§ Order of the Day for the Second Heading read.
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that the scheme was not a new one. He had been allowed, on a previous occasion, to enter into a detailed statement of its provisions. The Bill embodied a scheme which had grown into its present shape very gradually, and after a great deal of careful review and supervision. In 1874 a Select Committee of the House of Lords was appointed on the matter, after that a Royal Commission sat, and Bills had been brought before both Houses. The subject had been before the clergy in Convocation and before the House of Laymen, and by all these Bodies the principles of the Bill had been approved. Since the Bill was before their Lordships last Session 13 Diocesan Conferences, besides those which had done so previously, had also considered and approved it. Only one Diocesan Conference had pronounced unfavourably to the Bill, or, rather, had declined to recommend it 679 as originally introduced. The very important Select Committee of last Session had treated the Bill in a way for which all who cared for its principles must be grateful. Their Lordships might, therefore, feel well assured that the Bill had received—word by word—the most careful consideration. The only material alteration made since the Select Committee reported on the Bill was in Clause 10. It was now proposed that members should hold office for three years from the time of the triennial election, and not from the time of their own election, if they had been elected at a broken period. There was nothing now to prevent what it was hoped that henceforth a real check would be placed upon—namely, the exceedingly gross evils which attended the sale and transfer of patronage. The very terms of the law as they now existed were actually used as a means of furthering these gross evils. Facts which existed by provisions of the law were sometimes made the most effective instruments for promoting transactions of which they were all ashamed. The evils were not very wide, and the prevalence of them was exaggerated; but although not very wide they were very gross. As scandals they were particularly offensive to the most sensitive feelings about subjects of the most sacred character. They wounded our sense of right in regions in which right ought to be absolute. As weapons they were most effective in the hands of the enemies of the Church, though the Church herself might be as keen and as anxious as possible to have the evils redressed. But what was worst of all was that the scandals to which he referred brought wrongs and injuries to the parishes subject to these transactions, and they must recognize the fact that the evils weakened the Church where she ought to be strongest—in her ministry. Those evils, then, ought to be met just as other gross, yet not widespread, evils were met—by legislation, which would most carefully and cautiously touch the evils without inflicting any further disaster. It was no defence of them to say that they introduced excellent men of means into livings. That was not denied; but, under any circumstances, such men—whom the Church so valued for their work—would be always forthcoming, and would enter on it by ways more satisfactory to themselves. There were 680 hundreds of patrons to whom the advowsons possessed no money value. Nothing would induce them to part with an advowson for money. Many other patrons in selling would only dispose of the advowsons to persons who would take the utmost care as to the use to which they might be applied. But beyond these two broad bands of patrons—those who would not sell an advowson for money, and those who, while exercising the right to sell, took precaution, that they were selling only to persons who would exercise the right as they themselves did—there was what he might call a floating zone of livings, not so numerous as had been asserted, but which came again and again into the market, and which, being capable of being used for ill purposes, gave rise to most of the scandals. It had been said that about a third of the livings which were in private hands had been sold again and again; but that appeared to be exaggeration. There seemed no reason to suppose that above a tenth of the livings of the Church had been systematically subjected to the action of which he had complained. There was, moreover, a quietly-working tendency to bring a great deal of patronage into the hands of unsatisfactory patrons. Clergymen had a greater temptation than anyone else to purchase livings when the sum to be paid was small and there was an expectation of better times. In parts of the country where the livings were small many had passed lately into the hands of clerical patrons. These were induced either to purchase livings because they yielded to them so high an interest, or to bring up members of their family, not necessarily fitted for the holy office, to inherit the advowson. The Bill was not intended, and could not be construed, into any ratification of the system of sale. That system must simply be accepted as a fact, and as a fact which could not be altered within any measurable period of time, but as a system, the abuses of which it was lawful and most needful to correct. Since the Bill was originally presented an alteration had been made in the 2nd clause, giving it in words its proper prohibitive force. The clause now provided that no rights of Church patronage should in consideration of money or money's worth be granted or assigned unless the person to whom such 681 rights were granted or assigned had a bonâ fide interest in the good of the parish, or was interested in the good of the Church. Opportunity was given for learning that which the Church had a right to be assured of, and he was sure that no honest person would ever have any difficulty in showing that he had an interest in the parish, or that he purchased with a view of the good of the place in which the church was situated, and that he had no intention of presenting unfit persons to the living. The only persons who would be prohibited from purchasing were agents, or persons who would be unable to make a declaration that they were not purchasing in consideration of money or money's worth to be received by them, or were unable to say that they had not entered into any covenant with the present incumbent that he should retire at some future time. The Bill was framed upon two principles which he fearlessly asserted their Lordships would agree with. The first of these principles was that an advowson was a sacred trust—a spiritual trust. Not a mere commercial interest in a marketable ware, but a trust in the same sense in which official appointments were trusts unsubjected to sale. What Cabinet would dream of vending, say, Colonial Governorships? He was very well aware that the word "trust" had two meanings, and of course he did not mean that it was a legal trust; but an advowson had never ceased to be a trust according to the definitions of the past. The most popular treatises and the best authors—as Phillimore, Gibson's Codex, and Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity—regarded advowsons as a sacred trust. They were described as "trusts for the benefit of the souls of men." He need not add more than to remind their Lordships of the words with which the Prime Minister concluded his speech last Session, when he said that private rights must be recognized, yet must not be allowed to control the more serious aspect of a right foundation of a sacred trust for the benefit of the Church. It had been urged by a great authority (the Earl of Selborne), at the last introduction of this Bill, that the Council proposed in it should have more of an elective character. That had been worked out with care by the Select Committee, and with that new element fully provided for it 682 now came forward. The Council should have real power, in order to inspire confidence in the Church. The Council was made capable, if funds or livings were put at its disposal, of becoming itself a patron. It remained to be seen whether it would become so to a large extent. He did not believe it would. But it would, which was more important, put a stop to the scandals connected with floating livings. The check to scandals was proposed to be given by defining the Bishop's power to refuse, and the grounds on which he might refuse, an unfit person. The Bishop's capability of inquiry ought to be strengthened by a kind of council or jury of an equal number of clerical and lay members, whose function it would be to make real the power of inquiry which now, to some extent, existed. The second principle he submitted as fearlessly to their Lordships. It was this—that the trust in question is a trust which so vitally affects a parish, on each exercise of it, for a generation, or, at the least, many years, that the parish ought, before the appointment is made, to be enabled to state to the Bishop any knowledge it possessed of such objections as a Bishop would find it proper to refuse upon. The parish was brought in as witness upon certain points. Many patrons would welcome this opportunity of being able to introduce, in a proper, formal manner, the name of the person they intended to appoint, and to be able to receive objections of a limited and special kind, based on knowledge. If this were adopted, they would, he was certain, avoid much of the feeling which sometimes arose. Had it not been for a lack of such knowledge, he himself would never have made a certain appointment to a living in his own gift to an improper person—the thought of which was a daily distress to him—if he had only let the name been known beforehand. It was recommended to him in the highest way. He did his best, and his informants placed the information they had at his disposal. But if the name had been affixed to the church door he would have been delivered from the misfortune, and the parish would have been delivered from an unsuitable rector. The Bill was intended to carry out these two principles—that the advowson was a trust the exercise of which should always be, as 683 in most cases it was, no matter of money, and that the persons affected by the discharge of the trust ought to be able to make definite objections beforehand, based upon knowledge. Other points, formerly dwelt upon at length, could be discussed in Committee. The evils, then, to be corrected were gross, although often exaggerated, and they were quite capable of being healed. The proposed remedies had been examined and re-examined by most competent persons, and it was believed to be capable of effecting what was required, and, what was equally important, of effecting no more. He, therefore, laid the Bill before their Lordships in the hope that they would allow it to be read a second time.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)
§ LORD GRIMTHORPE, in rising to move the rejection of the Bill, said, he thought that at that hour (7 o'clock), and in the very thin state of the House, some of their Lordships might prefer to adjourn the discussion of so important a Bill, which required much more explanation than it had received in that House. It could hardly be said to have been discussed in the conversational speeches that were made last year, and no attempt had been made to show that the Bill would cure the evils against which it was said to be directed. Moreover, no importance could be attached to the friendly discussion it had received in a Committee containing five Bishops and the noble and learned Earl opposite (the Earl of Selborne) who had spoken in favour of the Bill. Such a Bill could not be properly discussed, except with a hostile witness, with an eye for defects. It was not only a most important Bill, but he did not think anyone would dispute that the measure was by far the most revolutionary that had ever been introduced in reference to the Church since the Long Parliament. There was no substantial discussion on the Bill last year; and, in point of fact, its real objects and defects had never yet been stated in the House, for it did not arrive at a third reading when it was introduced before. It was nothing to say that Diocesan Councils had recognized it as an excellent Bill. He believed they had not attempted to discuss its operation thoroughly. Equally superficial was the attention it had received from 684 the religious newspapers. The only elaborate article in a magazine, by Chancellor Espin, was adverse to the Bill. The approval of the House of Laymen did not amount to much, for it was a voluntary body; at all events he, a layman who was known to take an interest in Church affairs, did not know how it was elected, and had never had the opportunity of giving a vote for a member of it. In fact, a Dean had described the House of Laymen to him as "the Chatterbox." It was, therefore, correct that all the indications he could find of any notice having been taken of the Bill did not justify the assumption that its provisions had been appreciated. If they were to accept the most noble Prelate's account of the Bill, it was enough to say that there were evils to be cured; but he had been benevolent enough to add that those evils were exceptional, and that it was quite an exaggeration to suppose that they were common. So that because there were a few bad things, and because one-twelfth, according to the most rev. Prelate's estimate, of the livings were sometimes sold, therefore they were practically to pass a Bill which would abolish private patronage in England altogether. The Dean whom he had just quoted once told him that private patronage was better dispensed than episcopal patronage. This was a very complicated Bill, and instead of dealing with its sections and sub-sections it was better to state cases, and see how the Bill would operate. Suppose a Bishop had a living to give away. He had to consider the possibility of the patron desiring to sell it. The Bishop might not present the best person; but he might be as good as he need be, for every living could not have the best man. There was a trust. Surely it was a trust to do some definite thing. What? To present a fit man. There was nothing new in that form of trust. The patron, who had a right to present a fit person, had possessed it for 800 years, and everyone knew that he was under condition to present a fit man. But who was to judge of the fitness? A body of people elected like the churchwardens, as they were to be in this Bill? No; the Bishops. He admitted that the Bishops not only had the duty of doing this, but he thought their power of doing it had been gradually, almost unduly, restricted, as regarded 685 the interests of the Church and the Kingdom, by lawyers and Judges. Why was that? Because Judges were obliged to act by rule, and if they found that a Bishop had invented a new test for himself they were obliged to say that it was not legal. He objected to the giving a single Bishop the power of vetoing the presentation to a living. In the first instance he would give the power very largely indeed, but subject to the control of somebody else, who should not be a fixed person, but a precarious tribunal of other Bishops upon whom he could not reckon beforehand. He did not think there would be much danger to the Church, to the patrons, or to anyone else, in such a reference to episcopal discretion. He was not speaking as an opponent of the Bishops; he was more interested in them and more episcopal than they were themselves, because he wanted them to have more powers; but he did not feel prepared to trust any one Bishop to decide who was, or who was not, a fit person for a living; but now the Bishops wanted to give up their power to the worst possible Body that could be chosen. The Bill proposed that a constituent Body should be elected by the whole parish, and should be composed of persons who had made a declaration that they were members of the Church of England. He thought there were many people who would make that declaration, and yet who were not the persons which one would wish to substitute for the Bishops in this matter. How would this Body work? As soon as notice was given that a living was vacant, a separate committee would probably be constituted in every public-house in the locality—the High Church at the Bull, and the Low Church at the Bear. These committees would organize opposition to every person not on their own side; and, although it was all very well to snub a single person and put a veto on a person who wanted to enforce the law of England, it would be a much more serious matter to deal with a body of persons meeting at the Tiger or the Black Bear, or any other public-house in the locality; and it would never do to treat such opposition with contempt, for in that case a Bill would probably be introduced in "another place" to compel them to recognize it. They might make all sorts of objections. Then, again, was it a right thing to subject a 686 man, against whom there was no objection, to such an inquiry as was proposed. A man might be too old, too young, or too weak, mentally or physically, or might lack other qualifications which the parochial council thought a serious disadvantage, and the Bishops must consider them all. Assuming, however, that they did not exercise the power and consider the objections, and supposing that one party obtained the victory, what happened? The new vicar came into the parish with one or two of the parties dead against him. That was a very uncomfortable position for a man to occupy, and unless the Bishop meant to upset the parochial Body he must refer the matter to the new Diocesan Council. For seats on the new parochial Body, too, there would be a lively contest in the parish, and, once elected, clerical and non-clerical members, High Church and Low, would all be found voting against each other. It was before a Body so composed that the incumbent nominated was to be brought, and it was to sit in public. It had once been his (Lord Grimthorpe's) lot to sit as a Commissioner, under the Church Discipline Act, upon a drunken parson. There was a well-packed assembly in the gallery to watch the whole proceeding. A British jury would always side with a drunkard, and so this British mob cheered everything that came out in favour of the drunken parson, and received everything the other way with marks of disapprobation as near to hissing as they could. But here, under the present Bill, the most innocent man in the world was to be hauled up before a publicly constituted Body—to be tried in public, to be asked all about his debts; whether he had such and such an illness; in short, to be asked every possible question that an impudent churchwarden, or men of that class, chose to put to him. He could imagine a sensitive man saying to such a Council "Go to Jericho" before he would consent to go before them. Was such a system likely to induce good men to go into the Church? The most rev. Prelate said the present system had produced a large number of excellent rich young men. Did his Grace wish to stop rich young men from entering the Church in these days when the net annual value of livings was declining rapidly, and going down to nothing; and when it was notoriously below £250 a year on 687 the average, did the Church not get more out of her rich men than out of the poor ones? It was, he contended, most improper that men against whom there was no suspicion should be subjected to an ordeal of the kind he had described. And they had some little experience to go upon in this matter in the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843. Well, in 30 years after that event patronage was abolished in Scotland, for they all remembered the Bill of the late Earl of Aberdeen dealing with presentations in Scotland. It did not avert the split in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland; but it destroyed the value of the advowsons, as was discovered when patronage was finally abolished. The patron, indeed, got some compensation, but only one year's purchase, and that, it had been contended by men like the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) and the late Duke of Buccleuch, was too much, because the right of patronage had ceased to have any selling value at all. The same result would title place in England as in Scotland, for Bills of this kind had already reduced the value of an advowson from ten to five years' purchase, and soon they would be of no value at all. It was said, however, that the Bishops might negative the votes of his own Council, just as he might negative the vote of the parochial Council. What! A body called into existence by the Bishops themselves? He did not believe the Bishops would do that. The Bishops would be helpless; and, therefore, this was a Bill to transfer the donee from the Bishops to the churchwardens. The Bishops said that laymen had spiritual trusts, as well as the Bishops themselves. Laymen had nothing of the kind, but the Bishops had. The Bishops came down to the House and proposed, in a Bill of this kind, to throw overboard their power in favour of a Board to be elected by the lowest of the parishioners. He should like to know how the Bishops could get over that. In his opinion, these were reasons enough to give against that portion of the Bill. Then, as to that portion of the Bill which related to the mode in which patronage was to be exercised, it was said that a layman was very wicked if he gave a living to his son. But Bishops had done that themselves. It must be recollected that now-a-days 688 very few young men went into the Church without having a real calling for the position. The profession of a clergyman was not by any means a very desirable one. Certainly, young men did not enter that profession for what they could get out of it. If a man were rich, he was almost certain to spend more on his living than he got out of it. He, himself, knew the case of a man who had never put a single penny into his pocket out of his living for eight or nine years. This was the constant case—it was the rule, and not the exception. And yet their Lordships, on the strength of a few exceptionally bad cases, were asked to sweep away rights which had existed since the foundation of the Church of England, merely because a few jobbing agents had interposed. No one would go farther than he would to deal with those agents, and he entirely agreed with that part of the Bill which dealt with them with the view of suppressing the practice. The only way of dealing with the question of patronage in connection with the Church of England was that it should be placed in the hands, not of a Board, but of some persons who could be trusted to exercise a fitting discretion in the matter. The most rev. Prelate had said that some livings appeared to exist for the mere purpose of being sold, and that might be the case with regard to donatives, which he (Lord Grimthorpe) was quite willing should at once be put an end to; indeed, he thought they ought to have been abolished long before. It had been said that livings might be purchased like public-houses; but the fact was that it was exceedingly difficult to purchase any-particular living. In his opinion the Bill was a very fanciful one, and there was no connection between its premisses and its conclusions. A very strong feeling had been exhibited against the persons known as clerical agents. One of these gentlemen, however, had held his own uncommonly well before the Commission, against the Bishop of Peterborough, who was probably the cleverest cross-examiner we had. It had been said that it was illegal to buy a living with the understanding that it was shortly to become vacant; but that was not the fact, although it was undoubtedly illegal to give a bond to that effect. If the incumbent lived for five minutes after a living was bought, the transac- 689 tion was perfectly legal. Neither was it illegal to purchase a living, when it was known that the incumbent was about to resign the next day, or that he had been promised another living. It was not the proper way to legislate to sweep away all that was good in a system, in the hope that by so doing some of what was bad might also be swept away with it. Once take a step in the direction of substituting the people for the Bishop, and the Church, of England would become subjected to the churchwarden class henceforth. Beyond that, under the present system, a great many good men were brought into the Church who would be kept out if the proposed alteration in the law were carried into effect. In his opinion, the case of the promoters of this Bill had not been proved. He had taken their Lordships through the substantial parts of the Bill. If he were asked why, as there were some parts of the measure to which he had no objection, he would not consent to read it a second time, he would say it was because the main features of the Bill were bad. The things, however, which he thought good might be embodied in two or three small Bills, to which there would be no objection. But he would impress upon their Lordships that if they passed the Bill they would make a greater revolution for good or bad in the Church of England than had been made since the Long Parliament swept the Bishops altogether out of that House. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
§ Amendment moved, to leave out ("now") and add at the end of the Motion ("this day six months.")—(The Lord Grimthorpe.)
§ On the Motion of The Lord Bishop of LONDON, the further debate adjourned to Thursday next.