§ MR. STRACHEY (Somerset, S.)I beg to ask the lion. Member for Thirst, as representing the Charity Commissioners, whether he is aware that, after four years' negotiation and correspondence between the Charity Commissioners and the Hector and churchwardens and the Parish Council of Glutton, Somerset, in relation to the Chewstoke and other charities, the Parish Council has accepted a proposal of the Rector and churchwardens for the settlement of all questions in relation to these charities; whether the Commissioners have declined to sanction this unanimous arrangement on the ground, that they do not consider that the Chewstoke charity should be made entirely non-ecclesiastical; and whether, seeing that the churchwardens have to pay off a debt to the Perry and Adams charity of £293 out of their ecclesiastical charities, the Commissioners will sanction the use of a part of the Chewstoke charity for that purpose.
THE PARLIAMENTARY CHARITY COMMISSIONER (Mr. GRANT LAWSON,) York N.R., ThirskThe Parish Council and the new Rector of Glutton have proposed that a debt due from the ecclesiastical charities of the parish to the educational charities of Perry and Adams should be cancelled, and that, by way of exchange, the Chewstoke charity, which is primarily a Church charity, should be entirely diverted to non-ecclesiastical purposes. The Commissioners cannot assent to this arrangement, but propose that the debt should be paid out of the capital of the Glutton Church Lands charity, and the Chewstoke charity apportioned between ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical purposes. The Chewstoke charity has no capital out of which the debt could be paid.