Lords Sitting of 27 April 1860

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILES.—2a Trustees, Mortgagees, &c.
3a Oxford University; Inclosure.

CHURCH PROPERTY—PETITIONS.
VISCOUNT DUNGANNON presented a Petition, numerously signed, from Darlington, in the county of Durham, complaining of the large amount of revenues abstracted from the Diocese of Durham, while little or no regard has been paid to its spiritual wants arising from the vast increase of its population; and praying that measures may be taken to oblige the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to admit local claims on Church Property. These petitions related to a matter of very considerable importance, and he was glad that his noble Friend (Lord Ravensworth) was present, as he had taken a very great interest in the case, and had a thorough knowledge of the condition of the Diocese, beyond any he (Viscount Dungannon) could boast of possessing. The petitioners expressed themselves most grateful to the Committee of their Lordships' House which inquired last Session into the spiritual destitution of the country, for their recommendation that where any Church property had been considerably augmented in value by the population which dwelt upon it, the religious instruction of that population should be considered before the application and disposition of the surplus revenue to the general ecclesiastical purposes of the country. The revenues of the See of Durham had been far greater than those of any other diocese in the United Kingdom, but large sums were withdrawn from it by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, although many of its own parishes were very inadequately provided for. Places like North and South Shields, Darlington, Stockton-on-Tees, and various parishes of the City of Durham itself, were very poorly endowed; and to many of the incumbencies no parsonage-houses were attached. In consequence of the mining operations carried on in that diocese, and the harbours that had been erected on the coast, large populations had sprung up where a few years ago a single house was not to be seen. Although in many of those districts churches had been built, they were so miserably endowed, that it was scarcely
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possible for the clergy appointed to them efficiently to discharge their duties. He had not heard that any living in the See of Durham requiring augmentation had really been augmented to any appreciable extent, nor, indeed, that the provision for the populous districts throughout the kingdom had received any substantial increase. The grant of an additional £10 a year to one poor Benefice, or of £20 a year to another, did little to meet the urgent necessities of the case. It was, therefore, high time that their Lordships should know what was done with the sums taken from this diocese by the Commissioners. It seemed very hard that because in some places within that see the income was great, and the labour small, no consideration was shown, out of the surplus thereby obtained, for other places in the very same diocese, where, on the contrary, the income was small, and the labour great. There must be very considerable sums of money derived from Durham, which might be employed most beneficially for the large parishes where the population was increasing enormously, and the want was extreme. He thought it had been fully established that hitherto justice had not been done to the diocese of Durham; and he should not have done his duty to those who had entrusted him with these petitions, if he had not entered into these particulars. He hoped, in conclusion, that some measure would be speedily adopted to remedy what was undoubtedly a most crying evil.
THE BISHOP OF CARLISLEthought it was quite right that the attention of their Lordships should be called to the spiritual necessities of so large and populous a diocese as Durham; but it was also right that their Lordships' attention should be directed to the Common Fund in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; for if the plan advocated by the noble Viscount were carried out to the full extent of Diocesan local claims, it would strike at the root of all those hopes entertained on behalf of the poorer clergy in other parts of the kingdom, for whom he was afraid the noble Viscount had not the same sympathy as with the clergy of Durham. The noble Viscount had said that some consideration ought to be given to the large amount of money abstracted from the diocese of Durham; but he (the Bishop of Carlisle) thought that still greater consideration should be entertained for the actual condition of the diocese of Carlisle. The number of livings in the diocese of Durham

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was 264, and in that of Carlisle 261. In Durham there were 28 livings under £100 a year; but their Lordships would be surprised to hear that in the diocese of Carlisle there were 11 livings under £50 a year, 9 under £60, 16 under £70, 15 under £80, 22 under £90, and combining the whole there were 120 under £100 per annum. He was quite aware that great claims could be urged with respect to the number of the population to whose spiritual wants the clergy ministered; but there was another important element to be considered, that was the extent of the acreage of the various parishes. In London, in many instances, a clergyman might go half over his parish in a few minutes; but in parishes so extensive as those in the diocese of Carlisle, the labour of visiting was very great. With respect to the sum abstracted from Durham, he found by a Return moved for in the other House of Parliament, that in 1857 the total income of the Dean and Chapter of Durham was £81,000, of which £22,000 was expended in defraying the expenses of the services in the cathedral and other outgoings connected with it; in point of fact, £53,000 was expended in respect to the cathedral alone, Their Lordships had already twice confirmed the plan of the Common Fund as now placed in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commission, and under those circumstances, he hardly thought it wise that they should pass a retrograde Motion founded upon a petition without entering into the fullest investigation. Their Lordships should consider how many had benefited and how many looked forward to benefit by the resources of this diocese. A clergyman must live whether there was a large population in his district or a small one; and when gentlemen came to him for ordination, and in reply to questions as to their future prospects, stated that their expectations of clerical preferment were almost nil, he was frequently induced to warn them that although they might find the air and the scenery of Cumberland delightful, yet he was afraid that it would only tend to increase their appetite, and that a curacy of £50 a year held out very little hope of a comfortable existence. Clergymen in such a position, when called upon to visit the poor and the sick, must feel deeply their inability to afford them any temporal relief. It was most desirable that means should be found to enable these excellent, but unfortunate, because poor, clergymen to live in a man-
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ner becoming their position, and to contribute to the assistance of the sick, the sorrowing, and the dying. The funds of the diocese of Carlisle were absolutely exhausted; but that was not the case with that of Durham, nor did he think that sufficient grounds had been laid before their Lordships to induce them to make any change with respect to that diocese.
EARL GREYsaid, he had heard with considerable regret the speech of the right rev. Prelate who had just sat down. This was not the case of the comparative claims of the diocese of Durham as compared with that of Carlisle. The case brought before the House by the noble Viscount was this—that in Durham the property of the Church had been vastly increased in value by the working of mines. Large masses of people were brought together, by the labour of whose hands that property was made productive. An enormous income was derived from this source; and while private owners acknowledged the claims of their workpeople, and more or less provided for their spiritual wants, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners alone ignored those claims, and did nothing or next to nothing for the benefit of that large population from whose labours they derived so large an income. The principle for which the noble Viscount behind him contended had not only been affirmed by Select Committees of that House, but a Bill had been introduced on the subject, into which a clause, the object of which was to carry into effect that principle, had been introduced, and which failed to pass through the other House of Parliament simply because of the advanced period of the Session. The principle was, he maintained, one of undeniable justice, and he therefore trusted Her Majesty's Government would not lose sight of the question, but would, as soon as possible, endeavour to place it upon a more satisfactory footing.
LORD RAVENSWORTHsaid, that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to whose control was committed a large amount of Church property, were responsible for the religious instruction and education of the large masses of the population to whom the petition presented by the noble Viscount referred. He himself had, he might add, been intrusted with a large number of petitions, all praying their Lordships to take into consideration the necessities of the case. He had, for years past, but in vain, endeavoured to procure the recognition of the claims of the

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diocese of Durham on the consideration of Parliament. The result of inattention to those claims had been that the Bishop of Durham, in pursuance of his duty, had convened a public meeting in the town of Newcastle to which were invited all the principal landowners and proprietors of the diocese in order that he might lay before them the lamentable condition in which the population in his diocese was placed. No difference of opinion had been displayed by the laity on that occasion as to the propriety of the appeal which had been made to them; but it had been justly contended that so long as a largo amount of ecclesiastical property continued to be vested in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and aid was refused by them towards the spiritual destitution which prevailed in the diocese, while its revenue was applied to other uses, it was unfair to appeal to the laity for assistance. He therefore demanded in the name of justice that a due proportion of that revenue should be devoted by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to the wants of the diocese of Durham, and trusted that Her Majesty's Government would take care to bring about that result.
THE EARL OF CHICHESTERsaid, he did not desire to prolong the discussion, but wished briefly to refer to one or two points which had been alluded to in the course of the discussion. The annual amount paid from the fund of the Ecclesiastical Commission for the augmentation of small livings was £90,000; that amount was paid for this object last year. To this Common Fund of the Commission the diocese of Durham contributed £28,000. Of the Common Fund a considerable portion was appropriated to the augmentation of poor livings in the diocese of Durham, which had its full share of the Fund. As their Lordships were aware, the Commissioners could not, under the Act of Parliament, make any special application of the sums they received to the purposes of the district from which those sums were drawn.
THE BISHOP OF LLANDAFFthought, where there was a large population, and where property had been greatly increased in value by their labour, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were bound to consider the claims which that population had upon them as proprietors. His right rev. Brother did not make any claim on the part of any particular parishes; he spoke of the diocese of Durham as a whole, compared with other dioceses; and in refer-
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ence to this he alluded to some parishes of large area and small endowments. In the first fifty years of the present century, from 1801 to 1851, the population of the diocese of Durham had increased in a ratio of 160 per cent. But this was exceeded by his own diocese, which included the whole of Monmouthshire and a large part of Glamorganshire. It appeared from the Tables in Mr. Chester's abstract of the Censes that in 50 years, from 1801 to 1851, the population of Monmouthshire had increased by 244 per cent, and that of Glamorganshire 223 per cent.
THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, the diocese of London was much in the same position as the diocese of Durham; as they were, perhaps, on the eve of some legislation on the subject, he thought it should be known that London and Durham were united in feeling on it. He believed it would be impossible to raise any considerable funds to provide for the spiritual destitution of the Metropolis while the Ecclesiastical Commission received very largo sums from rents of houses in the poorest parishes; the first duty of the Commissioners should be to recognize the claims of those who resided in these houses. He did not find fault with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for not having done what the law did not enable them to do. But the object of the petition was to request their Lordships seriously to consider whether the law ought not to be altered. It was well that those who might be engaged in drawing up a Bill on the subject in either House should understand how strong the feeling of the country was upon the subject. Changes were about to take place, by which large funds would fall into the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and it was prospectively that the petitioners were desirous that a change should take place. Persons would no longer be willing to subscribe a poor pittance for the clergyman when ample funds were drawn from their own neighbourhood. He therefore trusted that in any future legislation regard would be had to the last Report which had been made on this subject.
Petitions ordered to lie on the table.

CHARITABLE USES BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD CRANWORTH, in moving the second reading of this Bill, said its object

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  was to amend certain provisions of an Act commonly, but not very accurately, called the Mortmain Act. The object of that Act, passed in the 9th of George II., was to prevent dying or languishing persons from disposing of their landed estates by giving them to charity, it having been discovered that persons who had during their lives been neglectful of their duties to the poor were not unfrequently induced to endeavour to make compensation by giving away from their heirs and successors the property which they themselves had enjoyed. The Act forbade bequests of land to charitable uses by will, but it did not prevent persons from giving their lands to such purposes in their lifetime, provided such gift were made by deed executed at least twelve months before death, and provided the estate immediately passed out of the owner's possession. An exception was made in the case of lands which were purchased by the trustees of a charity with funds already in their possession—to these the twelve months condition did not apply. The Act itself had operated remarkably well; but there were certain provisions of a purely technical nature which were found extremely inconvenient. For instance, no conveyance of lands to charitable uses could be made, except by deed indented, as it was called, according to the old form; which entirely precluded any bequest of copyhold lands from taking place, as these could not be conveyed by any other mode than by surrender in the Lord's Court. In the Act it was also stipulated that in the case of any person bequeathing or parting with his land for charitable uses the conveyance should not be attended with any reservation whatever. This prevented a person who was willing to give land for a playground, or for the site of a schoolmaster's residence, from retaining even a right of way, which might be of great importance to the remainder of the property. There were other details of a similar character with which he need not trouble the House; he would merely state that the object of the present Bill was to retain all the provisions of the Mortmain Act which were matters of substance, and to get rid of those which were matters of form. In the Mortmain Act there were two classes of provisions—one relating to lands given, and the other to lands purchased. Different considerations applied to these two classes, but in both cases the Act provided that if anything were done contrary to the
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  Act, the whole transaction should be null and void. With regard to lands given, this provision might be extremely reasonable and fair; but with regard to lands sold it operated in a way which was absurd, for the consequence was, that if the trustees of lands did not comply with the requisitions of the statute, the vendor, who had the purchase-money in his pocket, might claim the land also. In two or three instances—once in the reign of George IV. and twice in the present reign. Acts of Parliament had been passed making good conveyances where the trustees had not complied with the provisions of the Mortmain Act. He saw no objection, therefore, to making the remedy provided by this Bill retrospective in cases of purchase, though there was a great objection to making it retrospective in relation to lands which had been given. As the Bill stood it made the remedy retrospective in both cases, but in Committee be should propose to strike out the clause which made it retrospective in regard to lands given. In 1852 a Select Committee was appointed by the other House to consider the Mortmain Act, which recommended that, whatever else might be done, steps should be taken immediately to give a retrospective remedy in the case of purchased lands. Several Bills of this description had passed through the other House, with the general assent of all the legal authorities there, but up to the present time none of them had passed into law.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.
  LORD ABINGERsaid, that in his opinion this Bill ought not to receive the sanction of their Lordships. He believed that this Bill, or another with the same clauses, and under a different title, had been rejected by their Lordships no loss than four times. The Bill was evidently intended to repeal the Mortmain Act. But it would not remove the evils complained of, and if their Lordships passed the Bill they would be legislating in the dark. It seemed to him that if they assented to this measure they would render the law of mortmain wholly impracticable. He could not see why the Bill should have been brought before Parliament. Its purpose was to repeal the Statute of Mortmain, not directly but by a side wind; and therefore he begged to move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
  Amendment moved to leave out "now" for the purpose of inserting "this day six months."
  LORD CRANWORTHintimated that he should not press the Motion for the second reading of the Bill to a division.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he was glad that his noble and learned Friend did not intend to divide the House on the second reading; but he also rejoiced that his noble and learned Friend had introduced this subject, for it was one of infinite importance. The law of mortmain was in a most unsatisfactory state, and he wished extremely that his noble and learned Friend would take the whole matter in hand. It was a most difficult undertaking; but there was no Member of either House of Parliament who was more qualified to grapple with its difficulties than the noble and learned Lord. He (the Lord Chancellor) approved of the prospective clauses of the Bill; but, upon the whole, he thought it would be more prudent to postpone the further consideration of the measure.
  LORD WENSLEYDALEagreed that there were considerable grievances to be redressed, and suggested that the best course would be to read the Bill a second time and refer it to a Select Committee.
  On Question, That "now" stand part of the Motion? Resolved in the negative; and Bill to be read 2a this Day Six Months.

MILITIA (IRELAND).

  QUESTION.
  THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDErose to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether they did not consider it expedient to postpone the training of the Militia in Ireland to a later period than that now proposed, in consequence of the backward state of agricultural operations in that country. The calling out of the Militia at the period proposed would be seriously inconvenient to the farmers of the west of Ireland; and as, moreover, it would occur at a time when labour was exceedingly well remunerated, it would also be injurious to the interests of the militiamen. Nothing could be more injudicious than to fix upon such a time for the training as it was obviously desirable to render the service as popular as possible with all parties concerned. By persisting in the course they had announced he was afraid the Government would lose a great number of the men. Many of the persons who had received the bounty had applied it to the purposes of emigration; and as an extensive emigration was now going on from the
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  west of Ireland, the same result would probably happen again if the bounty were paid now and the men dismissed just before their idle time. He hoped that the Government would therefore give their best attention to this matter, and consent to a postponement of the period of training.
  THE EARL OF CLANCARTYwished to bear his testimony to the importance of this subject. The calling out of the militia at that time of the year, especially in the west of Ireland, would be attended with serious inconvenience, not only to husbandry in general, but to the operation of cutting turf. When labour ceased to be in demand there was great distress among the working classes; and at such a period there would be great advantage in having the able-bodied men called out to serve in the Militia. Moreover, it was desirable to increase the number of volunteers from the Militia to the line; and under the pressure of want, no doubt, many would apply for enrolment.
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPONexplained the course which the Government had taken in this matter. The Militia Commission which sat last year gave it as their opinion that it was very desirable the militia regiments throughout the country should be trained as nearly as possible simultaneously, in order to prevent the practice of fraudulent enrolment first in one regiment and then in another. That recommendation was adopted by the Government and sanctioned by the Parliament, and the Secretary of State for War subsequently issued a circular calling the attention of Lords Lieutenant to the provisions of the Act, and announcing that the various regiments would be called out almost simultaneously—those in the South of England at the end of April or the beginning of May; those in the northern counties somewhat later. Communications on the subject were also made to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and his Excellency having consulted the Lieutenants of the counties, the larger number of them thought the time fixed upon for the training of the English regiments would likewise suit the Irish regiments, although a few of them suggested a later period for the purpose. In all those cases in which the later date had been recommended it had been adopted; and in some cases in which, though an earlier period was at first recommended, a postponement was afterwards desired, a postponement

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  had been accordingly assented to. The intention therefore was to call out some of the Irish militia regiments on the 1st of May; some, again, on the 14th of May; and the last on the 22nd of the month; the effect of which would he that for a certain period the whole of the regiments would he out at the same time. He understood that but few representations had been made to the Irish Government that any serious inconvenience would result from the adoption of the plan determined upon. And as the date for calling out the regiments was now so very near, it was not deemed desirable nor necessary to make any changes in the matter.

DIVORCE COURT BILL.—REPORT.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR presented (by command) Copy of a Letter from the Lord Chief Justice of England, to the Lord High Chancellor: (being the same which his Lordship read to the House yesterday).
Amendments reported (according to order).
LORD REDE SCALEproposed the insertion of the two following Clauses: —
"The Court shall not be bound to pronounce a Decree declaring a marriage to be dissolved in any case in which the wife shall be found to have been unchaste before marriage, and the husband shall not satisfy the Court that he was ignorant of her having been so at the time when he married her."
"If a woman shall have married, being at the Time of such Marriage with Child by another Man, the Man she has married may petition the Court for a Sentence of Nullity of such Marriage; provided such Petition shall be presented before or within two Two Months after the Birth or Miscarriage of any such Child; and if the Court shall he satisfied on the Evidence that the Petitioner was not the Father of such Child, and that he did not know that the Woman was with Child at the Time when he married her, the Court shall decree the Nullity of such Marriage, and no such Child shall be held to be the Child of the Petitioner although such child may have been born before the Decree of Nullity shall have been pronounced."
THE LORD CHANCELLORobjected to the proposed clauses. The object of the Bill before the House was not to change the law, but to improve the procedure of the Divorce Court.
Clauses negatived.
Amendment moved; and (by leave of the House) withdrawn; Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
House adjourned at a Quarter before Eight o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.