The Press.
London, England, 1858-06-12 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JUNE 12, lB5B,

56S

THE STAVE TRADE.

The Bishop of OXFORD gave notice that he should
on Thursday next present a petition from Jamaica,
relative to Spanish slavery, and call attention to
subject.
Lord BROUGHAM implored the Government to urge
on Spain the duty of extirpating the slave trade,
which had been effected in Brazil by the firmness
and good faith of the Government of Portugal.
The Earl of CLARENDON inquired if the Govern-
ment could lay before the House any information on
the alleged proceedings of our cruisers on the coast
of Cuba, of which th reports were exciting great
uneasiness, from the preparations said to bo making
by the Government of the United States to prevent
what it regarded as equivalent to the exercise of the
right of search. That right the United States had
never conceded. There was no doubt the American
flag had been employed to cover the slave trade. We
should consider our flag tarnished if used to protect
that nefarious traffic, and should feel rather obliged
to any friendly power that detected the abuse. He
thought the United States' Government would not be
inclined to take a different view, and that some un-
derstanding on the question would be possible.

The Earl of AILLMESBURY could not give any
certain information on the subject. He had only
heard the ex-parte statements that had been pub-
lished ; he believed they were greatly exaggerated ;
but if the incidents were accurately described, the
Government was not prepared to defend them. He
Seared some acts had been committed not justified
by international law, or by any treaty between this
country and the United States. But the American
flag had been constantly used to cover the slave
trade; and some agreement between the two Go.
vernments, as to the mode of preventing the practice,
was required. From a conversation he had that day
had with the American Minister, he believed there
was no great difference in the views of both countries
on this point ; and, from the orders sent out to the
officers of the squadron in the American waters, no
repetition of such acts as those described was likely
to occur.
Their lordships then adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS-TUESDAY.
CHURCH RATES.

At a morning sitting, the adjourned debate on the
third reading of the Church-rates Abolition Bill was
resumed by
Sir J. TRELAWNY, who defended the course taken
by the supporters of the bill. No compromise having
been offered, they had urged forward this measure,
he said, knowing the importance of the question,
and believing that it would work without prejudice
to the interests of the Church of England.
Sir B. BRIDGES opposed the bill, end moved to
defer the third reading for six months. He dwelt
upon the injustice inflicted upon the poor by re-
lieving the rich from a charge for the sustentation
of churches to which their property was subject
when it came to them by inheritance or purchase.
He did not expect, he said, that such a proposition
would have come from one whose property it would
exonerate.

Mr. PACKS, in seconding this amendment, observed
that compromises had been repeatedly offered, but
invariably rejected by the advocates of total aboli-
tion. lie suggested some of the difficulties in which
the measure would place the Church, of which its
members, who supported the abolition of the rates,
were, he said, not aware. _ _ _

Mr. AK:ROYD considered that the bill was defective
in that, while it did an act of justice to Dissenters,
it perpetrated an injustice to the Church. It, more-
over, enabled Dissenters to nominate churchwardens,
—a right which should rest with the congregation.
There was no necessity, he contended, for this whole-
sale confiscation, and for banding over 300,000/. a
year to the landholders.
Sir. J. GRAHAN said, as an attached friend of the
Church of England, he was bound to consider this
question with reference to the interests of that
Church in connection with those of the people at
large. As respected the interests of the Church, he
would gladly receive a compromise ; but, all com-
promises having been rejected, he must regard the
question as it stood, and he thought there would be
a better chance of effecting a compromise hereafter
if the bill were sent up to the House of Lords by a
commanding majority. He had a most decided ob.
jection to pew•rents, and he objected to exempting
Dissenters as Dissenters,—a proposal which, by
branding them, would tend to the perpetration of
religious differences. He desired to see some rea-
sonable compromise ; but, havingheard none offered,
he thought it 1111.4 for the benefit of the Church to
get rid of an impost which kept up heartburnings
and dissensions. A remedy had occurred to him.
He thought it would be wise to relax the Statute of
Mortmain, and enable the owners of land in fee and
tenants for life to charge their estates for the main-
tenance of the parish church. Hitherto, the Church
had had no reason to repent her reliance upon the
voluntary principle; she had never yet called upon

her members to contribute to her necessities and
found them slow to respond. Relerring to declara-
tions recently made by dignitaries of the Church,
the right hon. baronet observed :
I am bound, however, to say that I should have hesitated
to give this vote if it had not been for an important cir-
cumstance. A bill has come down to us from the House
of Lords which has been quietly withdrawn, but which
was introduced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
which received the support of the great body of the
bishops. Now, what is the principle of that measure ?
I am not one of those who think that it is imprudent on
the part of the Church of England to rely upon the
voluntary principle. On the contrary, I think there is too
much distrust on the part of the Church of the voluntary
principle. An hon. gentleman has referred to the origin
of tithes, but I must remind him that a very large portion
of the property of the Church was the voluntary offering
of our pious forefathers. In more modern times has the
Church any reason to regret the trust she has reposed in
the voluntary principle? Upon what does the colonial
episcopate rest at this moment? What are the resources
of the Christian Knowledge Society and the British and
Foreign Bible Society? The funds of those societies are
enormous. The Christian Knowledge Society is a branch
of the Church of England. The British and Foreign
Bible Society may be said to be supported mainly by
Dissenters. But the Church of England has never called
on her members to contribute to her necessities and found
the wealthy members of har community slow to answer the
appeal. But the heads of the Church have sent us down
a bill embodying a new principle. I hope it is a prin-
ciple of good in the cause of religion, but it contem•
plates something like a revival in the heart of the Es-
tablishment. Every bishop was to have the power, by
this bill, of licensing, in any town where the population
exceeded 500, any building where any portion of the liturgy
of the Church might be performed. But the matter does
not rest there. What have we all seen? A mort amiable
and excellent bishop has Leen enthroned in St. Paul's
Cathedral, and has taken possession of the Palace of
Fulham and of London-house, in St. James's-square. His
first act was to attend a meeting at Islington in aid of
building a new church, and he then declared that he had
heard with satisfaction that meetings were hell on Sunday
morning in the. yard of a hackney-man. He said that
divine worship there performed was as acceptable to the
Most High as any divine service that might be celebrated,
with all the solemnity of cathedral worship, under the
fretted vault of the most gorgeous temple. I do not deny
the truth of this assertion. But if that be the case, and
if the Church of England is about to become a missionary
Church, and is about to descend into the arena with the
Dissenting Churches, we cannot with justice continue to
tax the Dissenters for church rates. Is that all ? We
have bishops preaching in the cpen air. We have deans
Spurgeonizing at Exeter-hall. We have dignitaries of the
Church taking a prominent part on the stages of music-
halls, and we have priests evangelizing on the platform.
An Evangelical Alliance has been held in Lambeth-palace,
and Dr. Bunting has offered up prayers is the presence of
the archbishop. I pray that this movement may be favour-
able to the interests of piety and religion ; bat this is, to
say the least of it, a great departure from the principle of
an Established Church. I hope it may be fcr good, and
Ido not venture to predict what its effect may be. But it
is certain that this is at war with all the doctrines that
have hitherto been considered the recognized doctrines of
the Church. lam against carrying on a war to the knife
against the Dissenters. The time has arrived when the
policy of the Established Church is not to fight this
desperate battle to the last extremity, but to make these
timely concessions in the hope of peace. It is said that
the sum raised by this impost does not exceed 3:10,0001.
a year, and I, for one, having hitherto always opposed the
abolition of church rates, call upon the friends of the
Church not to continue the contest farther. For these
reasons my vote will be given in favour of the present
motion.

Mr. WiLPOLE accused Sir J. Graham of incon-
sistency in his arguments, and, adverting to the
various compromises made at different times, he re-
minded Sir James that one, proposed when he was a
member of a strong Government, and which would
have settled the question, had not been carried out :

After (continued the right hon. gentleman) that propo-
sition was mooted, but not attended to, a proposition was
made, first by the hon. member for Finsbury, and after-
wards by Dr. Phillimore, to exempt the Dissenters, upon
the ground that those who did not share the privileges of
the church should not bear the hardens. But it required
the counter proposition to make it just—that those who
did not share the burdens of the church should not be
entitled to claim, as a matter of right, the privileges of the
church. (Hear, hear.) When he came to this part of the
case the right hon. gentleman said, " It will not do to brand
the Dissenters." He believed that no desire bad been felt
or expressed to do anything in the shape of branding the
Dissenters. ( Hear, hear ) He believed that it was an
honest proposition, made to satisfy the Dissenters, whose
consciences were aggrieved by the payment of these rates.
But the inference which he drew from the refusal to accept
that offer was, that the plea of conscience raised by the
Dissenters was not the only plea which they had to urge,
and that there were home other reasons why they would
not accept even that kind of settlement. A settlement just
in itself and equitable to the Dissenters was freely and
frankly offered by the Church, and, therefore, when that
proposition was so refused, the right hon. gentleman ought
not to say that since no means of settling Cie question
were offered on the part of her Majesty's Government they
had arrived at a point when there was no remedy except to
abolish that which had existed from tiwe immemorial.
Sir James was not justified in saying that no prac-
tical compromise had been offered, and he asked him

whether he was or was not prepared to acquiesce in
the proposition to commute the tax for a charge upon
the land :

If that were the position of the question, he wishel to ask
the right hon. baronet, who was desirous to send the bill
into the other house by a commanding majority, whether
in voting for the abolition of church rates he was or was
not prepared to acquiesce in the proposition of the right
hon. gentleman the member for itlorpeth, that there should
be some means of commuting or redeeming those rates,
by repealing the mortmain law so far as to enable the
owners of land to charge their land to that extent. The
reg•et which he should feel at his right hon. friend voting
for the abolition of the rates would be much diminished
if he could find that some such settlement as that could
yet be effected.
He believed, and appealed to recorded testi-
mony in support of that belief, that conscientious
scruples were not the sole ground of objection to church
rates,—that there was an ulterior object, to fight the
question of an Establishment on the field of church
rates ; and he was surprised and regretted that Sir J.
Graham should have joined in an opposition the real
object of which was to break up our ecclesiastical
establishment. If church rates were given up
without an equivalent, tithes would follow, and we
should go on step by step until we arrived at the
voluntary principle, which, although a valuable ally
of an Establishment, never could be a substitute for
it. The best course that could be taken, in his
opinion, was not to get a commanding majority in
favour of the bill, but such a division as would snow
that, though prepared to settle the question upon
reasonable tetras, they were not prepared, for the
benefit of the owners of land, to abolish the means
whereby the poor were brought to the aoors of the
offices of religion.
Mr. AYRTON supported the bill, insisting that there
could be no compromise.
Mr. GLADSTONE observed that differences of opinion
were not confined to the opponents of this measure ;
they existed among those who were prepared to vote
for the abolition of church rates. He then went
on to observe :

His right hon. friend characterized it in his vivid lan-
guage when he said it was a proposal to brand the Dis-
senters—that was to say, to brand the Dissenters by
describing them as Dissenters. He was bound to say that
lie did not know how they could brand a man by describ-
ing him as that which he was. He did not understand
that they brands') an Englishman by calling him an Eng-
lishman. He did not understand that they branded a
soldier by putting on some part of his dress the number
of the regiment to which he belonged. But still he granted
that it was a question of feeling. He did not see why, if
a man were a Dissenter, he should wish not to be desig-
nated as a Dissenter, but he admitted fully the reasons
why it was nut desirable to widen the line of separation
between Dissenters and members of the Church. An hon.
gentleman some time ago proposed terms so liberal and
so large that every Dissenter might have avoided the pay-
ment of church rates w.thout classing himself as a Dia-
winter. The only principle was that those who objected
to the payment of church rates ought not to take part in
the appropriation of church rates or the election of the
officers who appropriated that money. But the hon. gen-
tlemen proposed by this bill to abolish church rates
through the length and breadth of the country; and the
arguments upon which they founded their case were not
those derived from universal experience, but from the ex-
perience of parishes in which church rates had been abo-
lished. His right hon. friend had declared that for the
sake of 320,0001. a year it was not fur the interest of the
Church to prolong these heartburnings; but the state of
things he had described was that church rates were abo-
lished in populous parishes, and were paid without hart
burning in the great multitude of the rural parishes.
There could be no sensible view of this question which
declined to notice the state of the church-rate question in
the rural parishes. The population in these parishes was
fixed, and church rates were a small fixed charge on the
real property of the parish. In return, the church pro-
vided space in which the entire population, including the
poor, could attend Divine service, at the cost mainly of the
landowners of the parish. Was the la..v of church rates
bad ? He contended that it was founded upon a popular
basis, because it intrusted to the majority of the pa.
rishioners the business of satisfying their local wants.
Was It a novel principle? On the contrary, it was banded
on an ancient law, and it established a local supervision
in a manner most agreeable to English feelings. In the
rural parishes the law worked well, and was generous and
just, because it imposed an hereditary and traditiunal
burden upon the owners of property, while the beneti a
were reaped by the poorer classes. But then it was said,
why not trust to the voluntary principle ? He had nothing
to say in disparagement of the power and efficacy of that
principle, but he was not prepared to make a wholesale
imortation of tha principle to displace an old.and long-
estpablished system,t which worked well for an important

purpose.
If church rates were abolished for the voluntary prin-
ciple, tithes must be so too; nor would a better
principle be got by relaxing the Statute of Mortmain°
Same would be unable to charge their estates, soul
unwilling, and some would still plead conscientious
scruples. He agreed with his right hon. friend that
the time had arrived when the bill might well pro
ceed to the other house. They would then see who
ther the greatest landowners in England would re,
lieve themselves and their posterity irom sawn
and hereditary taxatic-n. It was possible the House