The Sun.
London, England, 1837-05-25 00:00:00

SP MIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

. .
The former Church-rates Bill was no doubt carried
—a majority of 116 ; and the majority yesterday
Tar a•ning was only 5 ; but we see nothing in this at
w'hich the Tories have any great cause to rejoice. Lord
Althorp proposed to tax the people of the three king-
•doms for the purpose of keeping up the fabrics of the
Church ; and however vulgar Sir Robert Peel may
think the expedient of grant; from the taxes, and how-
ever averse the Tory landholders may be to have their
estates exempted from the payment of Church-rates,
it so happened that Sir Robert Peel, Sir Robert H.
Inglis, Mr. Goulburn, and all the Tories voted with
Lord Althorp. The minority of 140 consisted ex-
clusively of Radicals. The present Ministerial mea-
sure contemplates no addition to the burdens of LW
people—it relieves the Dissenters from an odious im-
post, by providing for the upholding of Churches
by a new creation of property. By the contem-
plated change in the management of Church pro-
perty the incomes of incumbents will be secured
to them, the rights of lessees will he respected,
and ample means will ha obtained,• not only
for *keeping up the fabrics of the Church,
but for supplying the people with additional
se;rritual instruction. Among other recommendations
out* the Ministerial plan, its putting an end to the dis-
graceful jobbing of bishops and other dignitaries of the
Church m Church property, to the detriment of their
successors, is not certainly one of the least important.
The Ministerial measure has been opposed by power-
ful interests. In the first place, the bishops and
other dignitaries love to be themselves directly con-
nected with the administration of Church property,
for the sake of the large windfalls constantly accru-
ing, of which no account is given to the estates.
Then the whole host of persons connected with the
present management of the estates have a powerful
interest in its being continued. Then the lessees,
though they know that bishops may run their lives
against them, and that it would be imprudent to
venture on expensive improvements, while by the
fixed tenure which would be substituted for the ex-
isting leases their property would be greatly increased
in value, entertain a secret wish to have no sharers
with them in the benefit. The Tories, as a party
never scrupulous as to their means, eagerly availed
themselves of the present occasion, and the most
disingenuous devices for defeating the Ministerial
plan were encouraged by them. First, a clamour was
raised that Ministers intended to demolish the Churches.
This answered its purpose for a time, and clergymen
were not ashamed to avail themselves of it, to obtain
signatures to petitions against the abolition of Church-
rates. Then it was pretended that the additional pro-
perty called into existence by the measure should be
applied in the first place to the supplying the spiritual
wants of the people. It was, no doubt, somewhat re-
markable that the idea of supplying additional instruc-
tion to the people through the means derived from an
improved administration of Church property never oc-
curred to the heads of the Church till became neces-
sary to discover objections to the Ministerial plan.
But if any persons were s;:mple enough to believe that
the Tories really meant to make the Church property
available for additio-,al means of spiritual instruction,
they must have b..:en completely undeceived by Sir Ro-
bert Peel on Tuesday night. This good was done by
Mr. Andre -a. Johnston, whose amendment put the sin-
cerity of. the Tories to the test. The Right Hon.
Baronet said—

" He could not vote for the Hon. Gentleman's amended
resolution, and on this ground—that he expressed it as the
opinion of the House, that funds might be derived from an
improved management of the Church lands, and that those
fund: should be applied to the religious instruction of mem-
bers of the Established Church. . • • He objected
to the appointment of Commissioners ; he objected to the
doing of that which might divest the Bishops of all interest
in the lands. . • . And again, as to the interests of
the lessees, he was not prepared to establish a proposition
which might affect the interests of those persons without
being in full possession of the subject, and exactly under-
standing how far the proposition was to go. He knew that
the lessees were not in possession of a legal right, but then
they had a very long tenure of the property ; besides, too,
it was to be considered that the Commonwealth had failed
in attacking this property—that it was regarded and treated
as Property which could not be disturbed nor tamperoa
With."

The plain meaning of all this is, that Sir Robert
Peel and the Tories care not one whit for the spiritual
instruction of the people, but that they care for job-
bing. All the evils, and they are many, connected
with the present management of Church property arc
to be continued, from the natural love borne by the
Tories to corrupt abases.
" It was," as Lord John Russell truly observed, " a very
great inconvenirace that bishops who had only a life-interest
in the lands slAuld, for their own private advantage, have
taken larger fines, and then given the lands at low rents
and upon, tong leases. Such things a bishop did for his own
great advantage, and to the injury of his see
The persons who made such leases enjoyed great advan-
tages from them, but they left their successors impoverished,
unable, he would not say, to maintain the splendour of their
station, but even that decent hospitality which became their
station. There was another disadvantage, too, that fol-
lowed from the independent character of the Bishops then
contended for—it was this : that front time to time the
possessors of Church property had obtained private Acts
of Parliament—Acts that had passed through both Houses
—and by means of which the immediate income of the
Bishops was improved, but the sees themselves injured.
By such Acts of Parliament, too, the incomes of Chapters
were improved, but then the future incomes of the Chap.
tern were much diminisLed."
The House cheered his Lordship when he alluded
to these dishonest spoliations of the Church by the
Bishops, arid well they might. Our readers have had
some samples, in the admirable communications from
" A Churchman" in the Chronic/e, of the mode in
which, within the last half century, several princely
estates have been created by private Acts of Parlia-
ment out of the property of the Church in this metro-
polis and its neighbourhood. The great objection of
the heads of the Church to the Ministerial plan is, that
it will put an cud to this system of spoliation, and that
the public will benefit from.the better administration of
the property. It is a great mistake to suppose that the
Dissenters are the only parties who oppose Church-
rates. It was well observed in the course of the
debate, that the Opposition was often the most
successful when there were few or no Dissenters.
The impost will -be a constant source of bicker-
ing in parishes ; and if Ministers should fail to
carry their plan for putting an end to such an un-
seemly state of things, and also to the present disgrace-
ful state of jobbing in Church property, this would
afford, no doubt, cause of regret to the country, but
such a subject of triumph to the Tories as the Devil
obtains when he prevents good from being clone. Mi-
liisters will of course proceed with their plan. It de-
serves success ; and if it do not ultimately obtain it,
the country will know why. They cannot do what is;
impossible. Those who object to Church-rates must
be aware that Ministers are dependent on the opinion
of the representatives of the people. If they wish
Church-rates abolished, they must choose representa-
tives of their way of thinking on that subject. In the
meantime, the Tories have succeeded in moriaskinL:
themselves, and putting the people in possession of
the little importance they really attach to religion.—
• Moming Chronicle.
The affairs of Ministers are beginning to assume,
one towards another, a pretty level surface. Low as
was their majority from the outset of the O'Connell
Government, and such as seemed to afford them little
chanee of surviving the first session, their numbers
wr.4 all the strength they had. In argument they
sthod at zero, and remained at that point still, immove-
able—as the wind of this unfortunate season at north-
vast. Latterly, however, there has been a rapid ap-
proximation between the above elements of Ministerial
life. The arguments undoubtedly have not risen ; but
through a process somewhat easier and more natural,
the numbers have dropped to within 5 degrees of zero.
This is a state of things to which some persons may
appear uncomfortable. On a vital question (for such
is manifestly, in the case of the Melbourne Minis-
ters, every question which involves, no matter how
obliquely, an attempt to ruin the Established Church
by the 'introduction of the voluntary principle)—
but on a vital question, such as the substitution of a
fund derived from plundering the clergy for the old
Ra t
law rterfiaceps.txtlrsouree of Church-rates, and
on Wednesday the 15th of
, ar 4V/Aati,
.:(I,*arlPapist votes against 250 Con
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