HL Deb 16 March 1893 vol 10 cc162-75

Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.

THE ARCHIBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

My Lords, any of your Lord-ships who have looked at this Bill which has been before you for some time will be quite aware that it is not intended in any way to interfere with or to depreciate the value of the right of private patronage. The right of private presentation to benefices formed part of the natural history of the Church of England—it is a usage which has grown up during centuries, and within certain limits it has proved to be beneficial in its working. The right, when properly exercised, undoubtedly gives the private patrons, who are usually persons of importance in the parish, an interest in the choice of a thoroughly suitable clergyman; it gives them also an interest in the work of the Church at large, and it is beneficial in that it is a natural and practical means of securing that the diversity of schools of religious thought which exist among us shall have proper and adequate representation. How completely it is part of the English Church is visible in the fact that nearly one-half of the livings of England are in private patronage, and that the value of such livings is greater than that of those which are in public patronage. It is an indication of the interest taken in private patronage that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have received above £2,500,000 from private donors for the purpose of improving such livings. Therefore, it is not my intention in the Kill to disturb in the least any right of private patronage. One of the rights of private patronage undoubtedly is that of transferring the right of appointment for a consideration. Well, I am not concerned to defend that right, but it is important we should observe that it has always been protected by law. That subject, however, belongs to a field entirely outside of this Bill, or any discussion of it. It is plain in a moment that there are certain instances in which it is advantageous: for instance, where an impoverished landowner has to part with the whole of his property, it would be a loss to the parish that he should be obliged to retain the advowson. Public patronage, we may say, practically speaking, has never been sold within living memory, but in a limited number of cases private patronage has been sold over and over again; there is one case in my own diocese in which a living of £2,000 a year has been sold three times in 10 years. I do not then intend by this Bill to attempt to meddle with the principle of transfer for consideration any more than with private patronage itself: but only to deal with those real and glaring evils of the system which are universally admitted to exist. They are evils not inherent in the least in private patronage or in transfer for consideration, and they are not allowed by law. It is very important we should observe that these real evils are all against the law. One of the leading agents in these matters stated to the last Royal Commission that nearly all of his transaction were illegal. These illegalities are the means by which wrongful transfer are effected; they are evasions, defiance of the law; they are subterfuges; and the Bill proceeds upon the idea that the law ought to stop whatever defiance or evasion of itself it is able to stop. Futile it is in general to pass laws which overstrain or outshoot the public conscience. Active steps have been taken again and again during the last 20 years to put a stop to these evasions and defiances of the law, and it is full time they were brought to a head If it were urged that they were not very numerous as regards the proportion of livings affected, though numerous in themselves, the comparative fewness of offences is no reason for not dealing with them. The Bill does not seek to make any revolution in the law of patronage, but to stem offences against the right use of patronage, and to provide securities where it is possible that the law as it now stands shall be observed. It is also intended to close loop-holes which the law has left open, but which are plainly against the spirit and intention of the law, The first evil we have to deal with is that of the purchase of next presentations for the benefit of the purchaser. That is distinctly against the law, and yet another of the witnesses who were called before the Royal Commission, who was himself concerned in this traffic, admitted that three-quarters of his transactions were for immediate possession by the purchaser. More than three-fourths of the offers advertised in a circular which I hold in my hand from a clerical agent are with the prospect of early possession, and this is achieved by various evasions. One very common practice is purchasing an advowson, which is lawful, then presenting oneself to it and again selling it, and not unfrequently selling it back upon a previous engagement to the person from whom it had just been bought. A more flagrant defiance of law than that it is scarcely possible to imagine, and yet that is done almost always with impunity. The law is right in enacting that a man shall not be allowed to buy a next presentation for the benefit of himself. It is against the very idea of patronage. The very idea of patronage is that another person shall judge of a man's fitness for the work of the Church, and that he should judge it on grounds which it is perfectly easy to define. When a man buys an advowson and presents himself it is very often because he takes a fancy to the house and the garden attached to the living, and to the shooting and the fishing of the neighbourhood, and he puts himself in possession of those means and opportunities of sport, and having put himself in possession of that sport by a violation of the law he very often re-sells the living to some one else. I admit that a good man may under this system put himself into a living with the firm resolution of exercising his ministry most purely, but that is no reason why we should sanction evasion of the law. Even a good man who buys himself into a living in that way starts upon his ministry with a taint, and he never gets over the taint. Whatever other reasons his parishioners may have for thinking ill of him or lightly of his influence, are extremely aggravated by the fact that he is exercising the office of priest among them by purchase. The existing state of things leads, of course, to the establishment of shops for the sale of benefices. Livings become articles of commerce and are sold by auction to the highest bidder. The salesmen's lists set forth all the particulars and the attractions of the livings. Inducements of the lowest kind are offered to purchasers. One advertisement here reads— Charming preferment for a man fond of sporting and a country life. Rectory-house cost £4,000. Price, with early possession, £2,000. Another advertisement states that "an attractive living" is "not far from a fashionable seaside resort." I hold in my hand a correspondence between an agent and a clergyman, in which the agent seeks to induce the clergyman, a rector with several incumbencies in his gift as rector, to dispose of the presentations to the agent. Another advertisement reads: "Population 1,500, but congregation small," actually gloating over the previous inefficiences of the place, and offering the results of them as an attraction to an idle man. In a letter, privately written to a clergyman by an agent, the nature of a living is mentioned, and it is stated of it— The price is £2,500, with interest until pos-session. The age of the incumbent is 76; but we hear this morning that he is very seriously ill. The doctor says that he cannot possibly last more than six months; so there is every prospect of a very early vacancy, so that we believe our client would be pepared to entertain a fair offer if made immediately. Are you disposed to make us one? Kindly reply by return. And this precious document is adorned with a mitre. A letter of that kind I think it will be agreed is nothing short of disgusting, and yet it is a kind of letter which is passing about continually. Upon the sale-lists to which I had referred, there appears this statement—"The rector will retire with one-third of his income; "and another—"The rector will exchange and give possession." Disgusting as the other instances were these examples show the cold-blooded nature of the transactions, by which so many people are to be defrauded. If a rector retires with one-third of his income, it means that he must first make a representation to the Bishop that his health is infirm. The Bishop will then appoint a Commission of Inquiry, and on the favourable Report of the Commission the rector will be allowed to retire with one-third of his income. Yet, in the case I have cited, the agent is actually anticipating all these proceedings by advertising that the rector will retire. In the other case, that of exchanging and giving possession, the same abuse occurrs. The advertisement reads as though there were no authorities to be consulted; they have it in their own hand. In the case of exchange, the law requires the consent of two Bishops to be obtained, but all limits are set aside by the contrivances of these people. It may not be possible to fight human nature so far as to make all contrivances of this kind impossible; but the purpose of the Bill is to make such contrivances as difficult as possible. Then besides the purchase of presentations with these attractions and inducements there is a second great evil, the mortgage of benefices for debts. If a clergyman mortgages his benefice for debts he has incurred he, of course, cripples the resources which the parish possesses for the proper discharge of spiritual functions. These debts are very commonly debts to the agent himself, who turns money-lender as well as salesman, and furnishes the clergyman who has "a taste for sport and country pursuits" with the money necessary for the purchase of the desired living. I have in my hand a list of livings to be sold in England—about 40—where "part of the price," it is stated, "may remain on a mortgage of the advowson. "There are others where" interest will be paid by the vendor until a vacancy occurs." I need not enlarge upon these points. It is plainly a very corrupt and odious system. What I wish to emphasise is that not a single point of it is necessarily involved in the usage of private patronage. Not one of the actions I have mentioned is allowed by law. This unhealthy system and abuses have grown up, like an excrescence, a kind of fungoid growth, which it is the business of Parliament to try and remove. There are three remedies which have been proposed for dealing with this parasitic evil. The first step is to establish in every diocese a Board of Patronage, which would review every presentation and satisfy itself that it was given honestly and aboveboard, with none of these odious transactions about it. It is also an object of the scheme that, as fast as possible, by gift or by funds raised for the purpose, the Boards should acquire the patronage of as many livings as possible in the diocese. This proposal has been set aside by the framers of the present Bill, because we believe that Boards of Patronage would not be popular or workable institutions, and that funds and livings would not to any great extent be committed to them. Considering that the vast number of presentations are perfectly honourable and pure in every respect such a system would be very thankless, and sometimes without any result, an inquisitorial system. The second scheme proposed was the constitution of Boards of Fitness for certain areas, which should simply decide in cases of sale whether the purchaser was a proper person to purchase. On close consideration, however, it was held that to decide the fitness of purchasers there must be laid down very narrow and formal definitions, or else the Board, exercising its own judgment, must undertake a great deal of inquiry which would be painful and unpleasant to all concerned. Thirdly, an able attempt was made to define the classes of persons who might become purchasers—to say what amount of interest a patron ought to have in the place which he presented; what constituted an interest, ownership, or business relationship. All these attempted definitions, however, proved unsatisfactory. The supporters of the Bill do not wish to make a revolution in the system of patronage. What we want is like a new street run through the low parts of a town; we merely wish to let in daylight and air into the dark places, and we believe this Bill will effect that purpose. It is first necessary to know who is the patron of any living. At present no one knows. There are authentic lists published and accepted of benefices with their occupants and patrons. But suppose a Bishop to be about to institute a clergyman in a living. The Bishop may acquaint himself with the statements in, the Clergy List and in the Calendar of his diocese as to the patron of the living; but at the last moment he may find himself confronted with a document stating that the new incumbent was presented by so-and-so, "the true and undoubted patron of the living," and that document has to be accepted at the moment. Little by little the difficulty would be successfully met if a system of registration of transfers of patronage were established. It is proposed in the Bill to institute such a plan of registration that the patron should not be considered to be the patron after a transfer of the patronage unless he has registered himself as the patron. Then, secondly, it is desirable that the law should explicitly declare to be illegal the evasions of the law which now exist, and that it should void benefices which have been obtained by evading the law. A man comes and asks the protection of the law to insure his possession of his living; it is only fair to require that he should make a declaration stating that he has not just broken the law. At present there is a declaration required, but it is almost useless, because a man simply declares that, to the best of his knowledge and belief, nothing which has taken place in connection with his appointment to a living was simoniacal. The word "simony" is a very vague word; it does not certainly retain its original meaning; the definition of it has passed the ingenuity of great lawyers, and a man may rely upon definitions which would enable him to make a declaration such as the Bill is intended to guard against. The first point, therefore, is registration; the second is that the law shall explicitly state what is illegal; and the third is the security of the declaration of the man himself that he has done nothing that is illegal. The fourth point is that the law ought to state specifically what are the disqualifications against admissions to livings, and it ought to forbid the Bishop to accept a man who would not be accepted for a clerkship, a tutorship, or a butlership. A man would not be accepted for positions of that kind if he were labouring under actual debt of such a nature as is described in Clause 4, or if he were labouring under an infirmity which would prevent the discharge of his duties. Further, it ought to be a disqualification that a man is of bad character, and that his character would stand in his way if he were seeking any other position. It also seems to me just that before a man is appointed to a living the parishioners should have the right to state their objections to the Bishop. It is, therefore, only right that the parishioners should have his name before them for three or four weeks, and that if they made frivolous or spiteful objections the Bishop might dismiss them. There is another object in connection with the traffic in livings which ought to be effected, and that is the abolition of the kind of benefices which are called donatives. Ad native is simply at first sight a benefice to which, owing to its old history, through its having in the main been connected with some monastery, a patron is enabled to present a man without seeking institution from the Bishop. That seems an innocent proceeding, but it comes to this, that a man has not to present letters of orders to the Bishop, nor has he to present a testimonial, and it is not shown how he has behaved himself in his previous cures. There is, indeed, no certain proof that he is a clergyman at all, as he has to present no letters of orders. Then, again, he does not make any promise of could obedience to the Bishop, and is not subject to the Bishop's interference. Another characteristic of these donatives is that they are capable of being sold during vacancy. Now, these peculiarities bring them under the category of livings which are mischievous. Agents themselves acquire donatives, and they use them in this way. An incumbent applies for leave to resign his living and another person is waiting to be presented to it. The proper authorities suspect that there is a simoniacal transaction, and believe that the incumbent in possession intends to resign his benefice for a payment or for some other benefit. When the offer is made to resign the Bishop has power to decline to accept the resignation, but if he does so the agent has now nothing to do but to present the simoniacal seller to one of his own donatives. When that is done his original benefice is ipso facto immediately vacated, and a way is opened to the purchaser to go in, and both law and authority are completely defied. It is not too strong a statement which was made to the Commission, "that the donative is the most powerful instrument of corruption which a man could have in his possession." By means of it he could ride through and over everything. There are only 100 of these donatives, and they are all, with the exception of eight, very small. Under the Bill they are all converted into presentative benefices; nobody will be hurt, and the only difference will be that the patron has the additional security of the letters of orders and everything else, and that the clergyman appointed is subject to the law. There is yet one other point. We believe that certain persons ought to be obliged to vacate their livings. We believe that a man who is labouring under great and hopeless debt should vacate his living, because there is nothing which more destroys a man's efficiency than his being known to be a debtor, with all the miseries and in capabilities which attend upon that state. Then, again, it ought not to be possible that the parishioners should, year after year, and sometimes for 20 or 30 years, be shepherded by a person labouring under hopeless infirmity. The Bill provides that if a man, labouring under hopeless infirmity, does not resign of himself and take advantage of the Incumbents' Resignation Act, 1871, to do so, it should be possible, upon proper representations, for that Act to be applied to him with this further humane provision, in order that he should not be wholly at the mercy of the Commission, to be issued by the Bishop, as to what his pension from the living should be; the Bill provides that the pension shall in no case be less than one-fourth of the annual income of the benefice. In the preparation of the Bill I have taken counsel with those who are best acquainted with both the civil and the ecclesiastical law, and they have given me most careful and generous assistance, for which I thank them most sincerely. The Bill is not intended to make a heroic revolution in the system of patronage, but it has been devised to remedy chiefs and illegalities against which the world, both religious and irreligious, cries out, and cries out most justly. My Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of the Bill.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.)

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

said he should not like their Lordships to pass the Second Reading of the Bill without any Member of the House expressing the sense of obligation which most of them, at all events, felt towards the most rev. Prelate for his persevering endeavours to deal with this very important, and also difficult, subject. The House would agree with him in recognising the rule as universal, and without exception, that to property of all kinds some duties attached. They might be duties of imperfect, or duties of perfect, obligation—duties some of which no means could be found to enforce, excepting an appeal to the moral sense and judgment of the community; but if there were any kind of property the connection of which with duty was most obvious and most imperative, it was the property which the law allowed in rights of appointment to offices of public importance. That would apply to a lay office, but not eminently to a spiritual office, because for that it was necessary to appoint a person who should not only be free from obvious legal, moral, or physical disqualifications, but also a fit and proper person, as far as human judgment could go, to be a spiritual guide and help to a greater or less number of people. Even in the smallest parishes the souls of the people were as precious as in any others. Without exception, the good of the people should be regarded above all things in such a matter. The right of lay patronage was very valuable, and, upon the whole, as far as he could judge, it had been generally administered in a conscientious spirit. The law recognised such rights of property, not as paramount, but as subordinate and subsidiary to the interests of those whose spiritual care was the ultimate object of that patronage. This was not a convenient time to go into the details of the Bill, but they bore very strong evidences of an endeavour to reconcile as far as possible those rights of property in private patrons with the higher and greater rights of those who were interested in the proper exercise of such patronage. Some provisions of the Bill went, no doubt, beyond the existing law,, but only upon the principle and with the purpose of cutting off means of defeating the just objects of the law, and preventing gross and scandalous abuses. Whatever limitations might be placed upon the exercise of private rights of patronage which could be shown to be either necessary or conducive to the curing of those abuses were perfectly justifiable. The Bill also provided for the avoidance of benefices when the duties could not be properly discharged,, and made other subsidiary provisions which would he dealt with at a later stage. This Bill, he had no hesitation in saying, was a well considered improvement upon former measures which had received the sanction of their Lordships' House, and was in all respects worthy of their full sympathy and liberal support.

VISCOUNT CROSS

My Lords, I cannot let this Bill be read a second time without rising to thank the most rev. Prelate for the very great care he has evidently bestowed on the framing of the Bill, and for bringing it forward once more in its new shape for the consent of your Lordships' House. I am not going to enter into all the evils which the most rev. Prelate has described. I cannot imagine anyone entertaining a doubt as to the question raised that this measure is not only for the good of the Church, but for the good of the nation, and that an end should be put absolutely to these practices. There are many persons who think that it would a wise step to stop the sale of advowsons altogether. Undoubtedly that is quite a different subject, and one which is very much more difficult to deal with. I am entirely in favour of the right of private patronage continuing to exist. It is the sale of the next presentation which practically works all the mischief. He quoted this remark from a judgment of Lord Chief Justice Eyre— An advowson is a temporal right, not indeed jus habendi; but jus disponendi. The right itself is a valuable right and properly the object of sale, but the exercise of this right is a public trust, and, therefore, ought to be void of any pecuniary consideration, either in the patron, or in the presentee. I believe those words fortify the speech of the most rev. Prelate, and are exactly to the point of the Bill. What gives me a particular satisfaction in the matter is that it is now 23 years ago since I had the honour of passing a Bill for stopping the sale of next presentations through the other House of Parliament. That Bill was read by your Lordships' House a second time, and then I am sorry to say it went no further. These evils have gone on since then in many a hundred parishes, owing to that Bill not having passed, and therefore I am thankful to the most rev. Prelate for the persistency with which he has pressed this most valuable Bill upon your Lordships' consideration, and I sincerely trust it will at once become law.

EARL FORTESCUE

said, he concurred in the expression of thanks to the most rev. Prelate. He would merely mention that about half a century ago he had joined with his father in divesting themselves of what they considered the very objectionable possession of a donative preferment by a deed giving a small regular endowment to a living and putting the incumbent under episcopal jurisdiction. Not the least valuable part of the proposed measure seemed to him to be the abolition of the donatives.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL)

My Lords, I do not think there can be two opinions that the abuses which the Bill seeks to check are most serious and mischievous. The right of presenting to a benefice is one that ought to be regarded as a sacred trust, and in my judgment it is impossible to imagine one involving greater responsibility. On the choice which a patron makes, and on the character of the person presented, depends very often the happiness of the parish. For years almost their only opportunity of religious instruction often depends on the person presented, and considering the consequences of presenting an unfit person it is, I think, in the highest degree obligatory on your Lordships to sec; that, however much the right of private patronage may be regarded as a right of property, it, ought to be regarded still more as a trust. There is something repugnant in the idea of the sale of a sacred trust. I do not mean to say that there are not cases in which it may be perfectly innocently done and without mischief, as, for example, where an estate changes hands; but, speaking generally, I think the notion of traffic in this sacred trust is abhorrent to the feelings of everybody. It is selling as a right that which ought to be regarded as a trust; it is the sale, not merely of the right of the patron, but of the rights of the parishioners, whose interests are prejudiced and affected and who have no voice in the transaction. I should, therefore, have been better pleased if the measure had gone further than it does in abolishing the sale of patronage. The vast majority of patrons of livings like, no doubt, to have the disposal of a living to the persons presented, but I do not think that they look at the right of patronage as so much property which they can dispose of for so much money in the market. Therefore, I do not think myself there would have been any great sense of interference with the right of property as ordinarily understood, considering that it has grown up rather in the nature of an abuse if it had been dealt with even with a less tender hand than it has been in the Bill. The Bill contains proposals which go in the right direction, and the Government will not oppose the measure because it might in their judgment have gone further. So far as this part of the Bill is concerned,. I support it as being likely to go a considerable way in checking some of the more outrageous abuses in connection with patronage. But there are other lines on which the Bill proposes to enact reforms. What can be more disreputable than the spectacle of a man hopelessly embarrassed, loaded with debt, unable to pay his way and yet retaining his position year after year as the vicar of a parish? Such a state of things is a discredit to religion and a great disadvantage to the parishioners. It is quite impossible under such circumstances that a man can with energy, zeal, and diligence discharge the important duties which he ought to discharge. I do not say that there are not exceptional cases, and that there may be some cases which are the result of misfortune. But I am speaking of the many cases where there is no reasonable excuse, and where there ought to be power to interfere to a greater extent than is the case at present. In many cases persons are presented for institution in whose cases there is no absolute disqualification according to the law as it stands, but whose institution it is known would be greatly detrimental to the parish. It is only right that there should be proper safeguards, and that the Bishop should not be compelled to force upon a parish one who would not be a desirable spiritual pastor. The Bill also prevents repeated sales of the same benefice; and, although its provisions may in a sense interfere with the patron's rights, I am quite sure that the limitations proposed will be felt by all right-minded and right-feeling patrons to be in the general interest of the public and for the good of the Church.

Motion agreed to; Bill read 2 a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.