HL Deb 26 July 1872 vol 212 cc1857-64
THE BISHOP OF BANGOR

, having presented Petitions from the Feoffes and from Conference at Bangor against the scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners for the better management of the Charity of David Hughes, founded in 1609 at Beaumaris, in the county of Anglesey, moved that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying Her Majesty to refuse Her assent to the scheme. The right rev. Prelate complained that whereas by the will of the founder the Bishop of the diocese for the time being was necessarily a trustee, the Endowed Schools Commissioners had omitted his name from amongst the ex-officio members. The Commissioners justified their action by the 17th section of the Act, which, however, merely provided that no person should be disqualified from being a member of a Governing Body on the ground of his religious faith; and he confessed he could not see how that could be construed to mean that the Bishop of the diocese on the instance of the parishioners was unfitted for the office. Another objection was to the removal of the school from Beaumaris; and a third was as to the sale of lands or portion of the endowment.

Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to refuse her assent to the scheme of the Endowed Schools Commissioners for the better management of the Charity of David Hughes, founded A.D. 1609, at Beaumaris in the county of Anglesey.—(The Lord Bishop of Bangor.)

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

said, that the Endowed Schools Commissioners were in no way to blame for leaving out the Bishop from among the ex-officio Governors. A doubt having arisen as to the meaning of the 17th and 19th clauses of the Act under which the Commis- sioners framed their scheme, the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown was taken on the point last year, and they gave an opinion that it was not competent to the Commissioners to appoint an ecclesiastical corporation to be a trnstee. On that ground, and that ground alone, the name of the Bishop had been left out by the Commissioners, and he thought it furnished an ample justification for their conduct. As to the general question, he believed the right rev. Prelate admitted that the school had not been working satisfactorily; and it was on the invitation of a great many persons in the county of Anglesey that the Endowed Schools Commissioners had been induced to go out of their way to take up the foundation. The removal from Beaumaris, to which the right rev. Prelate had objected, had been decided on because there was a great preponderance of evidence in favour of the desirability on account of convenience to the inhabitants of the Isle of Anglesey, of having it in a more central part of the island than the town of Beaumaris; while, with regard to the last objection, what had been proposed was solely with a view to promote and extend the usefulness of the school as much as possible. He hoped their Lordships would not accede to the Motion.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

, on the contrary, trusted the House would agree to the Motion, and would thus exercise that influence which the Act vested in it of stopping, if it thought fit, any of the schemes of the Endowed Schools Commissioners. He thought that the two Houses of Parliament ought to be satisfied with being the guardians of the spirit of the Act, leaving the guardianship of its letter to the Courts of Law. Judged by that rule, the scheme now under discussion was undoubtedly opposed to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the Act, as it was understood in both Houses at the time of its passing. Now, it was well known that a great many founders in former times, anxious to leave their property for the promotion of religious education, indicated that desire, in the clearest possible manner, by appointing, as ex-officio trustees, various spiritual corporations, such as rectors, vicars, and Bishops. Well, when the Act passed, it was supposed that it would give effect in a broad manner to the wishes generally of the founders of the schools that might be dealt with; but it was never imagined that it would be made the instrument of a system of Dissenting raids upon the Church of England endowments. In an evil hour, however, the point now raised by this scheme was referred to the Law Officers of the Crown; and they, moved by one of those strange caprices that sometimes overtook the clearest intellects, determined that the clause which declared that you should not establish a test of religious opinion for trustees, excluded Bishops and vicars from being ex-officio trustees altogether. Such was certainly not the intention of either House when the Act passed; and however much it might be its letter, he felt certain it was not its spirit. The clause was only intended to exclude tests as directly applied; but it was not intended to make the Commissioners assume that because a man held a particular office he must hold particular opinions. In the present case the intention of the founder of the school was clear. He directed that the Bishop of the diocese should not only be a permanent trustee, but also gave him two votes in the election of the schoolmaster; yet the Bishop was now to be excluded altogether from the trust. The question raised by this scheme was not merely one turning on a point of law, nor was it only a dispute between the Church of England and Dissenters. The fact was, that the latter, in order to carry out their views, were obliged to fight in the uniform and under the banner of the friends of secular education, and if their Lordships approved of the course taken in this matter by the Commissioners at the instance of the Dissenters, the result would be this—not that ex-officio Dissenting trustees would take the place of ex-officio Church of England trustees, but that trustees would have to be appointed who had no connection with any spiritual office or body whatever. That appeared to him a retrograde system. He regretted that the time was passed when this point could have been made the subject of judicial interpretation.

LORD LYTTELTON

said, that this Session the Endowed Schools Commissioners had to acknowledge great forbearance—perhaps he should rather say neglect—on the part of Parliament. Only once—in the case of the Grammar School at Ripon—had there been an attempt to ask the opinion of the other House on their proceedings, and the present was the first occasion on which those proceedings had been in any way brought under the notice of their Lordships. However, the proverb—"It never rains but it pours," was likely to hold good in this instance, because there were no fewer than three cases in which objection was to be made this evening to schemes formed by the Commissioners. He could not say that out-of-doors matters had been quite equally smooth for him and his Colleagues. He had been called "a pedantic nobleman" one time, and "an amiable nobleman" another time; he hardly knew which was the worst. He had been compared to Mr. Ayrton, one of the Assistant Commissioners, and to Judas Iscariot. But still he believed that, especially since the issue of their Report—a Report which had been generally received in a tone of compassionate contempt—the result of their labours had been to give such an impetus to secular education in the direction of the principles of the Schools Inquiry Report, that if, to the general satisfaction of mankind, they were themselves to be swept from the earth to-morrow, what they had done would have produced lasting and substantial effects; and, in that case, all the invective and all the compassion might go to their own place. In the Beaumaris case the Commissioners were accused of something like sharp practice in having so timed the day of laying the scheme before Parliament that there was barely time for its consideration. With this, however, they had nothing whatever to do; it was wholly in the hands of the Education Department. That Department was well able to defend itself. He would only say that if they did mean sharp practice they chose an odd way of doing it, for the schemes were before Parliament on July 4, when it was quite doubtful if they would not have to stand over till next Session. As to the complaint about the removal of the school from Beaumaris, that step had not been decided on by the Commissioners without a full consideration of all the circumstances, and the most ample local inquiry. The people of Beaumaris no doubt objected, as everyone always did, to the withdrawal of any portion of the endowments which it possessed; but it was assuredly the duty of the Commis- sioners to take a broader view, including the whole of the district around, and in that view they were satisfied; and he asserted, without troubling the House with details—which, however, he was able to do if required—that the course actually proposed was the best even for Beaumaris itself, the county of Anglesey generally, and the adjacent parts of Wales. As to the legal point, he admitted—and it was only what they had said in their Report—that they did not agree in the opinion of the Law Officers. In fact, his former colleague, Mr. Hob-house, a most enlightened and liberal man, and anything but a Church partizan, looking at the matter as a highly-competent lawyer, said it never occurred to him to consider that, under Clause 17, they were debarred from appointing whoever they pleased as an ex-officio Governor. The marginal heading in the Act was of course no authority, but he quoted it as indicating what seemed the reasonable view—that if a man's social and official position indicated him—as was constantly the case, for instance, with respect to the incumbent of the parish—as a proper ex-officio Governor, his religious opinions should not disqualify him. He much wished that this point might be brought to judicial decision, about which he could not suppose there could be any serious difficulty. At present the Commissioners thought themselves bound to construe the 17th and 19th sections strictly; if they were wrong, they desired to be so informed by superior and competent authority. But he did hope that the House would not on this single and separate point, which might be afterwards dealt with, reject schemes which—especially the Felstead scheme—he believed would be very acceptable in the districts concerned.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

said, he also hoped their Lordships would not adopt a course which would be in the highest degree inexpedient—namely, that of rejecting several schemes proposed by the Endowed Schools Commissioners upon a point of law arising in the construction of an Act of Parliament, when the House had no power, by mere Resolution, to determine what was the proper construction of the Act. The proper course was to put the point at issue—the appointment of spiritual persons as ex-officio Governors—in train for legal decision, He was not going to ex- press an opinion upon the construction of these two clauses, a point which might be argued by way of appeal before the Privy Council. The case was not clear. It was obvious that the marginal note had operated upon the mind of the right rev. Prelate; but it must be dismissed from consideration, because no Court of Law could take cognizance of a marginal note. The 19th clause simply provided for Church schemes and schemes for other religious denominations, and provided in the interest of religious instruction certain exemptions from the 17th clause, and the 17th section simply meant that, having regard to denominational schools, care should be taken that the religious opinions of a person appointed trustee should in no way affect his qualification. But when they said that a clergyman of the Established Church, a Roman Catholic priest, or a Jewish Rabbi might be ex-officio trustees, was it not thereby meant that they should so act as long as they remained a clergyman, a priest, or a Rabbi, and no longer? Suppose the clergyman were deprived of his incumbency or status in the Church for holding Roman Catholic or Unitarian views, was he to continue to hold the position of trustee, notwithstanding he had ceased to hold the religious opinions which had led to his appointment as trustee? The point was an arguable one, and ought to be decided not by a vote of this House, but by solemn argument and decision.

LORD CAIRNS

, in the first place, desired to call their Lordships' attention to the various and important points before the House. He was not going into local details, with regard to which he had no information; nor was he going to inquire whether it was wise to give facilities for the selling of land left in trust. He was, however, very much in favour of property being sold, and the purchase money invested, as he thought this course would be convenient for the charities. There was one point of the case which affected the present scheme. It was narrow and precise, but still an important and practical point. It was this—Was the Bishop or the incumbent of the parish to be the only person disqualified from filling the office of trustee? He thought the noble Lord (Lord Lyttelton) had troubled himself unnecessarily in supposing that these Motions were directed in any way against the Endowed Schools Commissioners, who took the view that it was a hardship that they should be debarred by the restriction of the Act from appointing a Bishop or incumbent to be an ex-officio trustee. As he understood their meaning, it was that the Endowed Schools Commissioners should not be debarred from appointing a Bishop or rector as ex-officio trustee. What he maintained was this—that the Endowed Schools Commissioners might really feel that, irrespective of his opinions, the Bishop of a diocese or the rector of a parish was a fit and proper person for such appointment, and he should say the same in the like case of a Roman Catholic Bishop or parish priest. These were generally the most fitting persons in point of position, dignity, and permanency to be the trustees of these schools. The 17th clause had been referred to, but that clause said that in every scheme the Commissioners should provide that the religious opinions of any person should not in any way affect his qualification as one of the Governing Body. But was it not on the ground of his religious opinions that the Bishop was now excluded? Then, the result of the construction put upon the clause was that the Bishop was now one of the persons prevented from being a trustee of the school upon the ground of his religious opinions. He would not have said so much if he were sure that the question would be brought to a legal decision. His right rev. Friend knew very well from experience that the wording of the 39th clause was very peculiar and somewhat narrow. If, however, the Endowed School Commissioners appointed a Bishop, and somebody challenged the appointment on the ground of its illegality, the question might be tried. But if the Endowed School Commissioners felt themselves debarred from appointing a Bishop, he did not see how the question could be raised in a Court of Law. That being the state of the case, he trusted their Lordships would agree to the Address moved by the right rev. Prelate.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

said, he should be sorry if the idea should go forth to the public that there had been any disrespect shown on the part of the Education Department to either that or the other House of Parliament. The scheme in this case was laid before this House on the very first day on which it could possibly be done. The scheme was sent into the Department on the 17th of April; a fortnight was usually given by the Department in order that representations might be made by parties concerned, but in this case there were two days less. The scheme was approved on the 29th of April, it was advertised on the 4th of May, and after the lapse of two months, upon the 4th of July, it was laid before the House.

On Question? Their Lordships divided:—Contents 64; Not-Contents 50: Majority 14.

Resolved in the Affirmative.

Ordered, That the said Address be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.