§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORKMy Lords, the Bill, to which I ask you to give a Second Reading to-day, has already twice received your Lordships' approval, and is to-day precisely in the same form as when it passed this House last year. It is intended to deal with cases where the presentation to a benefice is vested in a large constituency: either a body of parishioners or other bodies, consisting of a large number of persons; and it proposes that the parishioners, or others, should exercise their right of presentation by electing a body of trustees which shall exercise the right for them when a vacancy occurs; it proposes also that the trustees shall be elected not at the 1578 time of the vacancy but beforehand, in order to provide against some of the disorder and excitement that has found a place on occasions when the election is made by a large body of patrons. My Lords, the provisions of the Bill are perfectly simple, and I need not delay your Lordships by saying anything more about them. I now beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Archbishop of York.)
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 22 accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Thursday next.