§ [SECOND READING.]
§ Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
*THE LORD BISHOP OF ST. ALBANSMy Lords, this Bill asks for no public money and raises no controversial questions. It has received the consent of all the parties concerned, and has met with the approval of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Home Office. It is a simple matter of administration to enable the income of the vicarage of Newcastle, together with the income of the canonry established by Order in Council in 1884, to be merged in the deanery, and for some subsidiary objects which it is hardly necessary for me to enter into at this stage. If I include a part as spent in the provision and 246 equipment of a house where one of the canons lives with seven young graduates, whom he prepares for the ministry, a sum of about £33,000 has been, contributed by Northumberland laymen for the establishment of a Dean and Chapter of Newcastle, and in addition there will be an annual sum which will eventually come to the Chapter in the next vacancy in the archdeaconry of Northumberland. I venture to think that a diocese which has shown such attachment to its cathedral is entitled to come to Parliament and ask for the removal of statutory anomalies which hinder the free operation of the Newcastle Chapter Act, 1884.
§ Moved, that the Bill be now read 2a—(The Lord Bishop of St. Albans.)
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday, the 6th of July next.