*THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORKMy Lords, I rise to ask the Lord Chancellor whether his attention has been called to the proceedings of a gang of disorderly persons who in Yorkshire and elsewhere have been entering into churches and removing the ornaments and furniture of the church, as well as destroying or defacing memorials erected in churchyards; and whether there is any law under which such persons can be brought to justice. I shall not detain your Lordships many minutes in speaking to this question. I regret very much to be obliged to bring such a matter before the House. I assure your Lordships that I do so, not from any theological standpoint, but because it relates to an offence against property, aggravated by the fact that the property belongs to the church. I will illustrate the matter by an occurrence in my own diocese. A number of the persons to whom I have referred entered a church, forcibly removing from it part of the ornaments and carrying them off towards the railway station. There was no attempt at concealment, the ornaments being found in their arms. They had with them, I am told, the sub-editor of a well-known newspaper, evidently desirous of notoriety. The persons chiefly interested in that parish very naturally sought means of bringing these offenders to justice. In addition to the injury done to the church, there was a still more shocking 929 outrage in the case of a churchyard, where they defaced and, to some extent, destroyed a memorial which had been put up under touching circumstances. The persons interested in the former case sought legal advice, and were informed that there is really no remedy; that there is no statute of the realm under which these persons can be brought to justice. If so, it is a very serious defect in the law, and I would like to know from the Lord Chancellor whether these legal advisers are right or not. I shall be glad if the Lord Chancellor is able to tell me they are not right, and that there is a remedy. If not, it seems these criminals cannot be punished, and may go all over the country perpetrating similar outrages without being brought to justice. I earnestly trust a remedy may be found if none exists. I am the more eager to have an answer because, if there is no remedy, there will be a danger of serious conflicts between the proper guardians of church property and these intruders who come and carry away and destroy it.
§ THE EARL OF HALSBURYMy Lords, the most rev. Prelate disclaimed any theological view of this question, and I need not say that I am desirous of doing the same. It would be extremely undesirable in one called upon to preside over the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to which all questions of the sort at which the most reverend prelate glanced ultimately come, to express any view adverse to or in favour of persons who may be supposed to be actuated by religious zeal on the one side or the other. I hope I may be permitted to disclaim any partiality for people who resort to outrage and violence, whether on one side or the other. It is, of course, impossible not to know that very serious questions may arise, which, of course, may lead to serious breaches of the peace unless the law is put in force as far as it can be against these disturbers of the peace. I have no sympathy with either. I have no sympathy with a clergyman who thinks proper to assume to himself the power of the State, and to make a brawl in a church in forbidding a marriage which Parliament has authorised, and which he has no authority or power to prevent, but which he can make disagreeable to the persons about to be married by making a brawl in the church. Neither have I any sympathy with a layman who 930 thinks it proper that he should be invested with more power than the State itself possesses, and, in spite of the rights of others, takes upon himself the character of an iconoclast and destroys what he thinks is an improper thing to be in a church. The law is open to either of them, and it has, I believe, a remedy for either of them if anything wrong is done. And I must say, speaking here, that I can but most earnestly deprecate any association of persons who go about for the purpose of taking the law into their own hands, as they are from time to time said to do. I am astonished to find that anybody suggested that such offences as these are not already within the law, and that there is no remedy. I should have imagined that anybody consulted on the subject would have only to refer to an Act of Parliament which says that any person who shall maliciously or contemptuously pull down tables or otherwise break any altar, or spoil crucifixes or crosses in any church or chapel, may be arrested then and there, and may got three months imprisonment with hard labour. That is one of the remedies, but it is not the only remedy. I ought to mention in this view that I have received a letter to-day from a gentleman who signs himself "John Kensit." He says that from the most rev. Prelate's question he has reason to suspect that his intention is, by innuendo, to charge him and his preachers—the most rev. Prelate described them by another name—with certain acts. Mr. Kensit writes—
I enclose you a full account of the only act we have been guilty of. As to the cross and the large wayside crucifix which were broken at Hensall, we have nothing to do with that. My twelve Wycliffe preachers are all God-fearing men, and we are simply exposing priestly lawlessness which his Grace is openly allowing. I trust you will do me this justice.I do not know what act of justice Mr. Kensit alludes to, but I understand he moans the reading of the letter. I have now done him that justice. I am glad he disclaims the horrible and sacrilegous outrages on graveyard monuments, which were broken in pieces by a number of persons. I think I might venture to suggest to him and others that when once they begin a career of violence it is the inevitable result that others will go beyond them. I can only say in answer to the question of the most rev. prelate that I believe it to be absolutely incorrect to say that the law has no remedy for those 931 acts. I believe that, apart from the particular Act of Parliament which I have quoted, if the magistrates and constables will do their duty, it will be easy to put down outrages of this description, and I hope that in the future they will recognise the fact that they have the power to do it.
*THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORKI desire to express my satisfaction to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack for what he has said, and I can only express the hope that the noble and learned Lord's correspondent will read the proceedings of the House this afternoon.
§ *VISCOUNT HALIFAXMy Lords, the persons whom Mr. Kensit describes as his Wycliffe preachers, and who are supposed to be "God-fearing" men, have done me the honour to visit my parish in Yorkshire. They arrived dressed up in khaki hats, and one of them was known in the village as a disreputable tout who haunts racecourses. They went round the village followed by a large crowd, and were listened to for some little time with a kind of contemptuous patience, but when they began to abuse me my people, who have some regard for me, could bear it no longer, and they turned them out of the village. This was perhaps the best way of treating them. When they came into the village they made remarks on some crosses in the churchyard, one of which I had put up over the grave of my children, and said it would not be long before they were pulled down. We took precautions for some time to prevent any damage, but, of course, one cannot be protecting churchyards day and night. Shortly afterwards a notice appeared in a periodical for which Mr. Kensit is responsible, in which it was stated, as a matter of great congratulation, that a large cross put up by a neighbouring clergyman had been destroyed at Hens-all, and that there was every reason to hope that a similar fate would befall the cross in the churchyard at Hickleton. When people threaten to destroy crosses placed in churchyards to commemorate the dead, and shortly afterwards those crosses are destroyed, it does not require any great amount of imagination to discover who are responsible for their destruction.