ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 19 May 1903)

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

My Lords, the history of this Bill is as follows. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners, as your Lordships are aware, are a very large body, but by an Act which was passed in 1850 the practical, active, and important business of the Commission was entrusted to a body of five—four laymen and one Bishop. Two of these, including the Chairman, are appointed by the Crown and two by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Bishop is annually elected by the Board. The present Chairman is my noble friend Earl Stanhope. Two of these lay commissioners are paid, of course out of the funds of the Commission itself. Those two commissioners are the chief commissioner, who is appointed by His Majesty's Government, and a lay commissioner, appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The formation of this Executive Committee, or Estates Committee was the outcome of a Report of a Select Committee of the House of Commons which sat in the years 1848 and 1849. The object of this Bill is to empower the Commission, out of its own funds, to pay a salary to an additional lay commissioner, so that there shall be three paid commissioners instead of two. The Select Committee to which I have referred, recommended that there should be three paid lay commissioners, but the Bill of 1850 though introduced to give effect to the Committee's Report, when it emerged from the House of Commons contained the provision that there should be only two paid commissioners. That was fifty-three years ago. In the debate which arose in the House of Commons, an Amendment was moved that the number of paid commissioners should be three; and to that the reply was given that the time might probably come when the business would require the attendance of three paid commissioners, but that it had not come yet. The business of the Commission is gigantic, the funds now administered by it reaching an annual sum of £1,500,000 sterling, as compared with the sum of about £70,000 in 1850. It was prophesied in 1850 that some day 1054 the income might reach £300,000. It is now five times as great as that estimate, and quite an undue amount of responsibility is thrown on the shoulders of the unpaid commissioners. It is vital to the due discharge of these great duties that the number should be increased, and that some one with ripe administrative, and perhaps with legal experience, should be added to the number and paid the prescribed salary. This would, of course, impose no charge upon the public. The whole money would be found by the Commissioners out of the funds at their disposal. The Bill is so drawn as to leave the appointment of this third commissioner with the Archbishop of Canterbury, but I am anxious to make it clear that, personally, I have no desire whatever to claim that this patronage should be in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury; and, if your Lordships think it better that it should be vested in the Crown, I should raise no objection. But it has been thought desirable that it should rest with the Archbishop of Canterbury rather than that there should be any risk of its becoming a political appointment.