The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-19 00:00:00

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and C. Leclerc..—And TUE TWO POLIB. Mt. Widdleumb.

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Foote and Lennox.—And FLYING SCUD. Means. Neville, Del-
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&WO Fools. ridden Lennox, Raymond, dc.

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and Mrs Lane & Mesdames Edwin and Macarthy.—
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elude, with TUE LAST LINK OF LOVE. sham S.

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LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCIE 19.

MR. H tRIN'ASTLEN Bill for the Abolition of
Church Rates is set down for a second reading to-
morrow (Wednesday), together with two other
Bills on the ballle subject, introduced respectively
by Mr. HUIMARD and Mr. NEWDEOATE. It ap-
pears from a return just presented to Parliament,
that as many as ten distinct Bills have been brought
into the House of Commons since 1861, while a
variety of schemes have been proposed by diffe-
rent members in twenty-one resolutions or amend-
ments. In nothing is the impotence and ineffec-
tuality of our unreformed legislature more shown
than in this incapacity of dealing with a question
which everybody knows to be virtually decided,
but which is nevertheless permitted to vex and
obstruct our public life. Nobody now—except
Archdeacon DENlSON—affects to believe in the
possibility of upholding the present state of
things. Every compulsory levy of church rates
that is made takes place under a condition of
Cie law which is not only condemned
by public opinion, but which even the oppo-
nents of Mr. HARDCASTLE'S Bill would not
undertake to justify. The wbole course of mo-
dern legislation is adverse to the practice of
quartering a particular church for support upon
Christians who do not belong to it, but have
sustain their own religious organizations by their
voluntary liberality. Diversity of religious pro-1
fession and ecclesiastical life has become at least
as much a part of our legally recognised English
system as the principle of an establishment itself ;
and we are all hastening on to the acknowledg-
ment of complete equality before the law as the
common basis of the churches. Thus this church.
rate controversy is an anachronism without the
least support in the convictions or hopes of
our age.

Last year Mr. HARDCASTLE'S Bill for the Aboli-
tion of Church Rates was read a second time in
the House of Commons by a majority of thirty-
three, but it was not pressed, as there seemed to
be just a chance that Mr. Graesroax, who had a
proposal of his own, would be able to mediate a
compromise between the supporters and opponents
of church rates. Mr. GLADSTONE'S proposal sub-
sequently came before the House in the form of
the Compulsory Church Rates Abolition Bill,
which provided for the cessation of all compulsory
powers for the collection of church rates, while
it vested in those who might pay voluntary rates
the exclusive power of regulating church expendi-
ture. This scheme was supported by some of the
ablest of the representatives of the Church of
England in the ecclesiastical press, and was re-
ceived with much favour out of doors ; but the
general result of the discussion upon it was, we
believe, a conviction that there is no medium
between the present system and complete aboli-
tion. Certain it is that a considerable section of
those whom the measure was intended by Mr.
GLADSTONE to conciliate showed themselves as
hostile to it as to the more thorough-going mea-
sure of Mr. HAIIDCASTLE. Nor were they without
their justification, for there can be no doubt
that any attempt to retain the machinery
of church rates after the principle of
universal and equal compulsion has been
eliminated would in many cases only impair the
energies and fetter the liberty of sincere church-
men, and deprive them of the advantages which
attend a perfectly free and voluntary system. The
objections made to Mr. GLADSTONE'S Bill did not,
however, proceed from the supporters of that of
Mr. HAEDCASTLE, who, on the contrary, were
quite willing to accept it instead of their own
more consistent proposal. This session Mr.
Hartecarne reintroduces his measure, and the
whole interest of the question now turns upon it,
the two other Bills which we have mentioned not