General Thornton said, the proposed measure had his full approbation. He greatest advantages. He wished that in place of any other monument, a church might be erected in memory of the victory at Waterloo. · He concluded by observing, that he considered the question he was about to propose, as one on which no party feel-thought it would be productive of the ings could arise, but which must be interesting to every friend of virtue and religion. It was a pleasing circumstance, and honourable to the character of the House, that such cases should arise in which they could all unite their efforts for a common object. He remembered an occasion (not, indeed, in the House, but at one of those meetings for a religious purpose, which so honourably characterize and distinguish the present age), in which he sat with his noble friend (lord Castlereagh) between two gentlemen, whom the House has since lost, of the most opposite political sentiments, but both of them eminently zealous in exertions of beneficence, the late Mr. Rose and the late Mr. Whitbread. They had all addressed the assembly in succession, in a manner undoubtedly tinged with the peculiar character and sentiments of each individual, but in which no feeling of former differences could be discerned, nor any view but that of most effectually supporting the general object of the meeting. Such, he trusted, would be the feeling of the House upon the present occasion; and that whatever shades of opinion might appear, when the details of the measure came to be discussed, only one sentiment would prevail with respect to its principle; and that all would cordially unite in giving the national church that assistance which was necessary to enable it to provide effectually for the instruction and edification of the people.-The right hon. gentleman then moved, "That his Majesty be enabled to direct exchequer bills, to an amount not exceeding one million, to be issued to commissioners, to be by them advanced, under certain regulations and restrictions, towards Building, and promoting the Building, of additional Churches and Chapels in England." He Captain Waldegrave approved of the general tendency of the resolution. wished to take that opportunity of remarking, that the monuments in St. Paul's church seemed to be very much neglected. They were, he believed, seldom or never cleaned. Many were then completely covered with dust. He wished that some small fund might be established to prevent this inconvenience in future, and to pay persons who might keep those monuments of public gratitude in proper order. Sir Charles Monck thought it most desirable and expedient that the large part of our population, now unprovided for, should obtain accommodation. But he thought the good effect of this would, in a great degree, be defeated, unless the manner of performing the service in our established churches underwent considerable modification. Nothing was more likely to reclaim the Dissenters-he did not speak this in an invidious sense-to the established church, than an alteration in the manner of performing service. Without some modification, he was afraid little moral and religious improvement could be expected from additional churches. When he considered the state of things in those parts of the country where there was a want of accommodation, and adverted to the state of morals and religion in those parts of the country which were most splendidly endowed, he was led to entertain considerable doubts as to the benefit which would be derived from new churches, without some farther change. In those parts of the country in which the population had increased most of late years, churches were scarce; but there were many parts of the country where the population was very large in old times, greater indeed than it was now. In Norwich, for instance, there were 39 parishes, while, by the last returns, the population was only 38,000. Was Norwich, with this ample provision of churches, a com.. paratively moral and religious town? He recollected that Durham had also many churches, yet the population was only from eight to 10,000; whereas Newcastle, a very large town, had not above four or five churches. But he had never heard that Durham was more remarkable for morals than Newcastle. In travelling over England, he believed it would be found, that where there were most churches, the people were far from being the most exemplary in their morals. The churches were formerly open at all times, as they were now in foreign countries, and the people were always going to them. There ought to be some modification in the manner of performing the worshipit ought to be more frequently performed in a day. He thought, also, they ought to take into consideration the present endowments of the church, and see whether there was not a large proportion of them employed in a manner not at all calculated to promote the interests of religion, whether the revenues of prebendaries, &c. might not be applied to the purpose for which money was now asked from the nation at large? Nothing ought to be taken from the nation till an investigation into these things showed the necessity of the measure. He was unable to see why they should at once take one million, and no more. When they entered on this business, they ought to make up their minds to bear whatever was requisite. What was the reason of the proceeding of the right hon. gentleman he knew not, and he wished to learn why they were to decide at once that one million was to be the sum? Why so much as one million, or why no more? Some consideration as to the exact sum, he thought, should take place. He must also say a word as to where the money was to come from. He did not exactly know what there might be to spare in the church establishment; but he did not like to see the whole sum taken from the nation at large. He would much rather have had the right hon. gentleman come down to the House with a proposition for providing, in each county, some board of commissioners, or some tribunal that might have made a proper representation to parliament, and have stated that the population were too numerous for their churches, and they were willing to provide some portion of the expense of erecting others. He would ther have had the money raised in such a manner, than from the whole nation, when it would of necessity be applied only to a particular part. The main application of the money would be to the metropolis, when the whole nation were required to contribute to its payment. He wished to know whether there would be a pew-rent in these new churches? At present that system excluded great numbers of the poor. He approved, however, of the object of the measure generally, and of many of the provisions which it was proposed to introduce into the bill. ra Mr. Gipps wished to know, whether it was the intention not to extend the bill to any parish in which the population was less than ten thousand. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the present calculations induced a supposition, which made it very improbable that parishes of a less population would require any portion of the grant. He had omitted two points: first, as to a provision for the new clergymen; that would probably, in a great degree, be supplied by the produce of pews: secondly, as to the more frequent performance of divine service. In all the churches to be built under this act, it was to be provided, that divine service should be performed three times a day; and it might probably be deemed expedient to extend the like provision to churches already built. Mr. Warre wished to know, whether the plan in contemplation would increase the number of incumbents? The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the increased number of parishes and churches would of course increase the number of incumbents. Mr. N. Calvert said, he did not approve of that division of the parts of our church service the right hon. gentleman had seemed to describe. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, it was not intended to divide the church service, but to have the whole service oftener performed. Mr. W. Smith said, that in some of the northern parts of the country the parishes were so extensive, that the people were prevented from attending at their parish churches. There were some parishes in Scotland not less than forty miles long. He knew one in which the church was thirty miles distant from some of the inhabitants. As to the moral returns alluded to by the hon. baronet, they could not be easily procured. With respect to Norwich, if such a return was brought forward, he had no doubt but it would be honourable to the inhabitants. There were in that city 36 churches, besides a number of large chapels belonging to various sects of dissenters. He wished to know whether it was intended to extend the operation of this measure to Scotland. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, the hon. gentleman would immediately perceive, that the principles upon which the church of Scotland was conducted, differed so much from those which regulated the established church, that the same provisions could not be applied to both. At the same time, his majesty's ministers had not overlooked the situation of the church of Scotland, and felt no disposition to object to a separate proposition for that part of the united kingdom. Dr. Phillimore perfectly agreed with the right hon. gentleman as to the great importance of the subject. The plan of dividing parishes was most material; it would give the inhabitants of those places a better opportunity of attending divine worship, and it would afford them the advantage of the more immediate pastoral care of the several incumbents. With regard to patronage, the right hon. gentleman had pointed out the only proper mode of its being regulated, and he most completely agreed with him. The resolution was then agreed to. TITHE LAW AMENDMENT BILL.] Mr. Curwen moved the second reading of the Tithes Law Amendment bill. In making that motion, it was not his intention to say more than a few words. Considerable misunderstanding had taken place with regard to the bill. He disclaimed entirely all intention whatever of invading the property of the clergy. After the past discussions on the subject, some prejudices had arisen against the bill, which would not, he was confident, exist after its provisions and intentions were well understood. The question was not whether any thing was to be taken from the church, but whether the church had a right to take what never properly belonged to it? It was not his intention to attempt in any way to injure the clergy, but it was his wish that justice should be done to all parties. Sir W. Scott said, he had the strongest objections to this bill, and in particular to the clauses which went to disturb the settled system of law, as it had been laid down by chief baron Comyns, and other eminent authorities. The right hon. and learned gentleman then explained the policy of the 13th of Elizabeth, on the subject of what were called real compositions on tithes, and also on the act of Richard 2nd, relative to moduses, and showed the distinction between each. It was, he said, the object of the hon. gentleman's bill to shut out the church from tithes, where they were not claimed within living memory. He could not agree to such a proposition as this, for it would at once set aside the necessity of producing that documentary evidence, which ought to be adduced on such an occasion by the landed proprietor. This evidence was surely to be procured, as all tithe compositions were recorded in the bishop's registry. There was, then, no necessity for setting up common usage against contracts so registered; and if the House were to adopt the plan, it would be at once a virtual repeal of the statute of Elizabeth. Besides, the hon. gentleman's plan went to make moduses the same as composi tions, and to break down the marked distinction between each. The next class whose interests were taken up in this bill, were the lay impropriators, and yet no evil was shown to exist at present relative to their interests. The object was here to appoint, in every disputed case, commissions to be issued for ascertaining the precise parochial boundaries in litigation. There was no reason for such a provision, and it was, like the other clauses, wholly uncalled for. He thought it extremely dangerous to make any alteration in the state of a property most sacred in law, and peculiarly and essentially connected with the welfare of the community. He objected to all the clauses, and was persuaded that the bill would put clergymen in an extremely disadvantageous situation. On the grounds he had stated, he should move, by way of amendment, "That the bill be read a second time this day six months." Sir Samuel Romilly said, he approved of the principle of the bill, though, perhaps, some of the clauses in it might be capable of improvement. Nothing could be more unjust than to represent the bill as an invasion of property, or as calculated to promote litigation. Its object was, and its effects would be, to secure property, and prevent litigation. It would secure property on the safest and most widely admitted principle, that of length of possession. He deprecated, as much as any man could, any attack on the property of tithes; they were as much property as any other species of possessions; and the clamour against them as being mischievous was, as far as it impugned such property wholly unwarrantable. A purchaser might as well say at once, that because he had paid for nine-tenths he had a right to the whole. But this bill would settle property, and secure claims. It might have been originally inconvenient that real compositions should be made; but the statute of Elizabeth, passed to prevent, could only be prospective; and yet the courts of justice had done on this head, what the legislature could not do, by insisting on the production of the deed itself. The statute of Elizabeth never meant to set aside compositions previously made, though the deeds that attested them were extremely rare. The courts, however, required the production of the deed in this case, after a lapse of more than two hundred years, though it did not in any other case of equal duration. As to the improvidence with which these compositions had been made, that was a good reason for passing a law to prevent them for the future; but none for setting aside those already made, or doing that which was not done with regard to any other species of property. If a purchaser bought property because it had not paid tithe for two hundred years, and the clergyman preferred a claim, the purchaser must still show a modus as old as Richard 1st, or that his land had been abbey land, or produce a composition deed, though he bought the property, relying on the non-payment for such a length of time, which would have been a sufficient exemption from demand in any other case. As to the right hon. gentleman's quotation from baron Comyn, "What hardship was there in obliging an individual to preserve his deeds?" there was no hardship in this as to a single individual; but through a long succession of possessors and the lapse of centuries, it was often absolutely impossible. No man could guard against the effects of fire, civil commotion, &c.; but here, unlike all other property, in which length of time improved the title, the claim rendered was more doubtful and more endangered by every hour that elapsed. No innovations would be made by the bill on the tenure of lay impropriations, for what Henry the 8th gave to his courtiers, he gave subject to all the conditions origin. ally attached to it. The clause on farm moduses was especially called for; for in the present division of property, if a modus was ever so well established, and the limits of the farm over which it extended could not clearly be traced, the whole modus was avoided. The right hon. gentleman had contended that the clause with respect to lay impropriations would interfere with the whole system of tithes, but if it appeared that lay impropriations were under the present regulation, a manifest injustice, they should remove that injustice, and not be deterred by the apprehension of mere speculative disadvantages. There might be many objections to the bill as it now stood, but to dispose of such a bill on the second reading was in effect to say that they would not consider it. He agreed, that the property of the church should be held sacred, but the best way to accomplish that object would be to provide that it should not be rendered an instrument of injustice. The House should at least go into a committee to consider the various clauses of the bill. Mr. Wetherell said, he was sorry to differ from his hon. and learned friend as to the effects which the bill then before the House was likely to produce. He was not one of those men who thought that an abuse should be allowed to continue merely because it was of long standing; on the contrary, he agreed with his hon. and learned friend, that whatever time such abuse might have existed, it ought to be corrected when pointed out. But before an alteration of the nature proposed was made so important a branch as that of the church revenue, he thought it was necessary to make out a very strong case indeed of the necessity of such alteration. In looking into history, however, he could not find a single instance where injustice was complained of under the existing system of collecting tithes. In looking over the bill, and he had looked most carefully over it, he could not find more than one clause which he thought likely to be of service, he meant the clause which provided against a clergyman holding the lands given in composition for certain tithes, and at the same time enforcing the payment of those tithes. He did not object to a remedy being proposed on that point, but he thought it would be going too far to consent to nineteen objectionable clauses for the purpose of adopting one beneficial one. Any person wishing to prove that his land was exempted from tithes would be obliged to prove one of two things; he would be obliged to prove it by the production of the deeds by which such exemption of tithes took place, or else he must give reasonable proof that such deeds had existed. Before any land could be legally exempted from tithes, one of those two things must be proved. But by the bill, all that was necessary to prove such exemption, would be an assertion, generally, that such deeds had at one time existed. Nay, more, one clause went so far as to make it necessary for the clergyman to prove that no such deeds had existed. How far was such a clause consistent with justice, or with the se curity of church property? The hon. and learned member then went through the several clauses of the bill, and pointed out what he conceived to be the injurious tendency of each. The bill, he observed, would, instead of producing beneficial consequences, only serve to introduce confusion, disorder, and injustice into the system of collecting tithes. His hon. and learned friend had said, that land-holders or purchasers of land were likely to be injured by the uncertainty which existed in the payment of tithes. This he would take leave to say was not the case. The first question asked by any person about to purchase land was, whether it was tithe free, or how it was situated with respect to tithes; whether the tithes were paid by composition, by moduses, or in what other manner. No injury could therefore be sustained on that point. Taking the bill in every point of view, he thought it would injure instead of amend the present mode of collecting tithes, and he should therefore vote against it. Mr. J. H Syth objected to the bill. Its provi-ions, he conceived, were of a most injurious tendency, as they regarded the protection of church property. According to one of the clauses, every payment of tithes, whether by composition, or by modus, would be valid, provided no arrangement to the contrary took place during the life of an incumbent. But if one clergyman was to give up the tithes of his district, or to enter into a trifling composition for them, was the church to be deprived of its property on that ac. count? He thought such a principle would be destructive to the whole system on which the church was supported. Here was a bill that went to legalize an ex-post facto operation. He conceived that sufficient ground had not been made out in support of the bill, and therefore he felt it his duty to oppose it. Mr. Brougham began by recalling the attention of the House to the question on which they were about to decide, if they agreed to the right hon. gentleman's amendment. It would be a resolution absolutely to admit of no arrangement whatever for quieting men's possessions against the claims of the church. The arguments used by all who had opposed the bill were confined to its particular provisions. But he asked gentlemen if they were prepared to say, that no time, however long, should bar those claims? Men might differ as to the best mode of fixing the limitation. It might be advisable to adopt a longer period than sixty years in order to meet one objection. Another might be got rid of by annexing the farther condition of three incumbencies, as was proposed by Mr. Justice Blackstone, and as had also been proposed in the bill of 1772. It might even be agreed that the time and succession of incumbents taken together should not be a bar, but only throw the proof upon the church; or the plan of the present bill might be adopted, that the proof of enjoyment, as far back as living memory could go, should be a primâ facie evidence in favour of the owner, liable to be met by contrary proof on the part of the church. But the gentlemen opposite reject all periods and every kind of limitation; and he contended that the House should not listen to them, unless it was satisfied that no measure for quieting such possessions could safely be adopted. The right hon. gentleman who moved the amendment had not fallen into the same errors with some others (Mr. Wetherell and Mr. Smyth) respecting the argument. They had represented this bill as fixing thirty, and even seventy years as a period, the enjoyment during which should exclude all claim of tithes. No man meant this when he spoke of living memory. Witnesses must be called to carry the possession back as far as the recollection of old persons could go. Nor would any judge, who might try such an issue, let the cause go to a jury, or call on the opposite party for an answer, if it rested on the testimony of persons who only spoke of twenty or five-and-twenty years back. But the right hon. gentleman had met the question more fairly; and feeling the point that pressed him, he had maintained that the church was in a different situation from all other properties-reminding the House of the risks of collusion between patron and incumbent, and of the possible length of incumbencies, as lord Coke had said that in his part of Norfolk two successive rectors continued in possession for above one hundred years... It is, however, not enough to say there is some difference in the situation of the church, or that extraordinary circumstances may occur to render collusions possible, unless it can be shown that there is a probability of such things recurring, and unless it can also be proved that the situation of the church is so extremely different from that of all other properties, |