that they are not far behindhand. The accounts appear to have been all rendered for the year 1880, with only two or three exceptions, and a considerable number for the year 1881; and when I say that they have been rendered for the year 1881, that is really more than they are bound to do, because they are not bound to return the accounts till the 25th of March, 1882, so that this is what we should consider a very good state of accounts.

I will put a more general question to you. Can you state your impression of the manner in which the Companies, generally speaking, have discharged their duties as trustees?

Longley testi- I have only experience of a limited number of Companies; and in fies that the regard to those Companies I should say that they have been exceedingly Companies are liberal in their administration of the trusts, and in many cases, which exceedingly liberal in their are already known to the Commission, they have subsidized the trust funds, in many instances very largely, out of their corporate income. On the other hand, our experience is that their administration of the trusts has been on a very generous scale as regards expenses, almost lavish in some cases.

administra

tion of these

trusts.

All the Companies have rendered

proper

accounts.

If there was money left to a Company, to the Wax Chandlers' Company or the Goldsmiths' Company, or any other Company, simply in the name of the Company, without any trust attached, you would not consider it was trust property at all?

No.

MR. BURT.-I understand you to say that the Companies generally have complied with the law in rendering their accounts?

Yes.

There are exceptions, I suppose?

All the Companies, I think, have rendered the accounts. The paper that I have in my hand shows that every Company has rendered the accounts. The Bowyers' Company appears to be behindhand, and the Wool Winders'; but it is doubtful whether they have more than onc charity each.

The CHAIRMAN.-With regard to the application of the Companies' charities, are you aware how their trust income can be spent ; have you got the figures before you?

Yes, I have the figures.

Should we be accurate in taking it at 75,000l. for the relief of poor members, 75,000l. more for education, and 50,000l. for miscellaneous charitable objects, making 200,000l. in all ?

I am afraid I cannot verify those figures. I asked our Registrar of Accounts, when I heard that I was to be examined, whether he could get out the figures, but he said it would take a very long time. I have no doubt that this information is quite as correct as any that we could furnish.

Have you any knowledge of the details of that expenditure; would it come before you?

Yes, we have all the accounts; we can see how it is all spent if we refer to the accounts; and in the cases with which I have had personally to do I am aware of a good deal of the detail.

First of all, with regard to the relief of the poor members, how is it administered; are there almshouses and pensions, or in what other form is it administered?

I am not aware of any form other than almshouses and pensions in which it is administered, except that money grants are made in some cases, but a very large proportion of it is administered in almshouses, and a very large sum in pensions.

Do you consider that that system has worked satisfactorily upon the whole?

alms-folk

I have had no means of ascertaining how far it has met the wants Various Comof the poor of the Companies, because I do not know how many poor panies'anxiety there are in each Company; we hear hardly any complaints on that that their score; the Companies are generally anxious that their alms-people should should have have sufficient stipends, and in many cases they have made up the sufficient payment from their own corporate funds. stipends.

We have had it stated that to the 200,000l. which I mentioned just now they add out of their corporate income 140,000l. more?

That I have no personal knowledge of, and if the accounts would not show it, we should have no means of verifying it; they might, but the Companies are not bound to tell us all that.

With reference to the educational endowments, are you acquainted with the Mercers' Company?

Yes; I have had a good deal to do with some of the charities of the
Mercers' Company.

They are trustees of St. Paul's School, and also of the Mercers' School?
They are.

Are those schools largely endowed?

Very largely. St. Paul's School has an income of about 12,000l. a Longley testiyear, which is now administered by a scheme made by the Endowed fies as to the School Commissioners, about the year 1874 or 1875, which has since been amended in some details by the Charity Commission.

income of 12,000l. per

annum, that same is most

judiciously

Have you had an opportunity of examining those schemes in detail? Yes, I have; I have got the scheme here, and I have got the details. Do you consider that the endowment is properly expended for the expended. purpose for which it is intended?

Perhaps I had better state a few figures. The income being 12,000l. a year, the scheme requires them to maintain a school, or rather two departments of a school, for 1000 boys, and a school for 400 girls, both of which are to be maintained within a short distance of London. The annual charges prescribed by the scheme, that is to say, for the payment of the masters for the free boys, and exhibitions for the girls, and for repairs, are 63407.; besides that, the income would have to bear the expense of examinations, management, and other expenses; then they have to buy sites for these two schools, and to build the schools, which would involve a very large appropriation of capital. Nothing has yet been done in respect of the school for girls, because the governors are employed now in establishing the school for boys. I should say that the school is subject to two governing bodies; the Mercers' Company are the estate trustees, and manage the property, and pay over the income to the governing body specially appointed under the scheme. The Charity Commissioners have sanctioned the expenditure of 41,000. upon a site near Hammersmith, close to the Metropolitan District Railway, and they have sanctioned an expenditure of 91,000. upon the school buildings, and those buildings have been in progress about a year, and, pending the establishment of that school, we understand that the governors do not propose to do anything in respect of the girls' schools. They are meeting this expenditure as far as they can out of the income of the school; but they will not be able to meet it all. So that the endowment, so far as we are aware, is very judiciously applied at present in carrying out the scheme, and probably, after the deductions. of capital are made, which are necessary to give full effect to the scheme, there will not be any large surplus.

Are you aware that in many cases the Livery Companies consist of members of particular families?

I have seen it stated in a paper which the secretary of the Commission has been good enough to furnish me with.

Testifies that the manage. ment of the

For instance, in the Mercers' Company there are ten bear the name of Watney, nine Walker, seven Collier, seven Hodgson, seven Smith, five Parker, five Sutton, and three Watson; does not that rather convey that the Companies, although essentially public bodies, are composed to a Mercers' Com- great extent of a limited number of private individuals-clans? I should infer it from that statement in the case of the Mercers' Company; but the Mercers' Company is admirably administered. Have many of them been dealt with by your schemes?

pany is admir. able.

Yes, a good many. The most important one now being dealt with is the Bancroft School under the Drapers' Company. There the expenditure was very large in proportion to the results; but the Drapers' Company are going to make a large addition to their school, and it will be expended in the same manner as St. Paul's School.

Did you not tell us that the Drapers' Company had largely supplemented the funds under the control of the Charity Commission? I have no doubt that that is so.

Therefore are they not to have some credit?

Certainly; but the schemes are originated for the most part by our Commission, which takes the cases in hand. In the Drapers' case Iam not sure how it was, whether we came to them or they came to us.

I must ask you whether it was not the fact that the Drapers' Company applied to have a new scheme under the old charity, and under the legacy left by Mr. Deputy Corney?

Yes, I find that in 1870 the Company submitted a draft scheme to the Endowed School Commission, after the Endowed Schools Act was passed.

MR. JAMES.-Has it ever come to your knowledge, as has been sometimes stated, that members of the Court in the management of the Longley states Company's property take leases to themselves at low rates and then sublet at high rates; have cases of that kind ever come to your knowledge?

that he has

never known of any member of the Court of a Company

No, I have never heard of a case of that sort.

Has it come to your knowledge that pensions are paid to members taking lease of of the Court or members of the livery? property and subleting at higher rate.

The Royal Commission no better re. sult than its testimony through the

Inspectors of

No, I am not aware otherwise than that I have seen it so stated in the paper handed to me by the secretary of the Commission.

Let heed, then, be given to the testimony of the Inspector of Charities. It will show the working classes who are their true friends. Whether Firth and Beale, who are interested only in getting hold of them as supporters in their raids upon everything that is honest and good; or whether the Livery Companies, who ask them for nothing save to be prudent and loving of their fellow-men, are most to be trusted. Her Charities as to Majesty's Inspectors of Charities are surely disinterested. They declare the Livery Companies' the Charities of the Liveries to be faithfully and economically adminisCharities tered, so also that the Charity Commission has the supervision of all being well and charities that should come under it, and that the Courts of Assistants are honestly adone and all extremely anxious to bring their several schools and charities ministered. under the Commissioners' cognizance in every instance where such subworking men mission is for the good of the institution. The Companies' enemies represent the exact contrary of this. It is to be hoped that the circulation of this volume, honestly intended to convey not one word save of strictest truth, may serve as antidote to interested poison, and that right may prevail.

The lesson

should learn therefrom.

CHAPTER VIII.

Declaration and protest of the Grocers' Company as to the Commission being breach of the liberties of the subject-The Company's special memorandumCites various decisions of the courts bearing on their properties-Mercers' Company's declaration accompanying their returns-Evidence of Mr. Travers Smith of Fishmongers' Company-Mr. Beale before the Commission, his close connection with Firth and Warr-Beale as a writer and public agitator, his hunting-grounds, and connection as assumed orator for Chelsea Clubs-He admits his agitation against the Companies-Particulars of incomes, &c., of the various Livery Companies-Able character of the Dissent Report-The Dissent Report-Protest of Mr. Alderman Cotton.

GENERALLY in sending in to the Commission their returns as to property, incomes and expenditure, the Companies' through their respective clerks, contented themselves with a general expression of their compliance as a matter of pleasure and courtesy. The Grocers' Company, through Mr. Ruck, and the Mercers' Company through Mr. Watney, accompanied theirs with admirable papers declaratory of their rights, and which apply to all the Companies with equal force as to their own.

The Grocers' Company declare that they have answered fully all the Declaration questions addressedto them by the City of London Livery Companies' Com- and protest of missioners. They have done so in deference to her Majesty's Commission, the Grocers' but they deem it their duty to record their earnest protest that an inquiry Company made through by the Crown, without the authority of Parliament, into what has been medium of a judicially declared to be private property, is without precedent, arbitrary, memorandum. and a breach of the liberties of the subject. The judicial declaration above referred to was made by Lord Langdale in the case of the AttorneyGeneral v. the Grocers' Company, reported in the sixth volume of Mr. Beavan's Reports, page 526. The Master of the Rolls says (page 550), speaking of the surplus revenue under Sir Wm. Laxton's devise, "This revenue, according to the construction which it appears to me ought "to be put on this codicil, belongs as private property to the Company." The same observation would apply to other estates devised to the Company in terms similar in effect to those used by Sir Wm. Laxton, and still more strongly to estates devised to the Company absolutely without any condition, trust, or charge, or purchased, as in the case of the site of the hall and garden, by free subscription among the members of the fraternity. Even the small proportion of the Company's property which is legally applicable to charitable purposes was only saved from loss and destruction after the Great Fire by the private liberality of individuals. It may fairly be said that the whole property of the Company was at that time redeemed from sequestration and sale by the members of the Court at their own expense, and was thus preserved and handed down for the benefit of the corporate body.

But while the Company respectfully insist upon the private character of the whole, or a large portion of their property, they willingly recognize, as they have ever done, a moral obligation to carry out to the

utmost the intentions of their benefactors, with due regard to the altered requirements of the time, and in a manner worthy of the public spirit and liberality to which the acquisition and preservation of the property are due.

As instances of the mode in which the Company deal with their trusts may be mentioned Sir Wm. Laxton's devise, already referred to, under which, and a subsequent decree of charitable uses, the Company is bound to expend 3007. a year out of the revenues of the devised estate on the school and almshouses at Oundle. The actual expenditure is at present 30001. a year, more than three-fourths of the whole income. Large sums have also been laid out on capital account, besides which the Company is now expending 12,000l. on new school buildings, and there is a further expenditure of about the same amount in contemplation.

Another case of a similar character is Bacchus' gift for exhibitions at Oxford and Cambridge. The sum charged for this purpose is 40l. a year, and the expenditure 550 a year, exclusive of the exhibitions given from Oundle School. The income of the estate is about 6701. Expenditure under this head will be largely increased if the scheme now under consideration for the establishment of valuable exhibitions or travelling fellowships for the study of analytical chemistry and kindred subjects, and sanitary science, is carried out.

Several of the Company's non-educational charities were redeemed some years ago under the voluntary powers of the "Endowed Schools Act, 1869," and the proceeds applied, under the authority of a Scheme, in the building of a large Middle Class School. The Company have added for this purpose about 90001. from their own funds, and contribute at present over 1000l. a year towards the working expenses.

One of the charities thus absorbed was Lady Middleton's gift of 201. a year for necessitous clergymen's widows. The Company, with a desire to respect and carry out the wishes of the founder where this can be usefully done, even though the charity has ceased to exist legally, perpetuate the name and wishes of Lady Middleton by giving between 500l. and 6001. a year for the purpose she contemplated.

The Company have acted upon similar principles in dealing with their church patronage. For instance, in 1866 and 1869 they applied for and obtained Estate Acts, under the powers of which the living of Allhallows Staining, with a population of 200 and an income of 1600l., has been united to a neighbouring benefice, the sites of the church and curate's house sold, and the proceeds applied in building and endowing two district churches in the poorest parts of the East of London, and a third district church will in due time be added. The Company have aided the work by an expenditure out of their own funds of nearly 70001. on parsonage-houses, parish rooms, organs, &c. They also contribute towards the support of curates and church expenses. Full details of the Company's expenditure for public and charitable objects, including their connection with the London Hospital, will be found in the returns.

It

The Company was in its origin a social and benevolent fraternity. was never a trading Company. The original charter of Henry VI., A.D. 1428, incorporated the Company without any reference to trade and without any conditions. This charter has ever since been in force, except from 1683 to 1688, when it was suspended by proceedings under a writ of Quo warranto issued by the Crown. The charter was however restored, and the Act of 2 William and Mary, sess. 1. cap. 8, declared the judgment obtained upon the writ and all consequent proceedings to have been illegal and arbitrary. A copy of the original of this charter, together with a translation, will be found at the end of this Preface.