SECOND READING. (Hansard, 19 April 1872)

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, the first object of the measure was to enable the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to accept trusts for the building, repairing, or adorning of churches, chapels, parsonage houses, or buildings belonging to any cathedral, parsonage, or glebe; or for providing or augmenting the stipend of any person exercising ecclesiastical functions in the Church of England. By Clause 3 it was provided that any person wishing to transfer such trusts to the Commissioners should make an application in the form given in the schedule of the Bill. Clause 4 provided that within two months from the date of such transfer the Commissioners should execute a deed poll, declaring the amount of property transferred to them, and the trusts on which they held it. Clauses 5 and 6 provided for the custody and inspection of the deed. So much for the general purposes of the Act; but it had a particular object also. The Rev. Thomas Randolph, Prebendary of the prebendal stall of Cantelowes, in the cathedral church of St. Paul, being a non-residentiary prebend, and in possession of the income of that preferment, desiring to promote the reverential worship of God in that cathedral, had bound himself to pay out of that income so long as he should hold the stall the annual sum of £800, to be divided in each year by the Dean and Chapter among such of the prebendaries as should have joined in performing the public service of God in the cathedral in proportion to their attendances; and whereas upon the death of Mr. Randolph the income of the prebendal stall of Cantelowes would become vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the Bill authorized the Commissioners, if they 1545 should think fit, to continue the payment thus commenced by Mr. Randolph. The prebend of Cantelowes had increased very much in value. It was now worth £1,000 or £2,000 a-year, and there was a prospect that it would become still more valuable. He hoped their Lordships would give a second reading to the Bill.

§ EARL GRANVILLE
said, he could not consent to the second reading of the Bill until he had some fuller explanation of the necessity for it, and of the nature of its provisions.

§ THE EARL OF CHICHESTER
said, that as one of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, he desired to have further information as to the manner and degree in which the Bill would affect the duties of the Ecclesiastical Commission.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
said, he appreciated the objects the noble Marquess desired to attain by this measure. It was an unfortunate circumstance that at present neither the Queen Anne's Bounty Commissioners, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, nor any other body were authorized to receive the money which had been so handsomely given by Mr. Randolph; and the circumstance was all the more to be regretted because the object he had in view was a good one. The name of St. Paul's sounded as if it bespoke large revenues; but the fact was that it was no better endowed than any other cathedral. Neither the Prebendaries of St. Paul's, who are now in the condition of mere honorary Canons, nor the Prebendaries and honorary Canons of any other cathedral received a single sixpence to defray the expenses to which they were necessarily put in the performance of their duties. No fund existed from which even to pay travelling allowances or other expenses, and Mr. Randolph, who was the last representative of a former state of things, proposed to set aside £800 a-year from his own emoluments to meet this object, provided the Ecclesiastical Commissioners would set aside the same sum from the prebend in perpetuity. He did not think the Bill was the very best that could be framed for the purpose it aimed at; and it would be desirable, he thought, so to modify its provisions 1546 as to make it a completely satisfactory measure.

THE BISHOP OF LONDON
was understood to express a similar opinion.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR
advised their Lordships to pause before assenting to the second reading of the Bill. He questioned the necessity of a measure of this kind, as the existing law was sufficient, and even better, for the purpose desired by the promoters of the Bill, because, under the present law, an intended donor might appoint trustees, who would be compelled to fulfil the benevolent object he had in view, while under the Bill it would be merely optional with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners whether they would appropriate the money to that particular object or not. As the Bill stood, he could not help considering its effect to be to evade the law of mortmain. By handing his money over to individual trustees, Dr. Randolph could do all he wished without this Bill. There was, in fact, no legal necessity for such a measure.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
said, that so far from his having any desire to interfere with the laws of mortmain it had never entered into his mind, and he could also add that he had never wished to interfere with the Bill of Rights or Magna Charta. He would withdraw the Bill.