The Sun.
London, England, 1837-04-07 00:00:00

• tions very much resembling those under whicli—theCUm-
missioners of Woods and Forests manage the property of
the Crown. # # The Commission is to consist,
on the part of the Clergy, of the Archbishops of Canter-
' bury and York, of the Bishop of London, and of the Deans
of Westminster and St. Paul's, with another Commissioner
to be named by the Archbishop of Canterbury ; and on the
part of the State, of the Lord Chancellor, a Secretaly of
State, the first Commissioner of Woods and Forests,
two other Commissioners named by the Crown. Thus the
only possible patronage which the Crown can have, will
consist in two Commissioners ; and it is to be remarked,
that the Clergy will have six while the State have only five
members in this Board, which is to pull down our Churches,
to introduce the voluntary system, and to end by destroying
all religion whatever in the country
Thus says clamour ; but this will not deceive the plain
sense of the people of England.
There Is one point more to be considered, which is
the question of pew rents. Some alarm' has been excited
in the country, by a false representation, that the measure
has in view a general system of pew-letting, in country
parishes, where such a thins, has been. hitherto unknown.
If this should be so, it will the fault of. the Bishop and
Archdeacon, to whom the duty is entrusted by the Bill,
of deciding in what cases pew rents shall be levied, and
they will be bound to conult the wishes of the pa-
rishioners themselves, before they authorise the collection
of any money from this source. * * * *
This, then, is the substance of the Bill, which a fac-
tion, in its hunger for office, its hatred of all reform, and its
utter disregard for truth, would fain make the people of
England believe to be framed for the ruin of their Churches-,
the degradation of their clergy, and the destruction of their
religion !

Let us, therefore, before" parting, run over a few of our
details. In the first place, then, we have seen that Church-
rates themselves are an innovation and encroachment on
the pockets of the people ; and that they are a source of
strife on religious subjects. That they are a voluntary tax,
which can be, and is, frequently evaded by vestries, both in
town and country ; that such evasions are becoming more
general, and bid fair to be universal, now that the House of
Commons has twice voted a condemnation of them. We
have thus found that they are necessarily, by the force of
circumstances, without any blame of this or that Ministry,
irrevocably and practically abolished for all efficient pur-
poses of repairing our Churches, and therefore a substitute
must be, and has been, sought for and found.
Secondly—We have examined this substitute,. and seen
that the funds which it offers can be derived from that very
property without injury to individuals, and with benefit to'
the property itself, which, by the ancient law of the land,
was liable for the repair of the Churches.
Thirdly—We have examined the mode of raising these
funds, and we have found that it releases our bishops and
the higher clergy from the unspiritual.management of groat
landed estates ; and also that it relieves them from the
temptation and the suspicion of benefiting themselves in the
management of this property, at the expense of the pro-
perty itself. We have seen that it will give the lessees of
'this property the advantage of a fixed tenure, and that
those only will suffer who have hitherto been profiting at
the expense of the Church, by undue bargains or leases ;
and that the nation- at large will gain by the increasing
productiveness which will naturally arise from the agricul-
tural improvemeilts and building leases that may henceforth
be safely undertaken on this immense property..
ForirthlyW e have also found that the inspection .and
repairing our churches will be placed in experienced and
responsible hands, subject to the direction and control of
thehighestecclesiastical authorities.

Aud finally, our vestries and parishes wili be reclaimed
from the hickerings of rival sects wrangling for money ; our
poor will.have ample space and accommodation in our re-
paired Churches ; and the middle classes, the shopkeepers,
the farmers, the smaller mannfacturers, all who choose, will
be rclievedfi•om an irregular and vexatious tax.
All these advantages to our Churches, to our peace,
to our pockets, to our national profit, and, above all, to the
decent ministrations of religion, are to be obtained by this
Bill ; and yet it has been called spoliation and sacrilege—
so was the Reform Bill !

We began by. promising some remarks on this Bill,
which the factions say, is for the pulling down our churches,
but in expounding its principles, we have found, unless we
much deceive ourselves; that is one for keeping them in
repair.

That is a Bill to preserve Church-going parishioners from
uneasiness and danger in their house of prayer, dissenting
parishioners from civil duties, at variance with their reli-
gious scruples, and both anthill from vexatious payments,
as well as an un-christian heart-burnings ; and that it will
keep the venerable fabric of our Churches themselves from
decay and ruin.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

An article appeared in the Morning Advertiser of yes-
terday which is calculated to throw Reformers off their
guard. "We believe (says that journal) we may confi-
dently state that the Irish Municipal Bill will be read in
the House of Commons upon Monday next, and be suf-
fered to pass without opposition." So far from that being
likely to he the case, there is almost a certainty that the
Tories will divide, in the hope of reducing the former ma-
jority, and thence obtaining the pretext. for which they are
constantly on the watch, that there has been a reaction in
their favour. It is of the greatest consequence that every
Liberal Member should be at his post to secure the passing
of the Bill by a large majority of the Representatives of the
people, so as to afford the Lords no excuse for de-
stroying the Bill on the grounds of the indifference of
the country. With respect to the intentions of the To-
ries in the Lords we have reason to believe that their
course has not yet been definitively determined on.
That one division of them differs widely from ano-
ther, both as to this measure and the general course of
policy which the Government ought to pursue, is no secret.
Whether, in the deliberations of the party, the moderate or
the wild party shall prevail, can at present only be matter
of conjecture. The Duke of Wellington was overborne last
year, but still he did not separate himself from the men he
must in his heart have despised. Whether he will continue
to'sacrifice his reputation as a statesman, and to join in the
pack led by Lord Lyndhurst, who are everywhere exclaim-
ing against the treachery of Sir Robert Peel, will soon be
seen.—Morning Chronicle.

Mr. Warburton last night obtained leave to bring in a
Bill 'to alter the qualifications of Members of Parliament.
The Hon. Gentleman proposes that in future 6001. a year
should be the qualification for Borough, and 300/. a year
for County Members, without reference to the source
whence the income be derivable, whether from leasehold,
personal, funded, or other property. Being fully impressed
with the conviction that the possession of property furnishes
no test whatever of the eligibility of a man to become a
Member of the House of Commons, and that while such qua-
lification be required, its only effect will be to perpetuate the
trickery, fraud, and perjury by which it is notorious the present
law of qualification is so frequently evaded, we do not see that
any change short of the utter abolition of all property quali-
fication will operate the least improvement in the system,
unless, indeed, by facilitating the evasion of an ineffective,
impolitic, and absurd law. After the admirable manner in
which the subject was discussed in the earlier part of the
Session, by Sir W. Molesworth and Mr. Leader, in pro-
posing the abolition of all property qualification, and the
unqualified support which we gave to the proposition, it is
unnecessary here to resume the discussion of the general
question. Though we regard the proposition of Mr. War-
burton rather in the light of an alteration than an improve-
ment, we think Mr. Roebuck might have found better
grounds for opposing it than " an unwillingness to interfere
hastily with the existing law," or " that the possession of a
valuable picture"—a species of property alluded to by Mr.
Warburton—"- was no evidence of a man having received
an education to qualify him to take part in the proceed-
ings of the British Legislature." The first is rather a
squeamish objection, and certainly comes awkwardly from
Mr. Roebuck. The proposition to remove an abuse
does not recessarily imply that the mode of its removal
should be hastily adopted, or that having admitted the
principle, ample time should not be afforded for preparing
and perfecting its details. This objecf,on, therefore, is as
untenable as absurd ; nor is that of the picture qualification
much less, so ; for we consider the possos4on of an antique
gem—a Salvator Rosa, for instance—fully as good an evi-
&Nice of an education suitable to a member of the Senate
as the real or fictitious qualification now admitted as a
test of eligibility. Both tests are equally absurd, but the
picture has one advantage to which we-would dir'ect Mr.
Roebuck's attention—it is more easily transferred than the
present property qualification. So that if Mr. ‘;`,%arlrarton's
proposition were adopted, any gentleman with the desire
of becoming a member of the House Commons, would
have only to borrow sonic valuable cl,peeimen of art, and, no
doubt, like the bene Bish in compliance with
the request of a ~p, who,
17ady in that state when it is considered ne-
cessary to hu
caprie.es, tent her some valuable articles
of plate, fn which she professed a desire, until the anxious
time tvP, passed, vslien he requested the article to be re-
.s,
promisiug,however, that on the next occasion they
should again he at her serviee—so, during the Parliamentary
gestation of certain pompous politicians, we have no doubt
tS'ome kind friend would always be at hand to supply them,
for the nonce, with the wished-for qualification, without all
the chicanery to which many are at present obliged to re-
, sort. The property qualification seems to obtain merely
for the purpose of being evaded. The law affecting it can-
' not be made, nor is it proposed to make it, more
stringent than it is. How much better, then, would it
be to abolish it' altogether, and not make it necessary
for tome of the ablest Members of the Senate to bold
their scats in virtue of a fiction or a fraud ? Our ge-
neral laws arc in many cases so absurd, that without