Commons Sitting of 26 June 1872

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Occasional Sermons [61], put off; Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) [68], further proceeding adjourned; Monastic and Conventual Institutions Commission [129], debate adjourned.
Committee—Report—Masters and Workmen (Arbitration) *[123–213].
Report—Thames Embankment (Land)* [82–214].
Considered as amended—Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Acts Amendment* [202].
Third Reading—Life Assurance Companies Acts Amendment* [115], and passed.
Withdrawn—Real Estate (Titles) [50]; Albert and European Life Assurance Companies (Inquiry)* [8].

REAL ESTATES (TITLES) BILL— [BILL 50.]
(Mr. Gregory, Mr. Pemberton, Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. GREGORY, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he considered that it was the duty of the Government to introduce a measure of the kind now under notice, but as they had delayed to take action, the matter was left in the hands of private Members to deal with. The present Bill was founded on two principles—namely, that the present transfer of landed property was too cumbrous, and that it might be readily simplified. The question had been referred to a Royal Commission, and according to their Report in 1857, the cost of transfer amounted to 2½ per cent on the purchase money for large properties, and 10 per cent for small properties. It was therefore evident that the great pressure upon small properties rendered the question an important one, and that the present law seriously hampered the transfer of land from one owner to another. As a matter of practice, the course was as follows:—When a property was sold, the solicitor who represented the party selling had to make an abstract of title. For this purpose, he must collect all the deeds and documents bearing on the title of the property for a period of 60 years, and examine them minutely, and finally make the abstract required by law. That was often a laborious operation. The duty of the solicitor on the other side was to examine the abstract so prepared, and confirm in every minute particular the accuracy of the document. This was a responsible duty, since he would he held liable for the consequences, if any defect afterwards arose from his want of care in the matter. Not only were these proceedings costly and tedious, and in the event of a mortgage or a re-sale of part of the property, the process had all to be done over again, a procedure which was certainly somewhat a scandal to the law. To remedy this the Commission of 1857 recommended a registration, making the deeds then registered the root of the title, and leaving the previous title still open to investigation; but the effect of this was that until the lapse of from 40
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to 60 years the certificate would not give an indefeasible title, and, consequently, no present or immediate relief could be acquired under such a system. This being so, in 1859 Lord Cairns introduced two Bills, which, unfortunately, for political reasons, went no further than a second reading in this House, providing for declarations and registry of titles, not indefeasible ones, but such as were usually accepted, and with qualifications which time or events might supersede. In 1862, two Acts were passed; Lord Westbury's, establishing a registry; and Lord Cranworth's, enabling the Court of Chancery to grant declarations of title to applicants. Both had the fatal defect of requiring an indefeasible title, a thing hardly known in practice; for, practically, land was never sold except under special contract or conditions of sale, which stipulated that minute defects, which did not invalidate the title, but could not be cleared away without great delay and expense, should be waived, or should be cleared away at the purchaser's expense, the result being that they were readily waived. Lord Cranwortn's Act moreover, provided that unless a title was made out such as the Court would oblige an unwilling purchaser to accept, the petition for a declaration of title should, subject to appeal, be dismissed, the petitioner in that event exposing a blot on the title to anyone who might search the record. The measure had naturally, therefore, been a dead letter. Under Lord Westbury's Act a highly competent registrar and deputy-registrar had been appointed, as also examiners of title, though he could see no necessity for the latter. It provided for the issue of notices and for an appeal, provisions which he had inserted in his own Bill, and it also required notices to every occupier adjoining the property, and to every person to whom the occupier paid rent. The effect of this was most disastrous. In one case, 135 notices had to be served, and the party served was almost bound to raise dormant questions of boundary, as if he did not, they were for ever barred by the certificate of registration. This obviously tended to evoke petty disputes as to a fence or ditch which would otherwise have never been heard of. In practice this was unknown, as a purchaser always accepted old maps, plans, or descriptions, or

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the declarations of old persons to whom the property was known as sufficient evidence of its boundaries and identity, and never required or could obtain any greater guarantee of it. He now came to the principle of the measure he had to submit to the House, and in doing so would premise that the interests of all parties would be promoted by any measure which would enable owners of land to transfer it in a ready and comparatively cheap mode; and that although no alteration could be made in the present mode of land transfer without touching the emoluments of his branch of the profession, yet they felt, on the whole, that their interests were mixed up with those of their clients, and that probably the greater frequency of the transfer of small properties would prove as remunerative to them as the present tedious process of investigating title. The principle of his Bill was to enable the Court already existing for the registration of titles to certify such a title as was usually passed from hand to hand in the ordinary transactions of mankind, say—30 or 40 years' title—and to dispense with that mass of notices with reference to the definition of boundaries which had been so fatal to the Act which this Bill sought to amend. He proposed that all parties who were entitled to a registration of title under that Act should be able to apply to the registration office for a declaration of title, and that such application should be proceeded with in all respects subject to the same or similar directions as were contained in that Act with regard to the registration of title. He proposed that the title should be examined by the registrar and assistant-registrar, and that if they were of opinion that a good title was deduced they might accept the title for the purposes of this Bill. He proposed that upon the expiration of the time, and in the events at and upon which the registrar would under the existing Act have completed the registration if the application had been for a registration of title, the registrars should make a declaration establishing the title to the land as finally approved by them, and should state therein the reservations, qualifications, and encumbrances, if any, affecting the land or the title thereto. That declaration of title would be final and conclusive to the extent to which it went—that was to say,
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subject to all the qualifications reserved by it, and would be binding upon the parties dealing with the land. The Bill provided that the registrars might, in any case where they might think fit to do so, waive the service of a copy of the notice of their intention to make a declaration of title on any particular person or class of persons, and might, at the request of the applicant in any declaration of title, leave the precise boundaries of the land, or any part thereof, undefined, and in that case the provisions of the existing Act, so far as they related to any question of disputed boundary, would not apply. He believed, if the provisions of the Bill were carried out, and a greater freedom were allowed in dealing with such cases, purchasers would gladly avail themselves of it, and that no more disputes would arise respecting boundaries than arose at the present time. Having given an outline of the first portion of his Bill he now came to the second part of it. Some years ago a very valuable Act was passed, called "The Act to facilitate Leases and Sales of Settled Estates." It enabled the Court of Chancery, on the application of persons with a limited estate, to give power for the sale of such estate, or for granting long leases. But that Act required a notice of such application to be given to all the parties interested in the property, down to the first estate of inheritance. It might be that several tenancies for life might be interposed before this whose interest in the property was practically nothing; but all these parties were required to concur in the application. It would readily be seen that one of those parties might refuse to consent to the application unless applicant gave him a sum of money, and without such consent the estate could not be sold, however beneficial a sale might be. This Bill provided that in certain events the Court of Chancery should have the power of directing a sale, if it thought fit, without the consent of these parties. The Bill also contained a provision with respect to encumbered estates. Some estates were so burdened with various charges and mortgages that the tenants-for-life received little or no income from them. These estates consequently went to ruin and became scandals to landed proprietors generally; and in such a case he thought it would be an advantage to all if a portion of them

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were sold in order to relieve the remainder. The first mortgagee might apply, for power to sell an estate, but he did not choose to do so because there was always sufficient to pay him, and he would say—"I will give no facilities for a sale." The second mortgagee might file a Bill to have the estate realized, but what had he to do first? He had to tender the money due to the first mortgagee, or to bring it into Court, and he must do that without seeing the title of the first mortgagee. The amount due to the first mortgagee might be £20,000 or £50,000, and in such a case as that it was a large sum to risk upon an insecure foundation. The Bill, however, provided a remedy, for it said that a mortgagee or other encumbrancer under those circumstances should have the power of applying under the Settled Estates Act to have all or any part of the estate sold for the purpose of discharging the encumbrance thereon, and that the Court of Chancery might make an order, upon such application, without the consent of such persons as were required to consent to any application for the exercise of the powers of that Act. By that plan portions of a heavily encumbered estate might go into the hands of persons who were willing and able to improve them. His Bill did not interfere with any scheme which the Government—if they had a scheme—might introduce hereafter. It was a simple and feasible scheme, and he hoped the House would adopt it.
MR. KENNAWAY, in seconding the Motion for the second reading, said, he thought the hon. Gentleman had shown that too much was attempted by Lord Westbury's Act. Parties applying for registration under that Act were required to make out points which the most exacting purchaser would not ask to be made out. The proper course then would be to make the existing machinery more useful, and he thought the time had fully come to adopt such a course. The country did not want indefeasible titles. It should be enough to entitle a landowner to registration of his title that he could make out a good selling title. A very serious attack had been made upon the power of settlement, and many hon. Members were anxious to sweep it away altogether. That he was not prepared to do; but it was the duty of that House to inquire and see how the evils com-
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plained of could be met without going the length of abolishing settlement altogether. On the whole, the law had not worked any great detriment to the country; but there was no doubt there were cases which gave a handle to the attack that was made on the law of settlement. The Act of 1856 was a step in the right direction, and had proved beneficial where it had been taken advantage of. Since the passing of that Act it had been felt that every facility should be given for increasing the productions of the land, and of properly housing the people. Landed proprietors felt they must have power of dealing with their land, and a Bill of this moderate character should receive general approval. He particularly approved of the provisions of the Bill, which would enable the second mortgagees in encumbered estates to put their powers into operation after giving due notice to all parties interested, and showing to the Court that the estate would not be injured, and hoped that if the Government were not able to take charge of the whole Bill they would adopt that portion.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Gregory.)
MR. STAPLETONopposed the Bill. While admitting that anything which would simplify the transfer of land would be an advantage to the community generally, he was afraid that the establishment of a Court of registration of title would not meet the difficulty, because those who had an undeniably good title would not incur the expense of registering, or run the risk of creating flaws by some technical omission or mistake in the operation of registration, while those who had property, the title of which was doubtful, would shrink from applying to the Court for a declaration, however desirous they might be to obtain it. He thought all that could be done in that way was the extension to the whole kingdom of the registration of deeds, which had already worked so successfully in Yorkshire, as well as in Scotland and Ireland. There was, however, one class who would profit by the change—namely, "land obbers"—men who having bought were willing to sell on the turn of the market; but he was not inclined to give them any encouragement. He thought it was not for the

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advantage of those who lived on the land that it should be constantly changing hands. It appeared to him that the provisions contained in the latter part of the Bill, though he approved of their object, were not judiciously conceived. He objected to the power given to an incumbrancer to cause the sale of a settled estate. An incumbrancer could have no right beyond those which he had stipulated for in the deed creating his incumbrance. On the other hand, he would go further than the hon. Member in aiding the tenant-for-life to get rid of in-cumbrances affecting the inheritance. In his opinion, they should follow as nearly as possible the precedent furnished by the statute referred to in that clause in which it dealt with agricultural leases. A tenant-for-life was enabled to grant a lease for 21 years, not only without the consent, but without even giving notice to any of those who came after him in the settlement. Neither did he require the authorization of any Court or public authority whatever. In the case of the sale of settled estates, in order to pay off a mortgage, it was impossible to dispense with some public authority. There must be some one to see that the mortgage existed; that no more of the estate was sold than was reasonably sufficient to secure enough to pay off the mortgage, and to determine—as it would be impossible to keep to the precise limit—what reasonable margin should be allowed to secure that the mortgage was paid off, and that the residue of the purchase money was invested so as to follow the same uses as the remainder of the estate. For these purposes, either the Court of Chancery or the Tithe Commissioners must be resorted to. But he (Mr. Stapleton) did not see the use of giving notice to the persons who came after the tenant-for-life in the settlement in ordinary cases. It was inviting their opposition. Opposition meant expense; but, if the thing was to be done at all, it must be done cheaply, as there was no such saving possible as would warrant a large expense. If the public authority involved thought the proposed sale unwise, then it might refuse to proceed until such notice had been given. But, unless that was the case, the discretion of the tenant-for-life, should not be overruled by those who came after him. It might happen that the successor's interests were op-
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posed to those of the tenant-for-life. He might be possessed of other property, and might treat lightly the embarrassments which weighed heavily on the tenant-for-life. He might say that he was unwilling to have the extent of territory diminished; and might refuse to assist the tenant-for-life out of his embarrassments, although they were such as to prevent his discharging his duty to the land. In such a case, it was the actual possessor whose views and interests ought to prevail. They would coincide with the public interest.
MR. HINDE PALMERsaid, he should not have any very great objection to the Bill if it was likely to become a workable measure. The Bill professed to effect, though in a very small way, a portion of law reform which it was desirable to accomplish; but if it were passed, it would be found not more workable in reality than the present Land Registry Act, which the Bill had been introduced to improve. One of the great objects desired was to facilitate the transfer of land; but the Bill was but a small step in that direction, because it was mainly confined to the registration of title; and he was afraid that if the question were introduced piecemeal it would be a hindrance to the passing of a great and comprehensive measure by the Government, who had only been deterred from proceeding with law reform by the pressure of other business. The mere registration of a title, with all its encumbrances and reservations, would rather weaken than strengthen the title, by making its defects—now known only to the owner and his solicitor—known to all the world, and be declared on the face of the title. And there was this difficultyt, hat before registration the holder must prove a good title before the registrar, which really was an indefeasible one, and such an one as the Court of Chancery would compel a purchaser to accept. If the Bill were to go beyond the second reading, it would require a great deal of careful revision before it could be brought into successful operation. His hon. Friend went too far, because by two clauses at the fag-end of the measure he contemplated the establishment of an Encumbered Estates Court in this country. The Bill was not only impracticable, but it was dangerous to some extent, because it was so crudely drawn

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with reference to the rights of third parties. The law of real property and of settlements required alteration in many respects, and he thought it would be wise to pause for one or two years before dealing with this important subject in such a patchwork, piecemeal manner, and then, when the pressure of Parliamentary business was less severe, to pass a comprehensive scheme, which should improve the real property laws and facilitate the alienation and transfer of lands. For those reasons he should vote against the second reading.
MR. DICKINSONsaid, that though feeling it somewhat ungracious to oppose a Bill for the amendment of the law, which to some extent he admitted to be an amendment, he would divide against the second reading should a division be taken upon it. He denied that he had ever heard it advocated on that (the Ministerial) side of the House that settlements should be abolished. The objection entertained by himself and his hon. Friends was to the law of entail. He urged that the Bill should not be proceeded with, but that the House might be allowed to look forward to an amendment of the law, by which all existing defects would be got rid of, and which the Government had shown it was by no means averse to introduce. With regard to the question of settlement, he saw no difficulty in continuing it within proper limits; but he held that the present limits were too wide.
MR. WREN-HOSKYNSsaid, he was afraid that what was called "facilitating the transfer of land" was rather a tinkering of the present law—trying to make the road smooth while the evil itself was not removed. What he wanted was, not "to facilitate the transfer of land," but to make the land itself transferable. It was to the great bulk of the buying and selling community that the difficulty in the matter occurred. There were no means of dealing with small quantities. In a case with which he had to do, the purchase-money of a small cottage was £90, and the charges of his solicitor for looking into this little transtion was within a few shillings of £20. He had known other cases in which the costs were so utterly disproportioned to the value of the purchase as to convince him that it was impossible that large classes who otherwise would be buyers and sellers could deal with land at all.
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Here were our agricultural labourers in a state more or less of advanced strike because their wages were so low that they could scarcely keep body and soul together, and they had not a sufficient locus standi or connection with the soil to make them care where they were located. Was it fair because a man was poor that he should be absolutely denuded of all connection with the land? If a man had £50, why should he not be able to invest it in the land? He regretted that the views of the legal profession were not so wide as to induce them to facilitate transactions in the transfer of land; but in foreign countries, where it was everywhere necessary to have recourse to a notary, the number of the transactions made up for their want of magnitude. He was sorry he could not congratulate his hon. Friend upon his success in this attempt, because he was sure the Bill would be inoperative; nor would it enable the measure, which it was intended to supplement, to be of any use to the public. Finally, in the interests of those he represented, much as he thanked his hon. Friend for his exertions in the matter, he felt constrained to oppose the Bill.
MR. COLLINSsaid, it was not very likely that strikes among agricultural labourers would be cured by passing a Bill to facilitate the transfer of land; and they might dismiss from their minds all idea of a peasant proprietary in this country, or that poor farmers would take to investing their money in land. As long as land paid only a beggarly 2 or 2½ per cent, and as long as it sold for 35 or 40 years' purchase, the hon. Member who had just spoken would not find farmers to invest their capital in that way. Land in this country was a luxury, and would become more and more so. A man did not buy land to make profit out of it, but because he liked to have visible signs of wealth around him, and to transmit it to those who were to come after him. Those were motives which acted very much on Englishmen, and unless they adopted the French system the tendency in England would be that the land would get more and more into few hands. They heard a great deal about land laws, as if the laws with regard to the settlement of land were wholly different from those with regard to the settlement of money. But the only difference was, that in the case of

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land, they could, execute an entail deed, which, if there was no disentailing deed, would run on for ever. The question of settlement was a very wide one, for it went to the root of their whole social system. Anyone acquainted with lawyers' chambers knew that there were more settlements which dealt with money than with land, and if they dealt with the settlement of land, they must deal in a similar way with the settlement of money. There could never be a free transfer of land consistently with the different interests involved, unless the whole land of this kingdom were to be registered; and, what was more, there must be one or two persons on the register who should be able, rightly or wrongly, to give an indefeasible title. That was the system now prevailing with regard to personalty; the law only recognized for the purposes of transfer stock the person whose name was on the register. If they wished to alter the land laws, it was not by altering the power of entail, of settlement, or of bequest, but by enacting that the holder of the legal estate should be able to give a good title, making him civilly or criminally responsible if he defrauded those who had any beneficial interest. It was a wide question; but if a change were really wanted, a much more sweeping change was necessary than was now proposed; and at the present period of the Session it would not be wise for the House to assent even to the second reading of this Bill out of good nature or courtesy towards the hon. Member who introduced it.
THE SOLICITOR GENERALobserved, that although a good deal had been heard about the transfer of land very little had been said about this little Bill. It dealt with a very small technical point or points, and was objectionable on that ground; but if it were likely to be a good useful Bill, he should not put forward such an objection. He had several reasons for objecting to the measure, and agreed with the hon. Members for Hereford (Mr. Wren-Hoskyns) and Boston (Mr. Collins) that the transfer of land was for too important a matter to be dealt in this piecemeal manner. It would be a mistake to read the Bill a second time merely from good nature and because a Gentleman had taken considerable pains to improve the state of the law, when there was no chance of the measure becoming law during the present Session.
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The hon. Member for Sussex said one of his great objects was to enable a landowner whose title was not marketable, but who had what in law was called a good holding title—that is, a title not likely to be disturbed—to obtain such, a registry of title as would enable him to sell the estate. Now, on looking at the provisions of the Bill, he could find no provision of the kind. If that were the main object of the Bill, it was not so expressed. The Bill proposed that the title should be examined by the registrar and assistant registrar, and registered by them if they were of opinion that a "good" title had been made out. Now, the word "good" had acquired a precise and technical meaning in this connection. It meant, in fact, a marketable title, meaning thereby a title which could be forced upon an unwilling purchaser. If, therefore, the Bill became law, it would not enable the registrar to convert what he supposed to be a good holding title into a marketable title. Even if the clause were altered, and if for the technical words "good title" the words "good holding title" were substituted, the effect of the Bill would be mischievous, for if there was one thing more difficult than another in law, it was to decide when a title not strictly marketable was a good holding title. There were many titles which, through some accident—the loss of a document, perhaps, or a difficulty in producing a certificate—were good holding titles, though you could not prove to the satisfaction of a conveyancer that there was a "good" title. But if you wanted this question properly decided, you must have a Judge to do it. That had been the course pursued in establishing the Landed Estates Court in Ireland; and even from the decision of the Judge of that Court there was an appeal to the Court of Chancery and the House of Lords. Why should we be treated worse in England than in Ireland? According to the Bill, however, the registrar was to determine once for all whether a defective title was a good holding title. Under Lord Cranworth's Act, before registration of title, notices must be given to parties interested, including the neighbouring landowners. There was not the slightest injustice in such a provision, because your neighbour's boundaries might be encroached upon, and it was only right he should have an opportunity of protecting

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his interests. The fatal objection to the working of the Act was not the requiring of such notices, which were inevitable, but the consequent expense, because it might be that if the question of boundaries arose, the result of the attempt to register would be a lawsuit. In Ireland the existing Act worked well when you wanted to sell, but did not work at all when you did not want to sell. In any case the proposal to take away this jurisdiction from a properly constituted Court and transfer it to a registrar could not be entertained with a due regard to the rights of the neighbouring landowners. You might make things cheap, but it must not be at the price of committing injustice. It was true that one of the sections of the Bill provided for a declaration of title without any definition of boundaries. How the title could be declared without defining the boundaries of the estate he did not know; it was a most wonderful notion, and the remedy would be far worse than the disease. Lord Westbury's Act had been described as a bad Act, because it provided for a reference of the title to the examiners appointed by the Court of Chancery, who were eminent conveyancers, and not to the registrar. Now, it was certainly better to refer questions of this importance and difficulty to practising conveyancers rather than to one who had relinquished that branch of practice. He had had a long experience of conveyancing, and knew something of it; but he had given it up for 10 years, and should not now consider himself competent to advise upon a long and complicated title. If he bought an estate, he should send the title to be examined by a practising conveyancer. The proposal in the Bill, however, was to send titles from those who did understand them to those who did not. That would not be an improvement in the law; it would be a change for the worse. Sections 17 and 18, too, proposed to amend the Leases and Sales of Settled Estates Act, and were quite foreign to the other purposes of the Bill. It had also been said that a second mortgagee had not the power of sale. But under the Act of Lord Cranworth a mortgagee had such a power, unless he expressly contracted himself out of the Act; and therefore the House was now asked to give the power of sale to a mortgagee who must have expressly covenanted for valuable consideration
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—perhaps the payment of higher interest—that he should have no power of sale. The Bill was open to other objections, but he hoped he had said enough to convince the House that it ought to go no further, more especially as there was not the least likelihood of its passing.
DR. BALLsaid, he thought his hon. Friend (Mr. Gregory) had done good service in bringing the subject under discussion, and hoped the Solicitor General would apply his mind to the question of amending the law in this particular, and of making Lord Westbury's Act a really effective measure. The Government had no excuse for not amending this branch of the law so long as they had the assistance of his hon. and learned Friend.
MR. GREGORYsaid, that after the expression of opinion which had been given he would not put the House to the trouble of dividing.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Bill withdrawn.

OCCASIONAL SERMONS BILL.— [BILL. 61.]
(Mr. Cowper-Temple, Mr. Thomas Hughes.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. COWPER-TEMPLE, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that it was intended as a practical measure of administrative reform in the law of the Church of England, augmenting its comprehensiveness without touching any doctrine, and without requiring the repeal of any statute, or any ecclesiastical law. It was intended to give a liberty to the authorities of the Church which they had formerly possessed, and which was not intended to be taken away from them by any expressed enactment. In all other Protestant communities in England there was a power exercised by the pastor to admit into his pulpit teachers belonging to other denominations—a power which was frequently exercised with advantage to the congregation and with convenience to the minister. The same power existed and was exercised by the ministers of the Episcopal Church in Scotland, and of the Episcopal Church in America. In America he had heard of a case in which an Episcopal minister admitted a Baptist minister to his pulpit against the wish of his Bishop, with the approval of his

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congregation; but in this Bill the Episcopal control would be maintained in accordance with English notions. In the Bill the power which was inherent in the Bishop still remained untouched, and special permission would have to be obtained from him before persons who were not in Holy Orders could be admitted to preach in the pulpits of the Established Church. Our Church was the only one in which the Bishop was restricted in the power of giving licenses to his priests by any Act of State, and in which an incumbent was limited in his power of admitting anyone to his pulpit, by the condition that the person so admitted should belong to the same Church. The distinction, upon which the Bill rested, between discourses which were to be delivered occasionally and exceptionally, and which implied no definite relationship between the preacher and the congregation and the ordinary stated teaching of the regular ministers, was one which had been universally recognized from, the earliest times of the Church. In those days a great part of the stirring and popular preaching was done by friars who had no Orders and who were laymen; and when we looked back to the precedents of antiquity we found that at the Fourth Council of Carthage the practice of lay teaching was recognized, for a canon was passed providing that laymen were not to preach in the public offices unless the clergy who happened to be present should give them permission. After the Reformation, the deficiency of preachers in the regular ministry was so great that the Bishops and other authorities were obliged to give licenses to other persons to go and preach specially and occasionally, without having received Holy Orders. One of the objects of the present Bill was to place the license of the Bishop and the permission of the incumbent with regard to occasional and exceptional sermons upon a different footing, so far as the qualification of the individuals was concerned, from those discourses which were delivered as part of a regular and stated ministry. There appeared to be no distinct law that a Bishop in giving a license should be so restricted as to give it only in the case of occasional sermons to such persons as were in Holy Orders in the Established Church. There was no such restriction in the Act of Uniformity; but, on the contrary, it con-
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tained an exception for persons who delivered lectures in the nature of occasional sermons, those persons not being required to have gone through any form or made any declaration; but only required to be present during the reading of the Book of Common Prayer, provided that it was not read by them, but by some priest or deacon. There was an exception, then, present to the minds of those who framed the Act to meet the sort of case which was contemplated by the Bill. In reference to the teaching part of the functions of Bishop, priest, and deacon, in the preface to the ordination service, no allusion was made to the preaching of occasional sermons, and they were assumed not to be excepted from the general rule. Legal doubts, however, existed as to whether, at that moment, the Bishop could or could not exercise the discretion given to him by the Bill, and in the face of that doubt this Bill became necessary. The Bill, therefore, was not drawn up to repeal any existing statute, but simply to declare that lawful about which there was now some doubt. The expediency of the Bill would turn upon the question of whether it was good or not to relieve the authorities of the Church of any fetters or restrictions which were unnecessary, or which were not imposed for any clear and useful purpose. He felt strongly that every religious community should be left as free as they possibly could be left by Parliament, and that no fetters or restrictions should be imposed upon them without some strong and clear necessity. There was no state reason why Bishops and incumbents should be deprived of the discretion which they would naturally have, in the absence of any statutory restriction, to admit to their pulpits any minister of any other communion. At the time of the Restoration there was a State reason why Nonconforming ministers should not be admitted into the pulpits of the national Church. Nonconformity in religion had got closely connected with Nonconformity in State matters, and the phrase—"No Bishop, no King," expressed the logical connection between resistance to the authority of the Church and resistance to the authority of the State. But the Acts of Toleration passed in subsequent reigns left Nonconformists on the spiritual ground they had taken, without being forced to assume political antagonism,

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and left no political reason against the admission of a Nonconformist into the pulpit of the National Church. Was the restriction required for the authority and discipline of the Church? This position was not tenable, since the Act of 1840 allowed ministers belonging to the Episcopal Churches of America and Scotland to be admitted to pulpits in dioceses of the Church of England. They owed no allegiance to the heads of our Church, and were not amenable to its laws. There could be no national advantage in preserving restrictions which prevented foreign ministers from partaking in this country of the interchange of ministerial offices which they enjoyed abroad. He believed that it would be a great relief to many clergymen, and acceptable to many congregations, if they could have substantially the same teaching from persons belonging to a different school of thought, and having a different style of preaching. It would be an advantage that sometimes the subject should not be dealt with in the conventional manner which was common to the Church of England. ["Oh, oh!"] He meant to say the habitual way of ministers of the Church of England, and most persons would appreciate variety in the presentation of old truths. The congregations would suffer no disadvantage from such a change, for, practically, their consent must be obtained. He trusted that the day was not far distant when the main body of the congregations could have a representative voice by which their opinions would be ascertained. Already there were some parochial councils, and where they existed the incumbent would, of course, ask their opinion in this matter. Nonconformist ministers who had absolute power in their own pulpits did not exercise it without reference to the wishes of their congregations, and there would be no object for a clergyman of the Church of England to disregard the wishes of his congregation. When the principle of the Parochial Councils Bill was adopted, a machinery would be created by which the assent of the congregation could be given as well as that of the incumbent and Bishop. Was this restriction required to secure orthodoxy in the national pulpits? For such a purpose it was illusory. In the last century this idea might have had some weight, but
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in the present day the proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Court showed that the declarations made by clergymen on entering the Church was no sure guide to their subsequent teaching. Before Mr. Voysey was removed, Mr. Bennett would have had the power to invite Mr. Voysey to occupy his pulpit. The differences between men who had signed the same Articles was as great as between men who could not go through the same ceremony. They must not rely upon ceremonies, but rather upon personal responsibility to secure orthodoxy of opinion. The personal responsibility would remain under the Bill. The existing law could not have been intended to raise an artificial barrier between clergymen of the Church of England and ministers of other denominations, because it was one-sided, for no construction yet put upon the statutes made it illegal for a clergyman of the Church of England to preach sermons in places of worship not belonging to the Church of England. Clergymen had preached in Nonconformist chapels; and no doubt could be entertained as to the propriety of their conduct when such eminent Prelates as the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Winchester had preached in a Presbyterian church. They had done more than would be permitted under this Bill, for they conducted the service. He admired those Prelates for the course they had taken, rising in their sympathies above those narow and Pharisaical notions which prevailed; and they had, in fact, acted on the principle upon which this Bill was founded. The Bill was not framed in any spirit of party, and was not intended to benefit any particular school of thought; it would do something to banish that spirit of exclusiveness and those airs of superiority which had sometimes been attributed to the Church of England, and it would provide an opportunity for the co-operation of earnest men in promoting the living faith and the Christian life on which persons of different creeds were agreed. Retaining these opinions, he begged to move the second reading of the Bill.
MR. T. HUGHESseconded the Motion.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Cowper-Temple.)
MR. BERESFORD HOPE*: Sir, I am glad to be able to agree in one sentiment—almost the last he uttered—which fell from my right hon. Friend (Mr. Cowper-Temple). He said that his Bill was not brought forward to benefit any particular school of thought. I do not think that it is. I think not only that it will benefit no particular school of thought, but that it will not benefit any consistent or logical thought at all. If I desired in place of thought and study to introduce sensationalism, or what my right hon. Friend pleasantly calls a desire for variety, I should feel sure that I possess the means of doing so within this Bill. My right hon. Friend spoke strongly and learnedly upon precedents; he is much impressed with the value of Church discipline and authority. I noted those words in his speech, and I observed with pleasure the importance which he attributes to those principles. But I rise on the other side—having as much respect for authority and discipline as my right hon. Friend—in the name of the liberties and rights of the congregations; I stand up on behalf of the laity whose liberties would be imperilled under the intolerable, because unlimited, tyranny contained within the four corners of this Bill. There is a class of people in this country whose existence is too often overlooked during our Wednesday deliberations, but who still have an existence, and whose rights we are bound to protect. These are not the people "with itching ears," who carry on dissipation under political or social pretexts for six days in the week, and then fill up the gap upon the seventh by indulgence in rhetorical fireworks, but those quiet people who go to Church to worship God in the way their fathers did, and to be instructed in their duty. That class of people will find their status much imperilled by this Bill; but before proceeding to discuss its provisions, I must remark that in the speech of my right hon. Friend I observe a remarkable deficiency. In the course of the observations following the introduction of the Bill I threw out some interlocutory remarks, and said that it did not appear to be limited to the admission of Nonconformist ministers, but that as it was drawn it would admit a Church layman into the pulpit. On that my right hon. Friend jumped up, and said that the Bill was intended
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to admit the Church laity. But from one end of his present speech to the other, that side of the Bill has been kept in the background; and thus I find myself deprived of the help which the able advocacy of my right hon. Friend would have given me in fixing the points on which I feel certain that that relaxation would be dangerous. My right hon. Friend has fallen back upon precedents and instances, and I am glad he has done so, for they have their value; but to be valuable they must be accurate, and run on all fours; and in face of that requirement one of his most astonishing statements was the assertion that the American Church recognized this principle of his Bill. His proof was that a certain clergyman—who, as I may add, is named Dr. Tyng—introduced a minister of another denomination into his pulpit, to the great disapprobation both of his Bishop and of the community to which he belongs. I have not the canons of the American Church by me, but I believe I am right in saying that by that act Dr. Tyng contravened those canons. The matter was taken up and investigated; and if Dr. Tyng did not substantially suffer, that only shows that the discipline of the American Church is not strong for practical purposes; but it does not prove that Dr. Tyng and his abettors acted in conformity with the spirit of their canons. Then my right hon. Friend appealed to the Preaching Orders of the Middle Ages. I ask what were those Preaching Orders? They were bodies of men in the most complete subjection and submission to the Church of Home, and who were sent out to preach because—and only because—they were absolutely identified with the system on behalf of which they spoke. Yet that institution is quoted as a precedent for an occasional license to preach to be given to persons who are not identified nor even in conformity with the body whose pulpits they are to occupy. The practice may have been right or wrong, the Friars may have been good or bad, and this Bill may be a beneficial or a dangerous thing; but as an illustration of the advantage of it, the instance proves absolutely nothing. Then my right hon. Friend falls back upon the Fourth Council of Carthage. What argument does he find there? The canon to which he refers is one to limit, not to confirm, occasional sermons. There may

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have been prior to this Council some system in existence similar to that which is found in this Bill; but, if so, it was found to work so ill that limitations were put upon a practice which was found to be at variance with the existing canons. Then, again, it is true that after the Reformation, viewing the scarcity of clergymen and the scantiness of population in many districts, laymen were occasionally permitted to preach. Those who have studied the history of the reign of Elizabeth may recollect the one lay sermon of that age which has come down to us, preached upon a day when the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire got up with his sword by his side, and professed that he had come to distribute some dainty comfits to the sweet chickens of salvation. Does my right hon. Friend wish that for the future the High Sheriffs of counties shall preach the Assize sermons?
But to proceed to the consideration of the Bill itself. I must say that in this measure my right hon. Friend has transcended the utmost limits of vague and ambiguous language allowed even to the innocent bantlings of a Wednesday afternoon. To begin with the first words of the 1st clause—"It shall be lawful for the Bishop on the application of the incumbent or officiating minister." The officiating minister! Who is he in law? What definition can be given of so fleeting a personage? A tired clergyman may go for a month to the sea-side, and when he comes back he may find that the "officiating minister" who has taken his duty for those four Sundays has, in his absence, brought in a Boanerges from the Potteries to deliver occasional sermons, and has upset the whole good order of his congregation. On one point I praise my right hon. Friend. He has made the thin end of the wedge argument impossible. There is no room for it; for the wedge itself, and the hammer that drives it, and the hand that wields the hammer have all gone in with the Bill. The clause goes on to deal with "persons not in Holy Orders of the Church of England," and my right hon. Friend, as I have said, argued the Bill throughout as if it were intended only to apply to Nonconformist ministers. Why did he not state what he had asserted before—that it would equally apply to laymen of the Church, if such an one desired to preach? In regard to those persons he proposes that it shall
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be lawful for the Bishop to license them to preach "an occasional sermon or lecture." What does he mean by an "occasional" sermon? The duties of every Sunday are occasional compared with the other days of the week. The phrase may mean anything, from a casual discourse at some long irregular interval to one which recurs every fourth, or third, or second week. It may be so worked as to authorize a complete cycle of weekly discourses by different orators. Each sermon may be an occasional one as far as its particular preacher is concerned; but if the clergyman manages the arrangements dexterously, they will as a whole be habitual, and the unlucky parish may find itself condemned to an endless series of sensational orations duly announced by illuminated placards at the church doors. But the most astounding feature of the clause is its hazy enactment enabling the Bishop to license these occasional sermons or lectures. It is, as if on purpose, left vague whether the clergyman is to ask for, and that the Bishop is to grant the license each time, and for only one sermon; or whether the license is to overflow the one occasion, and if so, for how long is it to run. Is it to continue for the man's life time, or for the life of the Bishop who grants it; or are all future Bishops in the see to be bound by the permission granted by their predecessors? If the person licensed abuses his trust—for we may have even occasional preachers that are disobedient to the laws of good sense, good manners, or morality—as we find that even incumbents are not always obedient to them—where is the power to revoke the license? So hastily and carelessly has the Bill been drawn that the draftsman has actually forgotten to make any provision for revoking the license; and so a gentleman who has graduated at Little Rock, or some other equally distinguished seminary over the ocean, and who is desirous of exhibiting himself to an European audience, may obtain a license, which, when he becomes better known, the Bishop cannot revoke. His sermon may smell of Geneva, with a good deal of Indirect Claims in it, with something of Calvin, and, perhaps, a little of the homonyrnous spirit; but the Bishop will have given his permission, and he will find himself powerless to withdraw it. The Bill says that the person is not to be in Holy Orders, and

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stops there, and so the preacher may not even be a member of any Christian denomination. A clergyman may apply to his Bishop for a license for a distinguished foreigner, and that foreigner may prove to be an active-minded Mahomedan, or a Brahmod, or Buddhist. The House must not object to me for taking extreme cases. It is extreme cases which test the value of a proposal. We have in the Church about 15,000 clergymen as honest and respectable as a class as are to be found anywhere in the world, yet there may be among them different degrees of respectability, and different qualities of moral sense. We can suppose that there may be some perplexed clergyman in a destitute Peel district. His church does not fill, and he is at his wits end with the expenses of a growing family. He will find his way to the Bishop of his diocese and ask leave for a distinguished American clergyman to preach, and probably he will obtain it. Some five or six weeks afterwards he will apply for permission for another distinguished foreigner, and in due course will again come forward with as many like petitions as he may need. Then the curtain will rise, and the large posters will be unfurled—on one Sunday it will be an enlightened Mahomedan who will offer a dispassionate survey of Christianity; the next orator will approach the problem of Creation from the starting point of natural selection; the third Sunday will be thrown in to the rigid Calvinist; on another, an accomplished Comptist will extol the worship of humanity; while the Brahmod will take the next turn with the genteel Spiritualist or Mr. Howard Paul to complete the cycle. This daring clergyman will stand above or below all law. He will have got the Bishop's irrevocable license for all his performers, and he has only to reckon the shoals of listeners who will crowd his church Sunday after Sunday. How is the Bishop to proceed against the clergyman who has obtained his own permission for these men to preach? The Ordinary cannot put the incumbent into the Ecclesiastical Court, for the obnoxious sermons will be none of his, and still less can he proceed against the occasional preachers. Clergyman and preacher can alike defy the Bishop, defy the law, and defy common sense, and our churches will become theatres of entertainments, resembling those with which
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distinguished performers enable us to wile away our week-day evenings. We must take another case. There are such things as proprietary chapels. Any person strong in means, and strong in views, may become proprietor of one of these chapels, and put in his clergyman. That clergyman may go to the Bishop and represent that the gentleman who bought the chapel, and who put him into it for the pure love of souls, and in order to extend the doctrines of the Church of England, was desirous to give an occasional sermon in the chapel. How can the Bishop refuse a license to such a man; and yet the fact may be that the proprietor has acquired the place only because he holds—though hitherto in the dock—opinions in which very few of his fellow-citizens share. He may be an advocate of polygamy, or an enthusiastic believer in the mortality of the soul; and yet the Bishop will be equally unable to cancel the permission, or prove complicity. But I have not done with my cases. We are many of us patrons of livings, and most of us go down into the country during the Recess, and coming as we do fresh from the debates of this House, I dare say it is the opinion of all of us that we should as well be able to speak from the pulpit as from these benches, especially as there is no one in Church to call "Question." Would it not be a dangerous temptation to you, Sir, and to all of us, if this Bill passed, to make it a condition of our presentations that the pulpit should not be cruelly shut against the patrons?
Now, I come to the Bishops. If there is one thing that would condemn this Bill more than another it is the position in which it puts the Bishops; for it starts the Bishops on a totally new line of action, while it affords them no guidance for their conduct. There are 28 Bishops in England and Wales with the Isle of Man—28 individual minds—28 different qualities of intelligent thought that are all to be simultaneously brought up to consider this vague and Sibylline scrap. One Bishop will think caution is the best policy, and he will refuse licenses all round. Another will look upon an Act of Parliament as imperative, and he will license all round. A third Bishop will think that the Gospel can lose nothing by free inquiry, and will look out for preachers of startling views to stimulate the flagging orthodoxy of the beneficed incumbents.

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Another Bishop may have decided opinions upon one set of doctrines, and will only license Nonconformists who hold views similar to his own. Another Bishop may be a High Churchman who will, in working the Bill, ignore Dissenters, while he uses it as leverage to introduce preaching Orders into the Church of England—gentlemen who put on brown or white or black gowns, and live according to a rule. There are some hon. Members who know that I am not talking at random, but that there are men of singular dress and high rhetorical power who call themselves English Benedictines or Cistercians. These persons—whose zeal and devotion are undoubted—might fairly come forward and plead that the right hon. Member for South Hants had carried an Act which was intended to remove all doubts as to the legality of the preaching Orders in the Church of England; and any Bishop who sympathized with them would have the right to work that Act in that sense just as his brother would have the right to work it in a sense favourable to Nonconformist ministers. I am not now going into the right or the wrong of these opinions and practices; I point only to what the Bill would sanction. It may—it must—sanction not only free trade in preaching, but it will also sanction the creation of religious Orders in the Church itself, which may be right or may be wrong in themselves, but which ought not to be brought in by a side-wind in an obscure measure like this one. My right hon. Friend talks of unshackling the Church. How does he unshackle it? He will, perhaps, unshackle a few restless individuals, but he will lay heavy burdens upon the great body of quiet clergy who know little or nothing of this Bill, and who will certainly be startled when they take up their newspaper to-morrow and find to their surprise what important interests of theirs have been discussed behind their backs. My right hon. Friend would hamper the Church for the personal benefit of some persons well able to take care of themselves, and that at the expense of others in every respect as good as themselves.
Now, a few words to those Nonconformists who may fancy themselves complimented by this Bill. Where is the compliment? If it were proposed to admit into the Church pulpits all Nonconformist ministers who were duly quali-
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fied according to the respective by-laws of the different denominations, and give them the same right of using the pulpits as the ordained clergy possess, I should oppose the Bill, because it would destroy the existing Church of England and substitute a totally novel body. But, at any rate, such a proposal would be logical and consistent, however revolutionary. But this Bill is not a compliment, but an affront to Dissenters. It gives the right to a clergyman to patronize his own favourites at the expense of all the others. The man of free thought will patronize preachers of one denomination, and the Calvinists will go in for another, while the invitation will in each case not be to the body, but to the man himself; and thus every Nonconformist whom any clergyman may invite, will, in virtue of such invitation, be placed by an external influence in a position of notoriety above his equally, or more deserving fellow-ministers. If the Nonconformists accept this Bill, they will put it in the power of the eager, and the fussy, and the self-seeking among the clergy to trot them out and exhibit them as cats-paws for the purpose of filling the churches. And when a Nonconformist has accepted such a situation, he will have accepted it as we all accept invitations to public meetings. Do we not all of us know the feeling of going to a public meeting with which we have, perhaps, a very limited sympathy, and the object of which we do not fully approve? But when we are there, the rules of courtesy compel us to sink our doubts and differences. We get diffuse and rhetorical, and we express sentiments much warmer than what we really feel. So, by the very fact of accepting a preaching invitation, the Nonconformist will give ground for the assumption that he has for the time agreed to sink his differences with the Church. Now, it must be plain to anyone who considers what are the enormous advantages which the Established Church possesses, that no man would be a Nonconformist unless he had a real difference of opinion with that Church. The difference may be a mere hair's breadth, or it may be a wide chasm; but a difference there must be. But once let a Nonconformist accept this invitation, and then the laws of courtesy will compel him to prophecy smooth things; and, instead of counselling the congregation as he himself feels in his

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heart, to go out of Babylon, he will tell them that Babylon is the same as Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is the same as Babylon, and each very like the other. There may be people who will say of this sort of preaching—"What Catholic sympathies! What wide and generous views!" But when he gets up next morning he will feel that for the honour of being allowed to preach in some stately minster or fashionable church he has lost his unique opportunity for testifying to the cause of truth, and has sacrificed an apostle's position for the sorry triumph of stealing the applause of the giddy crowd, who would run anywhere to listen to a florid oration. And what would his own people think of such backsliding? They would feel that their favourite guide had lost his influence, and that he had lost it for that one day of sterile peacock triumph. Yet it is for that result that my right hon. Friend proposes in this helter-skelter way to alter the whole tone and discipline of the Church. My right hon. Friend appeals to the Act of Uniformity. But I took the trouble to look at the Act of Uniformity while he was talking about it. That Act provides that any lecturer or preacher must previously have been approved and licensed by the Archbishop or Bishop, must have read the appointed service, and must have declared his conformity to the whole Book of Common Prayer. That meant, when the Act passed, that he must have been a priest or a deacon of the Church of England. It is very true that there is an exception made afterwards, allowing the preacher, in a certain case, merely to declare his assent and consent. But that only applies to cathedral and collegiate churches and chapels, and can anybody suppose, in reading the Act of Uniformity of 1662, that there is any intention of giving liberty to any person to preach in a cathedral unless he were a clergyman of the Church of England? This whole Bill is intended for those who hanker after the dissipation of rhetorical displays. But the people who wish to worship God as their fathers did before them—the clergy who are only anxious to do their duty in the way in which they have sworn to do it—these would feel all their deepest devotional feelings disturbed by these novel arrangements. And why should they be so harassed? There is no lack of other facilities for
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any man to make himself heard, who has anything worth saying. There are lecture rooms, there are public halls, there are journals, there are Nonconformist chapels of every description, in which all men may put forth all and every kind of doctrine whether sound or whether mischievous. With all these resources of our busy age ready, let not the House sanction this vague and perilous inroad on the existing system of the national Church, with which its members are thoroughly well content. I therefore call upon hon. Members to reject this Bill.
Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three mouths."—(Mr. Beresford Hope.)
MR. T. HUGHESsaid, he must express his almost entire divergence from the views of the hon. Member who had just sat down. The hon. Member had expressed great regard for precedent; but had he considered that for more than 100 years after the Reformation, by the law of the Church of England the Presbyterians of that day, whom we now called Puritans, occupied Church of England benefices and preached in Church of England pulpits? The Act of Uniformity unhappily put an end to this state of things, but even that Act, narrow as it was, allowed lecturers of other denominations to officiate in the Church of England, as the hon. Member was constrained to acknowledge. Since that time there had been other Acts passed to modify the stringent operation of the Act of Uniformity, such as that of the 32nd Geo. III., by which Protestant Episcopalian ministers were allowed to preach in Church of England pulpits, and that of the 3 & 4 Vict., which admitted American Episcopalian ministers to perform service in the Church of England. But did the hon. Member know that in the American Episcopal Church the Athanasian Creed was rejected? His hon. Friend pleaded on behalf of the quiet laity, and protested against the tyranny of the clergy; but he conceived that the safeguards given by the Bill were as good as any one could in reason demand. Who was most interested in keeping congregations together? Was there the least reasonable fear that the clergy would risk

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emptying their churches by allowing unfit persons to preach in them? The hon. Member also said that the Bill was a revolution in the whole system of the English Church. Well, really, that was a very large phrase. What did the change proposed in the Bill amount to? It amounted to nothing more than that the two persons chiefly interested in the matter—to whom it was most important to see that the congregations committed to their charge should have proper doctrine taught—should have the power of allowing persons not connected with the Church of England, to preach occasionally in the pulpits of the Church. His hon. Friend asked what was the meaning of the word "occasional." Anybody with the least common sense would say "occasional" meant "now and then," and not "continuously," as his hon. Friend had apparently interpreted the word. The next objection taken to the Bill was that though it gave power to the Bishop to license, it gave the Bishop no power to revoke the license. But the power to revoke would have been surplusage, the Bishop having absolute discretion by the Bill as to whom he should license, and for how long. They might be sure, however, that the power given would be exercised with sufficient discretion. His hon. Friend then went on to put cases by which, if they happened, decency would be outraged, and he spoke of a Mahommedan, a Brahmin, a Comptist, or Mr. Howard Paul receiving this license. That was not a proper way of meeting a Bill of this kind; and he thought it deserved to be treated with respect at least by those who professed to represent the Church. It was also argued that it would place Bishops in an invidious position, but it would not put them in a more invidious position than they were in at present. They had at the present time constantly to say whether they would allow certain Episcopalian clergymen of the Scottish and the American Churches to do duty in the Church of England. Surely it could not be felt by the Bishops as a serious increase to their responsibilities if they had now and then to consider the question whether they would allow such men as the late Dr. Norman Macleod, or Principal Tulloch, or Mr. Baldwin Brown to occupy a Church of England pulpit. That was not putting any very heavy responsibility on the Bishops, and
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he conceived that Bishops would be quite ready to accept that responsibility. His hon Friend said that the Church of England had not been consulted in the matter. But the only place where the Church of England could be consulted on its discipline, practice, and ritual was in that House. The Church of England had, therefore, been properly consulted by this Bill, which had been brought before the House in the usual way for its consideration. Then the hon. Gentleman gave the House a picture of some Nonconformist preacher getting into a Church of England pulpit and saying that Babylon and Jerusalem were, after all, very much like each other. Well, he would only be saying the truth. They were very like each other in our country, in our time. Would the hon. Gentleman point out any vital difference between the doctrines of the national Church and that large body of Protestant Dissenters some of whose ministers might, under the Bill, be asked occasionally to preach in the pulpits of the Church of England? It must be known to every Member of the House that those distinctions which were really alive at the time of the Act of Uniformity had almost disappeared. The real question was whether the hon. Gentleman and those who agreed with him wished to maintain the national Church or did not. Generally, when he heard them speaking he thought they must be in league with the Liberation Society, and that they wished the national Church to be turned into a sect, and taken from under the control of the House. If that was the desire of the hon. Member for Cambridge University he was going the right way to bring it to pass. The national Church must be the broadest and most tolerant of all religious bodies, and able to conform itself to the new conditions of society in which it found itself; whereas, those who pretended specially to represent it seemed to delight in narrowing its boundaries. The other day when the Nonconformists asked to be admitted to bury their dead in the burial grounds of the national Church, they had been refused, and now their best men were about to be pushed back from the pulpits of the national Church. He himself was an attached member of that Church, but he felt that if it was to be sustained it could not be sustained in

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the future by the policy of his hon. Friend and those who supported him. He trusted the House would see its way to allow the Bill to be read a second time, with any modifications which might be thought necessary.
MR. SCOURFIELDsaid, he demurred to the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. Hughes) that the persons most interested in having good preachers in church pulpits were the clergyman of the parish and the Bishop. He thought the congregations had the greatest interest. There were those who talked and those who had to listen; and his sympathies were, therefore, with the congregation. Conventional respect compelled one when at church to listen to a man who might be an intolerable bore, which involved the loss of valuable time and perhaps damage to one's morality and Christianity; and of all the injuries the most irreparable was the loss of time. A congregation had a claim to have their rights respected. If there were a class of persons in the country who could not exist without perpetually holding forth, he would suggest that they should be enrolled as a body of penal lecturers, who should go about the country preaching, and let persons who had been convicted of light offences be compelled, as a secondary punishment, to listen to them.
MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, he thought the question involved in the Bill was of a really serious character. He had hoped on that occasion to have the views of some Nonconformists on the subject, who, if they were going to support the Bill, ought to state why they did so. The words of the Bill were exceedingly wide, and would admit anybody, from the Pope down to the Brahmin, into the pulpits of the Church of England. That being so, they must consider who and what were our Bishops in esse and Bishops in posse. Among the former there were right rev. Prelates on the Bench, who were known for their broad sympathies, and who, holding that it was well to listen to both sides, might introduce very undesirable persons into our Church pulpits. Among those in posse there were men who might go farther than any that sat on the Bench. He would not venture to name any, but there was a clerical dignitary not far from the House who desired the public utterances of almost anyone who would call himself a
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Christian, and who, under the operation of this Bill, would probably have offered his pulpit to a distinguished Eastern philosopher who recently visited this country. The hon. and learned Member for Frome had said that that House represented the Church of England. That was a new doctrine, which he had never heard before. To say that that House was the only body that was entitled to legislate for the Church of England was a doctrine which he would venture to dispute. It was equally a new doctrine to say that the Bill came from the Church, because it came from two of its members. The hon. Gentleman seemed to suppose that this Bill would reclaim Dissenters to the Church of England. It was idle to suppose anything of the kind, as the differences between Dissenters and the Church rested on far other grounds than those dealt with by the Bill. He admitted that the Bill opened a question worthy of consideration; but that the House should be asked to pass clauses which threw the pulpits of the Church of England open to the most extravagant doctrines was a proposal which he for one would not affirm.
Mr. RICHARDsaid, as a Dissenter, he must respond to the appeal made to them. He did not feel any great anxiety on the subject. No doubt the promoters of the Bill were actuated by Christian charity, but unhappily that was a plant which did not flourish in the Established Church, which was shown by the fact that it was too great a stretch of charity to allow Dissenters to have their own services in the churchyards. What struck him with regard to the Bill was the humiliation to which the Church was subjected in having to submit such a question to Parliament—a humiliation which must continue as long as the Church remained an Establishment. The best thing that the Church could do would be to escape out of their worse than Egyptian bondage to the State as quickly as they could.
MR. D. DALRYMPLEsaid, he was in favour of the principle of the Bill being carried into practice, especially as he believed that a large number of members of the Church would gladly accept the change. He did not think that any danger or difficulty would arise from the Bishops having the power to allow other than those in Holy Orders to preach in

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the pulpits of the Church. He remembered once hearing the Bishop of Norwich say to Mr. Brock, an eminent Nonconformist divine—"I hope to see the day when you, Mr. Brock, will preach in Norwich Cathedral." "I hope so too, my Lord, but it will not be until you come to preach in St. Mary's Chapel." That such a consummation was desirable few would deny, and he looked to the Bill before the House as a step towards its production.
MR. HENLEYsaid, he thought that the Bill opened two very large questions. He was quite sure that his right hon. Friend (Mr. Cowper-Temple) had brought forward the Bill in the full belief that that there were many highly-gifted persons of whom it might be said that it was desirable that they should preach in the pulpits of the Church. But what would be likely to be the operation of a measure like that in our present state of society? It seemed to be intended that the persons introduced into the pulpits might use places hitherto used only for prayer for the delivery of lectures or the preaching of sermons. Would that tend to the promotion of peace, charity, or edification? Persons of scientific or other pursuits might wish to use places of worship for scientific or other purposes. Many would think that harmless, others would think it very good; but a great many more would be put about and shocked by such a use being made of churches. They recollected what was said about using cathedrals for musical festivals for charitable purposes. How much feeling would be excited if a similar system were put into operation in every church? Would they get any good for this possible evil? Now, as to sermons—suppose in one parish Archbishop Manning were asked to preach, and in another Mr. Spurgeon. Now, they could never have all the people of one parish of the same opinion, and therefore a great deal of ill-feeling would be sure to be excited. The system would not tend to promote peace, charity, or good, but rather evil, heartburning, and uncharitable feeling; and they would lose more than they would gain by the minister of a parish bringing in somebody whom he thought had greater talents and gifts of God than himself. He believed that the evil would very far outbalance any possible good, and therefore he should vote for the Motion for the rejection of the Bill.
MR. W. M. TORRENSsaid, he did not think that Bishops and clergy would be guilty of the folly imputed to them in reference to the persons whom they would admit into their pulpits. He believed it was most desirable that Church congregations should have the advantage of the teaching of the eminent ministers who were not members of their own Body. Archbishop Tillotson, in the seventh of his Articles of Comprehension, was in favour of some such principle as that embodied in the Bill. He objected to the manner in which the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope) referred to the Bill, associating in loose phraseology Mahomedans, Brahmins, and Mr. He ward Paul. If he could believe the Bishops and the parochial clergy capable of the folly and faithlessness of giving such persons unlimited use of the Church pulpits that would be a strong reason for getting rid of the Establishment. He thought that the Bill had not been criticised fairly; and, indeed, most of the things which had been objected to would properly be considered in Committee and not upon the present occasion. The discretion which it was proposed to give to the clergy might surely without danger be entrusted to their hands.
MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, that it was curious to consider how Liberalism warped the highest intellect. The hon. Member (Mr. Richard) said that the Church was under Egyptian bondage to the State, and if they of the Church were not protected by the law that description would be accurate enough. Then the hon. Member (Mr. W. M. Torrens) would, in the name of freedom, deprive the laity of the Church of England of the protection of the law in reference to the doctrines to which they should listen. That protection was the condition of their allegiance to the Church, and to the law itself. The law had hitherto enacted that no one who had not been duly educated and trained, and who had not formally and deliberately accepted the doctrines of the Church, should be privileged to preach in the pulpits of the Church. That was the guarantee of the freedom of the laity. He refused to delegate to any clergyman or Bishop the right to place over him a teacher, unless the teacher had undertaken the same obligations as the Bishop who appointed

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him. It had not been considered that there were persons who were retained members of the Church by the protection which the law afforded in this respect. When the Pope was at war with England, as he now was with Germany, it appeared from Archbishop Usher's papers that the Pope sent ministers to preach in the pulpits of the Church of England; but that danger the existing law now protected the laity against. It would be too much to ask Churchmen for their continued allegiance if the protection against objectionable doctrines which the law at present afforded were withdrawn from them.
MR. MACFIEsupported the Bill, believing that its object was to obtain for the Church of England the freedom which the Church of Scotland had long since obtained, by removing the restriction which prevented ministers of other denominations from preaching in her pulpits.
SIR CHARLES ADDERLEYsaid, he would only ask this one question—whether, bearing in view the avowed intention of the Bill, it would not be more honest to liberate an incumbent, if he wished it, from the restrictions of the Thirty-nine Articles, and to preach accordingly, instead of giving him in a round about manner power to put a layman in the pulpit to preach in that manner?
MR. COWPER-TEMPLEsaid, he was not a believer in the power of Acts of Parliament to settle what doctrines should be preached in the pulpit. In his opinion, the security given by this Bill was the best that could be obtained—the personal responsibility of the Bishop of the diocese and the incumbent in the choice of the stranger to be introduced into the pulpit. The hon. Member for Cambridge had asked whether a layman would be admitted under the Bill? He would reply that if the Bishops saw no objection to lay preaching, neither did he. The hon. Gentleman need not be so much alarmed for the feelings of the congregations, because if a congregation did not like to listen to a layman they could stay away. ["Oh, oh!"] There would be plenty of other churches open to them. He looked forward to the time when the congregations of the Church of England would have a voice in the management of its affairs; and, in the meantime, he repeated that if a congregation should dislike any preacher appointed under this Bill, they could take French leave, and stay away.
Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
The House divided:—Ayes 116; Noes 177: Majority 61.
Words added.
Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
Second Reading put off for three months.

SALE OF LIQUORS ON SUNDAY (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 68.]
(Sir Dominic Corrigan, Mr. Pim, Viscount Crichton, Mr. M'Clure, Mr. William Johnston, Lord Claud Hamilton, Mr. Dease.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
SIR DOMINIC CORRIGAN, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he proposed in no way to deal with the licensing laws in Ireland beyond introducing there the system which had prevailed for 14 years in Scotland, and under which no beer or spirituous liquors could be sold on Sundays except in hotels. The effect of the drinking habits in Ireland, under the custom of what was called "rounds," was peculiarly pernicious; and they led, not only to the ruin of the men themselves, but also to the great waste of their wages, which, received on the Saturday, were but too often dissipated in whiskey on Sunday. The measure had no connection whatever with the Permissive Bill agitation, nor was it in any degree connected with the present question of the licensing of public-houses.
And it being a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, further Proceeding stood adjourned till To-morrow.

MONASTIC AND CONVENTUAL INSTITUTIONS COMMISSION BILL— [BILL 129.]
(Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Holt, Sir Thomas Chambers.)

SECOND READING.
Order for Second Reading read.
MR. NEWDEGATE: I beg to give Notice that I shall fix the second reading for the Morning Sitting on Friday, the 5th of July, because I desire the House to divide on the question, whether a Member not connected with the Government has not the right of precedence at Morning Sittings?
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read a second time upon Friday 5th July, at Two of the clock."—(Mr. Newdegate.)
MR. W. E. FORSTER: The hon. Gentleman is, doubtless, aware that putting down his Bill for the Morning Sitting on Friday is contrary to what has been understood to be the Rule of the House.
MR. NEWDEGATE: The question has never been decided, and I wish to raise it. I have communicated on the subject with the Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER: The House has decided that there shall be a Morning Sitting next Friday; but no decision has yet been arrived at as to whether there shall be a Morning Sitting on Friday week.
MR. NEWDEGATE: I will retain my Notice, because it seems to me that the House will have to rescind its next Resolution if there is no Morning Sitting on Friday week.
MR. SPEAKER: To proceed with opposed Business at this hour is against the Rules of the House. The Bill will stand over till to-morrow.
And it being after a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till To-morrow.
House adjourned at Five minutes before Six o'clock.