MR. DUNDAS WHITE (Dumbartonshire)To ask the President of the Local Government Board, if he will say what, if any, recent decision of the Courts has given occasion for the introduction of the London Paving Expenses Bill, which is designed to relieve the owners of places of religious worship from certain paving rates at the expense of the general body of ratepayers.
(Answered by Mr. John Burns.) It was decided by the Courts some time since that consecrated churches of the Church of England are exempt from contributing to the paving of new streets in London, but that Nonconformist chapels are not. The object of the Bill is to place the chapels in London in the same position as the churches in this matter, as is the case elsewhere.