§ MR. CAUSTON (Southwark, W.)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, having regard to the 41st section of "The City of London Parochial Charities Act, 1883," prohibiting the application of any charity moneys in aid of the Poor Bate in the City, the order of the Local Government Board of 15th May last, directing that the income of Consols, amounting to upwards of £50,000, the property of certain City parishes therein named, should be applied in aid of the Poor Rate in those parishes, is a 600 breach of the above Statute and ought to be rescinded, and the fund handed over to the Charity Commissioners to deal with?
§ MR. RITCHIEThe Order of the Local Government Board has made no difference in the application of the income of the fund to which the question refers, its object being merely to provide that the Two-and-Three-Quarters per Cent Stock into which the Three per Cent Consols previously held by the Guardians had been converted should be held by them on the same trusts as those on which the Stock was held before the conversion. The Consols were the proceeds of the sale of two union workhouses which were erected so recently as 1852 and 1863, at the cost of the rates, and under orders of the Board, by the East and West London Unions, these workhouses having been sold when the unions were dissolved in 1869 and added to the City of London Union. It does not appear to the Board that such property was intended to be dealt with under the Parochial Charities Act.