Lord Broughampresented a Petition signed by a very numerous body of persons assembled together at a public meeting at Edinburgh, on the subject of the Scotch Church, and the proposed grant to it. The meeting consisted of between eleven and twelve thousand persons. The petitioners were not wholly Dissenters from the Established Church of Scotland, but were indiscriminately members of that Church, and Dissenters from it—Dissenters, too, of various denominations. The petition stated, that the population of Edinburgh amounted to 136,000; that there were sittings in the Established Church for 33,000 persons, and in the dissenting meeting-houses for 37,500. The calculation made upon a population of 136,000 gave 63,300 as requiring seats, and the number of seats he had mentioned was considerably above the number that, in such a population, would want them. This statement was made upon the calculation of the General Assembly itself, and fully proved that there was no such want of accommodation as was supposed. The petition went on further to state that, in twenty six towns and parishes in Scotland, requiring 159,000 sittings, it was established by the same mode of calculation that there was no deficiency in that respect, but rather the reverse, as he had shown to be the case with respect to Edinburgh. The petitioners stated, that the increase of Dissenters did not arise from a want of seats in the churches, but on account of the conscientious scruples of the Dissenters upon the great question of Church patronage. The persons who thus dis- 1064 sented would not go to church if there was ever so much accommodation afforded.
The Duke of Buccleughhad not had an opportunity of looking at the calculations and the statement of the noble and learned Lord, and, therefore, could say nothing with respect to it. He believed that, though there might be the number of sittings stated by the noble and learned Lord, yet that many of them being in the old cathedral churches, it was impossible from such sittings either to hear or see the preacher. Whether or not it was necessary to have any additional endowments for Edinburgh he could not tell, but he was perfectly certain that they were necessary in other parts of the country. He knew one instance in which the man himself said, that he had quitted the Church, not because he was a Dissenter, but because he could not hear the preacher. There was another reason, and that was in the distance at which the churches were from many of the inhabitants of the parishes. There was one parish, for instance, nineteen miles long, and eighteen miles wide, in which, of course, it was perfectly impossible for all the inhabitants to have the benefit of attending religious worship in their own church.
Lord Broughamsaid that, after all that had occurred, it was quite clear that the grant could neither be made nor refused, without Committees of both Houses investigating the subject.