§ VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: (Rochester)I beg to ask the hon. Member for Thirsk, as representing the Charity Commissioners, whether he can state how many educational trust were dealt with by order of the Charity Commissioners under the Charitable Trusts Acts in the year ending the 31st December 1898.
THE PARLIAMENTARY CHARITY COMMISSIONER (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,) Yorkshire, N. R., ThirskNo distinction between endowed charities based upon the variety of their objects is made by the Charitable Trusts Acts, nor is any such distinction observed in the classification of business done by the Charity Commissioners in the administration of these Acts. For the purpose of answering the question put it would be necessary to make a special examination of the trusts of each of the charities dealt with by the 3,886 orders made during 1898, a work which the Commissioners are not prepared to undertake. An examination has, however, lately been made of 938 orders made in 1896, in the matter of the charities in London and the Home Counties, with the following results: 208 orders were made in the matter of 109 charities being wholly educational in their objects; 336 orders were made in the matter of 110 charities being partly educational in their objects; 394 orders were made in the matter of 337 charities being wholly non-educational in their objects. It is to be observed that many of the orders made in the matter of an educational charity are made for purposes which are not incident to its special educational character, but are common to all charitable trusts, educational as well as non-educational.