophesied by the hon. Member for Bristol on the first night of the Session, and he should have rejoiced if the Bill which came down from the Select Committee of last year had been such as he could support. It was in but few cases that any grievance was likely to arise under the existing law, and they were diminishing year by year, because, in most instances, a burial ground was attached to the Dissenters' chapels, and owing to the gradual filling-up of the old churchyards the number of cemeteries was constantly increasing. It was only in districts where the population was sparse that a difficulty was likely to arise, and, as a rule,
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  Dissenters were found most numerous among the town populations. It did not seem that there was any very strong sentiment out-of-doors in favour of the measure, seeing that, while there were 289 Petitions against it in the last Session, there were only 78 in its favour. It had been said that at the grave all religious differences ought to be forgotten; but still the feelings of the survivors ought to be consulted; and, to use the language of a right hon. Gentleman the other night, there was no reason why a feeling of charity for the dead should interfere with equity for the living. It had also been asserted that churchyards were national property; but they did not stand on a different footing from the churches. Admission to the churches was the right of every man on the simple condition of the performance of Divine service by a minister of the Church of England. In like manner Dissenters were permitted to be buried in the churchyards on the condition that the service of the Church of England was performed over their bodies by a clergyman of the Church of England. When the payment of church rates was enforced there might have been some foundation for the claim of the Dissenters to equal rights in the churchyard; but since those rates had been abolished the expense of maintaining the fabrics of the churches and the churchyards was thrown entirely upon the members of the Church of England, and the argument in favour of the rights of Dissenters over such places fell to the ground. If this Bill were passed, how would it be possible for the clergyman to exercise the control he at present possessed over the tombstones in the churchyard? At present, as Sir Henry Jenner Fust had laid down, the clergyman had power to prevent the erection of any tombstone in the churchyard on which was placed any inscription contrary to the doctrines of the Established Church; but in the event of this measure becoming law the inconsistency would arise that, while retaining that power, the clergyman would have to stand by while a Dissenting minister preached doctrines utterly irreconcilable with those of the Church of England. It had been said that the system proposed to be established in the Bill had worked well in Ireland; but he (Mr. Stopford-Sackville) protested against the

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  legislation for Ireland being accepted as a precedent for legislation in this country. Many strange things were done for Ireland which no one would ever think of proposing for England. Ireland was a country which few people understood, and he rather thought that even the noble Lord (the Marquess of Hartington) did not thoroughly understand it, or why had he moved for a Select Committee the other evening, to enlighten him as to the state of West-meath? If Dissenters were to be admitted into the churchyards they ought to stand, in respect of rituals, upon the same footing as the Churchmen, who were bound to use a definite form of words in their burial service. They knew the disadvantages of extempore speaking; even a practised orator, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth, had had to apologize for an expression which had dropped from him in a speech in this House on the expenditure of the Duchy of Lancaster; how likely, then, was it that Ministers, in their unprepared service, might use expressions they would afterwards regret. But the Church of England had denominational rights as well as the Nonconformists, and it would be a great blow to those rights were Dissenting ministers to be permitted to perform a service in her churchyards which was inconsistent with her doctrines. Too often, he regretted to say, the churches were closed on weekdays against worshippers; but, at least, in the churchyard Christian mourners might weep and pray. Let them not disturb that sacred seclusion; but, as the extravagance of Ritualism had been suppressed, let them likewise restrain the eccentricities of Nonconformity, and not allow the churchyards to be the scenes of unseemly contention. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Cawley) had given notice of his intention to introduce a Bill on the subject of burials, which he hoped might be such as to command the support of that side of the House. For his own part, if there was any doubt as to the right of all parishioners to be buried in their parish churchyard, he was ready to pass a declaratory Act on the subject, as also to relieve the clergyman from the necessity of reading the Church service where the relations of the deceased objected. He would also aid in the establishment of central cemeteries where there was any deficiency of
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  burial grounds in rural districts; but he could not support the measure now before the House, but must take part in the defensive warfare now being waged on behalf of the denominational rights of the Church of England.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Colonel Barttelot.)
  MR. RICHARD: I am sorry the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Barttelot) has felt it his duty to oppose the second reading of this Bill. I do not for one instant call in question the perfectly conscientious motives by which he is prompted to take that course, nor have we any reason to complain of the spirit in which he has discharged what he acknowledges is a painful duty. It appears to me that what we ask for under this measure is not a very large concession to the rights of conscience and the claims of Christian charity. And certainly after what took place during the last Session of Parliament, I did hope that we might have been spared another conflict on this subject. For not only was there a full discussion, conducted with much ability and in an excellent spirit on both sides, which ended in a vote in favour of the Bill of two to one, but it was referred to a Select Committee, on which I had the honour to serve, and by which every line and almost every word was carefully considered. And when I remind the House that among those who represented the opposite side were one of the Members for the University of Oxford (Mr. Mowbray), the hon. Member for Southwest Lancashire (Mr. A. Cross), the hon. Member for Boston (Mr. Collins), and, above all, the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. B. Hope), himself a whole host as a defender of the faith—it will be readily understood that the views and the interests of the Church of England were maintained with no want either of ability or tenacity. But while those hon. Gentlemen did, as everyone expected they should, hold their own earnestly and resolutely, I have pleasure in acknowledging, with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan), that they met us in the discussion in a kind, candid, conciliatory temper, and with an honest disposition, as it seemed to me,

  1129
  to find a practical solution for the difficulty, and to relieve a grievance which on all hands was acknowledged to exist. I regretted, therefore, when the Bill came back to the House, to see the determination of some Gentlemen opposite, though not the Members of the Committee, to defeat it at any cost. May I be permitted to remind the House once more that there are two classes of persons for whom we seek relief under this Bill? There is one class who are absolutely denied all rights of Christian burial in the parochial churchyards. The House is aware that there is a numerous and highly respectable body of Christians in this country who do not think it right to administer baptism to infants, or to any but such as are of an age to make an intelligent profession of their personal faith. Among the names that adorn the annals of this body, there are some who are held in honour by men of all Churches for their genius and piety, and their devotion to the cause of religious truth—such men as John Bunyan, and Robert Hall, and John Foster the celebrated essayist, and Drs. Carey and Marshman, who had the high distinction of translating the Sacred Scriptures into the language of some 200,000,000 of the inhabitants of India. But when a child of any member of this community dies, if there is no other burial place accessible, they have to take the body to the churchyard, where it must be laid in the ground without any religious service whatever. There are some of the clergy of the Church of England themselves who feel strongly on this part of the subject. But there is another and a much larger class for whom we plead under this measure, including all the Nonconformists of this country, of whatever names, who are forbidden to have their dead buried in the churchyards by their own ministers, and with their own form of religious service. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are apt to say that this is a very small grievance. I dare say to them it is no grievance, because they do not suffer it; but those who wear the shoe must be allowed to judge where, and to what extent, it pinches. But if they were, by a little effort of the imagination, to reverse the case, and to put themselves in our position, I think they would find that it is by no means an insignificant grievance. Let them imagine that,
  1130
  when a near relative of theirs dies, instead of having him buried by their own clergyman—the religious instructor and adviser of them and their family, perhaps their intimate personal friend, who has been with them at every critical moment of their lives, sorrowing with them in their sorrows and sympathizing in their joys; who has bent with them at the death-bed of the departed, administering to him the last consolations of religion, and afterwards mingled his tears with theirs over the coffin—instead, I say, of having the service of such an one, they were obliged to have recourse to some Dissenting minister, who may be an entire stranger to them, or who may be a person whom they cannot respect, and towards whom they may feel strong antipathy. And let them, further conceive that the service performed by this individual is not that which they love—the beautiful service appointed for the occasion in their Liturgy, but something else, which, though substantially unexceptionable, is not what they are accustomed to, what they prefer, and what is most in harmony with their own religious views and feelings and tastes. I ask them, if they were compelled to submit to this, would they not feel it to be a serious grievance, from which they would come to us to ask for relief? Well, then, do unto others as ye would they should do unto you. But what are the objections to this measure? Well, the one serious objection I have heard is this—that if Nonconformist ministers were admitted to perform a funeral service in the churchyard, they would take advantage of that right to do or say something that would be offensive to the clergyman or to Churchmen generally. Well, I believe a more chimerical apprehension than that never troubled any man's brain. Do hon. Gentlemen really imagine that when men are gathered around the grave of a deceased friend, when every mind is solemn and every heart is sad, they would seize that moment to launch forth into theological or ecclesiastical controversy, or to indulge in bitter sectarian allusions? Why, they must think Dissenting ministers to be devoid of all decent feeling and of all common sense. They say that sometimes now unbecoming scenes take place in churchyards. No doubt that arises from the existing state of the law. If scenes of agitation

  1131
  and excitement, little in accordance with the decorum and reverence due to the occasion, do now occur, it is because some indiscreet or over-zealous clergyman takes advantage of his position to deal a blow on the yet bleeding wounds of those already smitten by the hand of death, that the indignation of the bystanders is stirred. Let them remove such provocations as these out of the way, and I will answer for it, that funeral services will be performed with all Christian solemnity and decorum. But we are sometimes told, why do not Dissenters provide cemeteries and graveyards of their own. This was put pointedly by the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved the Amendment. Why, said he, should a man who has been baptized at a chapel, and been married at a chapel, and attended religious worship at a chapel all his life, want to be buried in our churchyard? Well, in the first place, it is not your churchyard. It is as much our churchyard as it is yours. On this point I can cite an authority which you yourselves will not gainsay—that of Gibson, a former Bishop of London, and an eminent writer on these questions. He says that by the ancient law of England,
  "The parochial churchyards, being laid out and inclosed for the common burial places of the respective parishioners, every parishioner hath, and always had, a right to be buried in them."
  ["Hear, hear!"] Very well; but if every parishioner has and always had, a right to be buried in the churchyard, what entitles you to call it your churchyard? But there is another reason why, very often, Dissenters may wish to be buried in this churchyard—you may call it if you please, a sentimental reason, but it is one that springs from a feeling that is deep in our common human nature, the desire that men have to be buried with their kindred, or in the beautiful language of the oldest and best of books, to be gathered to their fathers. There is, however, another reason why Dissenters do not have cemeteries or graveyards of their own, and that is, because they cannot get them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) said last year that almost all over the country the Dissenters had graveyards attached to their chapels. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that he is mistaken. There are thousands of Nonconformist chapels
  1132
  which have no graveyards, and that because it is impossible to get them. At any rate, I can answer for that part of the country with which I am more immediately connected—the Principality of Wales. The fact of the case was that in Wales the members of the Church of England, for such the landowners are generally—sometimes, no doubt, from the condition on which they hold their own estates, which forbid their alienating any part by sale; but in other cases, I fear, from a mere arbitrary use of the rights of property as owners of the soil—refuse to the Nonconformists a bit of God's earth in which to bury their own dead with their own rites. They are thus driven to the churchyards, and when they get there you shake your canon law in their faces, and say to them—"You Baptists, if you bring your children to be buried here, you must be content to bury them with the burial of a dog, without one word of Christian faith and hope being uttered over their graves; and you other Nonconformists, if you are to bury your dead here they must be buried by our minister, and with our service, and you shall not be allowed to open your own lips." Hon. Gentlemen opposite are the best judges of what is most wise and expedient for them to do in the interests of their own Church. But I think, if I were a member of the Church of England, I should try to promote the passing of this Bill with both hands. You must be aware that the tie which binds many millions of the people of this country to your Church is, for various reasons, very much loosened. But there is one tie which nearly all men feel more or less. The staunchest Dissenter, the most inveterate Radical, is not wholly insensible to the halo of veneration and sacredness which gathers around the old churchyard, where
  "The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep,"
  and among others their own forefathers. But you are doing all you can to sever that tie. Hon. Gentlemen can hardly be aware how much these exclusive and invidious privileges to which they so tenaciously cling, and the scenes of scandal and outrage to which the rigid enforcement of these privileges lead, tend to alienate and embitter the minds of multitudes as regards their Church. I think, therefore, that not merely for the sake of the rights of conscience which

  1133
  we urge, and the claims of Christian charity which you agree with us ought to be cultivated, but for the interests of your own Church, it would be well for you to let this Bill pass into law.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEcongratulated his hon. and learned Friend on the tone in which he had introduced the measure, and the hon. Member who had just sat down, both upon his candid and considerate speech, and upon his having joined the Ritualists in the Church of England, inasmuch as he wore at his button-hole the badge of one of those black-letter saints' days, which had moved the indignation of even so staunch a Churchman as the hon. Member for East Surrey. (The hon. Member wore the emblem of St. David.) While admitting that the Bill was as little objectionable—thanks to the good feeling of the Select Committee of the preceding year—as it could be made upon the basis on which it rested, he should support the Amendment. The basis upon which the whole turned was the admissibility of an alien service into the churchyard. The Bill strove to give this permission with safeguards and limitations; but, as he contended, the former were nugatory and the latter insufficient. Two arguments for the principle of this admissibility had been urged on the other side of the House. The first was the grievance that no religious service could be said by a minister of the Church of England over the grave of an unbaptized person, while the service was said over men who had disgraced their baptism by an ungodly and scandalous life. This argument he would meet with the assertion that whether it were a grievance or not, the Bill in no way reached it; and, on the other hand, that it had been effectively met elsewhere, for—as he was not allowed to state last year—the Royal Commission, which had sat for three years working laboriously at the rubrics of the Prayer Book, had adopted the suggestion that the clergyman might, limited by a certain discretionary power vested in the Bishop, read an abridged and selected service over the grave of an unbaptized person, or of one whose life had occasioned grief to pious and honest people, without his being actually unworthy of some religious service. This suggestion was contained in the fourth Report of the Ritual Commission, of
  1134
  which he had the honour of being a Member; and it would meet the objection, while the Bill of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite did not attempt to touch it. When the Church of England refused to read the customary service for the dead over the body of an unbaptized person it only acted consistently with its doctrines and ceremonies, which made the rite of baptism the condition antecedent to participation in the actual office of burial. His hon. and learned Friend had argued that there were special scandals peculiarly inherent in the rigid adherence to these doctrines—scandals committed by hot and wrong-headed Churchmen; but, in using that argument, his hon. and learned Friend resorted to the same short list of instances which he had recited a year before. This iteration, however, did not tend to strengthen his contention now, for the hot dinner of yesterday was apt to become a cold and unpalatable luncheon on the morrow. Besides—as last year, so now—his hon. and learned Friend ignored the possibility of similar heat and wrong-headedness on the part of his Nonconformist protegés. This omission put upon him (Mr. Beresford Hope) the necessity of repeating his instance of last year, and of reminding the House that one rev. gentleman, a Nonconformist, who had the honour of being one of his hon. and learned Friend's constituents had, in that character, shortly after the General Election, expressed from the pulpit the pious wish to turn the head of the other Member for Denbighshire into a football. But he begged his hon. and learned Friend's pardon. One new case had been produced by him during the present year from the county of Suffolk, where a clergyman allowed the service to be performed outside the churchyard by a deputy minister, Mr. Eleazar Jones, and everyone went away happy, an event which furnished so pretty a picture that it read like one of Virgil's eclogues or Shenstone's idylls. His hon. and learned Friend dwelt with serene confidence upon the words of the 5th clause, providing that a religious service should be "conducted in a decent and solemn manner." He took him at his word, and tested the report of Mr. Eleazar Jones's general discourse, as read by himself, in the light of this proviso. He appealed to all who had

  1135
  heard it when he said that it certainly was not conducting the service in a decent, solemn manner for the Rev. Eleazar Jones to attack the distinctive tenets of the Church, close by the churchyard, in any but the tenderest terms; and if, by the Bill, Rev. Eleazar Joneses got inside the wall of the churchyard, only ill blood and ill feeling would be engendered by the operation of the measure; for it was not to be supposed that the words which Mr. Eleazar Jones thought decent and solemn on the outside of the gate would in his eyes become indecent and irreverent within the inclosure. It was, he repeated, on the showing of the hon. and learned Member himself, solely due to the moderation of the clergyman of the parish that a riot did not occur on the occasion of Mr. Eleazar Jones delivering, under the pretence of a funeral oration over a deceased Dissenter's body, that bitter denunciation of the Church of England. If we were to have an infinite number of Eleazar Joneses delivering such discourses inside a churchyard, and almost within the church itself, the measure would prove one of the most fruitful of mischief which ever had passed Parliament, for the House must note that there was a safeguard in the case of any clergyman, however intemperate, which did not exist in the case of the Dissenter. A clergyman of the Church of England could not utter over the grave one word which was not in the burial service; but in the case of a Nonconformist minister performing a burial service in a churchyard that safeguard did not exist. He was left to his own unchecked definition of decency and solemnity. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Richard) also dwelt upon the burial service being conducted in a decent and solemn manner; and probably Mr. Eleazar Jones thought he performed the burial service in a decent manner when almost within the walls of one of our churches he vented his Philippic against the Church, under the pretence of making a funeral oration. He (Mr. B. Hope) saw no safeguard in this Bill against any delegate from some free-thinking sect of native or foreign growth delivering an oration over the grave of one of his fellow-members in one of our churchyards. Any of those sects might register a so-called place of worship and appoint a spokesman, and then there would be nothing in the Bill to prevent that person from coming to any church-
  1136
  yard and holding a so-called religious service which would irritate not only the clergyman, but any Dissenting minister of the parish who valued the Gospel. When Hardy died one of his fellow-conspirators delivered what was virtually a political oration over his grave in the cemetery where he was buried; and, under this Bill, similar orations might be delivered in any of our churchyards. He need not refer to the frequency of funeral orations abroad. They had, indeed, become such a drug that the consistent freethinker, St. Beauve, forbad any over his remains. The supporters of this Bill exaggerated the very grievance which they pretended to be desirous of abolishing. He was ready to go to any extent in making the acquisition of land for burial grounds for all kinds of people as easy, as cheap, and as general as possible, whether they were to be denominational or for the whole community. Dissenters had the power of saying their burial service in the house of the deceased, which, he believed, was usual in Scotland. They had the power of carrying the body to any place of worship of their own, where prayers might be said and hymns sung; and such exhortations might be delivered as would comfort and cheer the survivors. Finally he would re-affirm by statute, in the strongest possible language, the common-law right of any parishioner to burial in the parish graveyard irrespective of service. As to the grievance in the form of the Church service, he was the most advanced reformer of all, for he had taken his part in proposing its remedy. After all, there would only remain a fragment of grievance which the supporters of the Bill sought to remove; but this could not be granted without causing scandals much greater than those of which the other side alleged the existence. That grievance was, in fact, the assertion that there was not, in many cases, a cemetery near enough for the burial of Dissenters, where the service of their own denomination might be read. For his part, as he said already, he should be quite ready to support any reasonable proposition for redressing it. Members on his side of the House had been conjured to pass the Bill on the plea that the hon. Member for Bristol (Mr. Morley) had said that, if this and another measure were passed, there would no longer be any

  1137
  Dissenters' grievance; but if there was a Member for Bristol there was also a Member for Bradford, and his declarations were very different. Now that men's minds were inflamed and excited by the proclaimed campaign against the Church of England Churchmen could not but look with dread and suspicion at proposals which might be considered comparatively innocent and harmless at a time when public opinion was in a less distempered frame. It was the sight of the serried flanks led by the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Miall)—an army who were pointing their guns against the Church of England, that compelled her adherents to throw up earthworks, and look to her defences. On these grounds he must vote against the second reading of the Bill.
  MR. M'CLUREsaid, he regretted that the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot) had considered it to be his duty to offer opposition to the passing of this moderate, reasonable, and just measure; as in Ireland they had formerly suffered from similar restrictions, he would venture to say a word or two of their experience there. Many of the clergy of the late Established Church, appointed guardians of the graveyard in times when no other fit and responsible party could be entrusted with its charge, rightly recognizing their position as trustees for the public of the parish burying ground, considered that it was no dereliction of their duty to admit ministers of other denominations attending funerals of deceased members of their communion to perform the service most congenial to the feelings of surviving relatives—that, indeed, frequently was the wish of the deceased expressed upon their dying beds. But some imagined they would better maintain the dignity of their Church, as established by law, by taking a different course; they shut the gates of the churchyard on the funeral procession when accompanied by Nonconformist clergymen; the assembled friends and relatives were obliged to lay the coffin on the roadside, that they might hear their own minister read of the Resurrection and another life, and from his lips a word of exhortation. After that they were permitted to enter the churchyard, and in solemn silence to deposit the remains in their last resting-place. It had sometimes happened that when
  1138
  permission had been asked, and no reply given—possibly in the absence of the rector—as the gates were left open it was believed that no objection would be made; but when the coffin had been lowered into the grave, then an interdict had been served. He had heard, when a Wesleyan minister had been engaged to conduct religious exercises, the rector and curate interfered and insisted upon performing the service, although the relatives not only protested, but left the place until the service was concluded. It might be that those who took this stand thought they were doing good service to the Church, upholding its exclusive claims and right to dictate to others how they should bury their dead; but the true friends of the Church deeply regretted it. At that trying time, when relatives were sorrowing for the loss they had sustained, their feelings were highly sensitive, and when, under deep emotion, they desired to pay all respect and honour to the memory of the deceased, they were wounded and aggrieved by what they felt an act of assumption and intolerance, and an insult to the memory of the departed. He had known a large assembled party—the great proportion of whom had been upholders of that Church as an imagined bulwark of civil and religious liberty — depart from the churchyard with very different feelings from those with which they had approached it. They no longer looked upon that Church as the guardian of religious liberty. They had come to the conclusion that the exclusive rights and privileges claimed for that Church were inconsistent with the true spirit of Protestant liberty and forbearance. The ascendancy of that Church had passed away and was now a matter of history; yet some of those vexatious restrictions remained. He must bear his testimony that he had attended hundreds of funerals in parish churchyards, and elsewhere, where the service had been performed by Nonconformist ministers, and he never heard a single word that could give reasonable offence to any Episcopalians. He had never heard a single complaint of any act or speech unbecoming the occasion, and he believed it to be the fact that not one instance could be found. He trusted that this very moderate measure would be passed by this House. He had no hesitation in saying that right, justice,

  1139
  and true policy demanded that it should become law.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, hon. Members, no doubt, would congratulate themselves that, unlike the hon. Member who had just addressed the House (Mr. M'Clure), they had not had the practical, though painful, experience of having attended hundreds of funerals in the course of their lives; and they might further say that looking to the course of recent Irish legislation in respect to the Church, it was not to Ireland that side of the House was likely to look for any example they should follow in this case. He would remind the House that legislation with regard to this subject stood upon a different footing in England and in Ireland. It had always been the practice, almost from time immemorial, for Roman Catholics and Presbyterians to enjoy the privilege of making use of the parish churchyard in Ireland; and, so late as 1824, an Act was passed to enable the Anglican clergyman to permit the minister of any other Church or congregation to perform the burial service at the grave of one of his own congregation in the parish churchyard. The members of those two Churches in Ireland had been in the habit of performing the funeral service in the house of the deceased, or in the chapels belonging to their persuasion; but when the Act was passed, they began by degrees to conduct their funeral services—sometimes by permission, and at other times without permission—not as they had been accustomed to do, but in the churchyard where the burial took place; and it was in consequence of that change of practice that some of the clergymen in Ireland—whether wisely or not he would not stop to inquire—refused the permission which by the law of 1824 they were permitted to give, and it was in consequence of that refusal that the second Act, to which allusion had been made, was passed. In England the Roman Catholics and Nonconformists had never been in the habit of making use of the churchyard; and if they had been, and had been in the habit of reading the burial service at their homes or in their chapels, there would have been practically no difficulty whatever in removing any grievance supposed to exist—because he believed those who sat on his side of the House were willing that funerals of Dissenters should be per-
  1140
  formed in the churchyards if those who were connected with them were content to have their services performed either at home or in their chapels. He was a member of the Select Committee of last year, and he was willing to bear his testimony to the care and attention bestowed on the provisions of the Bill, and to the willingness of its supporters to come to a unanimous decision upon them; but there was the most determined resolution that no other services than those of the Church of England should be used in the churchyards of this country. That, he considered, was the principle for which they were now contending. He believed the demand now made to be a blow aimed at the existence of the Established Church, and as such he was there to resist it; and he could not but think that the course pursued by the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Miall), who was a member of the Select Committee, had opened the eyes of many hon. Members upon the subject. It was now said that the Baptists and Nonconformists had a grievance so long as the present law existed—that with regard to Baptists they ought to be buried without any inquiry by the clergyman as to their baptism, and to bury the corpse as a matter of course; but with regard to ordinary Dissenters, it was said the Church of England had no right to refuse them burial in the churchyards, because they were not the churchyards belonging exclusively to the Established Church, but to all the people of the country; and that so far from their being the freehold of the clergyman, he was but a mere conduit pipe for conveying the use of the churchyard for the benefit of the parishioners. He admitted that it was the right of every Dissenter to be buried in the churchyard of his parish; but then it should be remembered they must use the churchyards according to the rites of the Church of England, and not according to the peculiar rites of that sect of religion to which the deceased belonged. If he could not trust in all cases to the discretion of the clergy of the Established Church, what was there in the conduct of the ministers of other denominations that they should be prepared to place implicit confidence in them, and that the services should be so performed as that disturbances at funerals would be comparatively few? There were parts of the country, he

  1141
  feared, where, if burials took place in parish churchyards according to the rites of the Roman Catholic religion, they would lead to riots and disturbances; and they must bear in mind if they allowed burials according to the rites of Nonconformists in parish churchyards, they could not exclude Roman Catholics. The Bill went far beyond what was required for the removal of the grievance said to exist, because it not only included the old parish churchyards, but every churchyard that had been consecrated up to this time. No one would venture to deny that the land which had been given for churches in modern times had been given for the purposes of the Church of England alone, and that the members of the Church had the same right to that land as the Nonconformists or Roman Catholics had to the land on which their own places of worship were built. When they spoke of invading the rights of conscience, by keeping those churchyards for the exclusive use of the Church of England, they proposed by this remedy to invade the rights of conscience in a far greater degree by passing this Bill. The same arguments that were advanced in support of this Bill were equally applicable to the performance in our churches of services that were not services of the Church of England. The Bill, in fact, was one further step towards destroying the Church of England, and seizing its property. The remedy proposed was not required. All that was required was that all difficulties to the acquisition of land for burial grounds should be removed. That was, in fact, never a religious but a political grievance, and in proof of that hon. Members had only to turn to those calm and temperate speeches with which Sir Morton Peto always introduced the subject to that House. He should give the Bill his constant opposition so long as it remained in its present shape.
  SIR THOMAS LLOYDsaid, it was not his intention to oppose the Bill. He believed the Nonconformists had a grievance which, with proper safeguards, might be remedied, and he suggested it would be better that burial yards should be provided, to be paid for and supported by a rate. He denied that the landlords in Wales refused to let Nonconformists have land for religious purposes.
  MR. SCOURFIELDsaid, there were practical grievances and sentimental
  1142
  grievances, and what they had to consider was, whether what was now complained of was a practical or a sentimental grievance. No one was more ready to remove practical grievances than he was, because when relieved it gave satisfaction; but with regard to sentimental grievances, he did not believe it was of the slightest use to pay any attention to them—if you removed one, another instantly sprung up in its place. Now, it seemed to him that this grievance belonged to the sentimental rather than to the practical. If he were asked for a definition, he should say that Joseph thrown into the pit had a real grievance; but the displeasure caused to Haman by the sight of Mordecai was a sentimental grievance: and he asked himself the question, when a grievance was brought before the House, whether it belonged to the Josephean or the Hamanite class. Now, he believed this grievance belonged to the Hamanite class. He had given the best consideration he could to this Bill, and his conclusion was that he could not follow the hon. and learned Gentleman into the Lobby.
  MR. D. DALRYMPLEsaid, that as a firm and attached member of the Church of England, he considered that Church would act wisely if, instead of fighting about fragments of privileges, they would turn their attention to the best way of consolidating the Church by getting rid of those irritating fragments which did no good, but which only tended to foster and keep up that spirit which he, as a Churchman, was anxious to see allayed.
  MR. COLLINSsaid, that as to the complaint of the delay which had occurred last year in forwarding this Bill through the House, he would recommend the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Osborne Morgan) and all amateur legislators to get their Bills read a second time, and then fix the Committee for a Wednesday, instead of attempting to get into Committee on Tuesdays or Fridays, when there was small chance of its coming on at all; or, that if it did, it would be at some early hour in the morning. He did not like this Bill, and he did not suppose anyone in the House liked it, because compromises were always unsatisfactory; but, although the Bill was bad, it might have been worse. It was an improvement on any other Bill which had been produced to give relief to the

  1143
  sentiments or consciences of Nonconformists, and he believed that in Committee it might be so altered by inserting a compulsory enactment for the provision of alternative graveyards that the Act itself would come into operation in only a few places. Churchmen disliked the Bill and believed that it would lead to excite bitterness of feeling amongst the rural population, and therefore they would be ready to provide alternative graveyards. For this reason, and because he was assured that Nonconformists wished to meet Churchmen fairly in the matter, he would not oppose the second reading.
  MR. M'ARTHURinstanced the good effects which had been produced in Ireland by the measure which had been introduced by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Monsell), and argued that similar happy results might be expected from passing the Bill before the House. He knew an instance of a clergyman of the Established Church having refused to read the burial service over a Nonconformist because he had made a vow never to bury a Dissenter. The consequence was that the friends of the deceased took the body away and buried it in a Dissenting burial ground several miles off.
  MR. CAWLEYsaid, he fully sympathized with the hon. Member (Mr. Richard) in his desire to promote good feeling between Nonconformists and members of the Church of England; but he did not believe that this measure would have that effect. The hon. Member, and others who had preceded him, had brought forward instances of alleged grievances of the Dissenters; but they had confounded abuses of the law with the law itself. He wished to draw attention to the real state of the question. The system introduced in 1852 for providing cemeteries by means of burial boards had proved most successful. There were 333 of those boards in operation in the most populous portion of the kingdom, and he believed that if the powers of the Burials Acts were extended, so that greater facilities were given for providing graveyards under similar circumstances, the present grievance would be got rid of. In the cemeteries formed under those Acts, the ground was divided into consecrated and unconsecrated. The former was appropriated to burials conducted ac-
  1144
  cording to the rites of the Church of England, and the latter was used by the Nonconformists. It was his intention to ask leave to bring in a Bill with the object of further extending those powers. He could not understand why Parliament should be asked to apply to one part of the country a principle different from that which was adopted in the rest of the kingdom. The question was not whether the clergyman should be relieved from the obligation to perform the service; but whether a churchyard, in the immediate vicinity of the church, should be open to the performance of any so-called religious ceremony. With regard to the main body of Nonconformists, the more closely Churchmen could be associated with them the better; but it was impossible to frame a clause which, under the term "religiousservice," should not admit of anything which anybody chose to describe as such. Anybody worshipping a Superior Being was performing a religious service. ["No, no!"] The law recognized as religious services the ceremonies which took place in India; and it was evident that no language which they could employ would exclude any kind of service in this country. As an instance of what might occur, he would mention the fact that a short time since a Socialist was buried in the Rochdale cemetery, when another Socialist delivered an oration over the grave in advocacy of the peculiar doctrines of that body. He was sure that the hon. Members who supported this Bill would object to such proceedings as strongly as those who opposed it. One of the clauses of the Bill provided that a minister or member of a religious body having a registered place for public worship might officiate; and whatever opinion might be formed as to the abstract meaning of the term "religious service," it was certain that when a Court of Law came to consider this clause, anything consistent with the tenets of any sect holding its meetings in a place registered for worship would be held to be religious worship.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, he would, in the first place, congratulate the House on the generous spirit in which the debate had been conducted on both sides. He thought he saw in the courtesy which had been manifested a proof of the desire on the part both of Churchmen and Dissenters to obliterate causes of dissension.

  1145
  He quite agreed with the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Dalrymple) in thinking that this was not a question as between Church and Dissent, for he was sure that if Churchmen out of the House were asked whether they would make the concession now sought the immense majority would be found in its favour. Speaking with all respect of the clergy of the Church of England, he was bound to say that, upon polemical questions, they were not always the truest representatives of the opinions of its members. The main principles of this Bill might be considered as being two in number. One was that a person might be buried, if his friends choose, without any religious service being performed over him; and in that alteration of the existing law there was universal concurrence. But the really important principle was that, under certain safeguards, funeral services might be performed in the burial grounds of the Established Church by persons other than, clergymen of the Church. The hon. and gallant Member who had moved the rejection of the Bill (Colonel Barttelot) was mistaken in supposing that in suggesting last year that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee, he expected that that principle would be excluded. On the contrary, his object was to maintain that principle, but to surround it with every possible safeguard. His experience of the labours of the Committee confirmed his opinion that many objections to the Bill as it was then introduced might be removed by careful consideration. His anticipations had been realized. The representatives of both sides of the House had laboured heartily with this object, and had inserted several important provisions. It was required that ample notice should be given to the incumbent of the intention that a burial should take place in the churchyard without the rites of the Established Church, and either with or without any other religious service; and in order that the different services might not clash, power was given to the incumbent to vary the time stated in the notice within certain limits. The utmost care was taken that the services should be of a religious character, and that no services should be performed by any person who was not a member of a recognized religious body. Furthermore, numerous
  1146
  exceptions to the application of the Act were introduced, where other provision than that supplied by the parish churchyard had been or should hereafter be provided. While, however, he admitted that these provisions would not give absolute security against the performance of services not strictly religious, he dismissed as chimerical the idea that persons would register themselves as religious bodies, for the purpose of having an opportunity of delivering funeral orations over their deceased friends. It was not in accordance with the feelings and habits of the people of this country that irreligious or offensive discourses should be pronounced on these solemn occasions; and in that lay the great security. In order to find such an instance, one hon. Member had been obliged to go back half a century; and as to the occurrence at Rochdale, mentioned by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Cawley), he could only say that under this Bill it would still be illegal to deliver political addresses in churchyards. Everything, in short, was done by the Select Committee to minimize the danger. An attempt had been made to show that this Bill, if passed, would lead to further concessions, and that if Dissenting ministers were once admitted to the churchyard they would seek the right of entering the church itself. It was sufficient to point out in reply that the Bill did not go to such an extent. The hon. and learned Member for Denbighshire himself had not ventured to make such a proposition, and it was quite unnecessary to fight with shadows while they had realities to deal with. The Act which had been referred to as having been introduced by the present Postmaster General substituted for a permissive a compulsory law in this matter in Ireland. That Act had worked without disturbance or dissatisfaction; yet surely no one would say that party heat or religious animosity were less strong in Ireland than on this side the Channel. Surely, then, if the principle had worked so well there, equally beneficial results might be anticipated from similar legislation for England. But it was quite as much in the interests of the Church as of religious freedom that he supported this Bill.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secre-

  1147
  tary was mistaken in supposing that the Members who opposed this Bill opposed it as representing clergymen; they opposed it as representing the preponderating body of the laity of the Church of England. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary said that he adhered to the principle of the measure, which was to give any Dissenting minister the right to read over a grave such services as he might think fit; but the right hon. Gentleman did not say how he reconciled that principle with the maintenance of an Established Church. He (Lord John Manners) opposed the Bill for the very reason that its principle was in direct antagonism to an Established Church; because it was essential to an Established Church that the services in the church and also in the churchyard should be according to forms prescribed by law. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Richard) asked those who opposed this measure to put themselves into the position occupied by those who supported it; and he (Lord John Manners) could say that he had applied that test to himself, and he could with a clear conscience oppose it. In Scotland, he was a Dissenter; but he had never supported the measure to abolish what was somewhat erroneously termed church rates in Scotland. The Episcopal Dissenters in Scotland did not complain of the disabilities arising from their dissenting from the Church established by law there. Therefore, he was quite in a position to accept the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman. They had been assured that by the labours of the Select Committee of last year every security was afforded that the principle of the measure would be so carried out as not to militate against the peace and good-feeling of the community; but he defied the right hon. Gentleman to point out how the 5th clause could ever be brought into operation. Who was to be judge of what was solemn and decent? But supposing the clause to be put in force, what would happen? Why Dissenting ministers would be dragged from one Court to another, and judicial decisions would be sought as to what were solemn services, and whether the provisions of the law had been violated or not. He believed that the alleged grievance of Dissenters not being able to obtain burying grounds was infinitesimally small; and on the showing of the hon. Member
  1148
  for Merthyr Tydvil, was confined to Wales—indeed, no sooner had that hon. Member declared it to exist there, than the statement was contradicted by another Welsh Member. The hon. Baronet below the Gangway (Sir Thomas Lloyd) gave a most positive and emphatic denial to the statement which had been made by the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Richard). The grievance really only existed in an almost inappreciable degree at the present moment, and very shortly would disappear altogether; and therefore there was no need to pass a measure that would be a violation of the essential principle of an Established Church.
  SIR DOMINIC CORRIGANthought that it would be necessary to define the expression "consecrated burial grounds;" because several denominations consecrated their burial grounds. He thought that there was no fear that the measure would give rise to Catholic funeral processions, for he, during a long residence in a city containing 200,000 Catholics, had never seen such a procession. The argument about the "thin end of the wedge" had often been used, and the consequence of the rejection of a measure on that ground had generally been, that the other end of the wedge had been used in smashing down the obstacle.
  SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, he could not understand why Dissenters should not provide burial grounds for themselves as well as chapels. Again, if a gentleman built a church, and gave land for a burial ground, would it not be hard that others should have a right to perform services there for which it had never been intended? If the Bill had been limited to churchyards which had been acquired by the spending of parish moneys, that fact would have gone far to disarm his objection to it.
  MR. MORLEYwished to say that he had received a communication from Archdeacon Allen, in which the rev. gentleman said that he felt that Dissenters had a right to be laid by their forefathers in the churchyard with decent rites pleasing to their surviving relatives; but he thought that the clergyman should have the right to decline performing services over persons whom he could not recognize as Christians or fellow-worshippers. As to ulterior measures which were feared, surely the Church would be stronger to oppose

  1149
  them after this act of justice had been done. The Bill was full of guarantees and securities; and in Committee they would be quite ready to consider any further guarantees that might be proposed—for the supporters of the Bill were as anxious as Churchmen could be to secure the proper and decent performance of funerals in burial grounds.
  EARL PERCYsaid, that these so-called guarantees and securities were worth nothing at all. If there were any one thing more than another could strengthen his dislike to the measure, it would, be the way in which hon. Members opposite uniformly avoided meeting the objection, that if this concession was made to Nonconformists with respect to the churchyards it would soon be impossible to keep them out of the churches. He did not know whether the hon. and learned Gentleman who had brought in the Bill had any ulterior object in view; but this he did know — that many persons supported it in order that they might obtain the same footing in the churches which this Bill would give them in the churchyards. They had been told that it was idle to suppose that there would be irreligious services in the churchyards if this Bill should pass. He did not know what the legal interpretation of irreligious services might be; but he should like to hear what would prevent the infidel or the heretic from holding their services in our churchyards. If the Bill had been confined to admitting Dissenters to burial without service in the churchyards, he should have been glad to make the concession, though he did not acknowledge any right of the kind on their part; but he opposed it because they demanded to have a religious service of their own. He might not feel astonished that Dissenters did not appreciate the feeling with respect to consecrated ground; but he should not have expected to hear from Churchmen that consecrated ground was ground set apart for the use of the Established Church. He always understood that consecrated ground was what in olden times was called "God's acre"—that is, ground set apart for the baptized to lie in, that they might be separated in death, as in life, from the rest of mankind. He should have thought that one body of Nonconformists, at all events, would have agreed with him in that—the Roman Catholics. Where did
  1150
  Roman Catholics admit the burials of Protestants in their churchyards? And if they claimed to have more of Christian truth than the other sects of Christendom, they ought to prove it by doing as they would be done by. This question had hitherto been discussed upon secular grounds, but there was also the religious aspect of the question, which was a much more important one, although that might not be the proper place in which to treat of it. But he must be allowed to say that this measure was not only unjust in the extreme, but also excessively irreligious.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he rejoiced in the speech of the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Cawley), and, whilst he did not abandon the ground that the Bill constituted an attack upon the Established Church, he claimed, as a member of the Church, and for the Church, the same rights for his denomination as was possessed by every other denomination over the property which belonged to them, the same right in burial grounds of the Church for Churchmen as the Wesleyans and every other denomination had over the burial grounds attached to their chapels. The Home Secretary had promised that everything would be conceded to the members of the Church if they would only yield to the principle of the measure—that is, if they would give up their right to their property; but the hon. Member for Dublin (Sir Dominic Corrigan) followed him, and said that he had never seen a Roman Catholic funeral procession. He also seemed to rejoice in the prospect of using the thick end of the wedge for the overthrow of the Established Church, and almost admitted that this measure might be considered as the thin edge of it. The hon. Member, of course, could not have seen or heard of the funeral procession of M'Manus, or of others of that kind. In Poland and in France funeral processions had been the occasion of most dangerous political manifestations. The Home Secretary said that he was quite certain that there would never be any irreligious service in the churchyards, but promoted the present Bill, whereby such services would not be forbidden by law. The Bill would remove the legal protection against this; and what were they to have instead? what were they to do? were they in every parish to establish a vigilance

  1151
  committee? It was in this way that affairs were managed in the United States, whilst arbitrary control was the regulating power in despotic States; but in free England we had rested our security upon the protection of the law, and he disputed the right of the Government to deprive them of that protection, and to leave them without any legal definition of what was to be considered a solemn and decent performance of religious services. They were about to cast aside the only definition of what was solemn and decent, which the authorized service in the Church prayer-book supplied, and to supply them with none other. He believed that this was an attempt to introduce the thin edge of the wedgeto deprive—members of the Church of England of their property in churchyards; and if this were done, and those who were now intruders were in that capacity to be admitted up to and all around, how could the church doors be kept closed against these recognized and authorized intruders? They were perfectly ready to meet the difficulties of the Nonconformists; but the Church of England claimed the same rights in their property that the Dissenters had in theirs. They, indeed, would not part with it willingly, though it might be taken from them. He lamented that Nonconformists had been led to attack the property of the members of the Church of England, whilst, for themselves, they vindicated such rights most strenuously. This was a narrow-minded position. He should, with a clear conscience, vote against the Bill.
  Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 211; Noes 149: Majority 62.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Wednesday 7th June.

  AYES.

  Acland, T. D.

  Baxter, W. E.

  Adam, W. P.

  Bazley, Sir T.

  Agar-Ellis, hon. L. G. F.

  Beaumont, Capt. F.

  Amcotts, Col. W. C.

  Beaumont, S. A.

  Anderson, G.

  Biddulph, M.

  Anstruther, Sir R.

  Bolckow, H. W. F.

  Armitstead, G.

  Bouverie, rt. hon. E. P.

  Baines, E.

  Bowring, E. A.

  Barclay, A. C.

  Brand, rt. hon. H.

  Bass, A.

  Brand, H. R.

  Bass, M. T.

  Brassey, H. A.

  1152

  Brassey, T.

  Hamilton, J. G. C.

  Bright, J. (Manchester)

  Harcourt, W. G. G. V. V.

  Brinckman, Captain

  Hardcastle, J. A.

  Bristowe, S. B.

  Harris, J. D.

  Brogden, A.

  Haviland-Burke, E.

  Bruce, Lord C.

  Headlam, rt. hon. T. E.

  Bruce, rt. hon. Lord E.

  Henley, Lord

  Bruce, rt. hon. H. A.

  Henry, M.

  Cadogan, hon. F. W.

  Herbert, hon. A. E. W.

  Campbell, H.

  Herbert, H. A.

  Candlish, J.

  Hibbert, J. T.

  Carnegie, hon. C.

  Hodgkinson, G.

  Carter, Mr. Alderman

  Hodgson, K. D.

  Cartwright, W. C.

  Holland, S.

  Cave, T.

  Holms, J.

  Cavendish, Lord F. C.

  Hoskyns, C. W.

  Cavendish, Lord G.

  Howard, hon. C. W. G.

  Chadwick, D.

  Hughes, T.

  Cholmeley, Captain

  Hughes, W. B.

  Cholmeley, Sir M.

  Hurst, R. H.

  Clay, J.

  James, H.

  Clifford, C. C.

  Jessel, G.

  Colebrooke, Sir T. E.

  Johnston, A.

  Coleridge, Sir J. D.

  Johnstone, Sir H.

  Collier, Sir R. P.

  Kay-Shuttleworth, U. J.

  Colman, J. J.

  King, hon. P. J. L.

  Corrigan, Sir D.

  Kingscote, Colonel

  Cowper, hon. H. F.

  Knatchbull - Hugessen, E. H.

  Cowper - Temple, right hon. W.

  Lambert, N. G.

  Craufurd, E. H. J.

  Lancaster, J.

  Crawford, R. W.

  Lawrence, Sir J. C.

  Dalrymple, D.

  Lawrence, W.

  D'Arcy, M. P.

  Lawson, Sir W.

  Davies, R.

  Lea, T.

  Davison, J. R.

  Leatham, E. A.

  Delahunty, J.

  Leeman, G.

  Dent, J. D.

  Lewis, J. D.

  Dickinson, S. S.

  Lewis, J. H.

  Dilke, Sir C. W.

  Lloyd, Sir T. D.

  Dillwyn, L. L.

  Locke, J.

  Dodson, J. G.

  Lubbock, Sir J.

  Downing, M'C.

  Lusk, A.

  Dowse, R.

  Lyttelton, hon. C. G.

  Edwardes, hon. Col. W.

  M'Clean, J. R.

  Edwards, H.

  M'Clure, T.

  Egerton, Capt. hon. F.

  M'Combie, W.

  Enfield, Viscount

  MacEvoy, E.

  Erskine, Admiral J. E.

  Macfie, R. A.

  Ewing, H. E. C.

  M'Lagan, P.

  Eykyn, R.

  M'Laren, D.

  Finnie, W.

  Marling, S. S.

  Fitzmaurice, Lord E.

  Matheson, A.

  Fletcher, I.

  Melly, G.

  Fordyce, W. D.

  Merry, J.

  Forster, rt. hon. W. E.

  Miall, E.

  Fortescue, hon. D. F.

  Milbank, F. A.

  Gilpin, C.

  Miller, J.

  Gladstone, W. H.

  Mitchell, T. A.

  Glyn, hon. G. G.

  Monk, C. J.

  Goldsmid, Sir F.

  Morley, S.

  Goldsmid, J.

  Muntz, P. H.

  Goschen, rt. hon. G. J.

  Nicol, J. D.

  Gourley, E. T.

  O'Brien, Sir P.

  Gower, hon. E. F. L.

  Ogilvy, Sir J.

  Graham, W.

  Onslow, G.

  Grant, Colonel hon. J.

  Palmer, J. H.

  Grey, rt. hon. Sir G.

  Peel, A. W.

  Grieve, J. J.

  Pelham, Lord

  Grosvenor, hon. N.

  Philips, R. N.

  Grosvenor, Capt. R. W.

  Pim, J.

  Guest, M. J.

  Playfair, L.

  1153

  Plimsoll, S.

  Stapleton, J.

  Potter, E.

  Stepney, Colonel

  Potter, T. B.

  Stevenson, J. C.

  Price, W. E.

  Strutt, hon. H.

  Ramsden, Sir J. W.

  Stuart, Colonel

  Rathbone, W.

  Talbot, C. R. M.

  Reed, C.

  Taylor, P. A.

  Richard, H.

  Tollemache, hon. F. J.

  Richards, E. M.

  Trelawny, Sir J. S.

  Roden, W. S.

  Trevelyan, G. O.

  Russell, A.

  Vivian, H. H.

  Rylands, P.

  Vivian, Capt. hn. J. C. W.

  St. Aubyn, J.

  Weguelin, T. M.

  Samuda, J. D. A.

  Whalley, G. H.

  Samuelson, B.

  Whitbread, S.

  Sartoris, E. J.

  Whitworth, T.

  Seely, C. (Lincoln)

  Williamson, Sir H.

  Seely, C. (Nottingham)

  Willyams, E. W. B.

  Shaw, R.

  Wingfield, Sir C.

  Sheridan, H. B.

  Woods, H.

  Sherlock, D.

  Young, A. W.

  Simon, Mr. Serjeant

  Sinclair, Sir J. G. T.

  TELLERS.

  Smith, E.

  Morgan, G. O.

  Stacpoole, W.

  Dodds, J.

  Stansfeld, rt. hon. J.

  NOES.

  Adderley, rt. hon. Sir C.

  Egerton, hon. A. F.

  Allen, Major

  Egerton, Sir P. G.

  Amphlett, R. P.

  Egerton, hon. W.

  Arkwright, A. P.

  Elliot, G.

  Arkwright, R.

  Feilden, H. M.

  Assheton, R.

  Fielden, J.

  Ball, J. T.

  Figgins, J.

  Baring, T.

  Finch, G. H.

  Barnett, H.

  Forester, rt. hon. Gen.

  Barrow, W. H.

  Garlies, Lord

  Bathurst, A. A.

  Gore, J. R. O.

  Beach, Sir M. H.

  Graves, S. R.

  Beach, W. W. B.

  Greaves, E.

  Bentinck, G. C.

  Greene, E.

  Beresford, Lt.-Col. M.

  Gregory, G. B.

  Birley, H.

  Hambro, C.

  Bourke, hon. R.

  Hamilton, Lord C. J.

  Bourne, Colonel

  Hamilton, Lord G.

  Bright, R.

  Hardy, rt. hon. G.

  Broadley, W. H. H.

  Hardy, J.

  Bruen, H.

  Hardy, J. S.

  Cartwright, F.

  Hay, Sir J. C. D.

  Cave, right hon. S.

  Herbert, rt. hon. Gen. Sir P.

  Cawley, C. E.

  Cecil, Lord E. H. B. G.

  Hervey, Lord A. H. C.

  Charley, W. T.

  Heygate, W. U.

  Child, Sir S.

  Hick, J.

  Clive, Col. hon. G. W.

  Hildyard, T. B. T.

  Clowes, S. W.

  Hodgson, W. N.

  Cochrane, A. D. W. R. B.

  Holford, J. P. G.

  Cole, Col. hon. H. A.

  Holford, R. S.

  Corbett, Colonel

  Holmesdale, Viscount

  Corrance, F. S.

  Holt, J. M.

  Croft, Sir H. G. D.

  Hope, A. J. B. B.

  Cross, R. A.

  Hornby, E. K.

  Cubitt, G.

  Hunt, rt. hon. G. W.

  Davenport, W. B.

  Hutton, J.

  Dickson, Major A. G.

  Ingram, H. F. M.

  Dimsdale, R.

  Jackson, R. W.

  Disraeli, rt. hon. B.

  Jenkinson, Sir G. S.

  Duncombe, hon. Col.

  Jones, J.

  Du Pre, C. G.

  Kekewich, S. T.

  Dyott, Colonel R.

  Kennaway, J. H.

  1154

  Lacon, Sir E. H. K.

  Royston, Viscount

  Laird, J.

  Salt, T.

  Learmonth, A.

  Sclater-Booth, G.

  Lennox, Lord G. G.

  Scourfield, J. H.

  Liddell, hon. H. G.

  Selwin - Ibbetson, Sir H. J.

  Lindsay, Col. R. L.

  Lopes, Sir M.

  Shirley, S. E.

  Lowther, J.

  Smith, A.

  Mahon, Viscount

  Smith, F. C.

  Manners, Lord G. J.

  Smith, R.

  Manners, rt. hn. Lord J.

  Smith, S. G.

  March, Earl of

  Stanley, hon. F.

  Mellor, T. W.

  Starkie, J. P. C.

  Meyrick, T.

  Steere, L.

  Milles, hon. G. W.

  Sykes, C.

  Mills, C. H.

  Talbot, J. G.

  Mitford, W. T.

  Talbot, hon. Captain

  Mowbray, rt. hon. J. R.

  Tollemache, J.

  Newdegate, C. N.

  Turner, C.

  Newport, Viscount

  Walpole, hon. F.

  Nicholson, W.

  Walpole, rt. hon. S. H.

  Noel, hon. G. J.

  Welby, W. E.

  North, Colonel

  Wethered, T. O.

  Paget, R. H.

  Williams, Sir F. M.

  Parker, Lt.-Col. W.

  Wilmot, H.

  Patten, rt. hon. Col. W.

  Winn, R.

  Pell, A.

  Wise, H. C.

  Pemberton, E. L.

  Wynn, C. W. W.

  Percy, Earl

  Wynn, Sir W. W.

  Phipps, C. P.

  Yarmouth, Earl of

  Powell, W.

  Raikes, H. C.

  TELLERS.

  Read, C. S.

  Barttelot, Colonel

  Ridley, M. W.

  Sackville, S. G. S.

  Round, J.

  Bill read a second time, and committed for Wednesday 28th June.

REGISTRATION OF DEEDS, WILLS, &c. (MIDDLESEX) BILL— [BILL 36.]
(Mr. George Gregory, Mr. Cubitt, Mr. Hinde Palmer, Mr. Goldney.)
REGISTRATION OF DEEDS, WILLS, &c. (MIDDLESEX) BILL— [BILL 36.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. G. B. GREGORY, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, its object was to abolish the Office for the registration of deeds, &c., in the county of Middlesex. The present Registration Office, he said, consisted of two Registrars—the office of the third being at this moment vacant—who were appointed by the Lord Chancellor and the Chief Justices of the Supreme Courts, a deputy registrar, and minor official. It was contemplated at the time when the Office was established that the funds which would be received would be sufficient to defray the expenses of it; but, in fact, the amount had risen far beyond what was contemplated. The income amounted in 1866 to £12,500, out of which the Office expenses amounted to £3,100 odd. The balance was divided among the Registrars, the actual share of each being, in 1866, £2,368. These

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  Registrars were, in fact, absolute ciphers, and their duties were entirely carried on by the deputy registrar. So much was this the case, that the present Chief Justice had refused to fill up the third and vacant appointment. Moreover, so far from the Office proving beneficial, it had proved the very reverse—it embarrassed rather than facilitated the transfer of real property. Land in Middlesex had become so much subdivided that a search had become absolutely impracticable, and it was almost impossible to identify property when the name of the owner was found in the registers. All legal practitioners were desirous that the abolition of the Office should take place at once and entirely. Its abolition had been strongly recommended also by the Commissioners on Land Transfer, who declared the Office to be simply a source of trouble and expense to the vendors and purchasers of property. He proposed by the Bill that deeds and wills executed after January 1, 1871, should cease to be registered; but it was necessary that the Office should be kept going for searches affecting titles commencing before that date. He proposed that the fees receivable in future from the Office should be paid into the Consolidated Fund. According to an estimate taken he found that these fees would amount to £1,100 a-year, which would provide ample funds for carrying on the duties of the Office. He was prepared to give the Registrars compensation for the abolition of their office to the extent of three-fourths of the fees — not which they had received, but which they were entitled to receive—for the Registrars had, in fact, exacted fees which they were not legally entitled to exact, according to the construction of the Act of Parliament. He hoped to have an opportunity of suggesting a scheme for facilitating the transfer of land during the present Session; but the present Bill was a fitting remedy for the evils of which he had complained.
  MR. LEEMANsaid, that having experience of a similar system of registration in Yorkshire, he could not understand how the registration of deeds in Middlesex should have been permitted to fall into the state described. The registration in Yorkshire, which he believed was very similar to that in Middlesex, worked well, and to the full satisfaction of the landed proprietors of the
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  three Ridings. Property in the large towns of Yorkshire—forinstance, in Leeds and Bradford, was as much subdivided as in Middlesex, and no difficulty had been experienced in the working of the registers. The proper remedy for the abuses complained of was the reformation, not the abolition of the system. If this Bill was passed there was danger that it would be taken as a precedent, and that the registers of Yorkshire would be abolished too, and he protested against that being done. The hon. Gentleman had given an answer to his own Motion in his concluding remarks, that before the present Session was ended a general Bill would be introduced for the consideration of the whole question of land transfer. He objected to such legislation being proposed by a private Member, for surely it was the duty of the Government to undertake a matter of such importance. At present, in Yorkshire nobody could mortgage his property without the fact being within reach of the public, which gave the most perfect security to property.
  MR. GOLDNEYsaid, that the necessity of searching these registers for notices of mortgages was an evil which the two counties of Middlesex and York had inflicted on the whole community. The registration had been instituted to enable the citizens of London to ascertain that the titles of property on which they lent money were unencumbered; and the people of Yorkshire, who were interested in similar matters, finding that the plan worked well in Middlesex, adopted a similar plan for themselves. But it was for no benefit of the general community that these registrations took place, and great difficulties had arisen through them—to such an extent that many persons refused to incur the expense and inconvenience caused by making the necessary searches, and preferred to run a risk instead. The present Bill was a step in the right direction, giving greater freedom of action in the transfer of property. If the Middlesex plan of registration had been a good one, it would have been followed in other counties; but it had not been so followed, and instead of doing good it had done a great deal of harm.
  MR. COLLINSsaid, he did not care what course was taken with regard to the registration of deeds in Middlesex, but he had a strong objection to passing

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  a Bill of this kind, if it was intended to serve as a precedent for a similar measure in regard to the registration of deeds in Yorkshire. The present system was a great safeguard, and enabled many persons to lend money when otherwise they would refuse to do so.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALstated that the Government intended to deal with the subject of the transfer of land, with a view to the simplification of the process. A Bill in reference to the matter was introduced in the House of Lords last Session; but the Government were unable to proceed with it at that time. However, if there should be any reasonable prospect of carrying the Bill in the present Session, it would be brought in again—at all events, it would be introduced, if not in this Session, at an early period in the next. The object of the Bill was to establish a new registry in accordance with the recommendations of the Land Transfer Commission of last year, with the view of simplifying the proof of titles, and of making as easy and cheap as possible the transfer of land. That Commission reported against the Middlesex Registry, and therefore, that system in its present shape, must be regarded as doomed; but it would be expedient not to abolish the existing system until something was prepared to be substituted in its place. The Bill of the Government would establish a registry for the whole of the kingdom, and the House would have an opportunity, upon the introduction of that Bill, of considering whether the Middlesex Registry should not be absorbed in the general registry. If the present registry were abolished before another was substituted for it, the officers must be compensated; whereas, if its abolition were delayed until a new registry was proposed in its place, the services of the officers might be utilized. He thought the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would do well to be satisfied with the assurance that the matter was under the consideration of the Government. At any rate, he could not' assent to the second reading of the measure except upon the understanding that it should not be further proceeded with during this Session.
  MR. JESSELthought it desirable that the Bill should be read a second time, for though, to his great credit the Lord Chief Justice had not filled up a sinecure
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  office in connection with the Middlesex Registry, because he thought that it would not be to the public advantage to do so, there would be no security for the future against an appointment to such an office being made, unless the sanction of the House was given to the second reading of the present measure. In that case no one would afterwards venture to fill up the sinecure. Both branches of the legal profession were unanimous in condemning the existing Middlesex Registry.
  MR. G. B. GREGORYsaid, that he would take the second reading on the understanding that the Committee should be fixed for a distant day.
  House adjourned at ten minutes before Six o'clock.