The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-26 00:00:00

Pk ICE 4D. STAMPED, P.

of the Corporation, but that the statements made by
the deputation should be faithfully reported to the
Home Secretary and the Lords of the Treasury,
upoia whom the decision would rest.
Tre deputation, having expressed their acknow-
ledgments, then retired.

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TUE Cif u_R TB ABOLITION BILL,

The following petition of the Executive Corn-
mittee of the Liberation Society was presented to
the% House of Commons by Mr. Bright, on Wed.
nesclay last :
" To the Hormurble the Commons ,of Great Britain
and Ireland in Parliament assembled.
"The humble Petition of the Executive Committee
of the Society for the Liberation of Religion from
State Patronage and Control,
" Showeth,—
"1. That in the opinion of your petitioners, the
association of the Christian religion with compul-
sory exactions for the purpose of repairing its
edifices, or defraying the expenses incident to divine
worship therein, is contrary to the spirit of the
Holy Gospel ; tends to beget misconceptions of its
beneficent design; checks to a considerable extent
the exercise of cheerful self-sacrifice to which it
prompts, and renders necessary a resort to ma-
chinery the working of which inevitably awakens
feelings at variance with the genial, kindly, and
sacred influences which Christianity brings to bear
upon the human heart.
" 2. That your petitioners have good grounds for
believing that church rates originated in the volun-
tary oblations of parishioners. That otherwise, as
your petitioners conceive there must be, or have
been, some process at common law to enforce the
making or payment of the 3R,te., jaiat no trace of
any such process or wriecan discovere'd as having
at any time existed ; and that in the case of 'Veley
v. Burder,' commonly called the Braintree Case, the
judges, although of opinion that the repair of the
parish church by the parishioners is an obligation at
common law, generally admitted that there is no
compulsory process at common law, to enforce such
obligation. That, accordingly, the Superior Courts at
Westminster have uniformly declined to enforce
the making or payment of any church rate, except
in cases arising under some local or other special
act of Parliament.
" 3. That, in seeking the abolition of church rates,
your petitioners submit that they are aiming to re-
store the voluntary character (so far as the parish-
ioners were concerned) of the system whereby
originally churches were kept in repair, and the
expenses of divine worship therein were defrayed.
" 4. That the custom which eventually took the
present form of church rate, by which the majority
of parishioners in vestry assembled could bind all
the ratepayers of the parish to pay their quota
towards the objects for which such rate was made,
originated at a period when the whole population
were of one faith, and could avail themselves of the
accommodation thereby provided for their spiritual
benefit; but that since the prevalence and legal
tolerance of diverse views of both Christian doctrine
and discipline, the exaction has become oppressive
to the consciences and repugnant to the feelings of
a large and increasing number of subjects of the
realm, who at their own cost have erected thousands
of places of worship, all the religious agencies con-
nected with which they maintain by means of
voluntary contributions.
" 5. That while church rates are leviable on the
whole rateable population of the country, the ac-
commodation provided by the churches to the main-
tenance of which they are applied is utterly inade-
quate to satisfy the correlative rights of the
parishioners.
" 6. That very many churches have been built
and are kept in repair by members of the church of
England, without any recourse to a parochial rate;
and that such persons, in common with Dissenters,
feel the injustice of being compelled to pay an ec-
clesiastibal tax from which they derive no corre-
sponding advantage.
" 7. That although such injustice might be re-
dressed by enabling district parishes to make their
own rates, and relieving them from payment to-
wards the mother church, this extension of the tax
to purposes hitherto provided for by voluntary
means would not only be in violation of the pledge
given to the Legislature at the passing of the act
of 1830 and subsequent acts, in virtue of which
many district churches have been erected, but
would necessarily displace a large amount of
healthy exertion and contributions now cheerfully
devoted to the maintenance of such churches, and
would impose a heavier burden on the community
at large.
"8. That your petitioners, judging from re-
peated declarations made at vestry meetings, and
from the still more decisive evidence of votes,
where polls have been taken, have good reason to
believe that a considerable number of members of
the Church establishment would deprecate an ex-
tension of the existing compulsory system, even
although any grievances of their own might be
thereby redressed.
" 9. That a general opposition to church rates
originated shortly after the extinction by act of
Parliament of church cess in Ireland in the year
1832 ; and that, many years before the formation
of the society of which your petitioners constitute
the executive committee, such opposition was so de-
cided as to compel the Ministers of the Crown to
admit the urgent necessity for an alteration of the
law, and, in accordance with such admission, to
make a proposal to Parliament, the object of which
was that church rates should cease and determine.'

" 10. That such opposition has never since
abated, but has very greatly increased since the
judicial decision of the House of Lords in the
Braintree case.

11. That, so far from it being the fact that
only 500 parishes have refused to make rates, it
appears, from a return presented to your honour-
able house in 1856 (No. 319) that, out of the 1,672
places making returns, 1,130 had ceased to make
rates. That such return, while altogether omit-
ting, as your petitioners know, many populous
places where rates have also ceased to be levied,
showed that the parishes where they had ceased
contained a population of 6,126,151, against a popu-
lation of 7,084,249 in the ether parishes—the
average population of the parishes still making
rates being below 1,000, while that of the parishes
refusing was more than 5,000.
" 11. That a later return, with a supplement
thereto, presented in 1859 (No. 4 and No. 4 I.), and
embracing 10,165 parishes, respecting which infor-
mation is given, shows that for seven years no
church rates had been levied in 1,605 parishes ;
that in 2,673 parishes the rate was supplemented
by voluntary rates of subscriptions, and to a small
extent by endowments,and that the whole number
of parishes in which the maintenance of the fabrics
and of the services is dependent on the church rate
exclusively is but 5,444.

13. That the general and progressive character
of the opposition to this impost is further illus-
trated by the Parliamentary returns presented
from 1827 to 1859 ; inasmuch as it is thereby
shown that the sum annually derived from church
rates has continuously declined—it having within
that period fallen from £519,000 to £260,000.
" 14. That, nevertheless, such returns fail to give
an adequate idea of the extent of hostile feeling
with which this ecclesiastical impost is regarded,
inasmuch as, besides omitting many parishes in
which rates are no longer levied, they take but
little cognisance of the strong but unavailing oppo-
sition of minorities, and give little or no informa-
tion as to the numerous cases in which the collec-
tion of a church rate has been found impracticable,
either on account of its invalidity, or of the antici-
pated number of recusants to the demand.
" 15. That, notwithstanding the great diminu-
tion of the amount annually raised by means of
church rates, churches have not, in consequence
thereof, fallen into decay, nor has divine worship
ceased to be performed therein ; on the contrary,
as your petitioners are informed, more care has
been bestowed, and more money expended, on
the repair and decoration of the ancient churches
than during any corresponding term in the entire
period when church rates formed almost the only
available fund for such purposes.
16. That, from the concurrent testimony of
the returns laid before Parliament in 1856 and
1859, it appears that of the money raised by
means of church rates a very small portion, if
any, is required for the purpose of repairing the
' churches, there being in fact raised, chiefly from
voluntary subscriptions, which those returns show
to be both permanent and increasing, an amount
which, if applied solely for that purpose, would
be nearly an adequate provision.
" 17. That,
in particular, it appears from the re-
turns of 1859, that the average sum annually ex_
pended in the repair of the fabric during the seven
years then preceding was £310,000, and that during
the same period there was received, independently
of church rates, an average sum of £269,000, leaving
a balance of only £40,000 a year to be otherwise
provided for. That it appears by the census of re-
ligious worship that there are upwards of 5,000,000
pittingl belonging to the Church of England; and