Lords Sitting of 28 March 1870

MINUTES.
Took the Oath—James Lord Bishop of Manchester.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Peace Preservation (Ireland)* (53); Customs (Isle of Man)* (54).
Committee—Report—Mutiny*; Marine Mutiny".

ECCLESIASTICAL BUSINESS, FEES, &c. ADDRESS FOR, RETURNS.
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY moved an Address for Returns from every Archbishop and Bishop holding a see in England, and from every ecclesiastical registry in England and Wales, of the officers engaged, the amount and nature of the business transacted, and the amount of fees received in their respective offices; likewise of the fee charged for marriage licences, and the number of licences issued in 1867, 1868, and 1869. He believed that no less than £60,000 a year was derived from those fees; and he therefore thought it was desirable that the fullest information should be afforded as to the sources from which they came, the persons to whom they were paid, and the duties which were performed in return for them.
THE BISHOP OF LONDONsaid, he would offer no objection to the Motion of the noble Earl, which, however, seemed rather inconsistent with the haste with which he had sought to press the second reading of his Ecclesiastical Courts Bill; for if their Lordships would take the trouble to look at that measure, they would see that the fees in question formed the very backbone of the system the noble Earl wished to establish—that portion of it, in fact, that had most recommended it to his own mind. In that measure the noble Earl proposed to pay out of those fees all the existing officers, or to give them compensation; to provide salaries for the Judges in future; to find salaries for the Judges of the Bishops' Courts, registrars, and secretaries; and to pay the costs of promoting suits. Nay, he looked forward to a time when those fees would provide better registries, and when there would even be a surplus applicable to the augmentation of small livings. All these were most important objects; but it now appeared that the calculations upon which the Bill was based had yet to be made,

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for the noble Earl had come down to the House to ask for Returns showing the amount of the assets on which he was depending to defray the large expenditure that would be created by his Bill. He (the Bishop of London) had no objection whatever to make to the Returns; and he only hoped that they would show that the amount was anything like as large as the noble Earl contemplated—anything like sufficient to carry out a reform which he should be glad to see effected. It had, however, always struck him that the weak point of the noble Earl's scheme was that it was founded upon a calculation of receipts which he feared would be found completely inadequate for the purpose.
Motion agreed to.

ECCLESIASTICAL AND DIOCESAN RECORDS.

  ADDRESS FOR A RETURN.
  LORD ROMILLY moved an Address for—
  Return from each diocese, stating the places in which the records of all ecclesiastical and diocesan matters are preserved, explaining the manner in which these records are kept, distinguishing such as are kept in fire-proof places, stating the names of the persons in whoso custody they are kept, the conditions under which access is permitted to them, what fees are taken for leave to inspect and to make copies, what is the total amount of such fees received within the last five years, what steps are taken for the preservation of these records from damp and from improper abstraction or removal.—(The Lord Romilly.)
  He had hoped, when the Bill of the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Shaftesbury), with respect to the Ecclesiastical Courts, was sent to a Select Committee, they would have provided for due care being taken of the muniments and documents now lodged in the diocesan registries. Unfortunately the Bill, as it now stands, provides for the preservation of these very registries in which no care whatever is taken of the documents lodged there. He was, twenty-two years ago, Chairman of a Select Committee of the House of Commons, the Report of which recommended that these registries should be done away with, and that the documents deposited there should be transferred to some proper repository; nor could he help hoping that before the noble Earl's Bill passed the Government would yet take care that the documents shall be transferred to the custody of
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  the Master of the Rolls, in order that the same system might be enforced with respect to them which is now in operation as to other papers in the custody of that functionary. Every respectable person could now have access, at any reasonable time, without payment of any fee, to the documents in the care of the Master of the Rolls; but he feared that large fees are in many cases exacted for the consultation of those in the diocesan registries.
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at half past Five o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.