The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-22 00:00:00

any gentleman who chooses to devote some attention-to
them, and I think the house is indebted to the right hon.
gentleman for producing them so early in the session.
(Hear, hear.) I shall not now discuss the provisions of the
bill. As I have said, I think it would be inexpedient
to express any. opinion until we have had an opportunity of
considering it. I will only say one word as to the subject
of pew-rents. In the scheme which I proposed pew-rents
were to be levied to a very modified extent and under
certain circumstances. lam not about to contend for the

adoption of the principle of pew-rents, but I would remind
the house that to a very great extent—an enormous extent
I may say—that system does already prevail in the Church..
(Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman gave an eloquent
description of the provision made for the poor in every
parish to hear the Gospel preached, but what is really the
case in this city, in London ? (Hear, hear.) In the parish
in which is St. George's, Hanover-square, where do we find
the poor, or in any of the numerous district churches of
that parish ? Where are they ? To say that those churches
afford opportunities for the poor to hear the Gospel preached
without the payment of money is, I think, rather a
poetical description. In almost every city and town in
this country pew-rents exist to a greater extent than they
ought. (Hear.) The Church Building Acts which have
been passed from time to time, and to some of which the
right hon. gentleman himself has been a party, have nearly
all contained authority for raising funds from pew-rents,
subject to certain restrictions, such as the consent of the
ordinary and the provision of a certain amount of free
accommodation. The system may or may not be one which
ought to receive the sanction of Parliament, but I must
protest against the description of the Church as given by
the right hon. gentleman. (Hear.) As I have spoken of the
churches in London and large towns and cities, where the
seats are occupied by the rich and those who pay for their
sittings, I cannot avoid expressing the satisfaction, in which
all must share who are interested in the welfare of their
fellow-countrymen as well as of the Church, at the move-
' ment which has taken place, by which the magnificent
ecclesiastical edifices of the metropolis have been thrown
open to all classes of the people. (Hear, hear.) Alli who
have witnessed the throngs which have attended to hear,
the words of truth and peace preached in those temples
must rejoice that at last those splendid buildings were ap-
plied to a proper purpose. (Hear.) I can only hope that
in every cathedral throughout the land these examples will
be followed, and the evils of the want of accommodation
for the poor in our churches be removed by the same zeal
which has led to such beneficial results as we have wit-
nessed here. At present I shall say nq more upon this sub-
ject, as it is desirable that we should see the bill in print
before we give any opinion upon it. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. BALL was happy to recognise the cordial spirit
with which the right hon. gentleman had introduced his
measure, and thought the proposals he had made were very
fair to 11 parties. (Hear, hear.) He was bound to say
that the proposal of the right hon. gentleman had been
presented in such a shape he thought it the duty of those
who were in favour of the abolition of church-rates to
express their willingness to assent to it. (Hear, hear.)
He had no hostile feeling towards the Church of Eng-
land; and, in order to carry out the principles he
had advocated in that house, he felt compelled to say on this
occasion that he was very much disposed to accept the pro-
posal, which, with certain amendments, he hoped might be
the means of putting an end to the unhappy dissensions to
which church-rates had given rise. (Hear.) At the same
time, he hoped it was not intended that Dissenters were to
be precluded from attending parish meetings at which the
rates were imposed, if they desired to do so. It did not
much matter what the Dissenters were called ; a rose was
still a rose, call it by what name they would ; and he
thought the exclusion of the Dissenters from the vestry
meetings would tend to create bitterness of feeling and to
retard the object which the bill sought to accomplish. He
had only risen to say that he recognised in the proposal
in
tention
to by the Government an earnest of their good
to terminate, so far as in them lay, that ill-feeling which
had so long existed between the different classes of reli-
gionists and done so much harm to religion itself, and he
gladly accepted it. (Hear, hear.)
Sir A. ELTON said the measure propounded by the
Home Secretary was a valuable one, and deserved the best
consideration of the house ; but he regretted that the right
hon. gentleman had not boldly crossed the Rubicon and
made the complete abolition of church-rates the starting
point of his proposal. (Hear, hear.) He would have done
more towards quickening the liberality and benevolence of
the public in this matter by at once putting an end to
church-rates than by the course he had taken. It was im-
possible to destroy the notion among the mass of the people
that the produce of church-rates went into the clergyman's
pocket, and hence his ministrations often became unaccept-
able. Under these circumstances it would be conferring a
benefit to take away such a frightful source of discord, and
by doing so he believed they would enable the Church of
England to do her duty, to recover the affections of those
who were temporarily estranged, and to continue in the
career of usefulness which had marked her history in all
times. (Cheers.)
Mr. PACKE said it was gratifying to find from all sides
of the house every disposition to give a favourable con-
sideration to the project of the right hon. gentleman the
Secretary of State. It was hardly fair to ask the house to
pledge itself to total abolition until they had time to give
due consideration to the measure of the right hon. gentle-
man. (Hear, hear.)
Sir G. C. LEWIS said he quite concurred with his right
hon. friend (Sir G. Grey) that it was not desirable that
they should go into a discussion of the bill at the present
stage. At the same time he thought it desirable that the
house should be put in full possession of all the material
parts of the Government plan, in order that, there and else-
where, it might be fully considered before the time arrived
for discussion. The right hon. gentleman (Mr. Walpole)
had not clearly explained, in his very lucid statement, whe-
ther it was intended that in future the vestry should be
.composed of landowhers, and not of occupiers as at present.
The principle of the bill being, as he understood, that the
rate should henceforth absolutely and by force of the bill be
a landlord's rate, and cease to be an occupier's rate he
wished to know whether it was intended that the vestry
should consist exclusively of landowners ? (Hear.) There
was another point upon which it was desirable some expla-
nation should be given. If the rate should become a land-
lord's rate, what regulations would be made in case of more
than one ndlord—that was to say, when, as often hap-
pened, there were, in respect of a house, a ground-landlord,
a medium-landlord,-and an occupier—which would pay, and
which would sit in the vestry ? (Hear, hear.)
Mr. HOPE wished to make as much concession to the
conscientious feelings of Dissenters as he could, but giving
up the name of church•rate, and all the machinery of a most
ancient obligation, which existed long before the Norman
conquest, was, he thought, being liberal at other people's
expense. The hon. member for Bath drew a touching pic-
ture of the poor men crowding with their pence for the sus-
tentation of the Church, and at the same time talked of the
unwillingness of the rich to alienate their property for ever;
but surely the two acts were correlative. If the Church
relied on the mite of the poor she might also call upon
the spontaneous piety of the rich man to endow
his parish church for ever out of his land. Great objections
had been made to what was called " ticketing" people as
Dissenters, but the Government measure would avoid that,
as a man would ,only have to write on his paper that he con-
scientiously objected to pay the rate, and he would hear no
more of it. The right hon. baronet the member for Mor-
peth had dwelt on the large area in which church-rates had
been refused, and on the increase in pew-rents, but it did
not seem to have occurred to him that it was precisely in
those parishes where the odious system of pew-rents had
gained ground that church-rates were refused. (Hear.) It
was the building of those obnoxious castles of selfishness,
where the poor were crowded away in dark corners or under
the galleries, out of sight, exposed to the contumely of the
beadle in blue and gold, that incensed people and brought
them up to the vestry to vote against church-rates. If there
were a clause in the bill to abolish pew-rents in every parish
of above 5,000 inhabitants, church-rates would be willingly
paid henceforth in half or two-thirds of the parishes in
which they were now refused. He hoped by the end of the
session the question would be entirely set at rest. (Hear.)
Lord J. RUSSELL—I think, Sir, that the measure
which has been propounded by the right hon. gentleman
has been framed with a great deal of care, and that a con•
siderable amount of labour has been expended in its prepa-
ration; and if I now state some few objections which occur
to me, it is not that I think there was any other course
open to the Government so obviously better than that
which they have proposed that they ought to have adopted
it, but that I wish the right hon. gentleman to consider,
when he proceeds further with this measure, what may be
its effect. With regard to the former part of the preposi-
tion, which seems to be taken from the bill of my right
hon. friend the member for Morpeth, I think that there
can be no objection to it. Ifmay provide more or less well
for the future maintenance of the church, but, at all
events, the principle involved is unobjectionable. (Hear.)
But, as I followed the right hon. ' gentleman's argument,
I could not but perceive, with respect to the second part of
his measure, by which he proposes to relieve from the
payment of church-rates all Dissenters who state that they
have a conscientious objection to their payment, that he
was impairing the principle upon which an Established
Church rests, and I think that the right hon. gentleman must
have felt this himself. The right hon. gentleman said more
than once that it was fit that those who had not the benefit of
the Established Church should not bear the burden of main-
taining it. Now, it has always seemed to me that the whole
defence of an Established Church must stand upon this—
not that it is of immediate and direct benefit to those who
attend its services and hear its preachings, but that it is a
general benefit to the community at large. (Hear, hear.) I
have always considered that, placing in every parish a mi-
nister who is not only to preach the Gospel but who is to
hold forth .an example of religion and morality in that
parish—who is to tell the people what is in conformity with
the morality of the Gospel, and what is not—who superin-
tends and fosters the schools 'in which the youth of the
parish are educated—who upon every occasion when Chris-
tian charity can be exerted, is ready with his hand to ad-
minister to the wants of those who are deserving objects
among whom he lives—l have always, I say, considered
that it was a benefit, not to churchnien exclusively, but to
all those who dissent from the Church as well as to all those
who conform to it, that there should be in every parish, inde-
pendently of the caprice, of the generosity, or of the wealth
of the persons living in the parish, such a minister of the Gos-
pel. But if that view—which Ido not claim as an original
one of my own, but which I have borrowed from other and
wiser persons—be correct, what logic or reason is there in
saying, " You, the churchmen, have a benefjt from the
Church, because you go there en a Sunday and listen to
Divine service read from the Common Prayer-book, and
hear the clergyman deliver a sermon, but your neighbours
who live next door or in the adjoining street, being Dis.
centers, have no benefit at all, because they do not attend
the ministration of that clergyman ?" That appears to me
to be placing the Church upon too narrow and too low a
ground. (Hear.) And it is not the argument alone, but it is
the proposition, because you obviously say 'f Yon are to
pay for the repairs of the church beceesp you' lave the bene-
fit ; but you, who live next floor, are not to pay because you
have no benefit from it whatever." By this proposition you
at once change the character of the Church, fel, yon no
longer maintain it as a national Choreli, yen may'
tain it as a powerful Church; as a State alnirek as a wealthy
Church, nay, as g Phnrch that is difffising religion and
morality among a vast number of people, but you only'
maintain it after all as the strongest sect of tio Aitnity.
(Hear.) The right hon. gentlerip, I dew say, (Ars train
me in that ; but I cannot but f,o,n,siclig that when Lord Derby
placed tilecll4gfi Of fIIP T01344-N af dnirehes In Ireland upon
the Church revenues of Ireland, he took a measure much
better caloulated to support the Established Church in that
country than if he had adopted a proposition similar to the
present. (Hear.) A. second part of this qiitiam relates to
the practical effect of this measure. . If you are unable to
ra4intain. atuidh4ates i if Parliament .14 a opinion the;
.