THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in moving the second reading of this Bill, explained the nature of the measure. Down to the time of Queen Anne the Sovereign had unlimited power of disposition in reference to Crown lands; but in the first year of that reign an Act passed limiting the power of the Crown to granting leases for thirty years, or three lives. The operation of that statute, however, was confined to England. The 39 & 40 Geo. III., gave full powers to the Crown to deal with estates acquired by means of the private property of the Sovereign. By an Act of the 1st and 2nd of the present reign it was deemed right to extend the restricting provisions of the statute of Anne to estates of the Crown in Scotland and Ireland; but the qualification of that restriction introduced by the 39 & 40 Geo. III. was accidentally omitted from the statue of Victoria. The result, therefore, was that private estates of the Sovereign in Scotland would not come within the provisions of the 39 & 40 Geo. III., but would fall under the restrictions in the statute of Anne, and the Sovereign would be unable to deal with land in Scotland acquired by the private property of the Crown. It was to remedy this state of things that the present Bill had been prepared, the intention being 1413 to give to the Crown the same rights over its private estates in Scotland which the Act of George III. gave in reference to those in England; and to provide that any such estates held by the Crown should be possessed in the same way as if they were held by subjects of the Crown.
THE MARQUESS OF BATHobjected that the provision of the Bill which subjected the private estates of the Crown to all rates and taxes, was unconstitutional.
§ Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
§ House adjourned at Seven o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.