The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-24 00:00:00

themselves. (Hear, hear.) Was that any reason why
they should be exonerated from providing that which was
for the common benefit of all ? (Hear, hear.) He thought
it would be quite as reasonable that a particular division
of a county should disclaim the use of a particular county
bridge, and expect to be exempt from contributing to-
wards keeping it in repair. (Hear, hear.) Church rates
were a charge upon the land. (Hear, hear.) Nothing but
the merest quibble could represent it otherwise, and as the
present owners of the lands of this country had acquired
them subject to the charge, they had not, either in law or
in equity, anything like a claim to be relieved from it.
Mr. GARDNER was of opinion that this vexed ques-
tion could never be satisfactorily settled by any measure
in the nature of a compromise. It appeared that the ob-
ligation of which the hon. member opposite had spoken
rested on the common law, or on custom, and this
might have been all very well when the Established
Church was really, and not nominally, the Church of the
nation. It was all very well to say that the churches
were open to all, if all chose to attend them ; but all did
not choose to attend them, and how were they to compel
them to do it ? Church rates, he believed, were unknown
in any other country, yet the Church of England was the
richest establishment in the world, and was very far in-
deed from deserving, at the last census had shown, the
name of a national establishment. Was it worth the
while of the Church to keep alive a feeling of irritation,
not only among dissenters, but in the country generally,
for the sake of this paltry sum ? (Hear, hear.) He was
afraid that churchmen forgot their own interest, that they
thought to have a perpetual lease of power and pre-emi-
nence, and that they were like the jovial clergymen de-
scribed by Goldsmith, who met together and resolved that
they would go on preaching to the world, and that the
world should go on paying for their preaching, whether
they liked it or not. (Hear, hear.) He thought our
whole ecclesiastical system was rotten at the core—that it
would be wholly impossible to maintain it on its present
foundation—that it was very unwise to go on irritating
the dissenters—and that the opposition which he antici-
pated would be offered on all sides to the introduction of
this bill was an indication of the blindnass and infatuation
which precipitated the downfall of eveiT institution which
had outlived the necessities and the circumstances of the
times in which it was founded, and had ceased to be
in harmony with the spirit of the age. He hoped his hon.
friend, although he might be beaten now, would persevere
until his object was attained.
Mr. PACKE admitted the necessity of legislation on
this subject. (Hear, hear.) If this were simply a question
between one set of people worshipping in one place, and
another set of people worshipping in another place, he
might be inclined to vote with the hon. baronet for the
total abolition of church rates. (Hear.) But this was not
the question. (Hear.) The real question was this—here
was an establishment which had existed now for above a
thousand years, for the benefit of all classes of the
people—a national establishment—by which ho understood
an establishment supported by the nation for the national
good. (Hear, hear.) The difference between a clergyman
of the Church of England and a dissenting minister was
this--that the clergyman had the cure of all the souls in
his parish. (Hear, hear, and oh, oh.) Whether they
chose to avail themselves of his ministrations or not was
another point ; but this was the duty for which he was
paid—for visiting the sick, for burying the dead, for
solemnizing marriages, and for performing religious offices,
in every way, for the whole parish, whereas a dissenting
minister was attached only to a particular congregation.
(Hear, hear.) It was the duty of the nation to provide
places of worship for those who were too poor to provide
them for themselves.; and he apprehended that every per-
son in the kingdom derived benefit from the existence of
.establishments in which these poor'p'eople might be taught
some principles of religion. < (Hear, hear.) There were
some, also, who did not attend any place of worship, not
because they were poor, but from causes within their own
control ; and it was the duty of a Christian nation to pro-
vide the means of worship for such as these, whether they
chose to avail themselves of the el or not. In the parish of
Marylebone, alone, he had learnt that there were more
people attending public-houses on the Sunday than the
aggregate congregations of all the places of worship in the
palish. (Hear.) According to the census, on the par-
ticular Sunday for which the returns relating to religious
worship had been obtained, the number who attended no
place of worship, who were not hindered by age, or occu-
pation, or illness, was 5,288,294. (Hear, hear.) Now
for these the nation ought to make such provision as that
the means of religious worship should, at all events, be
placed within their reach. (Hear.) In the bill which he
had prepared upon this subject, he disclaimed all inten-
tions of insulting the Nonconformists, in endeavouring to
ascertain who were Dissenters and who were churchmen.
(Hear.) The hon. baronet's proposition ho understood to
be a proposition to abolish church rates, and not to propose
any substitute or modification of the law. A. division of
the Church property had been suggested ; but supposing
the revenues of the Church to be equally divided, the
amount for each clergyman would not exceed 3001. a
year, and no one would consider that too large an amount
for a gentleman of education; and as the population in-
creased, the churches must increase also, so that, according
to that scheme, the provision for the clergy would diminish
year by year. Another remedy suggested was that of pew
rents. Now that would strike at the root of the object of
the Church of England, for the establishment of pew rents
in small parishes would altogether prevent the poor from
frequenting the church. Although Parliament had secured
the clergy their incomes, and voted sums for the building
of churches, it was now proposed to stop short, and say,
" We will not keep in repair the churches which jlave been
built sent of thefutids of the nation." The hon. membet
fo- Norwich said that many personf were obliged to pay
towards the support of a religion of which they did not ap-
prove. He (Mr. Packe) admitted that many persons did
not approve of the doctrines preached in the Church, but
how many of the different dissenting denominations dis-
sented from each other ? The largest denomination next to
the Church were the Wesleyans, and they were not averse
to church rates, and not considering their abolition desir-
able, he should vote against the introduction of the bill.
Mr. BIGGS said the dissenters considered the church
rate an unjust impost and an abstraction of money from
one set of religionists for the support of the worship of
another. The levying of church rates was a source of con-
stant annoyance. Two years ago, when he was Mayor of
Leicester, it became his duty to issue a number of distress
warrants, but he solved the difficulty by paying the church
rates himself. He was glad to say that in five of the
parishes in Leicester church rates had been abolished, but
this had not been done without a great struggle and the
manifestation of much ill feeling amongst different parties.
To show the inconvenience sometimes occasioned by the
imposition of church rates, he might mention that on
one occasion, when he was dining with a party, a num-
ber of distress warrants were brought to the table for
the signature of a magistrate, and that magistrate actually
had to affix his name to a distress warrant against
the host at whose table he was sitting. (Hear, hear.) Two-
thirds of the population had escaped from the pale of the
Church of England, and the moral loss to that Church
from the enforcement of the church rate law was greater
than was generally imagined. When the Church of Eng-
land was the richest Church in the world, was it worth
while to continue an impost which tended to increase the
alienation from the Church which already existed? (Hear,
hear.) If he were a Churchman, he would support the
entire abolition of church rates. He maintained that
those who supported the abolition of church rates were the
best friends of the Church, and he felt convinced that the
Dissenters of Leicester would erect a monument to the
memory of the man who should succeed in procuring them
their abolition. (Hear, and laughter.)
Captain SCOBELL supported the motion of the honour-
able member for the Tower Hamlets, being desirous to see
church rates abolished as church rates. It had been said
that the churches were open to the rich and the poor. That
was true. But if the poor went to church, where were
they to sit? (Hear, hear.) In one-half of the churches in
the kingdom there were no seats for them, and it was,
therefore, worse than a deception to talk of the Church of
England as a national Church. Nothing would be so
beneficial to the Church as the redistribution of its wealth
for the good of the Church. The great blot on the Church
was the unequal distribution of that wealth. (Hear, hear.)
He should like to see the pious man put forward rather than
the man possessing the greatest influence, and the resources
of the Church so employed as to produce the greatest
amount of good to the country and to itself. (Hear, hear.)
With respect to church rates he saw no way so short, so
effectual, and so certain of arriving at a desirable result as
their total abolition as church rates, and he thought they
might be dealt with in a way which he had never yet
heard suggested. He could not forget that the land had
for centuries been bought and sold subject to church rates,
and that they were ingrained into the value of the land,
and he did not see how they could be severed from the
land ; and those who advocated their total abolition ought
to remember that those who had the most land would re-
ceive the most benefit from such a measure. (Hear, hear.)
Now he would abolish church rates as such, but would
appropriate the sum thus raised to the purposes of educa-
tion, either in an aggregate sum as a fund for the whole
nation, or for the support of the schools in the particular
places where the rate should be collected. All parties
would thus benefit from the rate, and he believed that
those who grudged the payment of a sum. for church rates
would cheerfully pay it in the shape of a school rate.
(Hear, hear.)
Lord STANLEY said—Sir, I confess I do not quite un-
derstand the proposition of the hon. and gallant gentle.
man that has just addressed us. (Hear, hear.) He says, I
believe, in effect, that he does altogether desire the aboli-
tion of church rates, but that they should be transferred to
another purpose. However, it is not my intention to occupy
the attention of the house for more than a few minutes, be-
cause all the arguments used have been very much of one
kind. I must say, so far as the Nonconformists and those
who object to church rates are concerned, I do not think
that the legislation of this house is of very much import-
ance, because if Parliament were only to leave the public
alone for fouror five years more I believe it would be found
at the end of that time that the question had settled itself.
The real hardship, therefore, is not with those who object
to paying rates, but it lies rather here, that there is al ways
a great public disadvantage in our maintaining upon the
statute book a law which the stateof public feeling renders
inoperative. (Hear, hear.) And in addition to this there
is involved the great hardship of throwing upon those who
are officially responsible for the maintenance of the
churches the necessity of resorting to a rate, and of adopt-
ing a course which can only be taken at the risk of creating
great disturbance and afeeling. Still, in many cases, not-
withstanding such consequences, they were compelled to
have resort to a rate, because if they merely proposed a
voluntary assessment they would be told, "you need not
come upon us in this way, for you have a legal provision
to meet your wants." Now, what is the present state of
the church rate law ? We cannot deny that the po-
sition of the question had changed since last year, in
consequence of ;the decision in the Braintree case. Up
to that time it was supposed there was a power to
compel parishes to maintain their churches, and of
punishment in case of its non performance. That led
to rates being granted without any dispute in many
parishes, where otherwise disputes and differences would
infallibly have occurred. That state of things is now,
however, at an end, and the consequence is, that the dis-
cussions which for some years had been checked are

now revived in many pits of the country. Indeed
many of the most Conservative boroughs of the country
—many whose feelings of attachment to the Church
are very strong, have, nevertheless, refused to im-
pose church rates. (Hear, hear.) Such, then, is the
present state of things; and there appears every proba-
bility of its lasting, although I believe the question will be
ultimately settled in some few years in every borough of
the kingdom. That, however, is a result not to be attained

without:a, great deal of disputation and discontent. (Hear.)
For as to the church rate law in itself, I do not suppose
that any one will deny that it involves a great anomaly, and
has done so ever since the existence of dissent was recog-
nised by the civil law. And I have no doubt that so far as
the exemption of dissenters is concerned that the majority
of this house is in favour of such a proposition. But when
we discussed the question last, it so happened that two
otile
iifferut plans were proposed—one resembling that which
hon. baronet has this evening revived ; the movers of
each,
however, disapproving of the other's proposal. In
consequence, therefore of the difference of opinion pre-
vailing, the whole question fell to the ground. ..t present