§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, the Department of Science and Art was incorporated by Royal Charter, under the provisions of which it had acquired buildings in South Kensington, had established a museum, and had received various bequests. A gentleman whose name was well known to their Lordships—Sir Joseph Whit-worth—presented to the nation in 1868 an annuity of £3,000 a-year, which was vested in this Department of Science and Art, for the purpose of founding scholarships to promote the instruction of young men in the theory and practice of mechanics and the cognate sciences. These scholarships had proved to be of great use. The same public-spirited gentleman possessed a considerable estate in the North of England, called the Stan-well Estate, and he wished to make it over to the public, subject to his life interest, for the purpose of securing this sum of £3,000 a-year for the scholar-ships, and devoting the remainder of the estate to similar objects. This could not, however, be done without a relaxation of the Statutes of Mortmain, and as it was not intended to create a perpetual trust, but to leave the matter always open to the control of Parliament, Her Majesty's Government thought those statutes might be relaxed in the case of this or a similar gift. The object of the present measure, therefore, was to empower the Science and Art Department to hold the land subject to the control of Parliament.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
§
Motion agreed to:—Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.
House adjourned at Seven o'clock, to Monday next, half past Two o'clock.