HL Deb 12 March 1919 vol 33 cc669-71

Amendments reported (according to Order).

Schedule:

ENACTMENTS INCORPORATED.
Act. Section. Marginal Note. Modification.
Unions of Benefices Act, 1860 11 Surplus revenue of united benefice may be annexed as an endownment to any other benefice in the Metropolisor or its vicinity. For "benefices," wherever that word occurs, there shall be substituted "benefice or bene- "fives sinecure or "sinecures."
For "specified bene-"fice in the Metro-"polis or in the "vicinity thereof" there shall be substituted "benefice "in the same "diocese as the "benefice or bene- "fices sinecure or "sinecures, to "which the endow- "ments to be "charged or trans-"ferred shall be- "long."
The words "of the "patron or patrons "of the benefices "proposed to be "united and of the "vestries of the "parishes to be "affected thereby "and" shall be omitted.
After "the diocese" there shall be in-serted "or the "bishops of the "dioceses."
The words "Provi- "ded that the "amount" and the remainder of the section following those words shall be omitted.

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, for the LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH, formally moved to amend the Schedule in regard to Section 11 of the Union of Benefices Act, 1860, by omitting front the third paragraph of the Schedule, under the heading "Modification," the words "of the patron or patrons of the benefices proposed to be united."

Amendment moved— Schedule, page 10, lines 32 to 34, leave out ("of the patron or patrons of the benefices proposed to be united").—(The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury)

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

Perhaps I may say a word upon this, as it was at my instance that the right rev. Prelate was good enough to put down for the Report stage the Amendment which the most rev. Primate has just moved. The effect of it is, without giving anything like a veto to the patron on a general scheme prepared in the way provided by the Bill, to give him a veto in the peculiar case mentioned in the Schedule—that is to say, where the united income of two parishes joined together by the Bill is considered excessive for the use of the united parish, and it is proposed to hand the surplus over to another benefice within the diocese. Personally I think it is an unfortunate fact that Church patronage should be in any sense a marketable commodity. I should be very glad if it were not; but since in certain circumstances it is, it seems to be hard that in a conceivable instance a patron might have taken away from him a not inconsiderable part of the value of the advowson to which he has power to present, and therefore I feel that in common fairness and in the interests of symmetry this Amendment is an advantage. The right rev. Prelate, as I understood him to say in conversation, held the view that it was very doubtful whether this particular provision could be held to fall under the actual scheme, but believed it might, according to the words of the Schedule, be treated as a separate transaction, and in his opinion therefore the Amendment was necessary.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.