The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-08 00:00:00

Sir J. TR ELAWNY then rose to move the second
reading of the bill. Tho lion. baronet, after some intro-
ductory observations, said that there was universal autho-
rity ir. favour of the settlement of this question, and that
circumstances had recently arisen which rendered such a
settlement extremely desirable. It was more than
twenty years ago that Sir Robert Peel said that six
months should not be permitted to elapse before
the question was finally arranged, and about the same
period, he believed, Lord Derby said that the Dissenters
had a serious and substantial grievance to complain of in
the existence of church rates. The commissioners ap-
pointed in 1859 said that the law in regard to church rates
was in a most inconsistent and unsatisfactory condition,
and Dr. Lushington, as well as other high legal autho-
rities, had expressed themselves to the same effect. In
fact, he had the whole authority of the house, including
avery member of the opposition, as to the necessity of a
settlement of the question. Moreover, the late Govern.
mont had introduced a measure abolishing Ministers'
money, thereby affirming the principle for which he con •
tended, and adopting in Ireland the system which he was
desirous of establishing in England. (Hear, hear.) Ho
was not desirous of introducing any disagreeable element
into the present discussion, and he would merely advert to
certain disturbances which had taken place in the metropo-
lis in reference to the mode of peforming the Church service.
Those disturbances formed a ground for the settlement of
the question, for as there was no efficient synodical action,
or ether means of putting an end to the dissensions between
congregations and their ministers, he thought the laity
should be armed with additional powers. It was also proved
that the existence of the rate formed a ground of great in-
cone enience to the magistrates throughout the country.
The principle of taxation without representation was op-
posed to the constitution of the country, and to the feelings
of the community. (Hear, hear.) He alluded to the re-
cent disturbances in Edinburgh to show that the people of
that city were determined to resist the payment of these
rates. As a further proof of the feelings of hostility enter-
tained towards the impost, he would draw the :attention of
the house to the fact that very lately there were no less
than 500 summonses issued in that city against defaulters
wtth respect to this rate, all of which were dismissed before
the magistrate before whom they were heard. He eon-
tended also that the amount raised by these rates was too
limited to justify the house in perpetuating them in the face of
the difficulties and opposition with which their collection was
attended. That amount was £263,709 14s. 2d., which was
subject to reductions that reduced it considerably. In the
first place, there was the debt with which it was encum-
bered, amounting to £318,200, the interest on which was
no less than £15,000 a-year ; and, if they got rid of the
illegal items in these rates, the sum total would be further
diminished. The opposition to the bill, so far as
the Dissenters were concerned, was, he understood,
to be abandoned by hon. merabers on the other
side of the house, and the conduct of Dissenters in those
cases where the rate was net imposed was such as
to justify the members of the Church of England
in feeling confidence that they would not suffer from
the adop• ion of the voluntary principle. He alluded
to his own borough (Tavistock), in which the church-
rate had been abolished, and where the Dissenters had
subsequently come forward and contributed towards
the building and decoration of a church for the use of the
members of a State establishment. The Dissenters in
Leeds had also proved that there was no ground of appre-
hension from the operation of the voluntary principle, for
they had come forward nobly and liberally to support the
Church since its adoption in this neighbourhood. (Hear,
hear.) Ho contended also that the great excite-
ment which the imposition and collection of this
rate produced was, in itself, a very powerful argument
against its continuance. The hon. baronet concluded ley
urging briefly, but effectively, the ordinary arguments in
support of his motion, and calling on the house to adopt a
measure that would terminate an impost which was obnoxi-
ous, and therefore impolitic. (Hear hoar.)
Sir C. DOUGLAS seconded the motion. He had been
a member of the committee of 1851, and the evidence he had
heard on that occasion convinced him that the only means
of settling this question was by the adoption of the volun-
tary principle. With respect to the petitions that had
been presented against the bill, it was well known how
these could be got up, and numerous as they were in the
present instance they did not average more than 29 sig-
natures each. The hon. member then adverted in de-
tail to the attempts that had been made by Governments
and individuals in Parliament to show that all attempts
to legislate on this subject on the principle of compro•
mise had failed, and therefore it could only be dealt with
efficiently by abolishing the impost altogether.
Lord MONTAGUE moved as an amendment that the
bill be read a second time this day six months. H.
said that the subject had been so frequently and fully
discussed, that he would not trespass on the attention of
the house at any considerable length. He coat ended that
the question had passed into a new phase since the
committee of 1851, for it was now regarded as a political
and not a religious subject. It was a fact that 'more
than half of the Dissenters of the United Kingdom were
in favour of the continuance of church rates. With re-
spect to accommodation for persons desirous of frequent-
ing a place of worship it was not provided for, so far as
the poor were concerns li by Dissenters, in whose chapels
the seats were paid for. It was also found that Dissenters
flourished only in rich districts, for when a neighbourhood
became poor, Dissenters deserted and their chapels were
put up to sale. As regarded the annuity tax question in
Edinburgh, they had it on rec ord that the agitation was
not to cease with the abolition of that tax, and indeed agita-
tion was net terminated by victory. The opposition to
church rates originated with those: whose exponent was the
Church Liberation Society, and who desired to sever the
connection between Church and State, and made the pre-
sent question merely a stalking horse to accomplish that
object. (Hear, hear, from the Opposition benches.)
He quoted largely from the evidence before the com-
mittee of the House of Lords last year to support his state-
ments, and in support of his views asserted that in several
cases where a church rate was not collected, the parish
church had to be closed up from want of funds.
Mr. R. LONG seconded the amendment in a maiden
speech, in the course of which he said that the
party who concurred with him in opinion were de-
termined to offer the present bill all constitutional
opposition in their power. lie alluded to the
number of the petitions against, and the smallness of the
number in favour of the bill, to show that the feeling of
the country was adverse to the change which it proposed.
Those who advocated the measure were not acting equitably,
or on that principle which regulated the country, namely,
compensating those whom they deprived of incomes which
they derived from legitimate sources , for, in the present in-
stance, they proposed to deprive the clergy of an amount
which, if capitalised, would realise no lees than £9,000,000,
without any equivalent whatever. The hon. member then
followed in the footsteps of the noble lord who had preceded
him.

Sir G. LEWIS said that he was not one of those who
considered that the fabric of the Church throughout the
kingdom would be suffered to fall into decay by the aboli-
tion of this rate, and he had arrived at the oonclusion that
a compromise could not settle the quebisn ; so that he was
prepared to vote for the bill of the:hon. baronet as the only
satisfactory adjustment at which they could arrive.
The fact was, that clergymen in towns were sup-
ported, not out of tithes, but virtually by the
operation of the voluntary principle, so that the arguments
of hon. members opposite were fallacious, so far as that
point was concerned• Havifig :argued that there was no
ground for supposing that the poor would be unprovided