DISPOSITION OF PROPERTY BY WELSH COMMISSIONERS.

HC Deb 20 June 1895 vol 34 cc1549-616

"(1.) Subject to the charges and incumbrances and interests saved by this Act, the Welsh Commissioners shall, save as otherwise provided by this Act, by order vest the property transferred to them by this Act, as follows:—

1. (a.) they shall, on the request of the representative body, vest in that body all churches, not being cathedral churches, and all parsonage houses;
2. (b.) they shall vest the burial ground and glebe of any ecclesiastical parish—
1. (i.) in the case of a rural parish, in the Parish Council of the parish, or, if there is no Parish Council, in the chairman and overseers of the parish; and
2. (ii.) in any other case, in the Council of any county borough or urban district comprising the parish;

Provided that where the ecclesiastical parish comprises parts of more than one parish for civil purposes the property shall be vested, as the Welsh Commissioners may direct, in some one or more of the said councils or bodies, or in trustees on behalf of those councils and bodies jointly;

(c.) they shall vest any tithe rent-charge in the County Council of the county in which the land out of which the tithe rent-charge issues is situate.

(2.) Every church, parsonage house, burial-ground, and glebe vested under this section shall be held subject to all existing public and private rights with respect thereto."

*MR. T. LOUGH (Islington, W.) moved: Clause 6, page 3, line 24, after "vest" insert "any tithe rent-charge and." He remarked that this was, in some points of view, the most important subject yet dealt with by the Committee. Hitherto they had been pulling down: this Sub-section brought them to that portion of the Bill in which they were trying to build up, so far as the funds were concerned. He desired to acknowledge that the funds with which they were proposing to deal had, in the past, been devoted to a noble object; and there rested upon the Committee the responsibility of seeing that the uses to which those funds were to be applied in the future should be as good as in the past. They had now reached the word "vest," and the question to what body the fund hitherto enjoyed by the Church should go? In alluding to the subject of tithe rent-charge, he must trouble the Committee with his view of the historical aspect of that question, and he did so in order to avoid any repetition of the argument raised on Tuesday, as to whether these funds were given in the past by private individuals or by the State. He did not think that that question was of the least importance. He wanted to avoid archæology altogether, and he would, therefore, simply begin with the year 1836, when the Commutation of Tithe took place. That was a most important Act for each locality that had to pay the tithe. It dealt with a tax that pressed very heavily upon agriculture; and, seeing that agriculture had since then fallen into such great distress, the tax might be assumed to be still more heavy now. That Act facilitated the collection of tithes, but it was forgotten by those who passed the Act of 1836, that they were fixing for ever, so far as the gross amount was concerned, the incidence of the tithe on the unfortunate parishes who had to pay it. Up to that time the amount of tithe was fixed in relation to the crop actually grown each year; but, since then, the gross amount of tithe was levied, irrespective of the crop. Moreover, supposing that a tithe of £4 had to be paid, in 1836 a single quarter of wheat would pay it, whereas, now, it would take nearly three quarters of wheat to pay that amount of tax. Therefore, the incidence of the tax had been greatly increased by the depreciation of the produce out of which it was paid. He believed that, in regard to Ireland, a great part of the oppression prevalent in that country was owing to the destruction by Parliament of the public property in the unfortunate localities which had to pay tithe rent-charge. Before 1869 this money was spent in the localities, but now each parish paid, but had no control over, or claim upon, the money. There was another point with regard to centralisation of tithes in connection with the Irish Act which was very interesting to notice at the present time. It was urged, at the time of the passing of the Act of 1869, that if the tithe were put into a common fund, that would preserve it, and the only restrictions as to dealing with it was, that it should be applied to Irish purposes. But the first amount taken out of the capitalised rent-charge was a sum of £1,250,000 sterling for the relief of the English Exchequer in compensation for the £70,000 per annum previously paid to Maynooth College, and for the Regium Donum out of the Consolidated Fund. If a central fund, or central funds, were created in Wales, he believed that there would be an effort to deprive Wales of some of the money, and the result would be that the fund, or funds, so created would be preyed upon outside the Principality to a large extent. In 1894, owing, perhaps, to a general feeling that the use made of the fund under the Irish Bill was not a wise use, public opinion on the subject had changed. He, at any rate, was firmly convinced that it would be lamentable if a similar course to that adopted in the case of Ireland were followed in the present instance. This was why he moved his Amendment, the scope of which he would now explain to the Committee. The first authority put forward to receive a share of these funds was the parish, and he was glad of this; but he was sorry to see that the parish received so little. The tithe rent-charge levied in the parish should be given, as well as the burial ground and the glebe, to the parish. The Government said that the locality had a prior claim on those funds raised in the locality, but this prior claim of the locality was inadequately recognised in the Bill. If the Home Secretary meant by the use of the word "locality" the parish, then he thought it would be well to avoid the use of such a vague word in the discussions Therefore, the object of his Amendment was to give to the parish all the property now enjoyed by or raised in the parish He would first deal with some objections which he gathered would be urged against his Amendment. The first objection appeared to be a serious one, that there was no Parish Council in some of the parishes. He thought, however, that this difficulty would rapidly disappear. Why should there be a Parish Council in some of those parishes as matters now stood? He believed that parishes had but little inducement to form a council, because Parliament in constituting these bodies failed to give them any means of subsistence. If funds were provided, then there would be some encouragement for Parish Councils to come into existence. But there were now ft great many parishes in which there was a council, and to them surely these local funds should be given. Where there was no Parish Council, the County Council might collect and manage the funds on behalf of the parish; and thus his object would be secured. He wanted the fund ear-marked for the parishes out of which the funds came. The second objection raised was that the incidence of the tithe was unequal in the various parishes. This subject was greatly exaggerated through want of information in the House. An attempt had been made to supply information by a return granted by the Secretary for the Home Department. He regretted to say that in the most essential parts this return was very defective. It did not give a clear account of the actual property that existed, and where the amount of the tithe in a parish was stated it gave the gross commuted amount instead of the amount actually paid; neither did the return give the population nor the acreage of the parish. He had, however, taken the trouble to supply the deficiencies, and obtain information as to the population of every parish, and the amount of acreage as well. With regard to the amount of tithe in nine hundred out of the thousand parishes dealt with in the Bill, allowing £75 as the value of £100 commuted tithes the following was the story of the parishes. In 241 of them the tithe was less than £75; in 298 parishes the tithe was between £75 and £150; in 160 parishes the tithe was between £150 and £225, Thus there were 700 out of the thousand parishes where the net tithe was not £225. Between £225 and "£300 there were 111 parishes; between £300 and £375 there were 47 parishes, and over £375 net income there were only 33 parishes. From this it was clear that, instead of inequality, the great bulk of the parishes were alike in owning a very meagre subsistence. It was said that the population was very small in many parishes which had to pay tithe. He believed that the theory of the smallness of the populations had been deduced from the smallness of the congregations that attended Church; but this was not a safe way to make deductions as to Welsh parishes with a large Nonconformist element, because it did not show the body of the people who had to pay tithe. The number of parishes in which the tithe was 15 per head or more was 120; the number in which the tithe was 7s. 6d. to 15s. per head was 180; and the number in which the net tithe was under 7s. 6d. was 607. Thus, again, 900 out of the thousand parishes were accounted for. He admitted that they were dealing with comparatively small groups of population in the parishes, but the serious question was, not the number, but the condition of the population. If it were rich, then to take away the tithe was not very serious; but if it were poor, then it would be a most serious step for the House to take. In many of the rural parishes in Wales and England there was as much acute poverty as in the slums of our great cities; and it was owing to the great suffering in those districts that the population was being driven to the mines and into towns to compete with our industrial population. The question, therefore, came to be one, not as to the exact numbers of the population, but as to its poverty or other necessities. The suggestion was made, that if inequality existed the tithe should be cast into a common fund, and then the burden of inequality would be disposed of. No more crude idea had ever been suggested for the consideration of the House of Commons. Placing those funds, if unequal, into a common fund did not cure the inequality; it only stereotyped the inequality. Why should the few and the poor engaged in agriculture con-contribute a large amount to a common object while the many and the rich engaged in commerce contributed nothing? The fact that the hon. Member for Merthyr defended this proposal for a common fund ought to warn the House against carrying it into effect. He was sure that the hon. Member was influenced by good motives, but it might happen that the needs of one's own constituency would somewhat bias the judgment of a Member; and the House as a whole was expected to correct that tendency. The hon. Member hailed from Glamorgan, the wealthiest county in Wales, with a population of 700,000. The population of Glamorgan and Monmouth together reached 1,000,000, out of a total population in Wales of 1,750,000, By casting the tithes into a common fund and dividing the amount by the population, it would have the effect of causing three fifths of the tithe levied on Wales to be paid over to Glamorgan and Monmouth—that was to say, £150,000, instead of £38,000, which they now received, would go to those two counties. If this principle were carried into effect the county from which the hon. Member came would levy a tax of £110,000 per annum perpetually on the poor agricultural districts in North and Mid Wales. The hon. Member got the assistance of the hon. Member for Bradford. He was the owner of a great mill. Did that pay tithe? Yet these hon. Members, representing as they did some of the most wealthy interests in the country, were unwilling to preserve the tithes in the rural parishes, and favoured a principle which enabled them and those associated with them to participate largely in the benefits of this fund.

MR. DAVID THOMAS (Merthyr Tydfil)

stated that he lived in an agricultural district—his hon. Friend did not—and in his parish the tithes came to several pounds per head, so that personally he would lose very much if his proposal were carried.

*MR. LOUGH

said, that though he represented a city constituency he believed that the fate of cities in the long run would be decided by the fate of the country districts. The Home Secretary would reply that he did not accept the view of the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Bradford, but all the arguments against centralisation proposed by these hon. Gentlemen applied to the scheme of the Home Secretary. A central county fund would be as oppressive, though only on a smaller scale, to the poorer districts as a national fund. It happened that in every county in Wales there was some industry apart from agriculture. That industry was flourishing, and paid no tithe. Why should the people engaged in it share the tithe with the unfortunate agriculturists who had to contribute the whole amount. The Leader of the Opposition said that when the Bill came into operation some of the parishes would come into their inheritance immediately, others would have to wait 10, 20, or even 50 years. He did not think that would be a great or serious disadvantage. Those who came into their inheritance at once would make experiments, and if mistakes occurred the parishes which came in afterwards would benefit by this experience. But if the House regarded this as an evil, it might be disposed of in a moment. Any insurance company would undertake the collection of tithes for 14 years and the payment of a certain amount to each parish at once, handing over to them the whole tithe of the parish at some subsequent period. There was a suggestion that the parishes did not know what to do with or might waste the fund. All that could be said on that point was that it should rather be put that hon. Members did not know what the Parish Councils would do with the fund. There was no parish in England or Wales in which a good use could not be made of this money. He was in favour of taking every precaution against waste, and would be prepared to say that the money should be allotted to the parishes on the understanding that its disposal should be subject to the approval of the County Council. Then it was said that if the tithes were kept in the parish the landlord would seize them. This bogey of the landlord was always trotted out on the Liberal side. But let them take precautions against the landlord, and in any case the parish would suffer less by risking the action of the landlord than by taking the tithe out of the parish altogether. It was said that good use could be made of the money for national purposes, and the Welsh members suggested that a museum and a university should be provided with the money. But why should the agricultural interest pay for these institutions? They ought to be founded on a broad national basis, and not out of a fund which pressed particularly on a single industry. Summing up the objections, he said he found there was nothing in them. He would give one or two substantive reasons for his proposal. In the first place the allocation of the funds which he suggested had regard to the historic growth of the tithe, and also to the development of modern local institutions. The funds had always been and now were separate, and they formed the best local income. He believed this allocation would be best for the Church. When the act of disestablishment was complete, the chief part of the funds of the disestablished Church must come from the people, and if the parishes were impoverished there was no institution at which they would strike a more deadly blow than the Church, which would be one of the leading institutions in these parishes. The hon. Member for Preston only four or five days ago had a similar Amendment on the Paper, and he believed that other Conservatives sympathised with it.

MR. R. W. HANBURY (Preston)

said, that under the proposal of the hon. Member the funds would fall into the hands of the parish even during the life of the incumbent. In his Amendment he specially guarded against that.

*MR. LOUGH

granted that there was a little difference between the two Amendments. But when they were dealing with an institution that would last for centuries the question of a few years was not very material. Why had the hon. Member abandoned his proposal? His belief was that the Tory Party had been sitting on the fence with regard to this, and had now come down on the wrong side. They would best consult the interests of the Church by supporting his proposal. Hon. Members from Wales declared that they had a mandate for the disestablishment of the Church. Ho would like to know whether they had any mandate from their constitutents for the disestablishment of the parish. His Amendment would avoid absenteeism, and absenteeism was just as great an evil in the country districts of England and Wales as it was in Ireland. There was no antagonism between the parish and the county, for the county was made up of parishes, and whatever benefited each benefited the whole; and on that ground, also, the Amendment should be agreed to. A difficult point was the question of lay impropriators, but he saw no reason why more consideration should be shown for tithe in the hands of laymen than for that devoted to the Church. Such tithe must be dealt with by purchase and compensation of the owners, and in that way the benefit of the tithe now in the hands of laymen might be secured for the parishes as well as those now devoted to the Church. The Home Secretary admitted the primary claim of the parish to funds it had hitherto enjoyed, but he did not think this primary claim was recognised in the Bill as it stood, and he appealed to him to make it clear. He closed as he commenced. They were coming now to the structural part of the Bill. If they employed these funds in order to strengthen and build up the parishes, and to confer benefits broadly on their inhabitants, they would make a use of these funds of which they should not be ashamed in the future.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. H. H. ASQUITH, Fife, E.)

said, his hon. Friend, in the course of his speech, had dealt severe and impartial justice to every Party in the House—the Welsh Party, the Church Party, the Government, find the Opposition. A curious circumstance about the Amendment was that it was not fathered by a single representative from Wales, and, so far as he was aware, there was not a single representative from Wales who was prepared to give it his support. That was a striking indication of what Welsh opinion on the subject was. Now, the Committee had already decided that the tithe rent-charge should not be vested in the central body. It was already decided—at least by implication—that it ought not to go to the Representative Body. The only question, therefore, now open to discuss was, whether or not it should be vested in each case in the Parish Councils, or, as the Bill proposed, in the County Councils. Reference had been made to the heavy tax which tithe imposes on the suffering farmer or landowner, and now, of course, it was paid directly by the landowner. But it did not make the least difference to the landowner qua landowner, the person who paid the tithe, whether he paid it to the parson, or to the County Council, or Parish Council. It might make a difference according to whether the tithe was to be expended entirely in the parish or not. If, for instance, the tithe was to be expended on relief of rates, he agreed it would make a difference to the person who held land in the parish, but that affected the question of the ultimate disposition of the tithe. There was something to be said for the proposal of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil the other night, and there was a great deal more to be said for such distribution of the money as would primarily recognise the claim of the locality out of which it arose. But what his hon. Friend proposed was that whatever might be the circumstances of a parish, however large the tithe or small the population, however varied the conditions of adjacent parishes, every parish should for all time to come be stereotyped in the exclusive management of that part of the tithe which it at present enjoyed. In certain parishes in Wales the tithe was as little as £50, while in others it was as much as £350, and in some instances considerably more. The local distribution of tithe at present, whatever might be the historical causes of it, was an entirely capricious thing. Under these circumstances, he could not think it would be wise to establish what had been called a chess-board system. The parish of £350 might have a smaller population than the one of £50. Was it not more rational to look at the question from a wider point of view than an individual parish; and, always putting in the forefront the primary claim of the parish, yet to give to the system such elasticity as would take account of local varieties and incongruities and prevent the jealousies and inconveniences which would otherwise arise. He was most anxious to introduce such safeguards as were necessary, in order to compel the County Council to have regard to the interests of the parishes concerned; and he thought that when they came to the discussion of the 9th Clause he would be able to satisfy his hon. Friend that the Government proposed to do that effectually. But he must repeat that, in his opinion, it was a much more convenient and much less expensive machinery for the collection of tithe to put the collection of tithe for the whole county in the hands of the County Council. It avoided the multiplication of officials, it avoided the throwing on Parish Councils duties for which they were not well fitted, not having legal advice or a staff or resources of their own necessary for the purpose, and in a very large number of cases where there was no Parish Council at all they would almost have to call into existence a Parish Council whose sole or main function would be the collection of the tithe. He was confident an immense quantity of the funds would be frittered away under a system of that kind.

*SIR M. HICKS-BEACH (Bristol, W.)

congratulated the Committee on the fact that now, having despoiled the Church, they came to the natural and inevitable stage of quarrelling over the plunder. [Laughter.] The hon. Member said a good deal about the depressed state of agriculture. The Opposition had been endeavouring on various occasions throughout the Session to impress upon this House how grave and serious that depression was. He did not remember that they had ever had either the voice or the vote of the hon. Member in their aid. He was glad, however, to think in future that voice and that vote would be on their side. The hon. Member said a great deal about the burden the tithe was upon agriculture. Then, again, he entirely agreed with him, and he hoped when they came to the point in this Bill at which it might be possible to suggest to the House some means of alleviating that pressure of the tithe upon agriculture, with regard to the tithe with which this Bill dealt, that there again they should have the hon Member on their side. He thought it was a matter of great congratulation that, at any rate, one Member on the other side of the House should have shown such an intelligent interest in, and attention to, this subject, as had been displayed by the hon. Member, for what had the hon. Member ascertained? He, had ascertained that the tithe rentcharge, which formed a main part of the endowments of the Church in Wales, was a very small pittance indeed, amounting, on an average, to something like 7s. 6d. per head of the population of a parish, and that the parishes were very poor. Those were the very facts that the Opposition had been endeavouring to impress upon the House as a reason against the of the Church, their contention being that if despoiled of these endowments the Church would not be in a position to do the good work she was now doing. The hon. Member had frankly admitted that through many centuries these funds with which they were now dealing had been devoted to a fine and noble object, which had conferred infinite advantage on the country in which the Church existed. He wished the hon. Member had given a little more attention to that consideration in previous Debates and Divisions, and especially on the Second Reading of the Bill. What did the hon. Member propose with reference to the future of the tithe rent-charge? He thought that about two years ago they had passed a new Magna Charta for the country parishes, that the tyranny of the squire and the parson was to be done away with, and a new era opened, under which the fields were to wave with golden grain and all the rest of it. But what were they now told by the hon. Member? That unless they placed this tithe rent-charge in their hands, the Parish Councils in a good many parishes in Wales could not be brought into existence, and would not have any means of subsistence at all. The, whole speech of the hon. Member was a revelation of a complete change in the convictions on more than one political subject which he had entertained during the last few years. ["Hear, hear!" and Mr. T. LOUGH: "Not at all."] The Home Secretary, referring to the suggestion of the hon. Member—that the landowners would not be affected by the change proposed by the Bill—had, he thought, said that it would be the same thing to the landowners whether the tithe remained in the parish or whether it was devoted to the purposes of the County Council.

MR. ASQUITH

was understood to say that what he stated was—that it was the same thing whether it was paid to the Parish Council or the County Council so far as regarded its ultimate disposition.

*SIR M. HICKS-BEACH

said, that the right hon. Gentleman was not willing to do anything in this Bill which could possibly benefit those who owned the land in the parish. He was bound to say, looked at from his point of view, that, as he was strongly in favour of a central fund which might be applied for the benefit of the whole of Wales rather than the method proposed in this Bill, he was disposed to think that the proposal of the hon. Member was somewhat a move in the wrong direction, and that if the Bill proposed, as he thought it did, to fritter away this money, the hon. Member, by his proposal, went even further in the direction of waste than did the Government. He himself had always preferred a central to a parochial fund in this matter. The Government were halting between two opinions. They would neither devote the tithe rent-charge, which was practically the bulk of the endowments of the Church of Wales, to the benefit of the parish from which it issued, nor yet would they allow it to be devoted to a central fund for the benefit of the whole of Wales. They thought they could, in some way or other, through the machinery of the county councils, in whom the tithe rent-charge was in future to be vested, secure that it should go both to the benefit of the parish individually, and also to the benefit of the whole of Wales. He believed that to be an absolutely impracticable proposition. He had no doubt that when they went a little further on with this Bill they should have a full and ample discussion on this matter. But if the Government adhered to their plan, and declined to devote the property taken away from the Church to the benefit of the whole of Wales, then he confessed he would infinitely sooner see it devoted to the interests of the parishes from which it issued than dealt with in the manner proposed by the Bill. He believed, at any rate, this might relieve a very considerable number of persons interested in individual parishes, although it would not do good to the whole country; for in these parishes the effect of the Bill must be to cast a very heavy charge for the maintenance of the Church upon the landowners who now paid this tithe, which the Government were about to take away from them and devote to other purposes. That was a very strong reason, no doubt, in favour of the proposal of the hon. Gentleman, but, as at present advised, he must say his own opinion was that a central fund was a better and a more useful plan, therefore, he could not himself support the Amendment. The hon. Member had stated that, in some way or other, the allocation of the Church funds in Ireland to a central fund had been a source of very grave hardship to Ireland. He did not himself believe that the Disendowment of the Irish Church had done any good to Ireland whatever. But the only point the hon. Member really brought forward to substantiate that argument was that, even while Parliament was disendowing the Irish Church, it was relieving the British Exchequer of the cost of certain grants, such as those to the Presbyterians, and placing them upon the funds of the disendowed Irish Church, and that, therefore, the taxpayers of the United Kingdom were practically relieved of the burdens previously cast upon them. But, of course, that was part of the scheme of the Irish Church Act—that was the bribe to the English taxpayer for passing that Act. He agreed that from the Irish point of view, arguments might have been brought forward with considerable force, both against these proposals and against the subsequent burden cast upon the Irish Church funds, instead of upon the National Exchequer for the benefit of Ireland. But it was part of the policy of Parliament by which the Irish Church Bill was allowed to pass, and it was now somewhat too late to complain of it. So far as this Amendment went, he thought that at any rate it had been of service, for the reasons he stated at the commencement of his remarks, and he trusted that the Government would even yet reconsider the unfortunate proposals—as they seemed to him—as to the allocation of these funds, which were embodied in the Bill.

*MR. R. L. EVERETT (Suffolk, Woodbridge)

, as an agricultural Member, desired to offer an opinion on the principle of the Amendment. To many of them, tithes appeared to be one of the greatest agricultural questions they had, and especially to those of them who lived in the eastern part of England. The county in which he resided paid nearly as much as the whole amount paid in Wales, and hoping, as he did, that what they were doing now with regard to Wales was a precedent, and what would hereafter be done in England, he naturally watched with great jealousy the proposals of the Bill. Hitherto the tithes had been appropriated in the main to the use of the villages in which they arose. They were the outcome of the toil of the people, and they had been devoted to pious and charitable uses. After this Bill became an Act, tithe would still be collected, and the same amount that was paid to-day would still be to pay. The uses and necessities to which the tithes were now assigned would also still remain, and somebody would have to pay for the maintenance of religion in the parish and for the support of charities, &c. They knew that as a matter of fact before the Reformation the glebe and tithe in substance covered the whole of the poor law expenditure of the country, and the education of the country, in addition to the maintenance of the fabrics of the church and the ministry in the churches——

THE CHAIRMAN

, interposing, expressed the opinion that the hon. Member was wandering beyond the Amendment. The question was—What was to be done with the tithes?

*MR. EVERETT

observed that it was to the point he was about to address his remarks. He was showing that the uses of the tithe, and the necessities for the use of the tithe, would still remain in the parishes, and to take it away would be to make the last condition of the parishes much worse than it was to-day. It would be equivalent to imposing a second tithe. He paid no heed to the cry of robbery and spoliation which had been raised against the secular use of tithe, for tithe was the property of the community, and they were merely transferring tithe from one use to another use for the benefit of the same community. But if they handed over the tithe to a National Council, or to the County Council, instead of to parishes, they would be robbing and spoliating the parishes in which the tithe originated; they would be taking the tithe from the poor agricultural parishes in which it was raised, and distributing it among the large and rich centres of population which had borne none of the burden of producing it. He wanted the parishes to retain a tight hold on property which originated in those parishes. Nothing had surprised him more than the line taken on this question by hon. Gentlemen opposite. They had been accustomed to look to the Tory Party as the Agricultural Party, as the friends of the country folk, and yet that Party had voted the other evening for taking the tithe from the villages and handing it over to the towns. He was perfectly amazed at such action. How the Tory Party could defend it, it was for them and not for him to say, but he was sure that if they went down to the villages and told the people that they proposed to take from the villages the tithe the villages had produced and hand a large part of it over to the towns, they would find that the people would have something to say on the matter. The Home Secretary had said that if the tithe were left to the parish it would be frittered away. He could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. He lived in a parish in which there was a common; the people jealously guarded their rights to that common; and if the tithe were turned to the use of the parish he was sure the people would watch the gathering and expenditure of every sixpence of it—aye, of every farthing of it—with the, same jealous care. Knowing, as he did, the many ways in which the funds could be used for the benefit of the villages, he thought it would be monstrous to rob the poor agricultural villages of the fruits of the burden they had borne for centuries, but also partaken of, and to distribute them among the rich centres of population. He was surprised beyond expression, how hon. Members opposite, who were so fond of declaring that they were the friends of agriculture—who so frequently complained of the burdens of agriculture and wanted them diminished—could join with the many enemies of the land in this House, and say to them: "Strip us of a large portion of those tithe funds which are the property of our agricultural villages." Possession was nine points of the law, and he desired to give the parishes these nine points by handing the tithes over to their custody, and to their care.

MR. GEORGE WYNDHAM (Dover)

thought the Home Secretary was wrong in saying the choice of the Committee was restricted to the proposal of the hon. Member for West Islington and the proposal of the Government, which came on at a later stage of the Bill.

MR. ASQUITH

The right hon. Gentleman has slightly misunderstood me. What I said was, that two alternative proposals had been made and rejected—to hand the tithes over to a Central Council or to the representative body; and that only two others remained—this one, or the one of the Government.

MR. WYNDHAM

said, the Committee still retained its right to deliberate on the proposal of the Government when the proper time arrived; and if it were found to be non-satisfactory some other plan would have to be devised. If the Committee had only the alternative of handing the tithe over to the Parish Councils, or to the County Council, he should vote unhesitatingly for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Islington. He did not think the hope of the Home Secretary—that, though the bulk of the funds might fall to the County Council, they would be spent for the benefit of the parishes—was well founded; for knowing something of country life, he had not found that County Councils attached much importance at any rate to to the wishes of the smaller parishes. There was usually an attempt to centralise the county round the larger villages, and this attempt was resented by the smaller villages. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment appealed to those on the Opposition side not to hastily reject that Amendment. If the hon. Member had listened to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol he would know that there was no desire on their part hastily to reject the Amendment. In his judgment the matter presented the nicest appeal to the Parliamentary conscience which he had ever come across in his experience of the House. If they compared the proposal of the hon. Member for Islington with their own proposal to leave the tithes to the Church they were bound to regret it; but if they compared it with the proposal in the Bill they were bound to vote for it. There were four plans for the disposal of the tithes—to retain them for the use of the Church; or to give them to Wales as a Nation; or to hand them over to the County Council; or to the parishes. He would remind the Committee that when the proposal was made to retain the tithes for the use of the Church, it was overruled on the plea that tithe was national property and ought to be given over to a national body. That was definitely stated over and over again in the most explicit terms. It was stated most explicitly, by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland, who said—: Beyond all question tithes were devoted to religious purposes, but by whom and for whom? They were given by the whole community to the whole community. If that really represented the view of the Government, it was clear that if they looked to the origin of tithe, it ought to be handed over to some national council. But he admitted there was a good deal to be said historically for the hon. Member for Islington's plan. One of the most interesting speeches on the Second Reading of the Bill was by the hon. Member for Eccles(Mr. Roby) who was an authority to whom everyone would bow on historical questions, and he hoped that if tithes were not private benefactions, such as they (the Opposition) contended, they were a kind of income tax, of 10 per cent. on the income and industry of all persons in the parish. He believed that tithe was an antiquated equivalent for a perpetual rent charge on land; and that that perpetual rent charge had tended to diminish rent, to diminish profits and to diminish wages in those localities from which it was derived. Therefore, there was a good case for saying that as the tithe had been a charge on the property and industry of the parish, if it should go anywhere it should go to the parish. There remained the question whether it ought not to be handed over to a national council for national purposes. He would prefer that plan to the plan of handing it over to the parish. He should wait and listen to the rest of the Debate before finally deciding, but holding that view he was justified in voting for the Amendment.

MR. LEONARD COURTNEY (Cornwall, Bodmin)

said, he could not agree that tithe was a tax upon agriculture. In his view tithe was part of the rent of the land and had hitherto been devoted to certain special purposes. They had now to determine to what other purposes it should be applied. If this were the moment for examining that question, he confessed he thought there was much to be said for the conclusion at which the hon. Member for Islington had arrived. The purposes to which tithe had been devoted were parochial—they were in relief and supposed assistance of what would otherwise be a common want of the parish, and it might be plausibly said that if they were going to take away funds which had hitherto been applied in relief of common wants of the parish and to devote them to some other purpose, the purpose to which they were devoted in future should be parochial. But the especial reason why he rose at this time was to inquire whether all this argument was not, in relation to this clause, entirely misapplied. They were now considering the vesting of the property in this or that body. They were not at all dealing with what should be the use of the property when it became vested in the persons in whom it was proposed to vest it; all that was to be reserved until Clause 9 or some other clause. Until they got to that clause it was premature to discuss the question.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR (Manchester, E.)

desired to associate himself with what had fallen from his right hon. Friend as to the period at which the discussion, on its merits, really ought to be taken, but he did not at all criticise the course adopted by the hon. Member for Islington. He pointed out on a previous occasion it was almost impossible, in discussing the question of in what body the property should be vested, altogether to leave out of sight the uses to which the property was to be put. He thought the hon. Gentleman, and any other hon. Gentleman was quite justified in giving his views on that subject, even on the sixth clause, but it was on the ninth clause that the question would really arise; and what in strictness they ought to confine themselves to at the present moment was, not the uses to which the property was to be put, but in what body it was convenient to vest the property which was to be transferred from the disestablished Church. He confessed that upon that branch of the question he had not a very strong opinion, but he was rather disposed to agree with the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bodmin had told them that in his view tithe was not a tax upon agriculture, but part of the rent. That in certain cases was perfectly true, but it must be remembered it was undoubtedly the fact that by imposing a certain kind of burden in the shape of rent they might compel a change in agriculture from a form which employed largely to a form which employed it much less. It was quite conceivable that in some cases the effect of tithe had been either to throw land out of cultivation or to alter the manner in which it was cultivated. Having entered that caveat against a too stringent application of the theory the right hon. Gentleman had advanced, he wished to take note that the hon. Member for Suffolk had expressed the view that to tax the landlords was to inflict injury upon the whole agricultural community. That was a perfectly sound view; he wished it prevailed generally on the other side of the House, for there were gentlemen who had no better notion of improving the general condition of the farmer or labourer than that which consisted in robbing the landlord. ["Hear, hear!"] After all, the question they would have to decide when they came to the ninth clause was, which of the three plans they would adopt. The plan he and his hon. Friends desired was a central fund. If they were defeated in their desire to get a central fund they would have to consider the alternative of a parochial fund in the full sense of the term, which the hon. Gentleman desired, or a parochial fund in the qualified sense of that term, which the Government suggested. Of the two alternatives he was distinctly in favour of the plan of the hon. Gentleman, and if the Government succeeded in preventing them carrying out their plan of a central fund he would certainly do his best to see the policy of the hon. Member for Islington carried into effect. He wished, however, to impress upon the hon. Member the fact that a vote on this Amendment would not at all represent the views of the Committee upon his scheme, first, because the vote would be taken on a question of machinery, and, secondly, because he might find arrayed against him in the Lobby many of those whom it was not absolutely impossible might be found on his side on the real question.

MR. LOUGH

said, he had carefully considered what the Home Secretary said in reply to the arguments he addressed to the Committee. The point on which the right hon. Gentleman laid great stress, the most suitable body to make the collection, was really not the point which he emphasised at all. He had not very carefully considered it, but he believed that, so far as he did allude to it, he said he did not care who collected the money, so long as the principle of the return to the parish of what was paid by the parish was conceded. The right hon. Gentleman had asked whether he objected to parishes being united. He certainly did not where two or three parishes had equal interests. He only wished to secure that the contribution of each parish should be returned to it. He must accept the authorities that Clause 9 was the point at which to take a Division on this point, and he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. HARRY FOSTER (Suffolk, Lowestoft) rose to mave to omit from Sub-section "b" the words "burial ground and." He said that the Home Secretary had promised to insert an Amendment to retain disused burial grounds in the hands of the representative body; but hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House were by no means satisfied with that. He wished to take this opportunity of asserting again the view that burial ground of the Church was inseparable from the fabric of the Church, which already had been vested in the representative body.

MR. ASQUITH

On a point of Order, Sir. As I understand it, the Committee have already decided on Sub-section A, subject to the pledge which I have given, that the burial grounds are not to pass to the representative body. Is it in order for the hon. Member to argue now that they are to be retained by the representative body? My contention is that he can only argue that they ought to pass to the County Councils, or to some other body—not the representative body.

THE CHAIRMAN

Yes, I think that is so.

MR. HARRY FOSTER

said, that he was unable to suggest any other body than the representative body, and, therefore, he would not proceed with his Amendment. But he should like to ask the Home Secretary what steps he proposed to take in order to carry out his pledge with respect to disused burial grounds.

MR. ASQUITH

said, that the noble Lord the Member for Rochester had an Amendment on the Paper dealing with that question; but the Amendment went much beyond the pledge which he had given. He would suggest that the more convenient place for discussing this matter would be at the end of the clause of which he had given notice dealing with the regulation of burial grounds.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE (Rochester)

suggested that he should move the first part of his Amendment first, to which the right hon. Gentleman would be able to assent, and should move the other part afterwards.

MR. ASQUITH

said, that he should much prefer the question to be postponed, but if the noble Lord insisted on pressing his Amendment now it would, no doubt, be more convenient to divide it into two parts.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

thought it would he better to settle the question at once, while the clause was under discussion. The original suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman was that the Amendment should come at this very place.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

suggested that the noble Lord should move the controversial part of his Amendment at once, and leave the rest.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

adopted the suggestion, and rose to move, after the words "burial ground," in Sub-section "b," the addition of the words—"Until it shall have become closed under the provisions of any Act of Parliament."

MR. ASQUITH

said, that if those words were carried they would exclude all burial grounds already closed.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

said, that in that case he must move his Amendment as it appeared on the Paper; and he would first move the part to which the right hon. Gentleman assented. He therefore moved, after the words "burial ground" in Subsection (b), to add:— Of any ecclesiastical parish where it has been closed under the provisions of any Act of Parliament.

MR. ASQUITH

said, that he had no objection to that Amendment. But the words "or Order in Council" must be added, as many grounds were closed by Order in Council. Again, the noble Lord's Amendment left it doubtful whether grounds closed before the passing of the Act were not alone referred to. The Amendment should be extended to include grounds closed betweeen the passing of the Act and the date of Disestablishment.

MR. LAURENCE HARDY (Kent, Ashford)

pointed out that in the numerous cases where an old burial ground had been extended, the new ground, coming within the definition of a private benefaction, would be in the hands of the representative body, while the old ground, which generally lay immediately round the church, would vest in the Parish Council. So that they had, as it seemed to him, reached a conclusion exactly opposite to that which it was wished to arrive at. They would vest the open part of a burial ground in the representative body, and leave the part in which there could be no more interments in the hands of the parish council, which was the exact reverse of what they were striving to do.

MR. ASQUITH

said, the hon. Member had put a case which was not likely to be one of common occurrence, and which did not arise on this Amendment; but he would undertake to consider it.

SIR FRANCIS POWELL (Wigan)

suggested that it would be necessary, to meet the case of burial grounds that were partly closed by inserting the words "wholly or partly." There were cases in which interments might be made in family vaults, and where a donor had reserved the right of sepulture for himself.

MR. ASQUITH

said, that such cases were met by exceptions in the Orders in Council, and the words suggested would apply to a burial ground of which the old part was disused and the new part still in use.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

said, he was obliged to the Home Secretary for pointing out the defects in the drafting of the Amendment; and he proposed to move it in this form:— Of any ecclesiastical parish where, before the date of Disestablishment, it has been closed in pursuance of the provisions of any Act of Parliament or of any Order in Council made thereunder.

Amendment agreed to.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE moved to add the words, "or as soon as it becomes so closed," with the view, if these words were accepted, of further adding the words, "in the representative body." The Government had agreed that unused burial grounds should be vested in the representative body; and he did not see how they could logically stop there, and not say that burial grounds which were not used now, but also burial grounds which should become unused, should be vested in the representative body. It was an obvious convenience that the land immediately surrounding the Church should be vested in the same authority as the Church; it was convenient from this point of view, both of access and of extension—that the churchyard should be under the same control as the church itself. There was also a sacred character attaching to the church, particularly in the eyes of the surviving relatives of those who had been more recently interred in the churchyard. Some would say that in every case a churchyard should go with the church; but he saw the difficulty in the common law right of parishioners, and even of strangers dying in a parish, to be buried in the churchyard. No doubt the Home Secretary felt that, as the church would no longer be connected in any way with the State, the churchyard ought to be vested in a public authority. All these arguments were good; but they did not apply to the churchyard when it became disused, whether before the passing of this Act or not. There was no common law right of burial in a burial ground which was closed by Act of Parliament. From consideration of convenience, and of the sacred character of the consecrated ground surrounding the Church, he submitted that the Government should grant the concession he asked. The churchyard should be put on the same footing as the church.

MR. ASQUITH

said, he could not accept the argument that the concession asked for would only be the logical conclusion of other concessions that had been made. The ground on which the concessions referred to were made was that the Government thought that when handing over churches to the representative body it would be a gracious thing to treat as part of the curtilage of a church handed over the disused and closed burial grounds which might surround it. But circumstances hereafter might be different. The effect of the Amendment would be that whenever, at any distance of time, or in any change of circumstances, the churchyard ceased to be actively used, it would be passed over to a representative body which might not require it. The church itself might be disused for the purpose of public worship, local conditions might have wholly changed, and by common consent it might be undesirable that the transfer should take place. The noble Lord wished the representative body to do what they had no power to do.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER (Isle of Wight)

pointed out that where part of the churchyard was needed for extension of the fabric of the church, a faculty was necessary, and the law prevented the erection of buildings where interments had taken place. He agreed that the churchyards, which would be in the position the noble Lord had referred to, should belong to the representative Church body. There would be no difficulty in framing an Amendment to provide for this.

*SIR G. OSBORNE MORGAN (Denbighshire, E.)

said, the more the noble Lord got the more he wanted. There was less reason for vesting disused than churchyards still used in the representative Church body. Under 19 and 20 Vict., c. 128, sect. 18, disused churchyards were kept in repair at the cost of the ratepayers. Not only were such churchyards the property of the parish, but the parishioners were liable to maintain them. He therefore did not see why they should vest in an ecclesiastical body.

MR. GRANT LAWSON (York, N.R., Thirsk and Malton)

said, this matter was fully discussed in Committee on the Parish Councils Act, when it was provided that the parish councils should not touch disused burial grounds without notice served on them by the churchwardens. The Amendment might be looked at from the practical and sentimental point of view. Why on earth did the parish councils want these disused burial-grounds unless it was for grazing purposes? They could not use them for any of the purposes mentioned in the schedule of the Bill—for the erection of convalescent homes, training nurses for the sick poor, the provision of labourers' dwellings and allotments. It was impossible to conceive the purposes to which disused burial grounds could be put by the parish councils. It was said that the opponents of the Bill only clung to these disused burial grounds from sentiment. Well, there was a great deal of sentiment attaching to the burial ground of even the smallest country church. It had been said— Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. Of such as Cromwell no one would disturb the rest. The opponents of the Bill were actuated by the sentiment which moved the man who fell among thieves to complain of their conduct; by the sentiment which prompted the Chinese to worship their ancestors; by sentiments of respect for the resting-places of bygone generations. The Parish Councils might claim these burial grounds from sentiment, but it was not sentiment so respectable as theirs; it was sectarian sentiment—a quarrel over some petty point of Church discipline which actuated them against the Church. From the point of view of utility and sentiment he contended that these disused burial grounds should remain in the hands of the Church.

MR. TOMLINSON (Preston)

said, it had been remarked that if burial grounds when closed were to pass from the parish council to the representative body, it would be necessary to have a legal conveyance to effect the transfer; but that was not the case, because it might be provided that the order for closing a burial ground should operate as a transfer to the representative body. Another point which had been dealt with by previous speakers, was, that the church authorities should have power to extend their church if they desired to do so, by taking in a portion of the churchyard.

MR. W. AMBROSE (Middlesex, Harrow)

said, that perhaps the best mode of proceeding would be to leave the burial grounds which were not closed vested in the Commissioners, on the understanding that when closed they were to pass to the representative body.

MR. DAVID THOMAS

said, that there was not a parish council in Wales who would be willing to sell a disused burial ground to a brewery, as the Ecclesiastical Commissioners had done in the case of All Hallows Church in the City of London.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 184; Noes 206.—(Division List No. 110.)

MR. ASQUITH move to insert after the last Amendment, agreed to the words "and in any other case shall vest the burial ground."

Amendment agreed to.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN (Kent, Tunbridge) moved to insert after the words "burial ground," the words— Other than burial grounds annexed or adjacent to any church, but not separated by any carriage road, which shall be vested in the representative body. He instanced the case where in the repairing of a Church it was necessary to put up scaffolding poles, which it would be most unreasonable that the Church should not have full liberty to do. He failed to see also how the Church could be repaired if the burial ground was in the hands of another body. The case would be met if the Home Secretary would adopt the very sensible provision contained in the 26th Clause of the Irish Act, that burial grounds annexed or adjoining the Church, and not separated from it by any other ground, should go with it. If this provision were not adopted the greatest practical difficulty would arise. They were told that the Parish Councils should have the burial grounds vested in them, and were to have the power to repair fences, and so on. But would it not be possible for a body which was alien to, and might be hostile to, the Church to utilise that ground in such a way as to offend the members of the Church very much indeed? It was perfectly monstrous that the ground through which the approach to the Church lay should not be in the hands of the Church body itself. When objections were raised to this provision in the Irish Act the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian said:— When a church was entirely surrounded by the burial ground it was impossible to separate the two, and that consideration appeared to have much greater weight than the theoretical infringement of the abstract principle of religious equality. He fully expected that they would be met with the same argument as to the theoretical infringement of the abstract principle in this case. The right hon. Gentleman continued:— The facts could not be got rid of, and it must be seen that they were not attended with practical grievances, while there would be a grievance to the Church authorities if they had not command of the site—in case, for instance, of their requiring to rebuild or enlarge the Church. They did not ask for all the churchyard, but merely that those churchyards actually annexed, through which they must pass to get to the Church, should go with the Church. As they had done so in the case of the Local Government Act he really thought the Government might admit it in this case.

*SIR FRANCIS POWELL

said, that he had had an Amendment to the same effect standing in his name, but had withdrawn it under the apprehension that it was out of order. He quite agreed with the arguments of the hon. Member for Tunbridge. Experience had shown that in many cases, even where the population remained the same, the enlargement of the church was thought desirable. It was often necessary for the due performance of public worship. In many cases, too, it was desirable that the chancel should be increased in size. If the Amendment of his hon. Friend was carried, enlargement could take place, but if the burial-ground was in the hands of a separate authority, enlargement would become impossible, He believed that would be a great hardship on the Church, and would do no good whatever to other people. He hoped the Committee would follow the precedent of the Irish Act and accept the Amendment.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. J. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.)

said, that they were now practically rearguing a question which was settled two days ago, and in the circumstances he hardly thought it necessary to re-argue it. He would, however, just say, as the case of Ireland had been referred to, that the Government conceived that there was a remarkable distinction between the case of Ireland and the case of Wales. In Ireland the burial-grounds were used by Protestants only, but in Wales they were used by all religious bodies; in fact, the whole population used them. There was, therefore, a broad distinction between the two cases. Then, as regarded the difficulties about enlarging and repairing the church that had been referred to, he quite admitted that they might arise; but the clause which his right hon. Friend had put down would give an opportunity for discussing that matter, and if it did not sufficiently provide for it, the Government would approach the discussion of the clause with a perfectly open mind. There could not be any desire to prevent anything else being done, that could be done, for making provision for repairs and enlargement, but he submitted that this was not the proper point for the discussion of the matter, and for the reasons he had given he was afraid the Government could not accept the Amendment.

MR. C. B. STUART-WORTLEY

said, that if the Church of England did not get the power to acquire adjacent land, she would be in a different position to all other denominations, and it was absurd and unfair that that should be the case. The resistance to this Amendment was prompted by the old feeling of suspicion that in the matter of burial-grounds some clergymen of the Established Church would be unreasonable, and deal unfairly with Nonconformists. If there had been bad clergymen in the Church, it was due to the bad patronage law. That the patronage law was bad was not the fault of the Church party, and if this Bill became law the whole of it would be swept away, and a different method of electing clergymen would be set up.

*MR. VICARY GIBBS (Herts, St. Albans)

remarked that, owing to the crude form in which the Bill was drawn, they were placed in great difficulty, for they had to discuss a matter 40 pages a head on the Amendment Paper, which really ought to be settled at this point. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade used the curious form of argument that there was a great distinction between Wales and Ireland, because in Ireland only the Prostestants used the burial-grounds. What on earth had that to do with the question of adjacent churchyards? The right hon. Gentleman did not treat the Amendment with the respect it deserved. He could not have given it any consideration before he got up to speak upon it. There were only three logical courses to pursue, either that the representative body should have all the churchyards, or that they should have none, or that they should have those churchyards which were adjacent to the churches; and if there was one class of burial-grounds which it was peculiarly proper and convenient that the representative body should possess, it was those which were adjacent to the building. It was true that the Home Secretary had said that he would put down words later on which would remove the obvious disadvantages that had been referred to, but he was not at all sure that it would be in the right hon. Gentleman's power to get over a very large number of difficulties which would arise. He supposed that the right hon. and learned Gentlemen now on the Front Bench had not the power themselves to give way in this matter, but he was sure that the Government would be well advised to consider this point. It would give great satisfaction to the Church party, and also to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, who, it was perfectly well known, was not satisfied with this part of the Bill. It was on this very matter of burial-grounds that the right hon. Gentleman had lost confidence in Her Majesty's Ministers.

SIR JOHN GORST

hoped that the speeches addressed to the Government on the present occasion might produce an effect upon a distant clause when the notices of Motion were published tomorrow. He wished to impress on the President of the Board of Trade that no answer had been given to the extremely practical difficulty which had been pointed out in regard to enlargements in churches. If the clause were passed in its present form, it would be practically impossible in the case of a country church for a vestry to be erected, or an organ chamber built, or some other little addition to be made to the church, because it would be impossible for the representative body to obtain the land. Clause 14, to which reference had been made, contained nothing to remedy that.

MR. BRYCE

said, that he had pointed out that that clause ought to remedy it.

SIR JOHN GORST

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman would undertake that it should be made to do so.

MR. BRYCE

said, that the Government had very carefully considered that question, and he would see how it could be covered, because he agreed that it ought to be. ["Hear, hear!" from the Opposition.]

SIR JOHN GORST

Under those circumstances I have nothing more to say.

MR. J. G. TALBOT (Oxford University)

thought this a very important matter. He supported the Amendment mainly on the sentimental ground, being not ashamed of owning that sentiment ought to have very great influence in this matter. And, if there was a sentiment attaching to the church, there was perhaps an even greater sentiment attaching to the churchyard. He did not think that the Home Secretary's answer, in which the right hon. Gentleman, attempted to discriminate between the Irish and Welsh Churches was satisfactory, and he did not consider that the right hon. Gentleman's statement in regard to Ireland was strictly accurate. He also contested the argument which the right hon. Gentleman advanced, that ecclesiastical differences were so acute that it did not do to leave these burial grounds in the hands of one religious body. The Member for Denbigh (Sir G. Osborne Morgan) took paternal pride in the Burials Act. but it had not been of much practical effect. It was a singular fact, that, in Wales, that Act, which was supposed to free the churchyards for ever from the tyranny of the clergy of the Established Church, had done nothing of the kind, and the clergy were frequently called upon to officiate at the funerals of Nonconformists. This showed that the differences as to burial-grounds were not so acute as they had been represented to be, and proved, in his view, that Nonconformists were willing to merge their differences at the graveside. ["Hear, hear!"] The Government now proposed to produce a new element of discord at this period of disruption and difficulty. The taking away of these graveyards was not the way to promote peace and harmony in the future, and he hoped that his hon. Friend would perseveres with his Amendment.

MR. GEORGE WYNDHAM

desired to urge upon the Government that it was never too late for a Committee of sensible men to do a sensible thing. Who could doubt that it would be sensible for them now to recognise the practical impossibility of preserving the rights of the Church, and at the same time to take away the churchyards? The Government had put down 42 lines of amendments to this section with the view of safeguarding the rights of the Church in respect of the churchyards, and they would have to add another 10 lines. He urged the Government to give way. It would not be any defeat for them to do so. Was it not better to leave the graveyards as they now were—namely, in the hands of the body most intimately associated with them, especially in view of the fact that those graveyards could not be protected without cumbrous machinery covering nearly a whole page of their Bill?

MR. G. C. T. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)

said, that the subject before the Committee raised another question. The reverential up-keep of the churchyard in connection with the church was a matter of importance to everybody in the parish. This was a growing feeling and one which ought to be encouraged. But the financial aspect of the case was important. The up-keep of a churchyard cost a good bit, and it was often largely looked after by the vicar, who was especially interested in it. But, if this Amendment were not carried, the churchyard would pass to the Parish Council, and those connected with the Church would not be entitled to keep in order the churchyard adjacent to the church. In some villages of small rateable value, a penny in the £ only produced about £5 a year, and, as there was a limit of 6d. in the amount which the Parish Council could raise for the whole parish, a large proportion of that limit would he necessary in future to keep the churchyard in proper order. Even a small churchyard involved considerable expenditure, but the vicar would not be able to undertake it in future, and the result in the poorer parishes would be that the churchyard would not be kept up at all. From a religious point of view, and a general reverence for the churchyards, a result such as that was very seriously to be regretted. He believed the great bulk of Nonconformists would admit in their hearts that it was desirable that those portions of the churchyards which were adjacent to the church, and were really part and parcel of it, should remain in the keeping and care of the Church, in order that there might be no uncertainty as to their being kept in proper order.

MR. TOMLINSON

also believed it was better that the yards adjacent to the church should remain in possession of the body that had always held and properly kept them than that they should be transferred to any other authority. Certainly sufficient reason had not been shown for dividing the yards from the church.

The Committee divided:—Ayes, 113; Noes, 135.—(Division List, No. 136.)

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

moved, line 24 after "and," insert "such part of this." He said the object of this and a consequential Amendment was to secure that only "such part of the glebe of any ecclesiastical parish as may not be vested in the representative body under the provisions of this Act" should be vested in the Parish Council. His objection broadly went to the vesting of the whole of the glebe in Parish Councils. Having regard to the condition of things in Wales, the provision in the Bill was most unreasonable. There must be some discrimination in this matter. Nothing like a hard and fast rule could be applied. A Return was moved for on the 27th July 1894 by Mr. David Thomas and granted, which gave most valuable information on this matter. It would have been more useful for practical purposes if there had been a column of population.

MR. DAVID THOMAS

said, there was such a column in his Motion in its original form.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

said, he was about to supplement the information contained in the Return by taking some instances which certainly were most striking, and to which the attention of the House ought to be directed. In a large number of these parishes there were very considerable amounts of glebe and a comparatively small population, while in other districts there were large populations and no glebe at all. He would give a few instances. There was the parish of Bodewryd, with Rhosbeirio, in the county of Anglesey, with a population of 60, where the glebe was 188 acres in extent, and was of the annual value of £123. In the same county there was another parish—the parish of Llansadwrn—with a population of 390, where the glebe was only six acres, two roods, of the value of £8 a year. Then in the county of Brecknock there was one parish—Capel Coelbren—with a population of 146, where the glebe was 150 acres, of the value of £100 a year; and in the same county there was another parish—Llandefalley, with Crickadarn—with six times the population—827—and the total value of the glebe was only £31. It was absolutely impossible to understand why, if the Bill had been conceived with anything like foresight and regard to the rural arrangements of the localities, such a principle could be adopted. The parishes with larger populations also brought into relief what a careful study of Mr. Thomas's Return disclosed on almost every page. There, was in Glamorgan the parish of Llangyfelach, with 27,500 people, which had not a single acre of glebe; and the parish of St. Peter, Llandaff, with a population of 2,747, was in the same position.

MR. BRYCE rose to order. He did not know to what the Amendment was tending. Yesterday an Amendment proposing that part of the glebe should be vested in the representative body, was rejected. He did not see what the effect of carrying the present Amendment would be.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

said, the Committee had never yet decided that the glebe was to go to the Parish Council as distinguished from the County Council, or a general council, or some other body. He held that the Parish Council was not a proper body to receive the glebe, and it seemed to him that the House ought to express its opinion as to whether or not the whole of the glebe in populous and unpopulous parishes was to be carried over to the Parish Council. When the right hon. Gentleman rose he was pointing out that in Glamorgan there were parishes with thousands and tens of thousands of inhabitants which did not possess a single acre of glebe. No one who had had an opportunity of studying the return, could come to any other conclusion than that the vesting in every case of the glebe in the Parish Council would often result in the frittering away of the property. In many cases it would produce those very evils which had been so largely mitigated by the action of those who were officially concerned in the administration of charities in the United Kingdom. Where there was a large amount of money available, and only a small population, there was always a danger of the grant of doles and charities, which were not such as were likely to improve the condition of the people in any true sense. Anything like the vesting of the glebe in parish councils without discrimination and without any arrangement for the distribution of the money among various parishes, ought not to be approved by the council. If the property was to be preserved for national purposes, surely some scheme of allocation, as between different parishes, ought to be agreed upon, so that malappropriation—he would not use the word misappropriation—of the income of the glebe, might be prevented. The other night the hon. Member for Islington had spoken of this property as belonging to the parish as a parish. He denied that that was correct, either legally or historically. As long as there was an established fund which was supposed to produce the endowments or salary of the parson of the parish, it might perhaps be proper to speak of it as a parochial fund out of which parochial services were paid. The glebe which produced the endowment might be regarded as the property of the parish, for the, purpose of supplying the salary of the minister. As soon, however, as the object to which the money was originally appropriated was destroyed, the glebe, ceased to be parochial property. It then became property to be preserved for national purposes and aims. To provide that in every case the whole of this property should vest in the parish council, would be to adopt a scheme which would be most detrimental not only to the church but to parochial bodies themselves. He trusted, therefore, that his amendment would be favourably received by the Government.

MR. BRYCE

said, that he was still in the dark as to the desire of the hon. and learned Member. This Amendment, which was originally put down as a drafting Amendment, turned out to be a very substantial Amendment. It would be impossible for him to argue the question which the hon. and learned Gentleman had put before them until he should know what was the hon. and learned Gentleman's alternative proposal. His Amendment at present merely went to negative the idea that, the whole of the glebe must necessarily be vested in the Parish Council. There was no alternative proposal. If the hon. and learned Gentleman should wish at a future time to bring up a new clause or a fuller Amendment on this subject he would not be prejudiced by the withdrawal of the present Amendment, because there were saving words in the clause, namely— The Welsh Commissioners shall, save as otherwise provided by this Act, by order vest the property transferred to them," &c. He could not accept the hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment now, and suggested its withdrawal.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

feared that the case of the supporters of the Amendment would be prejudiced by its withdral.

MR. BRYCE

observed that he had endeavoured to explain that their case would not be prejudiced.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

said, they wished to make it quite clear that they could not assent to the proposal that the glebe should go to the Parish Council in every case. There were alternative proposals.

MR. BRYCE

explained again that the question could be reopened.

SIR RICHARD WEBSTER

said, that he was willing to withdraw the Amendment on the understanding that the question could be discussed on a future occasion.

MR. BRYCE

said, that personally he entertained no doubt that a clause or Amendment on this subject could be brought up hereafter; but, of course, it was for the Chairman to say whether he was right in holding that opinion.

THE CHAIRMAN

intimated that the course suggested would be in order.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

*SIR FRANCIS POWELL

had the following Amendment on the Paper:— Clause 6, page 3, line 25, after 'parish,' insert,— 'Subject to a right of way in the Representative Body, and the clergy and congregation attending the church, and such other persons as may resort thereto for the purpose of divine worship, or for the purpose of repairing the church, or for any other lawful purpose, and such council or chairman and overseers of the parish, as the ease may be, shall not allow any funeral to take place during the time of services in the said church, and shall make such other regulations as may be found necessary from time to time to prevent any interference by persons attending funerals with the clergy or congregations attending the said church, and shall keep the wall or other fence, and the gates or doors of, and any road or path through such burial ground to the church situate therein in good and sufficient repair.'

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

said, that since this Amendment had been put down a new clause had been put on the Paper by the Home Secretary, embodying it, and, in these circumstances, the hon. Member for Wigan had asked him to explain to the Committee that he desired to withdraw this proposal.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

moved:— Page 3, line 27, after the first 'parish,' insert in which it is situated.'" The object of the Amendment, he explained, was to provide that the glebe should, in all cases, be vested, not in the parish of the benefice to which it was attached, but in the parish in which it was locally situated. As he understood the principle of the Bill, which had been enunciated time after time by Members of the Government and their supporters, they were to have regard in all cases to the place from which the property was derived. It had been laid down that the locality from which the property was derived was to have the benefit of the property now taken from the Church. That being so, he utterly failed to see why a glebe should not at once go to the parish in which it happened to be situated, and that that parish should not have to pay for it. Not only was that the principle of the Bill, but it was the principle of the supporters of the Bill. The hon. Member for Islington, who made a long and interesting speech that afternoon, also made an interesting speech on the previous day, in which he told them that the tithe rent-charge did not fall like manna from Heaven, but was locally derived from certain localities, and that these localities ought to have it. The glebe did not fall like manna from Heaven either. The glebe was most undoubtedly locally derived and situated, and he could not for the life of him see why, in the case of a parish A, in which the glebe was locally situated, it should be taken from that parish and should go to parish B, in which it was not situated. This ought not to be the case either from the point of view of principle or convenience. Take the case of two parishes; one parish possessed the glebe but it was situated in another parish. The object of vesting the glebe in the Parish Council was to enable it to be used for those many and most interesting purposes mentioned in the second schedule. There was the question of allotments. What could be the sense of giving a glebe to one Parish Council to be used for allotments in a parish which was situated 20 miles from the glebe? The Welsh workmen, after a long day' s toil, would have to walk twenty miles over the mountains for the purpose of cultivating their allotments. There was the actual case of a parish with which he was acquainted, in Denbighshire, which possessed a glebe 15 miles off, and separated from the parish by three ranges of mountains, and yet as the Bill was now drawn the glebe would be vested in the Parish Council of the parish which possessed the glebe instead of its being vested in the parish in which it was locally situated. It might be asked what would happen, if his Amendment were carried, in the case of glebe located in England, but belonging to a Welsh ecclesiastical parish? The answer to that objection was that an Amendment should be inserted providing that where property was situated in England it ought not to pass under the Act. He did not move the Amendment in the slightest degree from the standpoint of the Church. It was in the interest of order and common sense, and in accordance with the principle of the Bill, that the locality should enjoy the property derived from it, that he moved that the glebe should be vested in the parish in which it was situated, and not in the parish to which it was attached.

THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD, York)

said, the hon. Gentleman in his opening observations very fairly admitted that he was really repeating the arguments which had been made use of by the hon. Member for Islington in moving an Amendment earlier in the evening, and that he was really pleading on behalf of the parishes, though in regard to a different matter, like the hon. Member for Islington. The hon. Member would not, therefore, say he was wanting in courtesy when he said the answer he had to make on behalf of the Government in this matter was practically the answer given by his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in reply to the very interesting speech of the hon. Member for Islington. The hon. Member pointed out that there were cases in which the proceeds of glebe land situated in one parish went to swell the endowments of another parish; and he asked that those proceeds should be given to the parish in which the glebe land was situated. To do that would be to act contrary to the principle underlying the Bill, and to which the Government adhered, as set forth in Clause 9, which was that in the application of the property regard should be paid to the wants of the parish in which the property is situated, or from which it has been derived, and to the general circumstances of each particular case. Those words gave the Parish Council the widest discretion in dealing with each particular case.

SIR JOHN GORST

said, he could not help saying that the Solicitor General had entirely failed to appreciate the point of the Amendment. It was not a question of beneficial enjoyment at all. It was a question merely of vesting. The question of enjoyment would come up on Clause 9. The Amendment related only to the very small class of cases in which glebe, that belongs to one parish is geographically situated in another parish; and the question to be decided was in which of the two Parish Councils was it the more convenient that the glebe should be vested, in the Parish Council of the parish in which it was geographically situated, or in the Parish Council of the parish, 15 miles distant perhaps, to which it was attached? Surely the Parish Council of the parish in which the glebe was situated could best manage it, as they were on the spot, as trustees, for the purposes which would be decided on Clause 9. It seemed to him the Amendment was designed in the interest of the Bill. It would make the clause more workable and rational; and he thought his hon. Friend, in drafting the Amendment, had shown a kindness to the Government which the Solicitor General had not appreciated.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

pointed out that although he spoke of enjoyment, he had been perfectly well aware that the Amendment dealt more with the question of vesting.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman was not correct in saying that the arguments which applied to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Islington applied also to this Amendment. In that case they dealt with tithe not vested in the parish, while in this they were dealing with glebe that was vested in the parish.

MR. DAVID THOMAS

said, he was glad to find in the person of the Solicitor General an occupant of the Treasury Bench who knew the principle on which property was allocated under the Bill. He had asked the Home Secretary several times to tell him what the principle was, and on each occasion the right hon. Gentleman told him the scheme of allocation, with which he was perfectly well acquainted, and not the principle on which the scheme was based. He would, therefore, ask the Solicitor General, who had said he understood the principle of the Bill thoroughly, on what principle it was that the revenue from the glebe in one parish would go to the parish from which it was derived, while in an adjoining parish it would go to form a central fund for the administration of the Act?

THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL

said, the answer he had to give to his hon. Friend was that the principle that had actuated the Government in this portion of the Bill was to benefit primarily the locality to which the glebe was attached. His hon. Friend had shown unlimited confidence in his knowledge of the subject, for which he could not be too grateful, but he begged to say that the rest of the hon. Gentleman's conundrum would be answered when the proper time came.

*SIR M. HICKS-BEACH

was afraid the hon. and learned Gentleman had not given the conundrum the attention it deserved. At any rate, the Solicitor-General had not answered the case put by the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University—that was the case of a glebe which might be in England, but at the same time belong to some parish in Wales. How in the world was a Parish Council say, in Montgomeryshire, to manage a glebe, say, in Gloucestershire? They could not decide what buildings were required, what arrangements should be made for letting it out in allotments, or what should be done with regard to devoting part of it for sites For cottages. They would be utterly incapable of managing the property, however well qualified they were to manage property in their own parish. His hon. and learned Friend suggested that in such a case the glebe ought to be vested in the Parish Council of the parish in which it was situate, but he saw some difficulty there. If they did that, unquestionably they would cause in the minds of the parishioners of the parish where the glebe was situate a very bitter feeling, because they would think the land belonged to them, and yet they were deprived of any benefit from it. If, as he thought, there were objections both to vesting the glebe in the Parish Council of the parish in which it was situate, and also in that of the parish to which it belonged, surely they ought not to vest it in any Parish Council at all, but allow it to remain in the hands of the Commissioners, to become part of a central fund to be devoted to such purposes as they thought fit.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON (Shropshire, Oswestry)

understood that the glebe of Merthyr was to go to Merthyr, but the glebe of Aberdeen was not to go to Aberdeen, but to go elsewhere. When they came to consider the Bill in detail, they found it was not in any way equal to the burden put upon it. This was a matter of detail, yet it was one of larger extent than some hon. Members seemed to suppose. It happened that the parish in which he lived had a glebe about 10 miles off, and that the parish in England in which he used to live had a glebe in Wales. What he suggested was, that the whole of these clauses should be redrafted. [Laughter.] Surely, that was not a large demand. Take the case of Anglesey, which the Home Secretary had taken as an example of matters in Wales. The other day the right hon. Gentleman told him, in answer to a question, that in Anglesey there were no less than 15 parishes which had no parish council at all. Therefore, in those 15 parishes, which doubtless had glebes out side their boundaries, there would only be the chairman of the parish meeting to deal with these difficult questions far away. In three or four of the 15 parishes there wore two or three houses, and in one parish there was only one house. See the absurdity of the position of the Government. In the occupant of one house might be vested the whole of the glebe, and this was what the Solicitor General called assisting the local inhabitants. Again and again they had complained that the Government had put forward one principle when they were arguing one point, and had put forward another principle when they were arguing another point. They now said their desire was to help the inhabitants of the parish, but when they were dealing with the question the hon. Member for Islington raised they said, "No, no, it is not the parish we want but the county." He beseeched the Government to stick to one principle. If they could only fasten on some principle and carry it through, the Committee might come to some proper conclusion.

MR. E. W. BYRNE (Essex, Walthamstow)

said, that putting the question of principle aside for the moment, he was anxious to know what the words used meant. The glebe of any ecclesiastical parish was, in the case of a rural parish, to be vested in the Parish Council of the parish. He would like to know in the first place the object and meaning of the words "of the parish." Did they convey any further meaning than the words, "in the Parish Council," and if so, what meaning in words did they convey? Was there a difference between "the Parish Council" and "the Parish Council of the parish?" If the words "the Parish Council" or "the Parish Council of the parish" meant the Parish Council of a parish which might be the locally situate parish or a parish situate outside, it was obvious that either the Amendment must be accepted or some other words must be introduced in order to make the true meaning of the clause apparent to an ordinary reader. Let them see whether the Amendment proposed did not really meet what was intended. As he had said, the words might mean a Parish Council in the locality where the glebe was situate, or they might mean a Parish Council of a parish where the glebe was not situate. Which was intended by the Government? He rather thought the view the Government took was, that in some cases it would be better to follow the locality, and in other places better to follow the property.

MR. C. M. WARMINGTON (Monmouthshire, W.)

said that if the words proposed by the hon. Member for Tunbridge were introduced, they would have no meaning. The section would then read:—"They shall vest the burial ground and glebe of any ecclesiastical parish "—both the burial ground and the glebe were the subject matter of this sub-section—"in the case of a rural parish, in the Parish Council of the parish in which it is situate." What was the meaning of the word "it"? might refer to parish, or to Parish Council, or to rural parish, or to ecclesiastical parish, or to glebe and burial ground. It certainly could not refer to glebe alone. But that was a verbal question. On that principle, he should like to adopt the reasoning of the right hon. Member for West Bristol. Was it not better that the persons who had the administration of the funds should be the persons in whom the property was vested?

SIR R. WEBSTER

complimented the Solicitor General—whom he admired in every capacity—in his new capacity as adviser to a ministry in search of a principle. The hon. and learned Gentleman had been asked to say whether the principle on which the Government scheme was based was that the glebe should be vested in the Parish Council of the parish in which it was situate, or should be vested in the parish council of the parish which enjoyed the proceeds of the glebe. The Solicitor General's answer was that the glebe was to be vested in the Parish Council of the parish to which the glebe was attached. What did that mean? Would the Government answer the simple question, which had been addressed to them? The hon. and learned Member for Monmouthshire had enlightened the Committee considerably and elucidated the application of the principle. When the answer had been given, he and his hon. Friends would endeavour to assist in finding language to express the meaning of the Government.

MR. BRYCE

said, that nothing controversial arose in this Amendment, and the Government were beholden to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite for helping to make the Bill as clear as possible. It was simply a question between parish and parish, and a question so comparatively small could be discussed without friction. There were a few cases where the glebe belonging to one parish as a part of its endowments, was situate in another parish. The words of the section did not present any difficulty to him. He took the same interpretation as the hon. Member for Kent. He understood that where a parish in which the glebe was situate was not the parish to which the glebe belonged, the vesting of that glebe should be, not in the Parish Council or the parish to which the glebe belonged, but in the Parish Council of the parish in which the glebe was situate. That was the obvious construction. What was the real difficulty? He would adopt the reasoning of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol, who pointed out that if the Amendment were accepted, expectations which could not be realised would be raised in the parish in which the glebe was vested, but to which it did not belong. Therefore the Government could not accept the Amendment. Besides, the Parish Council of the parish which derived no benefit from the glebe, would be very likely not to be the best and most active administration of the property. He was quite sensible of the difficulties which the case presented. It was undesirable that a glebe should be managed and enjoyed by the Parish Council of a distant parish. These questions deserved consideration, and the Government were now considering whether they could not bring up a clause later which would deal with these few cases. Probably they would endeavour to provide means by which the glebe situate in the parish to which it did not belong, should be transferred to the parish in which it was situate, upon the payment of a sum of money to the parish to which it belonged.

*SIR M. HICKS BEACH

said that, although the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to say that he adopted his reasoning, he had not appreciated its point. While putting the difficulties of vesting the glebe in the Parish Council of the parish to which the glebe did not belong, he (the speaker) had pointed out the practical impossibility of any scheme which would give the management of the glebe to the Parish Council of a parish at a distance from the glebe. He suggested that in such a case the Government should not direct the vesting of the glebe by the Commismissioners in anyone else, but that the glebe should be kept by them to be used for purposes to be decided upon by a subsequent clause. If the Government adopted the Amendment, they would only be dealing with the burial-grounds and glebes situate in the parish to which they belonged. The question, of the glebes situate in the parishes to which they did not belong would thus be left open.

MR. BRYCE

said, that he did not think the plan suggested by the right hon. Gentleman would be the best way of dealing with the matter. By passing the clause in its present form the Committee would not be concluding the question. The words "save as is otherwise provided in this Act," made it quite possible to introduce a subsequent provision to meet these special cases.

MR. BYRNE

pressed for an answer to his question about the meaning of the words "of the parish." What did "Parish Council of the parish" mean?

MR. BRYCE

said, that he had answered the question.

MR. VICARY GIBBS

said, that no one had heard the answer to the question; and in order that there might be no misunderstanding, he asked that the answer should be repeated. The question was—what was the meaning of the words "of the parish." Did they add anything to the meaning of the subsection; and, if they did, what was it that they added?

MR. BRYCE

said, the obvious meaning of the words "the Parish Council of the parish" was that parish to which the glebe belonged; and the insertion of the Amendment would change the obvious meaning.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

said, that he based his Amendment on the answer the Home Secretary had given him.

MR. HARRY FOSTER

said, the Committee did not yet know what interpretation to put upon the words "in the case of a rural parish in the Parish Council of the parish." What parish? What parish council? Was it the parish where the glebe was situated, or the parish to which it belonged, that would have the benefit of it? Without some words of definition, the words had. absolutely, no meaning at all.

MR. BRYCE

repeated that the words meant in the Parish Council of that parish—in the council of the parish of which it formed an endowments apart altogether from the question whether it was situated there or not.

MR. TOMLINSON

said, the object of the Bill was to transfer property, and they wanted to know who was to have the ownership. The Amendment did make it clear in whom it was to be vested.

MR. BARTLEY

noticed that the President of the Board of Trade used the word "that," which showed that he had some doubt as to whether "the" was definite enough.

MR. TOMLINSON

said, they were thinking now of ecclesiastical parishes; but the Parish Councils Act dealt with civil parishes; and that would lead to some difficulties. ["Hear, hear."]

The Committee divided:—Ayes, 131; Noes, 150.—(Division List, No. 137.)

MR. PENROSE-FITZGERALD (Cambridge) moved to amend the clause by the insertion of the words "to which such glebe or burial-ground belongs," so that the portion of the clause amended would provide that the Welsh Commissioners— shall vest the burial-ground and glebe of any ecclesiastical parish, in the case of a rural parish in the Parish Council of the parish to which such glebe or burial ground belongs, or, if there is no Parish Council, in the chairman and overseers of the parish. The hon. Member remarked that it would expedite the progress of the Bill if such an Amendment as this were inserted.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

said, that he should like to consider whether the words of the Amendment were the most appropriate that could be used in order to express the meaning which had been agreed upon. He did not know whether the hon. Gentleman wished that the matter should be discussed at that particular moment, but if not he would undertake on the part of the Government to consider the matter, and no difficulty would arise from the matter being postponed. He thought that it was better that the hon. Member should withdraw his Amendment on the understanding that the Government would consider the matter.

MR. VICARY GIBBS

asked whether the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General would give an undertaking to insert words which would carry out the meaning of his hon. Friend. He should like to have the matter made perfectly clear. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General knew perfectly well what the intentions of the Government upon the point were, and he could surely give the undertaking he asked for. The glebe in one parish sometimes belonged to another parish, and therefore it was not situated in the parish to which it belonged. It would be impossible to use the same words with regard to both burial grounds and glebes, and therefore the Government had better cut the provision in two and make one part apply to the burial grounds and the other to the glebes.

MR. TOMLINSON

said, that as he understood the matter the churchyard under the existing law belonged to the rector and formed part of his freehold, which was subject to the easement of the parishioners being buried therein. At present, therefore, the parishioners had no legal right to the soil of the churchyard.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL

said, that he would state clearly what was the view he took of the agreement that had been come to in reference to this matter. He understood that the agreement was that the burial-ground should be vested in the Parish Council of the parish in which the burial-ground was situated, and that the glebe should be vested in the Parish Council to which the glebe belonged. He thought that those words clearly expressed the understanding that had been arrived at.

MR. VICARY GIBBS

said, that they quite understood what the Solicitor General meant, but he wished to know whether the Government would accept that meaning.

MR. PENROSE-FITZGERALD

said, that he had such great confidence in the skill in draughting of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General that he begged leave to withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdraw.

SIR JOHN GORST moved to strike out the word "County" in line 29.

MR. BRYCE

said, that he was in the difficulty of not quite, knowing whether his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had considered this point. However, he did not see any objection to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and therefore he would accept it.

Amendment agreed to.

*SIR M. HICKS BEACH moved to add at the end of sub-section (b) the following words, "so that each part of the parish may benefit in proportion to its population" His object in moving the Amendment was to ensure the benefit of the property being distributed proportionately throughout the whole parish, instead of it being confined to a portion of the parish only.

MR. BRYCE

said this was purely a vesting clause, and only dealt with the vesting of property in certain persons, and all questions of benefit to be derived from any bodies would more appropriately come under Clause 9. It was not at all implied in this clause what the proportion of benefit should be, or that the body in whom the property was vested should deal with the benefits of the property. That was quite another question. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not press his Amendment.

*SIR M. HICKS BEACH

said, he did not want to press this matter then. They knew that the Parish Council would naturally be in favour of those whom it represented, and that some parts of the ecclesiastical parish which were not part of the constituency of the Parish Council might entirely be left out in the cold if they simply vested property in the Parish Council without giving them some such direction as was suggested.

MR. BRYCE

said, the point should be carefully considered. He was not prepared then to say what was the best way of dealing with it. No doubt the thing in itself was just and reasonable, and he would endeavour to consider whether further words were needed.

*SIR G. OSBORNE MORGAN

said, the Amendment would come more appropriately at the end of the second subsection of the ninth clause.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

said, he was not sure that it did come under the ninth clause. If they wanted property in one parish to be used in another parish they must either vest it in trustees of both parishes jointly, or give some such direction as was proposed.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. DAVID THOMAS

moved to omit Sub-section C, Clause 6.

MR. BRYCE

said, he was in the dark as to the object of the Amendment.

SIR JOHN GORST

said, he had placed an Amendment of the same kind on the Paper, but withdrew it, as he thought it would more fittingly come from a Welsh Member. The 6th Clause dealt only with vesting. No doubt they could carry on their object by giving power over the property to that body in whom it was to be vested. The Committee were now dealing with the great mass of the property of the Disestablished Church, and it was proposed to divide up among the 12 Welsh counties the bulk of this property. This would be a very considerable obstacle in the way of having the whole of the properly of the Disestablished Church vested in any central authority. The effect of the Amendment would be to leave the greater part of the property vested in the Welsh Commissioners, who would be a body which could dispose of it afterwards in accordance with the principles which the Committee might adopt when they came to the discussion of the 9th Clause A central body like the Welsh Commissioners would appoint their own legal adviser and agents by whom the whole of the tithe in the Principality could be collected at comparatively trifling expense. But if the collection was split up among the County Councils of the 12 Welsh counties—that was presuming the tithe be vested in the County Councils—each Council would have to appoint its own separate solicitor and staff to collect the tithe, and the result would be that the cost of collection would be 12 times more than if the work was placed in the hands of a central body. Moreover, there would be a much larger sum of money left of the tithe to be applied to whatever purposes Parliament might determine if the collection was placed in the hands of one central body than would be the case if the work was split up among the 12 counties, each of the County Council being allowed to run up a bill for the cost of collection. The Government would find great difficulty, too, in showing that the course they recommended the Committee to adopt was a convenient one. The Government might give as a reason for asking the Committee to approve their proposal that they would there by pledge themselves or, to some extent, pledge the Committee, to debate their ultimate scheme of making the County Councils the beneficiaries of the property vested in each of them separately. But if the question, of the disposition of the property was to be relegated to the 9th clause, the Government ought to leave the Committee as far as possible free in the matter, and to leave the question without prejudice. Therefore, on the grounds of economy, and also on the ground that the Committee would be more free to decide on the 9th clause as to the destination of the property, if the sub-section was omitted, he contended that it was expedient that the sub-section should be struck out.

*SIR G. OSBORNE MORGAN

said it appeared to him that the Committee were discussing the same points over and over again. He understood that the Committee had already decided against the central body. [Several HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] Well, at any rate, the question now was whether the tithe rent-charge should be vested in the Welsh Commissioners or in the County Councils. He could not conceive a body more unfitted to collect tithes than the Welsh Commissioners. The hon. and learned Member for the Isle of Wight knew very little of Wales if he thought the collection of the tithes there was an easy matter. At the present time the Committee were dealing only with the question of machinery; they had nothing to do, for the moment, with the mode of the ultimate destination of the fund. The point was, whether the Commissioners appointed by the Crown, or the County Councils appointed by the people, were the persons best fitted to administer and collect the tithes. No person who knew anything of Wales, or of the County Councils in that country, could have the slightest doubt on the subject. The County Councils had officers quite capable of performing the duty, and the County Council in Wales was a representative and popular body. He ventured to say that the Committee could not do anything that would be more unpopular in Wales than to leave the tithe and its collection in the hands of the Welsh Commissioners.

MR. WYNDHAM

said, the right hon. Baronet had said very truly that the Committee were discussing points over and over again, and they were forced to do so until the Government abated something of their pedantry, and took a definite and straightforward course as to the property of the Church. From the beginning the Government seemed to have had no clear policy in regard to the vesting of the funds of the Church, and it was impossible to say upon what plan they would finally decide. If the whole question of the disposition of the property was to be discussed on the ninth clause, the ground might have been kept clear for that debate. The Government lad no right to waste the time of the Committee by trying to create a presumption in favour of their scheme— a scheme which, he believed, commanded less favour than any other that had been brought forward.

MR. TOML1NSON

said, that no such function as that of collecting tithes was ever contemplated at the time when County Councils were formed, but the whole constitution of the Welsh Commissioners was in the hands of the Committee. He would remind the Committee that the constitution of these Commissioners was one of the most elaborate parts of the Bill, and if the Commissioners so constituted were not competent to perform the duty of collecting tithe, the fault must be with Government.

MR. PENROSE FITZGERALD

asked whether, in the case of landlords liable for tithe in Shropshire, that tithe would be handed over to the County Council of Shropshire. ["Hear, hear!"] It was important to know that before settling this question. Suppose a farm in Shropshire paid tithe to the Welsh Church, was it the intention of Her Majesty's Government that such tithe should be vested in the County Council of Shropshire? Perhaps one of the cruellest things about this Bill was the way in which it had been drafted. He would remind the Committee that there was, in China, a punishment which was the most severe of all—namely, that the culprit should be picked to death by an unskilled operator.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON,

in reference to the glebes, said, that the Government had adopted the principle that these should follow the parish to which they belonged. But in the case of tithe, there was difference between vicarial and rectorial tithe. The former was invariably collected in the parish in which it arose, but the latter was not. But the question did not only arise in the case of tithe derived from land in Shropshire, or in one of the border counties, but of tithe derived from land in one Welsh county and going to a Church in another Welsh county. ["Hear, Hear."] If this clause were passed as it now stood, the Government would see that tithe rent-charge would be vested in the County Council of the county in which the land was situated; and not in the County Council of the county in which the vicarage was situated to which the tithe was to he applied. It seemed to him that his hon. Friend had lit upon a fatal blot in the Bill, and that unless the Government could find an answer they must withdraw this clause. [Cheers.]

MR. BRYCE

said that he must once more remind the Committee that this was merely a vesting clause. [Opposition laughter.] He dwelt upon that because the leader of the Opposition had himself dwelt upon it and induced the Member for Islington to withdraw his Amendment on that account. This was, he thought, an answer to a great deal of what was said by the Member for the University of Cambridge. As to the question just put to him, he had only to say that those were cases which would require to be separately provided for, and it would not be proper to encumber this section with those cases. [Cheers.] The cases referred to were very special cases, and would be much better dealt with separately.

*SIR M. HICKS BEACH

said, that in discussing the glebes they were told that the glebe was to be vested in the Parish Council to which it, so to speak, belonged; and the Committee were told that the Government would, if necessary, deal with any special cases of glebe outside the parish. In the case of tithe rent charge, however, the Government had taken a different course, and had provided that it should be collected by the County Council of the county in which the lands paying the tithe were situated; and the Government now told the Committee that here also there might be individual cases in which difficulty might arise, but that those cases must be dealt with separately. [Cheers.] His hon. and learned Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight was not far wrong when he said that this whole clause would have to be re-draughted before the intentions of the Government could be carried out. [Cheers.] The suggestions made by the Opposition had been put off by the Government under various pleas. Nothing could be more hopelessly confused than the drafting of this section. He really thought that the Opposition would be almost justified, in the doubtless unavoidable absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, in moving to report progress. [Cheers.] He, however, did not desire to take that course, and he supposed that they must go on endeavouring, to the best of their ability, to ascertain what the meaning of Her Majesty's Government really was as regarded this clause. The hon. Baronet the Member for Denbighshire had stated that if the tithe rent-charge were left in the hands of the new Welsh Commissioners they could not collect it. He should like to know why they could not collect it. [Cheers.] In the case of the Irish Church, Parliament had vested the tithe in the Irish Commissioners, who never had any difficulty in collecting the tithe; and he should like to know why the Welsh Commissioners should have greater difficulty in collecting the tithe in Wales than the Irish Commissioners had in collecting it in Ireland. They had always been told that the difficulty in collecting tithe in Wales arose from religious scruples, and that once the Church was deprived of the right to tithe and the tithe was devoted to secular purposes there would be no difficulty whatever in its collection, and that the Welsh people would show their honesty by paying it. ["Hear, hear!"] Now, however, they were told, upon the high authority of the Leader of the Welsh Party in that House, that, notwithstanding the fact that the Welsh Church was to be deprived of the tithe, the tithe could not be collected by the Welsh Commissioners, a body who were specially appointed by Her Majesty's Government—in sympathy, no doubt, with the Welsh party—to carry out their policy of disendowment and spoliation. He was bound to say that since the passing of the Act of 1891, for which he was responsible, which transferred the direct liability for the tithe from the tenant to the landlord, there had been, except in a very restricted locality, no difficulty whatever in the collection of the tithe in Wales. If Her Majesty's Government had followed the course which with greater wisdom had been taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian in the case of the Irish tithe, and had left the collection of the tithe in the hands of the Welsh Commissioners, no difficulty in the collection of the tithe would ever have been experienced. In order to enter his protest against the course which the Government had taken, he should vote in favour of the Amendment. ["Hear, hear!"]

*SIR G. OSBORNE MORGAN

said, that all he had said was that the Welsh Commissioners were not such a body as should have the collection of the tithe imposed upon them. [Cries of "Why not?"]

MR. W. AMBROSE

pointed out that the very persons who would have to pay the tithe wore those who would have to elect the County Council who would collect the tithe.

MR. PENROSE-FITZGERALD

asked, whether, in the case of the Welsh tithe being paid out of an English county, say, Shropshire, the tithe would vest in the County Council of Shropshire, or would be vested in the Welsh Parish Council.

MR. BRYCE

said, he had intended to given an answer to that question; if he did not, he was sorry. He could only say that under the Sub-section the tithes would vest in the County Council of Shropshire; but if such cases as had been mentioned were found to exist they ought to be dealt with, and proper provision would be made.

VISCOUNT CRANBORNE

said, the question was, How did the right hon. Gentleman propose to deal with the cases? What was the policy of the Government? Had the right hon. Gentleman read the Bill? Had he considered the policy? He really thought the House of Commons had never been treated in this way before. It was quite evident the Government did not know what the meaning of their own Bill was. What did they intend the County Council of Shropshire should do with the money when they got it? If the County Council was not to have the money, who was to have it? He and his Friends did not desire to tell the Government what the drafting of the Bill should be. They recognised the drafting was bad, and they hoped it would be improved. What they wanted to know was what was the policy of the Government. When a tithe arose in one county and belonged to another, what was to be done with it? In particular, they wished to know what was to become of a tithe which arose in England and belonged to Wales?

MR. V. GIBBS

thought his noble Friend was very hard on the right hon. Gentleman. This was not a subject for indignation on their part, but for sympathy. The right hon. Gentleman did not answer them, not because he would not, but because he could not.

MR. BRYCE

said, he rose with the hon. Member, and, therefore, there was no occasion for the remarks he had made, He had often heard complaints made of the drafting of Bills [Cries of "Policy!"], and he confessed he did not see that the drafting of this Bill at all deserved the criticisms lion. Members had passed upon it. With regard to the question put by the noble Lord, he conceived that the proper time to answer that question would be when their proposals were made. It would be entirely foreign [Cries of "Progress, progress."] to the particular clause the Committee were considering if they were to embark—— [Renewed cries of "Progress, progress" and "Order, order."] If any cases of the kind described existed, and he imagined they were very few in number, it would be undesirable to state what provision would be made until the cases were before them.

SIR J. GORST

remarked that in the meantime the Government invited them to put in the Bill a perfectly absurd provision. [Cheers.] The Government invited the Committee to put this Subsection in the Bill on the vague promise of the President of the Board of Trade that they would afterwards put in something which would undo the folly they now did.

MR. BRYCE

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was assuming a case which had not been shown to exist.

SIR J. GORST

said, it was a rule of the House to accept as an established fact a statement for the accuracy of which an hon. Member vouched. Would not the better plan be to report progress [Cheers], so that when they resumed the consideration of the Bill next week, if they did resume it, the Government would be able to suggest something to put in the Bill instead of this clause?

MR. WYNDHAM

said, that for the fortieth time they were debating a question of policy upon which the Government had never returned an answer. Over and over again they had asked the Government, "Is it your plan to allocate these funds according to their present appropriation, or to allocate them according to their derivation in the past?" As to property vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, they said they would be guided by its derivation and locality; in the case of property not so vested they would be guided by its appropriation. On Sub-section (b) they said they would be guided by appropriation; on Sub-section (c) they said for the moment they would be guided by appropriation, but now they said they would be guided by locality and derivation; but further research might lead them to reconsider their position. He did not think he and his friends were acting in a spirit of too particular or microscopic criticism. They were simply presenting again and again to the Government their own broad principle announced on the Second Reading of the Bill. On one occasion the Government would adhere to the position they took up on the Second Reading, and on another occasion they would repudiate it, and when they got into greater entanglement it was their custom to ask for time. Let them have time. Let the Committee report Progress, and between now and Monday it might be the Government would makeup their mindson the subject. Let the Government decide whether they would adhere to their first principle, or to any one of their subsequent divagations from it. He begged to move to Report Progress. [Cheers.]

THE CHAIRMAN

I do not think that is a Motion which I ought to put.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said: It is not for me to question the ruling of the Chair, nor do I propose to do so, but I wish to ask the Home Secretary, who has just come into the House, what view he takes of the situation? It appears that the Government disagree with the words in the Bill which we are discussing, but decline to tell us what words are to take their place.

MR. BRYCE

We have not said that at all. What we have said is that no instance has been adduced to show that alteration is required, but that if it can be shown that there are cases which ought to be dealt with we will endeavour to meet them.

MR. BALFOUR

I admit that I have not been here during the whole of the discussion. [Ministerial cheers.] No more has the right hon. Member in charge of the Bill. [Laughter.] But I believe I am correct in saying that it has not been denied that there are cases of tithe derived from one parish the proceeds of which go to another. [Ministerial cries of "No," "Question," and laughter.] Hon. Members seem to rejoice at the little slip I made, but I do not think they need be so hilarious, because the argument is not affected. The statement is that one County Council will have to manage the tithe vested in another, and the right hon. Member opposite admits that if there will be such cases Amendment is required. It is clear that this is a matter which ought to be dealt with by this Bill, and we have a right to know how the Government mean to deal with it. If the Government say that this point is new to them, and that they will deal with it at a later stage, that is intelligible. But then they ought to leave out the sub-section in question. To adhere to it when they admit that it does not meet the necessities of the case, would be contrary to the practice of Parliament. Either let the Government report Progress, in order that they may have time to consider this question, or let them agree to the Motion that the sub-section should be omitted, in order that it may be reintroduced subsequently in an amended form. If neither course is taken by the Government we shall think it necessary to resist to the utmost the kind of procedure which they appear to desire to force down our throats.

*SIR G. OSBORNE MORGAN

observed that he had been present throughout the whole Debate. He might, therefore, claim to understand the question at issue. Some hon. Gentlemen had asserted that there were tithe rent-charges arising in Shropshire which would belong to Wales. [Cries of "No!"]

MR. PENROSE FITZGERALD

said, that he had made no such assertion. He had asked a question merely. ["Hear, hear!"]

*SIR GOSBORNE MORGAN

said, that the suggestion was that there were cases of rent-charge arising under Shropshire which would be vested by this Bill in County Councils elsewhere. He knew of no such case. He asked the hon. Member who made the assertion to name the cases to which he referred. He did not cast any doubt on the veracity of the hon. Member, but he thought that a mistake had been made and that an imaginary difficulty was being raised.

MR. DAVID THOMAS

said, the question was not whether tithes in Shropshire went to a Welsh county, but whether tithes in one county went to another. He and his colleagues from Wales admitted that there were cases of tithe arising in certain counties and applied to benefices in other counties.

MR. BRYN ROBERTS

said, the question was, "Who is to collect the tithe?" When it was decided that tithe collected in one county belonged to a benefice in another county then the County Council in which the parish was situated would collect the tithe and pay it over in the manner provided in a scheme approved by the County Council.

MR. HENRY HOBHOUSE (Somerset, E.)

said, it was clear that there was the gravest objection to this sub-section apart from the difficulties as to tithe which had been mentioned. The County Councils, far from being the best bodies to collect tithe, had no proper machinery to do so. He admitted that they were never intended for such a duty, and had not the machinery necessary. But the Government were now proposing to set up a new body, the Welsh Commissioners, to whom they were transferring the tithes. By a later clause in the Bill the Government would be enabled to invest the Commissioners with the necessary machinery for collecting tithe. It would be a far more economical plan for one body to collect this tithe than 12 different bodies. The County Councils did not even collect their own rates, and in the case of tithe, what class of persons were they to precept, and how were they to collect it? Their clerks could not do it. Were they then to send the police to collect the tithe in every county in Wales? When it came to be a question of one county—possibly an English county—collecting tithe for the benefit of another county, he should like to know who was going to pay the expense of collection? It would be better and more simple to leave the collection in the hands of the Commissioners.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

asked whether, under this sub-section, the tithe now attached to parochial benefices, as also the tithe attached to cathedrals, was included? There were instances in which tithe attached to a cathedral in a certain county was situated in another county. Take the case of Bangor in Carnarvonshire. It had a certain amount of tithe there, and it had also tithe in the county of Montgomery. St. Asaph had similar cases of tithe situated in Montgomery, and St. David's had tithes situated in Glamorgan. The Government had refused his Amendment on the previous sub-section to vest the glebe in the Parish Council; but now, in respect of tithe, they were taking the opposite course. At all events, in the case of cathedrals here was proof positive that such cases did exist. The County Council was to collect the tithe, which was to be used for he did not know what purposes, but certainly for purposes entirely different to those for which it was now used. He submitted that the Government might give some answer as to what they intended to do in the cases in question.

MR. BALFOUR

presumed the Home Secretary, who had not heard all that had passed from the beginning on this subject, had now been made acquainted by his colleagues with what had occurred, and it would be convenient the Committee should be told with his authority what course the Government desired to pursue. After what had fallen from the hon. Member for Merthyr, it must be seen that the difficulty which had to be met was a real difficulty. [Cheers.] Were they really to be told that a county which was not to enjoy the tithe was to be fined (for not collecting it) out of its own rates? ["Hear, hear."]

MR. BRYCE,

who rose amid cries of "Oh!" said, the right hon. Gentleman was not present during a considerable part of the Debate, and, therefore, he had not quite appreciated all that had passed in his absence. Now, he would again remind the Committee that no case yet had been shown—[Cries of "Oh!"]

MR. BALFOUR

The hon. Member for Merthyr stated that, in his own knowledge, he knew of such cases.

MR. BRYCE

I did not catch all the hon. Member said, but I did not hear the hon. Member give any particular instance of a case. Then, as to what was said by the hon. Member for Tonbridge, the only instance he gave was that of cathedral tithe. But cathedral tithe rested upon a different footing, and was not intended to be applied by the County Councils in the same way.

MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN

Is it not the fact that cathedral tithe will be placed under this sub-section in the County Council, and afterwards will not be used by such Council for its own purposes?

MR. BRYCE

Yes, the County Council would not be able to use it for its own purposes. The cathedral tithe is intended to go to a central fund, and all the County Council would have to do would be to hand it over. He could only repeat once more that the Government would consider and ascertain to what extent these cases existed, and then they should know to what extent it was necessary to deal with them. He submitted again that it would be highly inconvenient to introduce subsidiary provisions to deal with special and exceptional cases in this sub-section. There would be no technical difficulty in introducing such subsidiary provisions later on.

*SIR M. HICKS BEACH

said, that a more unsatisfactory answer than that just vouchsafed by the President of the Board of Trade he had never heard. The right hon. Gentleman had given the same reply on three different occasions [Cheers and counter cheers.] But it was no answer whatever to the question asked of Her Majesty's Government. And he was bound to say that when a Minister was in charge of a Bill, in all his experience he had never heard an appeal made to that Minister by the Leader of the Opposition for information as to the intention of the Government and not replied to. [Cheers.] It had been shown by the hon. Member for Merthyr, who was intimately acquainted with the return presented last year to Parliament, that there were many cases in which tithe arising out of land situate in one county belonged to a benefice situate in another county. His hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge had shown that that was the case with regard to the cathedral tithe. All tithe was proposed to be vested by this sub-section in the Council of the county where it was situated. They were entitled to ask how the Government intended to provide for the cases that had been shown to exist when the tithe would in this way be vested in the Council of a county which had really nothing to do with it. On the principle the Government had adopted with reference to glebes, it belonged to another county, and yet it was to be vested in the Council of the county in which it was situated, and to be applied by them, as the Bill now stood, in schemes for the benefit of that county and the parishes of that county, although they had no claim to it whatever. [Cheers.] There never had been a case in the conduct of a Bill in which an Opposition had been more entitled to ask from a Government a plain statement as to their intention of dealing with a difficulty that had been shown to exist, or in which there had been so persistent a denial on the part of the Government to make any statement of the kind. [Cheers.]

MR. ASQUITH

had listened with the greatest surprise and regret to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman. So far as he was personally concerned he had been compelled, by an engagement he could not pass by, to be absent from a certain part of the discussion, and he really thought the right hon. Gentleman might have shown a little more generosity. [Ministerial cheers.] Having considered this question over and over again, he subscribed entirely to what had been said by his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. These cases were purely hypothetical cases. [Ministerial cheers and Opposition cries of "No."] He repeated that they were purely hypothetical cases as regarded parochial tithe, though he, agreed that, in regard to cathedral tithe there were cases such as had been referred to. So far as they were concerned, however, they did not affect this clause, and they went to the central fund, the counties having only an indirect interest in them. So far as parochial tithes were concerned he had not heard of any specific case. He said now what he had said before in relation to parochial glebe—that there were cases in which the glebe belonged to one parish and was situated in another. They had provided, because they thought that the best arrangement that the parish to which the glebe belonged rather than the one in which it was situated, should be the one in which it was vested. In this case of the tithe they had provided that the county in which the tithe was situated should be the one, in which it was vested. He agreed, if there could be shown cases either as regarded glebe or tithe in which the authority in which such glebe or tithe was vested was not the authority for the parish or county in which the land was situated, that these were parishes as to which special provisions were required. He had already undertaken to make special provisions in such cases for the glebe, and he would undertake to do so if it were found necessary in regard to the tithe. But in dealing with this matter they must deal with the ordinary cases, which were 99 out of every 100. He would further point out that the section was specially guarded in its preliminary words, so that no hardship would be likely to result. He asked the Committee to pass this subsection in its present form arid leave the Government when, and if, a case was made out for special treatment, to provide for it in a separate clause. [Cheers.] He could not understand the heat which had been imported into this discussion, which, after all, related to an insignificant portion of the Bill. [Cheers.]

MR. DAVID THOMAS

entirely agreed that quite an unnecessary amount of heat had been imported into this matter, which was one of secondary importance. For the sake of accuracy, however, as the right hon. Gentleman had challenged his statement, he should like to give a few cases to prove the truth of what he had said. [Cheers.] The Home Secretary had said the cases were purely hypothetical. That was not so. [Cheers.] He held in his hand a Return which had been presented on his Motion, and which divided the tithe into two main parts. The tithe attached to parochial benefices was given in one part, and the tithe going to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the other. The Home Secretary, as he understood, said there were no cases in which tithe attached to parochial benefices went from one county to another. He would not trouble the Committee with all the cases, but they were very numerous. [Opposition cheers.] He did not make the statement on his own authority, as the Leader of the Opposition had suggested, but from the return which had been presented to Parliament. [Cheers.] The first case was that of a parish in Carnarvon, where the tithe rent-charge of £79 went to a parish in Denbighshire. A second case was one in which the tithe rent, charge of £29 went from one county to another, and there were quite a number of cases of the kind which the Home Secretary did not appear to know of. [Opposition cheers.] He could also quote cases of Welsh tithe which went to English counties. In Flint there was a tithe rent-charge of £155 situated in the county of Chester; and in Montgomeryshire a tithe rent-charge of £95 from the county of Shropshire. (Opposition cheers.) He did not attach any importance to those cases, but he quoted them as his statement had been discredited by the Home Secretary.

MR. ASQUITH

thought his Friend would agree that these were exceptional cases. [Opposition cries of "No, no!"] His undertaking was that special provision would be made for dealing with glebe or tithe in such exceptional cases. [Cries of "How?"] They were now dealing with the normal and ordinary cases, which it had been admitted were 99 out of every 100, and to which the provisions of the subsection would apply, and he undertook to provide at a later stage for the exceptional cases.

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN (Birmingham, W.)

I am quite sure that the Committee will not think of attaching any blame or anything approaching to blame, to the Home Secretary. ["Hear, hear!"] We all know how very laborious his services are—["Hear, hear!"]—and some of us are aware that the engagement which removed him from the Debates this evening was one he could not have postponed. ["Hear, hear!''] Therefore, I hope he will not understand that I am in the slightest degree criticising any decision at which he may have arrived, as he was not present in the course of the Debates. But I think he will agree and feel that the position in which the Government have been placed in his absence is rather a critical one. [Opposition cheers.] It is perfectly evident that they have put into their Bill an important section in entire ignorance of the facts of the case. [Opposition cheers.] The President of the Board of Trade, who represented the Government in the absence of the Home Secretary, stated almost categorically that he did not believe there were any such cases at all. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. BRYCE

I said there were no cases worth mentioning. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Of course, I am sure the right hon. Gentleman has forgotten; but I was present, and he went much further than that. ["Hear, hear!"] But, at all events, if he had known there were cases, I take it for granted that he would not be so uncan-did as not to deal with them. It must be that he and the Government were ignorant of the fact that there were any cases at all. Therefore, I say that the Bill has been drafted in ignorance of a most important particular. [Opposition cheers.] Even now, the Government are not fully informed on the subject, because the Home Secretary, since the statement of the hon. Member for Merthyr, has said he thinks these cases are very exceptional. The hon. Member has shown us, from a Return which he obtained, and which he has probably studied more carefully than any other Member of the House, that the cases are very numerous, not only in which tithe is transferred from one Welsh county to another Welsh county, but transferred from counties in England to counties in Wales. It is admitted that these cases should be dealt with. Is it not true, then, that the Government should re-consider their whole policy? [Opposition cheers.] The Home Secretary has told us that they have decided on sufficient grounds that in the case of glebe the glebe should vest in the parish interested in its results, but that exactly the reverse should take place in regard to tithe. It is perfectly evident that by adopting this reverse policy in the case of tithe they will land themselves in serious difficulties. Do they not think it is better to go back and try to deal with tithe in the same way as they deal with glebe, so that the county which is to profit by the tithe shall have the responsibility of collecting the tithe? ["Hear, hear!"] Just think what the alternative means? We know something about tithe in Wales. ["Hear, hear!"] We have heard a great deal about it in the course of the last few years, but we do not hear so much about it in the discussion on this Bill. ["Hear, hear!"] Then it was perfectly clear that the payers of tithe in Wales objected to pay not merely to the Church, but to anybody'; and do you suppose that they will not object to pay it to the County Council, or that the County Council will not object to perform this extremely unpopular duty of forcibly collecting tithe from the farmers in its constituencies, in order to hand over the proceeds to be used in another county for the benefit of that county? [Opposition cheers.] The idea is perfectly absurd. The whole thing will break down. ["Hear, hear!"] As by their own confession the Government were entirely ignorant of these results, as they have based their legislation upon a lack of information, it seems to me that as they are not prepared to propose a change of policy at this moment, they at least could accept the suggestion that progress should be reported, in order that they may have time to deal with the case before us, and propose something definite in order to meet with the difficulty. ["Hear, hear!"] I think the Government will not resist the proposal I now make, "that you do report progress and ask leave to sit again."

MR. ASQUITH

I think a very unnecessary amount of animation has been introduced into the discussion, which, after all, deals with a very small point. In the vast majority of cases the tithe as well as the glebe is situated in the parish, or at least in the county, which enjoys the benefit of it. But there appear to be certain exceptions both in regard to glebe and tithe. There is no question of principle involved; it is a more question of machinery, and the difficulty might be removed if we were to amend the sub-section in this way:— They shall vest any tithe rent-charge in any parish in the County Council of the county within which the parish is situated.' That would make the two systems—the system as to glebe and the system as to tithe—absolutely congruous.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

What about parishes in two counties?

MR. ASQUITH

That will be provided for by the border parishes clause. I am making this suggestion in the interests of peace.

*SIR M. HICKS BEACH

suggested that a Division should be taken on the first word of the sub-section, and if the Government were successful then the Home Secretary's proposed Amendment might be moved.

Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Question put, "That the words 'they shall vest any tithe rent-charge in the' stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided:—Ayes, 172; Noes, 165.—(Division List, No. 138.)

And, it being after midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

THE PATRONAGE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. THOMAS ELLIS)

, in reply to Mr. G. TALBOT, said, the Bill would be the first Order on Monday.