HL Deb 20 February 1871 vol 204 cc477-89

Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.

THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER

, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that he desired to lay before their Lordships his object in proposing this legislation. The object of the Bill was one of great simplicity, and its machinery was very analogous to that which their Lordships had sanctioned in another case for a similar purpose. That object was to allow clergymen who, either from age, or pressing bodily infirmity, were incapacitated from the due discharge of their duties, to resign any benefice they might hold, retiring on a moderate pension, chargeable on the revenues of the benefice with the consent of all the parties concerned. In asking their Lordships to do this, he was only asking them to restore the law of England to what it used to be. It seemed to him to be one of those Conservative and safe amendments of the law which he should have thought would have been most acceptable to their Lordships, and he regretted that some noble Lords, Friends of his, for whose opinions he had the highest respect, differed from him as to the expediency of it. He could not tell what these objections would be until he heard them; but he would give them the most careful consideration when he knew what they were. He was simply seeking a restoration of the law to what it was previous to 31 Elizabeth, c. 6, s. 8, which made pensions on the resignation of benefices unlawful. That statute was a wise measure at the time, for the granting of pensions was a part of a great system of abuse which had prevailed. It was aimed against an usurped jurisdiction of the Papacy, under which these pensions were granted without the slightest regard to the interests of the parishes, and for the mere purpose of heaping a multitude of simultaneous pensions on some one resigning clerk. This was a gross abuse, and it was necessary at the time to cut deep in order to cut away the roots of the abuse. But under this Bill no such abuse could arise, for it provided that no retiring clerk should be able under any circumstances to receive more than one pension at the same time. Reference to the Reformatio Legum would give ample evidence of what was designed; and, indeed, this measure, down to some of its very minutest details, was one of the wise and moderate recommendations contained in the Reformatio Legum, and had some operation for a time, though it had never been incorporated, as it was intended to be, in the statute book. He (the Bishop of Winchester) sought to restore the law, with certain abatements, to what it had been before the statute of Elizabeth. He might well seek to do this, because he thought it was an act of charity and justice to the parochial clergy. He believed there was no body of men discharging important official duties, which required so much health and strength, who did so without any prospect of retiring, when striken with years, on some pension out of the funds of the profession they had adopted. This was the more hard as it was impossible for the greater portion of them to make any decent provision by the savings of their profession during their years of active health. He thought their Lordships would hardly wish the body of their clergy to be driven either to give up altogether the position which they held, or to continue to attempt to render services which the clergy themselves, more painfully than any others, knew they could no longer render with due efficiency; and the more sacred their duties the more cruel it was to inflict upon their consciences the terrible alternative of doing wrong to their own conscience or exposing their families to that which was close upon starvation. The man who had given the prime of his life, the best of his years, and the flower of his intellect to the grave duties of the parochial priesthood, was surely entitled, when he was no longer able to discharge those duties, from age or sickness, to look for such a moderate provision in his age as he had earned for himself by hard service when enabled by Providence to render it. And this was the more due to these gentlemen—for gentle- men they were while serving as the parochial clergy—because the Legislature had already extended a similar provision to the order of Bishops of the national Church, which he felt had no right to those advantages while they were withheld from those who perhaps had not during their service an equal share in the good things of this world. It was right and just that this provision should be made for the parochial clergy of England; but he made the appeal further because it was for the interests of the parishes themselves, which this clergy served, that the change should be made. He could assure their Lordships that in some cases the parish did suffer most severely from the causes to which he had referred. The clergyman was often, in addition to his spiritual office, the centre of literary life and of moral power in a parish; and when he was disabled, and when there was no resident nobleman or gentleman, or earnest-minded Dissenting minister, the relaxation of the power of that central spring caused the inhabitants to sink down to a dead level of stagnation. It was manifest that such parishes suffered under grievous injustice. The injury inflicted on the parishes by the absence of any provision for retirement extended beyond the particular parishes concerned; for the present system helped to maintain the most vicious idea which had spread so widely that these benefices were for the use of those who were paid by them, and not so much for the benefit of the people to whom they ministered. It was desirable that the fallacy should be removed, because anything was valuable that tended to remove the idea that because our forefathers had wisely endowed the ministers of the Church with freehold property, they had not had in view especially the spiritual benefit of the population of the several parishes. These freeholds were in the nature of a trust, and when the trust was violated, the freeholders had no longer the right to retain them. The interests of the parish formed the first consideration, and these could be obtained by the appointment of a younger and stronger man. It had been said that the object would be obtained by suffering the Bishop to appoint a curate, and to pay the curate out of the income of the benefice. But that was not the same thing; it was a wholly different thing to have an efficient clergyman as the incumbent of a parish and a worn-out clergyman as the incumbent backed by a curate. In the first place, there was a feeling of security in a man's mind when he held the position of incumbent. While he was incumbent he was not liable to be removed, unless he himself chose, and therefore he gave his whole heart and soul to his work in a way which no man could do who might be removed in a few months. There was a taking root in the one case, and a mere putting in a rootless branch in the other. And besides this there must necessarily be, while human nature was what it was, some feeling between the older incumbent and the younger curate; there must spring up just that feeling of jealousy and alienation which created more harm in a parish than any feeling of a secular character whatever. The former having had his power enfeebled by degrees would not feel the amount of change that had become necessary, and would see with distaste what he would think the unnecessary activity of the curate whom the Bishop had forced upon him. Therefore, there would not be the benefit to the parish if you gave to the Bishop power to appoint a curate that there would be if you gave the rector the power of retiring. It was one thing to enable an incumbent—for no compulsion was to be put upon him—to enjoy repose, perhaps in a place where his family were settled, and where a decent allowance would enable him to sustain a less expensive position; it was another thing to compel him to be the witness of an activity which he secretly disliked. He did not know what the objections which were to be brought against the Bill would be. He knew it was said last year that the proposal contained in the Bill would be beneficial in the case of large benefices, but that it would fail in the case of small benefices. Now, he could not see why a measure by which some benefices would profit should be objected to because it would be inoperative in others. The whole subject had been most carefully studied by the clergy in the Lower House of Convocation—and they knew pretty well what was most for their own interest and welfare, and that body were unanimous in desiring that this measure should be carried. It was part of a great reform which they hoped to carry into another part of the Church machinery—the Queen Anne's Bounty. They hoped that the readjustment of Queen Anne's Bounty, which had been favourably received by the whole Bench of Bishops, and which, he believed was also favourably received by the great bulk of the parochial clergy, would in a great degree meet the difficulty and objection to which he had just referred. A most careful statement had been drawn up of what was now yielded by Queen Anne's Bounty, and what would be yielded by the Bounty if the measure now proposed was carried into effect. His right rev. Brethren—and he believed the bulk of the parochial clergy, were anxious to provide out of that fund assistance for the small benefices. The measure did not propose to alter the amount paid by the Bishops for this reason—that they paid more now than the Lower House of Convocation. That House had now proposed an alteration of the law which would throw a large increase of payment to Queen Anne's Bounty on their own body, and diminish the sum paid under the recent Act of Parliament by the Episcopal Order. But the Bishops, though paying more than the clergy, did not desire to see any reduction of their quota to Queen Anne's Bounty, their proposal being that there should be raised a very moderate tax of 1 per cent upon all benefices the income of which exceeded the sum on which the income tax was not paid. This tax of 1 per cent would go to the clergy instead of the First Fruits—a burden which was very onerous, being imposed on taking possession, and which was at the same time uncertain, unjust, and inadequate, large upon some, and nothing at all upon the great mass of the benefices of the country. The result of the alteration of this payment in the diocese of Lichfield, as his right rev. Brother had with great activity ascertained, would be this—Lichfield at present paid £150 a year to Queen Anne's Bounty; but if the alteration proposed was carried out there would be £1,500 a year from the diocese of Lichfield. It was proposed that that £150, which was now paid in augmentation of livings through Queen Anne's Bounty, should be retained, and £550 added to it; and there would still remain for the diocese £800 a year to be paid for pensions to poor clergymen retiring from livings under £300 a year. He apprehended that this would be one of the greatest practical benefits that could be bestowed upon them. The only other objection which he could conceive of was that the measure would give rise to jobs. But in the drawing-up of the Bill very great care had been taken to provide against any abuse of the principle of the Bill. It had been objected that the interests of the patrons were not sufficiently consulted by the Bill, with a view to the prevention of jobs, and a suggestion had been made that the Bill might be altered in Committee so that the consent of the patron of the living should be required; and that in the event of any difference of opinion between the patron of the living and the Bishop of the diocese, an appeal should be made, as in many other cases, to the Archbishop of the province, whose judgment should be final on the matter. Now, if that would remove the difficulty, he would be perfectly ready in Committee to agree to that change; and he believed he might say on behalf of his right rev. Brethren beside him that they would be equally as ready as himself to consent to it. Another objection which had been mentioned to him was as to the age at which a clergyman should retire and the pension become due should be defined. To this he had no objection on principle. The age of 70 years had been proposed; but he could not agree to that. It would be hard on the body of the clergy to tell them that they could not get this pension until they were 70 years old. He had proposed the age of 60 years, as he thought that a man who had been working from 23 to 60 years of age should have an opportunity of retiring upon a third of his income if he desired it, if he felt age creeping upon him, and if his Bishop agreed to it. He did not know what other objection could be made to the Bill; but he would endeavour to weigh any that was stated to the utmost of his power. He would leave the Bill in their Lordships' hands, earnestly entreating for the sake of the credit of the national Church, for the sake of the clergy, and, more than all, for the sake of the parishioners, for whose benefit these endowments had been given by our forefathers, that they would permit a second reading of the Bill, and sanction the most important principle it contained.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a,"—(The Bishop of Winchester.)

LORD ROMILLY

said, he rose, with considerable reluctance, to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. He had no doubt that the right rev. Prelate, in bringing forward that measure, was actuated by a sincere desire to benefit the Church. It was from exactly the same motive, because he (Lord Romilly) sincerely believed that this Bill would be very injurious to the Church, that he had ventured to put his judgment in opposition to that of the right rev. Prelate. In a matter of this description, which was not a matter of doctrine nor a matter of discipline, but which was merely a matter of finance, it was quite clear that a lay member of the Church might be as competent to form an opinion as the Episcopal Bench. The present was one of three Bills which were before the House at the end of the last Session, two of which were passed in a very hurried manner. Not only was he sincerely attached to the Church of England from early education and from subsequent reflection, but he believed that attachment to it was deeply rooted in the hearts of the great body of the English people. Indeed, he believed that were a religious Census taken its members would be found far to exceed all the Dissenters put together. The two great causes of its popularity were the independence of the parochial clergy and the lay element. But he proposed to show that the Bill would seriously affect the independence of the parochial clergy, and also seriously affect the right of the lay patrons. It was necessary to observe that there were two classes of persons among the parochial clergy who would be affected by this Bill. One class consisted of those clergy who had lived a long time in the parish, and, having become old, were unwilling to retire, unless compelled; but there was another class who, from various causes, desired to retire at once. Let their Lordships consider the case of a clergyman who had held the incumbency of a parish 30, 40, or 50 years, had been expecting to spend his last days there, who had, probably, christened more than half the population—let their Lordships consider the cruelty of compelling such a clergyman to leave the scene of his life-long labours to live upon a reduced income, in a place where he was unknown, and which, had no associations for him. It might be said that as no commission could be issued without the clergyman's written application to the Bishop, he would not retire unless he himself desired to do so; but what moral pressure would be put upon him! One good-natured friend would tell him that the Bishop thought him incompetent to perform the duties of his office; another would tell him that, though he preached occasionally and administered the sacraments, had a very good curate, and had a wife highly useful in the parish, still at his age he ought to resign. He would find it impossible to resist the pressure; and if clergymen in such cases declined to resign, compulsory powers would, probably, be next asked for. The case with which it was most necessary to deal—alienation of mind—was not touched by the Bill, for such a clergyman could not apply for a commission. It would be very hard to remove from a parish an aged incumbent, for whom all the inhabitants had come to entertain a filial affection, and who would be gravely injured by the Act; and, in spite of the opinion of the Lower House of Convocation, he believed that the clergy generally would regard this measure as the infliction of a calamitous protection for them. He attributed little weight to the opinion of Convocation in this matter, for it was notorious that the parochial clergy were not really represented in Convocation any more than they were in that House. There was another class of persons—men who, perhaps, had had an accession of property, or for other reasons, would be glad to retire, profess their inability further to continue in the performance of the duties of the parish, and in that case they would carry off one-third of the income from the parish, and retire from the Church. As to the commissioners preventing jobs, how could that be done? If a young man professed to be incapacitated by illness, how could it be ascertained that he was not so? He might get a medical certificate of certain ailments, and might probably possess some ailments, though not sufficient to disable him. The Bill would enable him to leave the living with a diminished income; whereas he would otherwise have resigned, and left it without any burden. There was also another serious objection to the Bill—the expense of working it. The commissioners who were to take evidence under it must be paid. The commissioners were to take evidence and examine persons, and if they thought the incumbent ought not to retire, the expense of the inquiry would be a charge upon him; while in the other event half of it was to be paid out of the living. The expense would make the machinery quite inapplicable to small livings; indeed, this was admitted by the right rev. Prelate. He desired also to call attention to the novelty of the proposal. Bishops had hitherto been restricted to questions of doctrine and discipline; but this was one of a series of Bills which gave them a voice in the financial arrangements of the parochial clergy. This he regarded as a very serious evil. He could see no calamity to a parish in having the duties amply performed by a curate, under the direction of an incumbent who had had a long experience of the parish, and was well acquainted with its requirements. The patron, to whom and to the incumbent all financial affairs ought, he contended, to be left, was wholly ignored by the Bill. His one representative on the commission would be outvoted by the four other members, or might even be displaced by the Bishop, who was to be able to remove any commissioner he deemed unfit and to appoint a substitute. The Bishop was also to fix the amount of the pension, provided it did not exceed one-third, of the income of the benefice; and as the Bill stood, he saw nothing to prevent a succession of retirements and pensions. The result of this would be that the patron would be dissatisfied with his position, and would dispose of his advowson. Lay patronage was a very beneficial element in the Church, and he deprecated anything which would weaken it. He objected to this and its companion measures as likely to further the efforts of those persons who wished to remove the Episcopal Bench from their Lordships' House, and to overthrow the Established Church, and as likely also to alienate the best friends of the Church.

An Amendment moved to leave out ("now") and insert ("this day six months.")—(The Lord Romilly.)

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

said, that as to the objection of the great danger of clergymen being forcibly brought within the operation of the Bill, the answer was simple—he would remind the noble and learned Lord (Lord Romilly) that the Bill did not come into operation until the clergyman had requested the Bishop to appoint a commission, and the incumbent could avoid all the evils and dangers which he saw in it by simply taking no advantage of its provisions. He thought the noble and learned Lord, in the early part of his speech, led the House too much into the region of sentiment. Why should a clergyman differ from every other person who served the public, or a private individual, as to the necessity of giving up attempting to discharge his duties when he had no longer the power to do so? There was a class of very estimable men—most valuable servants of the public, whom of all others Parliament would be most sorry to oppress—but who were now subject to this same dangerous permission. He believed it was open to a Judge, if he wished to retire, to apply in the proper quarter, and obtain a portion of his salary as a pension; and he had never heard this described as a hardship, or heard of the danger of a Judge being bullied and worried by ill-judging friends into unnecessary resignation. A Judge was just as likely to have a sentimental attachment for the Bench on which he had sat half his life as a clergyman for his living; and if there was a danger of being bullied protection ought to be applied as much to the Judge as to the clergyman. The same might be said of every part of the public service. No reform had been more beneficial or more general in modern times than the principle of superannuation of public servants, and the Bill simply proposed its application to the parochial clergy. If some such measure were not passed, surely the clergy would have a right to complain that a liberty which had already been given to the Bishops was not given to them. He desired also to say that he thought the rights of patrons were not protected as they ought to be; but this was a matter for future consideration. While not regarding the Bill as perfect, and thinking the rights of patrons were not sufficiently protected, its general principle was wise and necessary, and an indispensable sequel to the reform applied by Parliament to both the civil and ecclesiastical service.

THE EARL OF HARROWBY

supported the Bill, which he thought would be beneficial; but he feared that its application would be limited to the richer livings. The rights of the parishioners ought to be protected; and, therefore the churchwarden of the parish ought to be one of the commissioners in place of the magistrate nominated by the Bishop.

LORD CAIRNS

said, that last year he had made several objections to the Bill then before them, and some of them still existed. The two principal points of objection had, however, been remedied, and his objections might be modified or removed by the Amendments to which the right rev. Prelate was willing to agree. One of these concerned the rights of the patron—that no resignation should take place without his having a potent voice in the matter. Another, to the terms upon which an incumbent should be permitted to resign. The Bill contained no definition of the period of life that would entitle an incumbent to retire—it did not often happen that a clergyman held a benefice from the age of 23 to 60, for he seldom got a living at the former age. He agreed that an incumbent, incapacitated by illness, should be able to retire irrespectively of age; but he objected to fixing 60 as the age entitling a clergyman to a pension, for a man of 60 might, ex hypothesi, be healthy and vigorous, and quite competent to discharge his duties. This and one or two other points might be considered in Committee, and he now only threw it out for consideration. There were also other matters that would have to be considered; and one was a subject of great importance. The existing law subjected to the penalties of simony the making of any resignation of a benefice in consideration of a money payment; and in the present Bill the right rev. Prelate proposed to enact that the transactions under this Bill should not be subjected to the penalties against simony. Now, unless this provision were very carefully guarded, they would open a door to a most corrupt kind of jobbery in the traffic in livings. Nothing would be so easy as to enter into a private arrangement in reference to the next presentation with the incumbent, that in addition to having one-third of his income under this Bill, the purchaser should secretly give him something more, in order to induce him to retire. This ought to be carefully guarded against. Another objection was this—What was to be the position for the future of the incumbent who retired upon one-third of his income? Suppose, for instance, that an incumbent availing himself of the Act passed last Session chose to make the necessary declaration and to retire from orders altogether. He would then receive one-third of the income arising out of the benefice of a Church from which he had withdrawn. Suppose, further, that after this he should preach doctrines, or write books containing doctrines which were heretical, how were they to deal with him? Possibly they might have a man receiving the third of the income of a benefice preaching or writing opinions that were heretical, and yet they would be unable to punish him. There was a provision in the Bill enacting that in case the clergyman, after availing himself of the benefit of the Act, engaged in any ecclesiastical duty, the Bishop of the diocese he had quitted and the Bishop of the diocese to which he went might settle between themselves how far his retiring income might be reduced. But if the clergyman subsequently wrote heretical works or preached doctrines which were not orthodox, he might go to places where there was no diocese and accept, for instance, the charge of a congregation on the coast of Italy, living in a climate much more agreeable than that of England, and drawing not only his Italian salary but also a third of the income of his former benefice. He hoped that the right rev. Prelate would deal with the various questions to which he had pointed attention.

EARL STANHOPE

said, that most of these matters would very rightly be considered in Committee; but he did not think that they furnished any ground to resist the present Bill. The noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Romilly) seemed to treat very lightly the evils of the system as it existed now. But was it a light matter to a parish to find itself-tied to an incumbent who had come, perhaps, to that grievous pass of extreme old age— Quæ nec Nomina servorum nec vnltum agnoscit amici; —an incumbent become wholly infirm and incompetent, and able at most to read forth once a week the appointed Services? Was this a light matter for the feelings of the incumbent himself? Yet how could such an incumbent be expected to retire from his benefice, unless the law provided a fixed though moderate income for the sustenance of himself and his family when he retired? This same measure, in principle, had already been applied to the Bench of Bishops in a temporary Act, and it had already produced the happiest effects. With this view of the question, he (Earl Stanhope) tendered his thanks to the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Winchester) for introducing the measure, and he had every hope that, if the second reading were passed, the defects complained of could be remedied in Committee. Much had been said of the rights of patrons: no doubt it was of importance that the rights of patrons should be protected; but still, if the interests of the patron and of the parish should happen to be in conflict, the interests of the parish should certainly prevail.

On Question, That ("now") stand part of the Motion, resolved in the affirmative: Bill read 2a accordingly.

House adjourned at a quarter past Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.