was necessary to be done-either a Bill must be brought in to abolish all established religion whatever, or a Bill should be brought in to give pre-eminence to some other religion in lieu of that which was now established by the law of the land. Why did they not, as the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Drummond) had said, abolish the Church of England at once, and then they would have a right to bring in any measure they pleased for the abolition of church-rates. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay) said that churches might be kept in repair by voluntary subscription. They knew very well that churches had, to a very great extent, been built by private individuals, but such persons were not so ready to come forward to subscribe money to keep would lead to further demands, that from church-rates Dissenters would proceed to tithe, and would not rest until they had destroyed the Church Establishment altogether. In his opinion, no true friend of the Church ought to desire to confound together, under the same character, churchrates and tithe. They differed in their nature as widely as possible. Church-rates had every characteristic of a tax, tithes every incident and character of property. It would, however, be uncandid on his part, were he to express an opinion that, if the present claim were conceded, the question as to the best appropriation of tithe, and as to endowment for religious purposes, would never be raised. That question must come under discussion, and the time for its consideration would neither be hastened by the adoption of, nor retard-churches in repair. Indeed, it was the ed by the rejection of, the present Bill. The just solution of that great question might well task the highest powers of the statesman, the philosopher, and the divine; but come when it would, he trusted the discussion would be on a loftier arena and for nobler objects than a miserable attempt to retain the shillings and sixpences of their nonconforming fellow-citizens to aid in maintaining those churches into which they never came. He had brought forward this Bill with no desire to gain any party triumph, or to give indulgence to sectarian animosity, but for the purpose of restoring good-will between the different sections of the country, for putting a stop, if possible, at the fountain head, to this unfailing source of the bitter waters of religious strife, and promoting the welfare, pros perity, and happiness of their common countrymen. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time." MR. PACKE said, that in rising to op. pose the Motion, although he was not unconscious of his want of power satisfactorily to deal with the question in an address to the House, he relied upon the strength and upon the justice of the cause he had undertaken, which was no less than that of upholding the interests of the Church of England. He could in no way admit, as had been argued during the discussion on this question, that the Church of England ought to be in any respect considered as a mere sect in common with others. Before a Bill was brought in to abolish church-rates, one of two things VOL. CXXXVIII. [THIRD SERIES.] fact that many churches had been allowed to fall into ruin for want of subscriptions towards the fabric; therefore, to say that voluntaryism was sufficient to keep parish churches in repair was clearly a mistake. There was a feeling of pride at work when an individual built and endowed a church there was the pride of establishing a new monument in the country-but there was no such feeling at work to induce a private person to advance the funds requisite to put a new roof on a building already in existence. The House had sanctioned a permanent income to the clergy; but the other part, which was equally important, they were now called upon to refuse to sanction, so that their churches would go to ruin. He did not consider that persons who did not go to church were any more exempt from contributing towards its maintenance than the persons who paid highway rates but never made use of the roads or bridges. He knew that a considerable agitation had prevailed on this subject, but the number of petitions presented in favour of this Bill assuredly did not warrant the impression that there was any great desire for it in the country. He would show what was the case when there was a strong feeling in the country. Up to the 9th of the present month there were presented 728 petitions for that object, with 69,238 signatures. Considering that the population of the country amounted to 18,000,000, that did not appear to be a very large number of names, and therefore he could not regard the petitioners as representing the general sentiments of the people. Of those 728 petitions, twenty-four Ꮓ the hon. Baronet. He must also complain, with the hon. Baronet, that there was not a single Cabinet Minister present in the House. He must say, that when a measure was proposed materially affecting the existence of Church and State they ought to have the opinion of a Cabinet Minister, in order that they might know whether Her Majesty's Government agreed to the measure or not. He had intended to have proposed a Bill himself on this question. Although he was most anxious had been printed, and, as it was the habit to print every original petition, he had no doubt that all the rest of the petitions were duplicates of those printed. It appeared, that out of the twenty-four printed petitions, eighteen were in favour of the hon. Baronet's Bill, and the rest prayed in general terms for the abolition of churchrates. Referring to a subject on which some strong feeling had been excited in the country-the Act of the hon. Member for North Lancashire (Mr. J. W. Patten), restricting the sale of beer on Sundays-to conciliate the opinions of all, as far as he found the petitioners for its repeal amounted to a much greater numbernamely, to upwards of 225,000, and therefore he could not regard the 69,000 petitioners for the abolition of church-rates as representing any strong feeling in the country. In respect to church-rates, there had been some inquiry already made, both by a Commission issued by the Crown and by a Committee of that House. The recommendation of the Commissioners, among whom were comprehended some of the dignitaries of the Church and of the most eminent men in the country, was not to abolish church-rates, but to place them on the same footing, in all respects, as the poor rates, so that the expenditure necessary both for the body and the soul should proceed from the same source. Subsequently, in 1851, Mr. Trelawney, a gentleman who had interested himself in this question, obtained a Committee of the House. Upon that Committee was the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), another member of the Society of Friends; Mr. Ellis, the late Member for Leicester; and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, no good friend to churchrates. The Committee sat for some time, but did they recommend the Bill of the hon. Baronet? Did they recommend that church-rates should be abolished? He (Mr. Packe) could find that they had done no such thing. They had made a sort of compromise, and made no Report at all; after having made themselves fully conversant with the question, they were contented to report the evidence which they had taken alone to the House. The two courses which had been usually taken before a new course of legislation was enter ed upon had been done in this case- the Queen had granted a Commission, and the House had appointed a Committee; but neither the Commission nor the Committee had reported in favour of the measure of his duty as a member of the Church of England would permit, he could not abandon the principle that every person in the country was bound to assist in keeping the churches in England in repair. Although he thought it right that every person should be allowed to worship God as he thought proper, still it was his duty to contribute thus far towards the Church of England, as long as it was the Established Church. He simply meant that it was their duty to keep the fabric in repair, a point which he did not think the Bill of the hon. Baronet effected. He had not introduced his Bill, partly owing to the advanced period of the Session, and partly because he understood that it was the intention of the Archbishop of Canterbury to introduce a measure in the other House of Parliament. The Church could be in no safer hands than those of her bishops, and he should be very glad if they could produce a measure which would be satisfactory to the country. The Bill which he had intended to introduce differed from his Bill of last year, inasmuch as he should not have proposed to require any declaration from Dissenters, but, at the same time, he should not have abandoned the principle, that every person in this country was bound to assist in keeping the churches in repair; for, it must be remembered, the church was the Church of England, and it was the duty of every Englishman, therefore, to assist in its maintenance. The hon. Baronet opposite, in this second Bill, proposed not only to abolish church rates, but also to make some provision in lieu of them, and he (Mr. Packe) had no hesitation in saying, that by the 4th and 5th clauses of this new Bill Dissenters would be just as much obliged to pay church-rates as they were now. The 4th clause empowered the churchwardens to allot pews in the church to the inhabitants of the parish as they might think fit, and the 5th clause gave them power to recover the pew rents from the persons to whom they had so allotted them, but not a word was said as to the willingness of the allottees to receive the pews, or to attend church; so that the churchwardens of a parish would thus be able, if they chose, to make Dissenters pay church rates, notwithstanding the passing of this Bill for their abolition. This, he thought, must have escaped the notice of those who had petitioned in favour of this Bill, not a few of whom stated in their petitions that they had examined its provisions and entirely approved of them. A petition had been presented by the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield), praying for the abolition of church-rates on religious grounds; but the arguments of those who brought forward their consciences to save their pockets ought to be received, he thought, with great caution. He would read an extract, which appeared some time ago in a local paper, having a large circulation amongst Dissenters, which showed what the feelings out of the House were upon this question. It was as follows "Let no person mistake the church-rate question for the Church question. The Church question is not yet mooted, but we give notice to all churchwardens that we shall not the least earnestly, as far as we are concerned, seek for the total separation of Church and State, It is neither the abolition of church-rates nor the exclusion of bishops from the peerage which will satisfy We require that the Church of England should be reduced to what she is one of the us. This, it would appear, was what the Dissenters were looking for, or this paragraph never would have been inserted in a paper of large circulation amongst them, unless it was in accordance with the opinions of its readers. The hon. Baronet held out a sort of threat that if this Bill did not pass the Church of England had not six months to live. He, on the contrary, thought that, if it did, the Church might not retain her vigour and efficiency for so long a period, and on that ground he should oppose the Bill. He should conclude by moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. MR. LLOYD DAVIES said, he thought the House would be perfectly unanimous upon one point, namely, that some change in the law was absolutely necessary; but the change that was really required was one of a very different character from that proposed by the hon. Baronet (Sir W. Clay). The hon. Baronet said he intended to make very little alteration; but in point of fact the alteration which he proposed would make all the difference in the world. As for the justice of his measure, why there was not a man in England that had bought land who had not done so subject to the payment of church-rates, and who had not fully taken that into his calculations when he made the purchase. To attempt, therefore, to get rid of the liability would be an act so dishonest and so dishonourable to the party of whom he had bought the land, and to the Church of which he was, perhaps, himself a member, that he (Mr. Davies) scarcely knew any terms too strong in which to characterise such conduct. But what call was there, he would ask, for the Bill? Out of the 14,000 parishes and the 18,000,000 inhabitants of England and Wales, only 857 parishes had petitioned, and the number of signatures to those petitions only amounted to 69,238 persons who had petitioned in its favour. He (Mr. Davies) did not believe that a fourth of the parishes of the country were opposed to the continuance of churchrates, and it was thorefore impossible to say that this was a popular demand. The hon. Baronet had dwelt upon the bitterness of feeling and the animosities that were stirred up by church-rate contests; but his measure, if passed into a law, would not diminish those evils; on the contrary, it would only augment them, for it would convert the small section who were opposed to church-rates, and who now considered themselves the aggrieved party, into the triumphant one, and it would convert the vast body of churchmen into the aggrieved party. The hon. Gentleman had described the machinery by which he proposed to make voluntary contributions supply the place of rates. Now really he would recommend the hon. Gentleman to study the famous culinary maxim of Mrs. Glasse-" First catch your hare." him first show that there would be any voluntary contributions, before he talked of his machinery for dealing with them. The whole of this part of the hon. Baronet's Bill was founded upon a pure delusion. The answer the churchwarden who attempted to collect voluntary contributions would receive would be, You have chosen to take this charge off the land, which had a right to pay it, and why do you come to us, the poor householders?" 46 Let In many and many a parish, the church which was surrounded by so many holy and endearing associations would become a ruin, and a jeer to the enemies of the Establishment. Again, if the Bill passed, they would practically close the door upon the poor. He knew many cases in which persons were desirous of attending divine worship, but who refrained from doing so because they had not suitable and decent clothing to go in; and could any one doubt that it would not be an additional obstacle if such persons felt that they could not afford to contribute even to a voluntary collection like their neighbours? He would undertake to say that in the twelve counties of Wales they would not get one per cent by means of voluntary subscriptions, except in the towns. Besides, the churches in Wales were so small, that, after the squire and two or three of the principal inhabitants had had pews allotted to them, there would be no space left for the other parishioners. The hon. Baronet had made a boast that he took care to reserve onethird of the whole area for free sittings. Why, a larger proportion than that was reserved in almost every new church that was built, so that the proposal of the hon. Baronet was no great boon after all. Ile (Mr. Davies) knew a case in which a parish, in which a majority were Dissenters, had granted a church-rate almost unanimously, when it was explained to them that it was virtually a charge upon the land, and that they were allowed it out of their rents. The Dissenters did not object so much to pay for the support of the fabric which had been from time immemorial a charge upon property; what they did object to was, being compelled to defray expenses connected with the ministrations of the Church. He thought that was a reasonable objection, and he was prepared to admit that charges of that description ought to be borne by the communicants, who, he had no doubt, would be glad to show by their acts, that they really valued the spiritual privileges which they enjoyed. He thought that a measure on this subject ought to have been brought in by the Government itself, and not by a private Member. He considered that the Minister of the day, knowing the diversity of opinion that prevailed, and the amount of discontent there was in the country, ought to have wrested this question from the hands of private Members, and to have brought in a Bill upon public grounds. If the noble Lord at the head of the Government, instead of lying by to see whether the Bill of the hon. Baronet was popular in the House, had come forward and taken such a step, he would have earued for himself a reputation that would not soon have passed away. The present Bill would benefit none but the landed proprietors, who within a very short time after it became law would raise their rents. He could fancy the indignation of the hon. Baronet when that was done; but why should they not? Church-rates were a charge upon the land which had been imposed by their pious ancestors, and if the Legislature chose to relieve property of that burden, why should the landowner not reap the benefit as well as the tenant? The hon. Baronet had not been just to the right rev. Prelate to whose speech in the House of Lords he had referred; for the real object of the right rev. Prelate had been simply to elicit from the highest legal authorities a statement to the effect that the law remained unchanged, and thus to counteract a statement to the contrary effect-and a most incorrect one it was-which had been extensively circulated. The hon. Baronet talked of the exertions of churchmen in building new churches. He (Mr. Davies) never heard of such an argument as that. Why the hon. Baronet would convert their very virtues into a pretext for laying upon them an unjust burden. If benevolent persons had come forward and supplied the grievous lack of spiritual destitution which had prevailed, it would surely be a poor return to burden them with an obligation which had hitherto been borne by the whole landed property of the country. In conclusion, he could only say, that there was something to him positively horrible in the idea of churches becoming desolate. If they destroyed the means provided by the law of the land for the decent celebration of divine worship, he could not but fear that it would react upon religion itself; and on these grounds he should give his cordial support to the Amendment of his hon. Friend. Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months." Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question." MR. COWPER said, he could not altogether concur with the views which the hon. Gentleman who proposed the Amend ment seemed to entertain with reference to the question before the House. The hon. Member had stated church-rates to be an essential foundation of the National Church, and that before they were abolished it would be but expedient, graceful, and proper to abolish the National Church itself. He (Mr. Cowper) did not agree with the hon. Member in thinking that the law was an advantage to the Church of England which compelled persons to contribute re luctantly to its fabrics who dissented from its dogmas; on the contrary, the state of the law which excited difference of opinion and strife in a parish, which gave rise to hostility and enmity against the Church, could not be an advantage, but was clearly an evil to the Church of England. It was not seemly that the Church should be dependent upon the exaction of that which there was no due and sufficient means of enforcing. He thought, however, that it was desirable, with a view to the interest of the Church, that such a change of the law should take place as would bring the law more in accordance with the circumstances which had arisen since that law was made. He believed it was admitted that from time beyond the memory of man there had been an obligation upon the parishioners to maintain the fabric of the church; and in early periods, when all of the parishioners were accustomed to frequent the Parish Church, nothing could be more reasonable or natural; but a change had since then taken place, and in many parishes a very small portion of the parishioners went to the Parish Church, or felt an interest in its condition or support; consequently, this obligation to support it had become unnatural and inconvenient. The measures for increasing the number of places of religious worship had not been carried out by the subdivision of parishes, but by the erection of new churches, although, for the purposes of levying a rate, those new churches still continued to remain within the limits of the original parishes. The consequence had been, that those who frequented the new churches became reluctant to contribute to the maintenance of the Mother Church with which they had no connection, particularly when, in addition to such contribution, they were obliged to support their own particular places of worship. That observation applied not alone to those persons who were Dissenters from the Esta blished Church, but to those also, who, being members of that Church, were not members of the congregation of the Mother Church, to keep up which they were obliged to contribute. How that state of things could be effectually remedied was a question which confessedly involved many points of considerable difficulty, and although his hon. Friend (Sir W. Clay), in his opinion, deserved great credit for the manner in which in his Bill he attempted to grapple with that difficulty, yet he felt bound to say that he did not think his hon. Friend had arrived at anything like a satisfactory solution of the question before the House. In fact, he believed that the measure of his hon. Friend, if carried into operation, would rather tend to the increase than to the diminution of the difficulties by which the subject was beset. He contended that if his hon. Friend wished to substitute a voluntary for a compulsory payment of church-rates he ought to have provided some sort of machinery, in the first place, to enable the congregation of any particu lar church to contribute what they deemed to be necessary for its support, and that he ought, in the next place-they having made such contribution - to give them some effective control over the mode in which it should be expended. For the attainment of these objects the measure of his hon. Friend was in his opinion a failure. He had proposed, it was true, that the disposal of the rate, when collected, should be placed in the hands of the churchwarden; but in the election of that officer the congregation of a particular church would have no paramount voice, and he could not help feeling that the members of a congregation would not regard the expenditure of their property by one who might not be their chosen representative as at all satisfactory. His hon. Friend, however, seemed to be of opinion that any difficulty which might arise in that case might be obviated by the appointment of an auditor, but inasmuch as those auditors were not to be nominated by the congregation, he (Mr. Cowper) did not think that that proposition would afford a solution of the question with which the members of the congregation would be likely to be contented. was he of opinion that his hon. Friend had succeeded in meeting the difficulties of the question when he proposed that the money to be devoted to the maintenance of our churches should be raised by means of pew-rents. The churchwarden could not Nor |