§ MR. WEDGWOOD (Newcastle-under-Lyme)To ask the right hon. Member for Sheffield (Hallam Division), as Church Estates Commissioner, what sums have been paid directly or indirectly by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to Mesrss. Clutton and Messrs. Smiths, Gore, and Company, respectively, as agency charges in each of the twenty financial years last past; and what further sums have been paid or allowed to each of the said firms in each of those years for legal assistance.
§ (Answered by Mr. Stuart Wortley.) Messrs. Clutton and Messrs. Smiths, Gore, and Company's agency charges are regulated by the same scale. The total amounts paid by the Commissioners in respect of agency (including payments to mineral agents other than the two above-mentioned firms) in the year ended 31st October, 1906, were:—
| £ | s. | d. | |
| In respect of Estates vested in the Commissioners for their Common Fund | 42,981 | 18 | 6 |
| In respect of Episcopal Estates managed by the Commissioners | 2,526 | 15 | 8 |
| In respect of Estates vested in the Commissioners on Special Trusts | 1,722 | 9 | 3 |
| £47,231 | 3 | 5 |
§ The figures for preceding years are set out in the Abstracts of Accounts appended to the Commissioners' Annual Reports, which have been presented to both Houses of Parliament. The Commissioners are unable, without the expenditure of a large amount of labour, to make a Return of the sums allowed during the last twenty years to their agents in respect of local legal assistance, but these sums have been trifling in amount. That allowed in 1906 on this account was £7 7s.