The Sun.
London, England, 1838-03-10 00:00:00

CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

Lord ABERDEEN asked if the Noble Viscount at the
'jut of her Majesty's Government was prepared to state what
"7re the • tions of the Ministry with regard to the question
additional endowments to the Church of Scotland, than
no question,
', .whether of foreign, or domestic policy, ex-
' more interest in Scotland
Lord MELBOURNE—My Lords,. I. am aware of the
r"g feeling which exists on this subject in Scotland. The
tisti'"lon wlichthe Noble Earl has put, has been put and an.
i-r7.'red in another place. And (judging the usual sources of
Ic'tnlation) the question was said, I knofwronmot how truly, to have
*lel" answered in a very undigested manner. This, my Lords,
. Qvgs the ill effect of the haste with which measures are urged
tali her
Majesty's Ministers. Nothing, my Lords, tends so
in ca . to these ill effects, as the hurrying d measures
del
a rash manner. It is much better to bring on measures
LeratelY one b one, so that the whole attention of the
kt"',llnnent might be directed to each. My Lords, a great
l which
in'aes• has been bmade or. the Government for the little
41: Peen effected this Session. I cannot help thinking that
en -34: es of the greatest importance, and quite sufficient to (A,:
,nOPY. the attentiOn of Parliament, have been brought forward ,
e gaged Particularly, as the other House of Parliament has
_beep
-tun oe a measure of the highest importance to Ireland,
Poor Laws, amply sufficient to occupy their attention
the e under their consideration. My Lords, as. . to
that church of Scotland, I certainly am of opinion
whatever dearth of church-room or spiritual assistance
et 'he may exist in Scotland, it ought not to be supplied out
Law if'bgeneral funds of the country, until all the property which
beenbeen heretofore possessed by the Crown, or. which,
e Present time, is bound to make up the deficiency, has
Whe devoted to these purposes. In those parishes, therefore,
re such want exists, and these funds hare been already
41itusted, the Government intend to propose that aid should
pnagsrarited out of the Bishop's teinds, which are now in the
th, el'ion of the Crown. But in those parishes in which
- Jitn fiends were not exhausted, it is not intended to give
those orther assistance, except what may be obtained from
te unexhausted tiends, and measures will be taken
Loder those fiends more readily available.
rd BRoUGIEMS rose, but gave way to—
fron.l Earl of ABERDEEN, who said that he supposed
Irrinitrat had fallen from the Noble Viscount that a measure
(LO be introduced on the subject. The Noble Viscount
%),r° Melbourne) had said that it was the intention of the
PariZnment not to make any application respecting those
kn.." in which the ticads had not been exhausted. But
fold if of those parishes the kleb.ciency existed in a ten.
......(tiSree more than in any other part of the country.
it wea; bear, hear.) The Noble Viscount said that
not intended to supply the deficiency cut

of the general funds of the country, but out of the Bishops'
teinds. Now, those teinds had become part of the hereditary
revenues of the Crown, and the Noble Viscount might
put his hand into which pocket be pleased; but still
he would take the money out of the public pocket,
just as much as if he took it directly out of the Consolidated
Fund.—(Hear, hear, from Lord Brougham.) He (Lord
M.) said that, by an alteration of the Act of 1770, be could
make the division of, parishes, and the appointment of mi-
nisters more easy, but in those parishes the Church-
property might be compared to tithes, and were
the property of the heritors as lay-impropriators, and the in.
tended alteration would throw upon their property the
expense of the endowment.—The Heritors at present had
the power of appointing a Minister if three-fourths of them
were agreed, and the Synod had the power of dividing the pa-
rishes permanently. He would be glad if a little of that con-
sideration, of which he had heard so much, were applied to
the subject.—( Hear, hear, from Lord Brougham.)
Lord BROUGHAM could not avoid expressing the same
astonishment as Lis Noble Friend opposite (Lord Aberdeen)
at the answer given by the Noble Viscount, who, after having
last night said that the subject was under consideration, now
said that he (Lord Brougham) must have perceived that the
answer he gave to the question last night was in the negative.
Viscount MELBOURNE—In the negative as to a Parlia-
mentary grant.
Lord BROUGHAM—A Parliamentary grant! Why it
was a Parliamentary grant, because without enacting a money
Bill the thing could not be done. What signified whether the
money was taken out of one fund or out of another, out of the
Consolidated Fund or out of the Bishop's teinds, which were
now precisely as much a part of the public revenue as the
excise, the customs, the post-office, or the stamps. The Bill
granting this money would begin " Most gracious Sove-
reign," and the Royal Assent given to it would be "La
Reine reniercie ses loyaux sujets, accept leur benevolence, et
aussi vent." It would, therefore, be a Money Bill to all in-
tents and purposes for the benefit of the Church of Scotland.
That, then, was an answer, not in the negative to the ques-
tion he put to the Noble Viscount last night, but directly in
the affirmative.

Viscount MELBOURNE said that whether it was an affir-
mative answer or not, he was referring at the time entirely
to a Parliamentary grant of money. But what was proposed
was a grant out of the Bishop's fiends, which were once in
the possession of the Church, but were now in the possession
of the Crown, and he begged to say, notwithstanding the
speech of the Noble and Learned Lord, that that made a very
great difference. This property was once in the possession of
the Church itself, and that, he repeated, made a great diffe-
rence with respect to that part of it which was now in the pos-
session of the Crown. Because, at the time of the Reforma-
tion, when their tiends were taken possession of by the
Crown, they were taken upon the express ground that they
were thereafter to be applied to ecclesiastical and spiritual
matters, and to the encouraging of the religious instruc-
tion of the people. The bishoprics founded by Henry VIII.
were endowed out of the property he received at the Re-
formation ; and it was precisely upon that ground, and upon
that view being held out to the country, that that pro-
perty was taken by the Crown. He knew that the Crown
did not keep its word either in England or Scotland. On
the contrary, much of this property was given to individuals
and dispersed in grants; but he conceived that that part of
it which still remained the property of the Crown might be
very properly applied to the objects for which it was origi-
nally intended, and to which the Crown held out to the
country that it was intended to appropriate it. He appre-
hended that the whole property of the Church of England
stood upon the same ground. What was the landed pro-
perty of the Church of England ? Ho took it to be (though
he did not pretend to speak with perfect knowledge on the
subject) that part of the original property of the Church
which Queen Mary found had not been granted by
.Henry
the Eighth and Edward the Sixth, and which she restored
to the Roman Catholic Church, and which afterwards re-
mained in Queen Elizabeth's time the property of the Re-
formed Church. He, therefore, contended that the legiti-
mate course on the part of the Crown would be to apply
such part of this property as was in the possession of the
Crown to ecclesiastical purposes ; and that the Govern-
ment doing so, was not the same thing as if they applied to
those purposes any other part of the public revenue. As to
the argument of the Noble and Learned Lord, with respect
to these teinds being private property, it was true they
were private property, but they were, under the act of 1707,
made expressly applicable to the purposes of the Church ; and
if any parish in Scotland was in a state of destitution, these
tiends were the first fund which ought to be resorted to. He
was sure that from the general anxiety which prevailed on the
part of the landowners of Scotland to supply the means of
religious instruction in the principles of the Established
Church to the inhabitants of that country, they would be the
first to bail this measure with the greatest satisfaction, and
would cheerfully give a share of that property, which they
now enjoyed under the condition, when it was re luired, of
providing for the better instruction and greater spiritual as-
sistance of the community.—( Hear. )
Lord BROUGHAM must strongly protest against a prin-
ciple of spoliation such as that which had just been laid down
by the Noble Viscount in a moment of inconsideration. The
Noble Viscount would reflect further upon this : he might be
well assured that he would hear further of it ; for this was
the most complete principle of spoliation that had ever been
brought forward. He had never heard the spoliatory principle
so plainly avowed before ; because the Noble Viscount must
know that the men who bought these tiends—

Viscount MELBOURNE—They bought them subject to
the onus imposed by the Act.
Lord BROUGHAM—Yes, but not beyond that onus. Did
any man suppose that these tiends were bought subject to
supplying new Churches in Scotland ? Th,y were not liable
beyond providing for the present Churches, unless by a parti-
cular process, which required three-fourths of the heritors in
each parish to concur in any further charge ; thus they had
the staff in their own hands for their own protection. But
now it was proposed to take the staff from them, upon a mere
chimera, a dream ; for it was nothing less, if it were supposed
that these tiends were liable to any one burden or charge of
this kind. True, you might make them liable just as you
might make lay impropriators in England liable, and just as it
might by some be supposed that lay appropriations were liable
to do more for the Church than the owner of other descrip-
tions of property. But that was a doctrine which no lawyer
in Westminster-hall ever yet heard of. He would ask the
Noble and Learned Lord on the Woolsack, whether, in his
experience, he ever had known any such burden to be imposed
on lay impropriations?
The Earl of HADDI NGT ON did not exactly know whe-
ther the observation of the Noble Viscount with respect to the
landlords of Scotland was intended in a friendly spirit, or
whether there was something of sarcasm in it; but whatever
the intention of the Noble Viscount might have been, he (the
Earl of Haddington) had no doubt that the landed interest of
Scotland were always ready to every thing that it became
them to do idsupport of the Established Church of that coun-
try, and of the religious instruction of the people. The Court
of Teinds were required to make an augmentation for the ex-
isting clergy of parishes; but the injury which the proposed
measure would occasion would not be confined to the landown-
ers, out of whose pockets the money would proceed, but it
would extend to the existing clergy, whose means of augmen-
tation would thereby be diminished. This was a subject upon
which the Noble Viscount would probably hear a great deal,
and more perhaps than ho would like to hear. But as he (the
Earl of Haddington) conceived that the proposition of the
Noble Viscount was not very likely to lead to any practical
results, he confessed he had heard it with less regret than that
part of the statement of the Noble Lord in another place, and
which he believed would seriously disappoint the expecta-
tions of the people of Scotland ; he meant the statement that
the wants and necessities of the Church in Edinburgh and
Glasgow, and of every other large town in Scotland, were to
be overlooked by the State ; and that the Government, as long
as the tiends existed, would look on with indifference as to
whether seats in the Established Church were sufficiently nu-
merous to afford accommodation and religious instruction to
the people of that country. He could assure his Noble Friend
that that announcement would create very great disappoint-
ment. The Noble Viscount complained that he had been
urged and hurried, and that he had not bad time to consider
this question. Now, it was three years ago that the Com-
mission was appointed. That Commission made their first
Report a year and ahalf ago; and their second Report, which
was with reference to Glasgow only, had been four or five
months on the table ; and now their Lordships were told that
the Government were riot going to pay the least attention to
either of these Reports, but that they had made up their
minds on a matter upon which the Commissioners had not re-
ported at all.

Lord BROUGHAM denied the distinction made by the
Noble Viscount, and which seemed to be acceded to by
the Noble Earl, between Bishop's tiends wad any other de-
scription of tiends. It was the merest fancy that ever was
invented. The tiends were just as much public property as
any other portion of the national funds.
The Earl of ['ADDINGTON admitted that the Bishop's
tiends were part of the public funds, and all that he had said
was that it was that part of the public funds to which it was
most natural to have recourse.
After a few words from the Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Earl of Minto, Lord Brougham, and the Earl of Devon,
the conversation dropped.
SLAVE TRADE.
The Earl of MINTO, in consequence of the notice lie gave
last night, wished to ask the Noble and Learned Lord (Lord
Brougham) whether he would have any objection to dis-
charge the order for one of the returns relative to the slave
trade for which he moved on Friday last. The return to
which he referred was that which called for extracts from the
log-books of the cruisers and other ships employed upon the
coast of Africa for the last ten years. To complete this return
a reference would be required to the log-books of upwards of
1,100 ships, from each of which three extracts were de-
manded. This could not be accomplished except at very
great inconvenience, and after the lapse of a very considerable
period of time. He wished to ask the Noble and Learned
Lord, therefore, whether he would consent to discharge the
order for that part of the return, upon an a;:urance from him
(Lord Minto) that he would afford him every faeil;ty in his
power to obtain the inkirraetion he required by any other
means.—After some discussion,
Laid ”ROUGH AM consented to limit ttns petura to
..ex-
tracts from 66 1;L-books of the capturing ships, and of an
ether ships upon the Africa;-; roast upon;he day of capture and
the two days previous to the capture, arhg last two years.
CHURCH IN CANADA.
The Archbish
c4NTERBURY rose to present to
4
their Lordships a petition bock the Protestant inhabitants of
the province of Upper Canada, signed bv upwards of 5,900
persona. This petition had been some time in his p4sses4on.
It was first placed In his hands so long ago as the Spring of
1834, and the reason why he retained it until the present time
was because the petitioners oxrpte4 the settlernen; of the

affairs of the Church in C.inada to come before Parliament
every successive session, and were not aware of the precise
time at which the subl.ct would be brought forward. They
therefore placed the petition in his (the Archbishop of Can.
terbury's) hands, in order that it might meet the exigency
whenever it should occur. He would now read from the peti-
tion the description which the petitioners gave of themselves :
—" The petitioners were composed of loyalists and their chil-
dren who took refuge in Upper Canada after the American re-
volution, under a solemn pledge that they should receive the
same Constitution as the mother country—a Constitution
which provided for the establishment of the Protest:int Church.
That pledge was fully satisfied by the statute of the 33d of
George 111., which provided for the support of the Protestant
Clergy in a way which imposed no burthen on any class of
persons, nor disabilities on any persons professing a dif-
ferent faith. The petitioners also consisted of emigrants,
who had settled in the colony, because they felt secure that
they should enjoy the inestimable blessing of joining in the
worship of God and their Saviour as their fathers did before
them. The petitioners represented that they did not so much
appeal to the special authority of the House as claim to con-
tinue in the enjoyment of an undoubted right. They, there-
fore, pray the House would make a permanent provision for
public worship according to the doctrines of the Church of
England." It was said—and to his surprise he had heard it
—that in Canada Protestantism was in point of numbers the
sr-oiliest of the " sects," as in that country were termed all
religions except the Romish. But this was not so. After the
Catholic, the Established religion in Canada had the greatest
number of followers, and he was certain all that was requisite
to give it a preponderance was the endowment and maintenance
of an efficient Protestant Establishment. There were many
thousands in Canada, who were without any Church whatever,
but who, nevertheless, had a great thirst for religion, and
would willingly flock round a Protestant Clergyman were he
to settle among them. In the observations he had now to
conclude he begged to be understood as not imputing any in-
attention or neglect to any of those who had filled the office
of Colonial Secretary, and to the Noble Lord who now
held its seal he felt much indebted for the kindness with which
lie had attended to his comments, and the frankness with
which he had listened to his views of the subject—views
which he was confident he felt regret at not being able to meet.
—( Hear, hear.) He begged, in conclusion, to move that
the petition be brought up.
The Earl of RIPON concurred most cordially in the sen-
timents expressed by the Right Reverend Prelate as to the
obligation on them to maintain in the colonies the Established
Church, but in respect to those colonies which came into the
possession of Great Britain by foreign conquest there was in
this respect very great difficulty, because no one of them
surrendered without expressly stipulating for the maintenance
and support of their religion ; so that, in point of fact, the
Church of England in those colonies did not and could not
stand identically on the same footing that it did in this
country. In the province of Upper Canada there w 4
the peculiarity of two Established religions—the Catholic
religion, which England had engaged to maintain, and the
Protestant religion, as the religion of the mother country.
In taking the course he did he certainly did not believe, nor
did he naw, that he was doing anything to weaken the
Church or deprive it of its just influence ; and, he might add,
he was convinced that the plan he had suggested, would, if
acted upon, place it on a footing from which it could not be
overturned.

Lord GLENELG said that no one felt more fully than
himself the attention and respect due both to the importance
of the subject and to the high character of the Most Reverend
Prelate, and to the excellent tone and temper in which he had
brought it forward. At this moment no subject excited more
attention in Lower Canada than the means of supporting the
different religions prevailing there, not a very simple or easy
problem to solve. The most Rev. Prelate bad relied on the
fact that the Church of England in Canada was supported by
Parliamentary grants till 1832 ; but the fact was that it had
only received aid from the item of Army Extraordinaries, and
the fund fur extending Christian knowledge, till 1832, when a
new system was established, and the Government undertook to
provide for the support of the Church of England Clergy
in Upper Canada; and the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge to; support the Church of England Clergy in all
the other provinces, by the aid of 4,0001. a year from Govern-
ment, provided that no new claimant be put upon the list.
The interest on the funds from the sale of reserves, had now
amounted to 6,0001 in the Three per Cents., and with
2,5001. derived from Crown revenues made: a total of 8,5001.
now applibable to their support. But great complaints
were making by the Scotch Clergy there, who quoted
the opinion of our great law authorities, and of all the Go-
vernments who had occasion to touch on the subject since it
was mooted. Even his Noble Friend (the Earl of Ripon)
who had just left the House had recognised the claims of the
Scotch Clergy to a participation therein. They had now
1,500/. a year granted them in Upper Canada, and the united
Synod of the Church of Scotland 7001., making in all
2:000/. The Roman Catholics there bad also 1,500/. These
claims and possessions all tended to difficulties and per-
plexities which could not easily be unri.vellod by a Parliament
of this country, and were only subjects proper for a local one.
The former Roman Catholic Bishop of Montreal had received
3,000/. a year from the funds of this country, and, after se-
veral applications, received leave to appoint Dr. Mountain his
coadjutor, with a salary of 1,0001. taken from his own. Dr.
Mountain was also permitted to hold the proceeds of his rec-
tory and archdeanry, amounting to WO/. a year more; and,
on the death of the Bishop, Ministers (considering the state
of Lower Canada) thought it right to apply to the House
of Commons, and up a grant of 1,0001. a year, to re-
store him to the same condition he was in before
the death of the Bishop. It would be expedient to
have a Bishop in Upper Canada also, but no funds
could be had recourse to except those already appro-
priated by the Act of 1791 to the support of the Clergy, and
which would require the assent of the House of Assembly—a
thing not to be obtained at present. The hereditary and ter-
ritorial revenues might be applicable, but the disputed question
of the Civil List prevented any agreement and appropriation
of these funds. There were, however, other (casual) reve-
nues, and the Govermor had received instructions to lay before
the House of Assembly a proposal for their appropriation to
the formation of an enlarged fund for the promotion of the
service of the Church of England in that province. He
should be most happy if they could agree in allocating any
increase with respect to the subject of the petition laid on the
table this evening. Ho thought it very unfair to appeal to
the Parliament of this country while it was under the consi-
deration of the Government and the House of Assembly of
Lower Canada.

After a few word, from the Bishop of LONDON,
The house adjourned at Nine o'Clock.

COLONEL THOMPSON.