REPORT OF AMENDMENTS PUT OFF. (Hansard, 9 June 1863)

§ THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE
moved that the Report of Amendments in this Bill be received.

§ LORD REDESDALE
said, he thought the 39th clause, relating to the grant of 565 land for sites for places of worship, would bear unfavourably on the due administration of the property of the Duchy. Its provisions would amount, in fact, to the endowment of various religious bodies, and he questioned the expediency of sanctioning, for the first time, a principle of that kind in connection with the Crown property. The value of any site given was to be limited to £300; but, whether the gift was in money or in land, it would still be an endowment. They might expect applications to be made by every religious denomination; and if, as was likely, the land would be required for the minister's houses and for schools as well as for chapels, the grant of sites for such purposes would practically be an endowment. He thought the powers of the Duke of Cornwall, in regard to giving sites for places of worship, ought to remain as they stood under the former Act. The noble Lord said, that in the event of his Amendment to this clause being agreed to, he intended to propose a new clause, which would enable the Duke of Cornwall to grant, sell, or lease any ground fit for the site of a chapel for the worship of Almighty God, by any denomination of Christians, with the restriction that the ground so granted or leased shall not exceed half an acre, nor be of a value exceeding one hundred pounds. The noble Lord concluded by moving to omit certain words, and to introduce others, the effect of which would be to limit the power of the Duke of Cornwall to grant sites for places of public worship to grants to the Established Church, as under the 7 & 8 Vict., c. 65, s. 26.

§ THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE
said, the noble Lord seemed to forget that the provisions of this clause were merely permissive, and intended to enable the Duke of Cornwall to do that which almost all landed proprietors were now in the habit of doing on their estates. There was no doubt there were many places where it would not be necessary to exercise the provisions of this clause—for instance, in parishes where there were other proprietors; and it was chiefly in Devonshire and Cornwall that the necessity of some provision of this kind existed. In many of the mining districts the population were nearly all Wesleyans and Dissenters; and if these people were not allowed sites for their chapels, they would be deprived of religious instruction. Their Lordships, as owners of large properties, were frequently 566 called upon to exercise similar powers, and he saw no reason why they should be withheld from the Prince of Wales. He understood that his noble Friend wished to restrict the limit of the value of the grants for dissenting chapels from £300 to £100; but why should there be a difference of this kind between the Established Church and dissenting bodies? It was objected that there was also power to grant sites for for ministers' houses as well as for places of worship; but the object of this was to remove a restriction which formerly existed, and which limited the power to grant sites for ministers' houses in places where they had previously granted sites for churches. Sites would not be granted where they were not wanted, and there was no intention to endow Dissent; but he hoped their Lordships would not refuse to the rising population of Devon and Cornwall those facilities which were absolutely necessary for the public celebration of Divine worship.

§ THE EARL OF DERBY
said, he was not in the House during the former discussion on this Bill, and therefore he would not say a word about the definition of the words "spiritual person." It should be remembered that the Duke of Cornwall was not in the same position in regard to his property as private landowners were; and if the clause were agreed to in its present shape, there would be a pressure put upon him which other owners of property would not be subjected to. He would not object to the permissive power proposed, if it did not go beyond the necessities of the case; but be thought it did go further than was required. He had had frequent applications made to him for small portions of land for the erection of Dissenting places of worship, but he had never been asked to grant anything like so much as five acres. He thought that a grant of five acres of land would be too much for a site for a church; and besides that, there might be other grants of five acres each for other purposes, each of which would be of the value of £300.

§ THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE
said, that those figures were simply inserted as a limit which could not be exceeded.

§ THE EARL OF DERBY
By the Bill land might be given for three objects—for the site of a church, for a residence, and for schools, and the whole would be worth £900, which would practically be an endowment. Now, that appeared to him to go beyond the necessities of the case. His 567 noble Friend (Lord Redesdale) had proposed to limit the grants to half an acre, or the sum of £100; but he would suggest that the limit be fixed at one acre, which would not be an undue provision. Then, again, he did not think that the residence of the minister need be freehold—there was no reason why it should not be provided for by an ordinary lease. He would allow the same powers as were now in force to continue, and that would enable the Council to grant an endowment for the residence of a minister of the Established Church, and the means of building a house and schools; but they would limit the powers in regard to Dissenters to the place of worship. He thought the proposed clause partook too much of the nature of an endowment to Dissenters, and that went beyond the necessities of the case. All that was required was that they should have sites for places of worship. The other provision of the clause, that when the chapels ceased to be used for the purposes for which the sites were obtained, they should revert to the Duchy (unless they had been consecrated), seemed to him to be reasonable.

§ LORD PORTMAN
said, there were some reasons why five acres of land, or land to the value of £300, should be granted, which were not apparent to some noble Lords. Upon Dartmore five acres were necessary for a house and garden, and less would not be enough to give shelter to the property and to make the clergyman a comfortable home. He felt bound to say that that was an exceptional case; but the quantity was in the original Act, and those who had framed this Bill had not made any change. As to the suns of £300, it referred to life-hold house or houses occupied by clergymen in district parishes on the lives of others. So long as the lives lasted, the clergyman occupied the property; but when the lives fell in, then the money was required for a site for building a house.

§ THE EARL OF POWIS
thought, that as there were to be grants to the different religious bodies, the limit should be less than five acres; for otherwise the Prince might be asked to give in one place five acres three or four times over to each of several bodies, and the Council could hardly set up a ground for refusing. In the case of the Church of England, of course, there could not be these multiplied grants in one place. He thought that it was necessary that there should be a congregational as well as a territorial limit.

§ THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE
explained that the amount named in the Bill was intended merely as the maximum. As a rule, however, he did not doubt that an acre would be quite sufficient in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. He would therefore reconsider the clause.

§ LORD REDESDALE
asked, whether the alterations proposed by the noble Duke would leave the ministers of the Established Church and Nonconformist ministers in the same position? If they did, the same demand for land might be made in the same parish by several religious bodies. The principle involved in that clause was that a grant made to a minister of a Dissenting body would be an endowment to a Dissenting chapel.

§ THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE
said, the power in the clause would enable grants of sites to be made to all religious bodies—to ministers of the Established Church and to Dissenting ministers. He did not see the object of his noble Friend in making this distinction. His noble Friend desired to make the limit of the grant stop at five acres to ministers of the Established Church, and at half an acre to Dissenting bodies; but he (the Duke of Newcastle) could not consent to draw such an invidious distinction.

§ THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH
said, that sites for residences would not be so much wanted in the cases of Dissenting preachers as in those of clergymen, because many of the Dissenting chapels were served by itinerant ministers who did not live on the spot.

§ THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE
agreed, that, as a general rule, there was no requirement for sites for Dissenting ministers' houses; but there were exceptions, and therefore it was necessary to reserve the power of making grants for that purpose.

§ THE EARL OF DERBY
drew attention to this—that the Bill applied not to sales, but only to grants of land; and if it passed, there would be nothing to prevent the Council from selling additional portions of land, if necessary, to the Church or to Dissenting bodies.

§ THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE
There was this restriction—that the price of any portion of land, however small, must be invested in the purchase of other land; and it might be difficult at times to comply with this rule.

§ LORD REDESDALE
said, it appeared to him that it would be desirable to postpone the Report in order that the clauses 569 which were at present objectionable might be further considered and amended.