§ MR. HUMPHREYS-OWENI beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the poverty of a portion of the clergy, and the consequent need which, prima facie, exists of a revision of episcopal and other ecclesiastical incomes with a view of mitigating the gravity of the evil, he is willing either to move, or to assent to a Motion, for the immediate appointment of a Select Committee of this House to inquire generally into the existing endowments in the Church of England and methods of their more equitable readjustment, and into other schemes for the improvement of the pecuniary condition of the clergy, and to report thereon without delay.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.I entirely concur with what the hon. Member says about the poverty of a portion of the clergy, but I cannot at the present time assent to his proposal of a Parliamentary Committee. I may remind him that the work of diminishing this evil is being actively and efficiently carried on by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. If he will look at their last report, he will see that up to the present time 6,000 benefices have been 54 endowed or augmented, and that £800,0000 a year is devoted to that purpose by the Commissioners out their own funds. From private benefactors, a sum of £220,000 a year is also devoted to that purpose; and I am further advised that augmentations of nearly £250,000 are made every year by grants out of the common fund for necessitous cases.
§ MR. HUMPHREYS-OWENIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners do not give augmentations to small livings where the population is also small? That is left to Queen Anne's bounty.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI could not enter into a discussion of the work of the Commissioners in answer to a Question, nor am I qualified for the purpose. But I have given the hon. Gentleman a general indication of the work which the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are carrying out.