The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-25 00:00:00

RATING OF CHARITIES AND SCHOOLS.

A very important meeting was held on Monday at the
Westminster Palace Hotel, under the presidency of Sir
T. Tilson, to confer respecting the rating of charities and
schools, as now carried out under the direction of
the Government. The gathering was one of imposing
influence. Representatives were present from town and
county charities and schools of all denominations—namely,
from Church of England schools, Jewish charities and
schools, and Roman Catholic institutions, as well as from
the great metropolitan and county hospitals. In all some
eighty institutions were represented, including Guy's Hos-
pital, the London Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital, the
Holborn National Schools, the Merchant Seamen's Institu-
tion, the British and Foreign School Society, the Reforma-
tory and Refuge Union, besides many other London institu-
tions ; and every other class of charity was represented
from Bath, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, &c. The Chair-
man opened the proceedings with some remarks on the
present position of the question, observing that it was long
held doubsful whether institutions which tended to
decrease pauperism could be rated to the relief
of the poor, but the decision of the Court
of Queen's Bench in the matter of the British
Orphan Asylum laid it down that the " beneficial
occupation" term comprehended both schools and hospi-
tals, as well as other places. Mr. Wheelhouse and Mr.
Charles Reed had introduced bills into the House of Com-
mons to remedy this very serious evil—serious alike to
the poor and to the parishes, and now Mr. P. H. Muntz
had introduced a measure which proposed that
the parish authorities and local governors might
have provisional powers not to rate, instead of
being, as now, forced to rate. Sir William Tite,
M.P. then moved a resolution condemning the
injustice of rating charities. Mr. P. H. Muntz, M.P., in
seconding the resolution, referred to the case of a hospital
he knew which had been summoned for a rating of £4OO,
and that money could only be obtained by selling
the beds on which patients were lying. Since
he had moved in this question he had received
many particulars in support of the course he had adopted,
and he was satisfied that it was the intention of the old
law, and to the manifest advantage of the country, to
exempt the charities. The matter had slumbered for cen-
turies since the Act was passed, and only an accidental
circumstance had opened the question. It was said on the
other side that only the " religious" houses were exempt ;
but he held that all charity was religion, and that all
attempts to educate the young so as to keep them from
wrong-doing, and to help them in winning their own way,
were strictly religious purposes. He stated that in one
particular town with which he was acquainted, where
the rating of charities would lessen the rating of the
town but a mere fraction, even if the charities kept up,
the work those charities were doing could not be covered
by a fourpenny rate. He then explained the terms
of his Bill, and said the permissive form would be the most
acceptable, and no parish would voluntarily rate charities.
In reply to Mr. Chandler, who asked respecting the rate in
the pound at which charities had been assessed, the chair-
man said that many of the parishes had refrained from
assessing at all until the Poor Law auditors surcharged
the overseers for not assessing, and then only nominal as-
sessments were made. Reference was made to the depu-
tations which waited upon Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli
before the present Administration came into power, and
which had received favourable replies ; but it was said.
Mr. Gladstone's views were too well known, and no at-
tempt had been made to seek his support. The Hon. and
Rev. Grantham Yorke supported the motion, and in doing so
said an enactment which was now enforced for the first
time, having slumbered for 300 years, was new alto-
gether. Dr. Lush, M.P., also spoke in support of the
Eurpose of the meeting, and Mr. Keeling, of the Jewish
xecutive Board, said that body was most desirous of
of working with the gentlemen connected with the Chris-
tian charities in obtaining freedom from the short-sighted
policy of taxing voluntary effort in dealing with poverty
and ignorance. Mr. Wright, of Birmingham, the Rev.
W. Harvey Brooks, Lord Jocelyn Percy, and other gen-
tlemen spoke, and the only objection made to the bill was
made by Mr:Chandler, of St. George's, Bloomsbury and
St. Pancras, who said that his experience of "'local
governors" was that they were full of the Shylock spirit.
He therefore urged that the clause should be compulsory,
and not permissive. The chairman said he thought such
parishes would be exceptions and he was willing to try
the working of Mr. Muntz's Bill. The motion was carried
as was the following ?—" That the recent decision of
Courts of Law on the Act of 43rd Elizabeth, cap. 2, render-
ing schools 4nd charitable institutions generally liable to
the payment of rates is contrary to the spirit of the Act
itself, and of recent legislation and tends greatly to dis-
courage educational efforts and to the consequent increase
of improvidence and pauperism." Another' resolution
pledged the meeting to support the bill of Mr, Nluntz, the
second reading of which is fixed for the 25th.