Member for the Tower Hamlets, he supposed there could be no objection to the Motion. If an hon. Member submitted a draught Report and took a division upon it, it would appear as part of the proceedings; but it was not competent to print the individual opinion of a Member without any vote upon it. There had been a mistake, and the document, therefore, ought to be removed from the records of the House. MR. BRADY said, he was not responsible for the mistake, any more than the rest of the Committee, but under the circumstances he would assent to the Motion. SIR JOHN SHELLEY observed, that he must protest against any imputation on Mr. Lawes. Ordered, That the said Analysis be cancelled. ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN (IRELAND) LORDS' AMENDMENTS. POOR REMOVAL BILL. On Motion of Mr. HERBERT, Bill to authorize the removal of Poor Persons born in England or Scotland and chargeable in Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HERBERT, Mr. MONSELL, and Mr. BUTT. Bill presented, and read 1o. [Bill 96.] INLAND REVENUE BILL. Bill for granting to Her Majesty certain Duties of Inland Revenue, and to amend the Laws read 10. [Bill 97.] relating to the Inland Revenue, presented, and House adjourned at Two o'clock. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MINUTES.]-NEW MEMBER SWORN - James PUBLIC BILLS-Resolution in Committee-Stock First Reading-Sheep, &c. Contagious Diseases Second Reading-Church Rates Abolition Bill MR. BAGWELL moved that the House Considered as amended-Marriages, &c. (Ireland) disagree from Clause A. Motion made, and Question put "That this House doth agree with The Lords in the said Amendment." The House divided:-Ayes 20; Noes 21: Majority 1. Clause B disagreed to. [Sir Edward Grogan] [Bill 40]. Third Reading-Bakehouses Regulation [Bill CHURCH RATES ABOLITION BILL. SIR JOHN TRELAWNY said, he rose to move the second reading of the Bill. It was always a pleasant thing to have a "To draw up Reasons to be assigned to The Lords for disagreeing to the Amendments to vigorous opposition, because good arguwhich this House hath disagreed:"-Sir ROBERT ments were sure, in such a case, to be apPEEL, Sir GEORGE GREY, Lord NAAS, Mr. BAG-preciated; but, at the same time, he reWELL, Mr. WHITESIDE, and Colonel DUNNE :-To withdraw immediately; Three to be the quorum. THAMES EMBANKMENT (NORTH SIDE) BILL. Bill reported, with Minutes of Evidence; to be printed, as amended. [Bill 94.] Bill re-committed for Monday next. ANCHORS AND CHAIN CABLES BILL. Bill for enforcing a Standard Proof to be applied to Merchant Ships' Anchors and Chain Ca bles, and for the testing thereof prior to sale by the manufacturer or dealer, presented, and read 1o. [Bill 95.] and gretted he was not to be met, as he had The Liberation Society had at least not suppressed the opinions which they entertained; but when hon. Members objected that they took an extreme course, he would ask why they did not revert to the fact that Wesleyans were generally favourable to the Church? There was a large section of the Dissenting classes who were highly favourable to the Church of Eng object the total repeal of church rates, it | remedy, and not of disease. He confessed seemed to him that he was called upon that hon. Members opposite were no true only to bear out the prior conclusions of friends to the avowed objects of their affectwo Parliaments, to be whose mouthpiece tion-the clergy of the Established Church. he felt himself unequal. But hon. Mem- They acted towards them as if they wished bers might say that things had since them to go to bed in a warm climate withchanged, and that the Bill had, on two out mosquito curtains. Church rates were occasions, been defeated. No doubt the the mosquitoes of the Established Church. advocates of church rate abolition had It was hardly fair that hon. Gentlemen been defeated in 1861 by a casting vote, opposite should continue to keep these but that was rather on a point of etiquette moral mosquitoes alive, to sting and inthan on the substance or merit of the flame the clergy. measure; but, certainly, on the next oc- He could hardly think hon. Members casion they were defeated in a stand-up opposite were sincere in their horror of fight, but only by one vote. It must, the Liberation Society. That society, it however, be recollected that there had was true, contemplated the separation of always been an understanding that some Church and State; but what was its other measure would be introduced for a power of effecting it? He was not a different mode of settling the question-member of that society, but he had a a reason which had weighed with many high opinion of several of its members, hon. Members who had voted against his as men of intelligence and good faith. proposal. Now, however, hon. Members opposite seemed to have such a want of confidence in their measures, that none was to be brought forward in lieu of his own. He had, indeed, been in some degree the architect of his own ruin, because he was one of those who attended the meeting in the tea-room, the object of which was to effect some settlement which would be more satisfactory to hon. Mem-land, and in dealing with the subject they bers opposite. But those hon. Members, having no confidence in their own Bills, had thrown up the case in despair; and the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, who sincerely endeavoured to grapple with the question, had put off his Bill from day to day, and until he found his (Sir John Trelawny's) Bill had been disposed of. He must therefore infer that they concluded there was no alternative but the present Bill. They had totally abdicated their duty in the matter, and virtually given up the helm of the vessel, and he claimed their votes, unless they were prepared to declare on the hustings that they were incapable of dealing with the question, and were content to go on in the manner described by the phrase which had been applied to what took place before the Crimean war-the " process of drifting." They were drifting on a lee shore in a ship freighted, according to their own account, with the greatest possessions for future ages, and yet they left the helm. The ship was in distress, they knew what the consequences would be, but still they were not prepared to take any step to remedy the evil. The whole subject was completely exhausted. It was a question of should be taken into account, and the opinions of one class be set against those of the other. Speaking for himself, he wished to say, once for all, that the views he held when he was a very much younger man had some time since materially altered, because he considered there was a great fallacy at the bottom of the notion he was disposed to entertain in early life, as to the connection between Church and State. That connection was generally supposed by Liberals to be one between two equal bodies, entered into a contract with one common end; but his view was, that the Church of England was in the nature of a corporation under the authority of the civil power, and he should be extremely sorry to relinquish the control they possessed and exercised over the very large body of persons who held the revenues of the Church, which revenues might be misused. If he were about to found a new colony, he would leave all religions in a perfectly equal position, but it would be a very different thing, in an old country like England, to relax the bonds by which the Church was held in subjection to the State. That opinion he had held for some time, although undoubtedly he did formerly | promise of 1854 and 1856, and the hon. entertain different views, which, however, Member for Birmingham had made two as he had already intimated, he had re- suggestions, in which at the time he (Sir tracted. Hon. Members should take into J. Trelawny) could not concur-namely, to consideration the great wealth of the pass a measure for the abolition of church Church of England, and what she had been rates in three or five years hence, or, on doing of late. The fifteenth general the other hand, to adopt Lord Ebury's plan Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for doing away with the coercive measures for England showed what great sources by which those rates were levied and enof wealth the Establishment possessed, and forced. So far, therefore, as that side of what great results were being achieved for the House was concerned, if they got the her benefit, ought to reconcile her friends substance of their measure, they would to the abolition of church rates. In the be content with a compromise; but with course of the year to which that Report nothing less than the substance would they had reference, £200,000 in cash, and an be satisfied. A reduction of charge from amount of stock equivalent to £100,000, twopence to a penny would not be a satiswas transferred to the Ecclesiastical Com- factory solution of the difficulty, nor would missioners by the Church Estates Commis- the exemption of parishes where church sioners, as the surplus upon their ransac- rates had not been paid for seven years. tions under the Episcopal and Capitular The first plan would not remove the Estates Management Act. They proposed gravamen of the evil, and would evince a to devote £100,000 to meet benefactions desire to keep them under subjection, already offered under the published rules, while the latter would create a feeling of to discharge local claims to the extent of jealousy between the exempted and non£20,000 per annum, and to augment the exempted parishes. Then, if they transincomes of all benefices in private patron- ferred the charge to owners of property, age having a population of 10,000 to £300 the whole theory on which it was imposed per annum. The number of districts con- would be altered, because it was assumed stituted under the New Parishes Act up to that occupiers paid church rates in respect the 1st of the previous November was 293; of some advantage they derived from the the total number of benefices augmented church. Instead of that plan remedying was 1,438, and the total charge on the the existing evil, it would create a new common fund amounted to £170,000 per one, as owners might be Catholics or Jews. annum. By the twelfth Report of the He conceived that to be a fatal objection to Church Estate Commissioners it appeared the plan of the hon. Member for North that in the year they had approved of Warwickshire. 2,274 transactions, the fee simple of the property dealt with being equal to £8,840,000. A bill had also been introduced in another place, the object of which was to increase the livings of poorer clergy to £300 a year by the sale of the advowsons in the gift of the Lord Chancellor. He did not offer any direct opposition to that measure, but he thought its introduction presented a good opportunity for setting apart a portion of the capital obtained by such sales to be appropriated in lieu of the church rates. It was well worth the while of the Established Church to make some arrangement of that kind. A great deal had been said about a compromise. He was not opposed to a substantial compromise; indeed, he had done everything he could, consistently with fidelity to those he represented, to bring about a compromise, but he had received very little support. One of the great opponents of the Established Church-Mr. -was prepared to accept the comVOL. CLXX. [THIRD SERIES.] Miall He hoped hon. Gentlemen opposite would not use this measure as a lever for a political ambition. But he did not confine that remark to them alone, but would apply it to Members on the Ministerial side of the House, who, he trusted, would not deal with the measure with a view to political aggrandisement. If they were to have a "bag fox" for secular sport, let them at least have a secular victim. Let them not treat that as a question for a mere debating society. People, sceing that this question had been so many years under discussion, naturally asked why it was not settled. Was this the right answer, "Bocause Parliament can't or won't settle it"? If Parliament liked the subject, it was certainly more than he did; and if it was to be kept open to amuse them on Wednesdays, then he said there was no accounting for tastes. He confessed he could not understand the position held by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject. He had heard, or seen reported, some re 2 H markable words as having fallen from the lips of that right hon. Gentleman, such as that danger to the Church did not arise so much from those outside as from those within the Establishment; he also spoke of civil and religious equality being now, or that it ought to be, the rule; and yet he had not seen the name of the right hon. Gentleman in any division in favour of the abolition of church rates. If there was one thing about the right hon. Gentleman more remarkable than another, it was his somewhat pedantic regard for being correct in point of logic, and quite consistent with himself upon all occasions. He liked to take a symmetrical view of things; but he had not yet taken up that kind of position on that subject. He wanted, then, to know what he meant by the principle which he had put forth. Did he mean inaction, or contentment with the state of the law as it was; or did he feel himself incapable of dealing with it? There were other hon. Members who had taken rather an odd course on this question. Some voted for the second reading with the idea that they might thereby coerce the Government to act; but when the third reading came, they did not support him. He wished hon. Members would take one line or the other. If church rates were a valuable institution, let them be supported through thick and thin; if not, let them be abolished. He could enumerate ten or fifteen different compromises-there was the compromise of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire, the compromise of the hon. Member for Devizes; there was the compromise of the hon. Member for Oxford, and numerous other places. It seemed as if they had been led of late years by a species of will-o'-the-wisp into bogs, quagmires, and all sorts of miseries, but no real step had been taken to settle this ques tion. A good deal had been said of the restoration of churches. He was himself very much interested in the restoration of the old fabrics of the Church, and he agreed with the writer of a letter signed "Argus,' which he had lately seen, that if they elected a better class of persons as churchwardens-men who took an interest in church architecture-those officers would have no difficulty in raising, by voluntary means, money sufficient to keep the parish church in a state of proper repair. He thought the law on this subject was not satisfactory. If they wished to get churches restored, there ought to be a commission of architects, who should examine the whole condition of those edifices, and then funds might be got, either through voluntary subscription or otherwise, for their proper restoration. In some of the churches erected in large towns-in Manchester, for instance he observed by a Petition which had recently been presented considerable accommodation had been provided for the working classes, but by degrees a custom was adopted of letting those sittings, and the working classes were thus excluded. He had, for many years, objected to the pew system; but that was carrying that system to the very verge of illegality. The law which had been passed for the benefit of the labouring classes was thus turned against them - and, instead of having the advantage which the law secured to them, the people were saddled with new rates. Under some Church Building Acts there was a power to charge the parish, if the vestry consented, with very large sums for the restoration of churches. That would yet give rise to grave questions, and increase tenfold the opposition to church rates. He did not wish further to detain the House; but he could not help expressing his surprise that the hon. Member for Leominster had no intention to bring in any substantive measure. The Conservative party, it appeared, were prepared to nail their colours to the mast, and leave the country without the prospect of any amelioration on this question. Would not the true interests of the Church and the clergy have some influence with hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite? Were they to be left in hot water for all time? He begged to move the second reading of the Bill. SIR CHARLES DOUGLAS seconded the Motion. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time." MR. GATHORNE HARDY said, he could assure the House that it was not without considerable reluctance that he found himself in the position of moving the rejection of this Bill; but he had been induced to take it up in consequence of the continued illness of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Sotheron Estcourt), which had rendered him unable to attend the House. He was quite sure that he should express the universal opinion of the House when he expressed deep regret for the cause of his absence, and said that the conduct of his right hon. Friend with regard to this and every other question had always been characterized by straightforwardness, candour, and good feeling, and he should endeavour in anything he had to say on the subject to take that conduct as his guide. Now, with respect to what had been said by his hon. Friend opposite, he could not see that the position in which his hon. Friend stood was of that supereminently prosperous character which he had described. His hon. Friend had told them that he represented the feelings of two Parliaments, and that the public were entirely with him; and that Parliament had pronounced against church rates. He (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) took issue with his hon. Friend on that question, seeing that the condition of things had materially altered since Parliament had thoroughly considered the question. He was not sure but that the case might have been different but for some of those allies with which his hon. Friend had of late years become associated, and that he might not have arrived at a more successful result. His hon. Friend asked the opponents of the measure not to make the question a lever of political ambition. Why, his hon. Friend had told them that they could not do so, because the constituencies of the country would be against them. It was therefore clear, if the statement of the hon. Baronet were correct, that the opponents of the Bill did not come to the consideration of the Bill in their own interests, but from attachment to, and consideration for that Church to which they belonged. The hon. Baronet had expressed his surprise that no compromise was then offered. But was there any inconsistency in that or any want of deference to the House. The position which he (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) and the party with which he acted took was a clear and intelligible one, for the Bill of his hon. Friend was a bar and impediment to any compromise on the subject of church rates. He passed by some of the inconsistencies charged by the hon. Baronet against his opponents. He left the Chancellor of the Exchequer to defend himself. It was not for him to say what were the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman on church rates, or what they would be next Session. The mind of the right hon. Gentleman seemed to be undergoing the most extraordinary transformation, and it was impossible to say whether he would retain from one Session to another his opinions on any sub jeet. The hon. Baronet had endeavoured to associate church rates with church architecture, and said that churchwardens had shown great want of taste in the restoration of our ecclesiastical edifices; but, whether church rates were abolished or preserved, he had little doubt the taste generated in this country would yet be carried out with more full effect, and that the old churches would be improved and new churches built with due regard to the rules of good taste. When the bad taste of church wardens prevailed, no better taste was found in the mansion of the squire than in the farm-house or shop of the churchwarden. That state of things was altered. The hon. Baronet called on them to rescue the clergy from the hot water in which the constant agitation of church rates kept them. Well, after all, the clergy seemed to like this hot water better than the remedy of the hon. Baronet. In nearly every parish throughout the kingdom the clergy, in company with their churchwardens, had petitioned against the abolition of church rates. The hon. Baronet, adopting the principle of Sangrado, wished to deplete them as well as keep them in hot water, or rather he would put them in water still hotter, and bleed them to an extent that would reduce their system materially. The question had been debated so often that the discussion was not tempting; yet, though he could say nothing on it that was new, he believed he could say many things that were true. In the present position of church rates it was necessary to consider what was the principle on which church rates were maintained. Now, he wished to get rid of one point which had been much pressed on the country namely, that the maintainers of church rates thought only of the pecuniary interests of the Church as an Establishment, and cared nothing for her position in regard to the doctrines which she taught. That, in fact, the Establishment was more considered than the Church. He was glad to think that they had not arrived at that period when the doctrines of the Church were to be argued in that House. If such a time came, Churchmen would not be afraid of maintaining the truth of the teaching of the Church of England. In the mean time, he was now speaking on behalf of the national Establishment of the country, and hoped that the question of the doctrines of the Church would be reserved for a very distant period. He starte with this position, that in no sense were |