The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-30 00:00:00

LONDON,

TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 30, 1850.

though containing paid members. The Bill proposed
that an estates committee should be appointed to
c meider all me.tters connected with the lands, tithes,
and hereditamenti; and it was also proposed that
these persons should be appointed, called the Church
Estates Commission, two to be nominated by the
Crown and one by 'the Archbishop of Canterbury; the
first Cominissicner nominated by the Crown to receire
1,200/. a year, and the Commissioner of the Archbishop
1,000/., to be paid out of the funds. It was proposed that
this Commission should be a perenet eat body, and that
they should be assisted by three from the body of the
Commissioners themselves, one of whom should be a
layman. These were the only particulars in which the
B:11 differed from the recommendation of the Commis-
sioners. In the first instance, they recommended that
the three Commissioners should be paid; but the Bill
only proposed two, as it was thought desirable to trench
as little as possible cu church property. The Committee
also recommended that one of the paid Members should
e,e always present at the transaction of business; but
the Bill said two, who should be members of the com-
mittee of the general body, and bound to report to it,
though he should say that their responsibility would be
so great, and their recommendation entitled to so much
weight, that it was expected their decision would not be
overruled by the general body. The Bill also provided
that the offices of secretary and treasurer, heretofore
held by one, should be separated, a measure necessary,
he need hardly assure Honourable Members who
read the papers laid on the table with reference t 3 the
defalcations of that office, because if there had been
such separation no such defalcation could t,ke place. It
was proposed t abolish the office of treasurer, and to
make one of the Church Estates Commissioners fill that
office. An important alteration had teen made in the
House of Lords, te which he should not then advert, but
simply state that it was his intention to give notice of
the introduction of a similar clause during its passage
through the House.—(Hear, hear.) By the law the Ec-
clesiastical Commission had had the management of the
separate estates transferred to them, with the limitation
that the incomes of the deans were not to exceed 1,000/.
a year. In the ca aof the Deans of Wells and Salis-
bury it was found that income was not sufficient, and the
present deans had been appointed at 1,5001. Af.er the
appointment the question arose whether the Ecclesias-
tical Commission possessed the power to augment the
incomes. It appeared that there were at least doubts
upon the subject, and under these circumstances the
Government had introduced a clause by which that
doubt was removed, by expressly restricting
the salaries of all deans in future to 1,000/.,
subject to the exeeptiou of the Deans of Wells and
Salisbury, who bad accepted the appointment on the un-
derstanding that the salary was to be 1,5001. That
clause had been altered in the other, House of Parlia-
ment, and power given by the Bill to ply 1,500/. a year
to seven deaneries enumerated in the measure. It was
the intention of the Government to introduce a clause
which would restore the Bill to its original shape in
which it was brought before the House of Lords—([leer,
hear)—with the exception that the higher salary would
be confined to the Dean of Wells, and to the executors
of the late Dean of Salisbury, the present Dean having
accepted the deanery at 1,000/. a year. It was also the
intention of the Government to enforce the regulation
that deans must be resident in their deaneries eight
months in the year, and therefore they would Le pro-
hibited
from holding any benefice more than three miles
distant. He had thus briefly stated the leading provi-
sions of the Bill. There were other minor arrangements
with which it was not necessary to trouble them. If the
House assented to the principle of the Bill, he believed
it would effect a very beneficial alteration in the consti-
tution of the Commission to improve the practical ma-
nagement of the business, increase the responsibility of
the parties to whom it was committed, and secure a
better attendance. He trusted that whatever point of
difference might arise as to the details of the measure,
this would be discussed in Committee, and that the
House would assent to the principle of the Bill.
Mr. HORSMAN said this was an extremely import-
ant measure, wh-n they considered that the Commission
to which it referred was dealing with large amounts of
Church property. The Right lion: Gentleman had in-
troduced it in a very clear and candid manna h.—(Hear.)
He had given a very lucid statement of its principal pro-
visions, and shown no disposition to avoid its weak
points. For his own part he gave the Right Hon. Gen-
tleman and the Government tee credit of believing that
in introducing this measure they had been actuat.ed not
by the desire of carrying what they thought required by
the facts and the justice of the case, but what they were
likely to carry.—(Hear, hear.) The measure had. been
carefully drawn up to conciliate its opprnmenonents in
might
the
other House of Parliament, The Government
take the credit for the best parts of the Bill—the weak
ones had been inserted by them to avoid opposition, and
the worst parts had been inserted by the House of Lords.
—(Hear.) In fact he did not feel that the Government
were responsible for the Bill in its present shape any
more than a godfather would be fir the features of an
ugly child.—(Laughter.) The Ecclesiastical Commission
had been condemned by universal public opinion. The Bill
came before them with all the concessions the Commis-
sion were prepared to make t 3 that universal opinion,
and they must, therefore, make the best Bill they could
of it under all the circumstances. But let them see hew
the Bill really dealt with the defects that had been
pointed out in the constitution of the Commission by the
Committee. In the first place, its great size was objected
to. It originally consisted of thirteen members ; it
was now forty-nine, and that made it a most unwieldy
body. How did the Bill remedy that ? It proposed to
add three more commissioners, making the forty-nine
into fifty-two.—(lles.r, hear.) The next objection was,
that practically the Commission was not only inefficient,
but absolutely irresponsible. Well, take the 6th clause.
It proposed to appoint two paid Commissioners, and to
take that proposal in connexion with the report of the
Commission. It was composed of high functionaries of
the State, and of persons very friendly to the Commis-
sion, and it might, therefore, be fairly inferred that any
alteration they proposed in the Commission would not
be proposed from any hostile
.feeling, and could only
spring from the strongest conviction of its utility. But
the Committee suggested the appointment of three:Com-
missioners. Now, what was the principle of that re
commendation ? What was the princiele of the Bill
itself ? Payment and responsibility, that was
the aim of the Committee, and it was the principle
which the House, in the discharge of the duties devolv-
ing upon it, ought now to carry out in that
(Hear, hear.) These three paid Commissioners were to
attend daily to the business, and the Committee pro-
posed that one of them should be appointed by the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, because it was believed that the
Archbishop would then retire from the Commission, and
leave the business to be conducted by his Commissioner,
—(Hear, hear.) By the Bill the paid Commissioners
were reduced to two, and one of the two was to be ap-
pointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, removable at
his pleasure—(Hear, hear)—while the Archbishop him-
self and the whole bench of bishops remain members of
the Commission, while at the same time they had their
Commissioner appointed to do the ecclesiastical busi-
ness and look alter their interests thus on the paid
commission, the bishop's Commissioner would neutra-
lise the Crown Commissioner. In the estates com-
mittee ho would be in the minori`y, and in the whole
board he would be in. a minority of one against fifty.
The unpaid Commissioner would be a layman, but
practically he would be nullified, and from his posi-
tion as an unpaid member have no responsibility at-
tached to him. But even this was not enough. Not
content with thus neutralising the power of the public
paid Commissioner, a subsequent clause of the Bill
provided that nothing should be done unless it was ap-
proved of by the whole board. He asked if this was
carrying out the professed principle c f the Bill, payment
and responsibility ?—(Renewed cries of 4. Hear, hear.")
He said the Bill throughout was conceived in a bad
spirit. If they wanted to see what that spirit was, let
them take the 14th clause, which increased the incomes
of seven of the deansyear.—(Hear, hear.)
Did any one suppose that the other deans would not ask
for the same income ? If the Dean of Bristol could not
live upon less than 1,5001., why should the Dean of Ro-
chester starve upon 1,000/. a year.—(Hear, hear, and
laughter.) The Bill, he repeated, was most imperfect in
its details, mistaken in spirit, and if he was compelled
to make an election between accepting it in its present
shape without the chance of amending, he would move
its rejection at once.—(ll. ear, he tr.) But it was sus-
ceptible of considerable improvement in Committee, and
he would endeavour to show what these improvements
were. The first was to carry out the recommendation
of the Committee and appoint three paid
themComissioners.
He must say that the plea upon which Ecclesiastical
Commissioners opposed. that recommendation struck him
as being most extraordinary. They had suddenly dis-
covered that the Church was so poor that they could
not, in justice to the funds they had to dispense, afford
1,0001. a year to a hard worked Commissioner. Yet
the very parties who objected to pay a Commissioner
1,000/. for doing the work of the. Beard, in the very same
Bill proposed to raise the income of seven sinecure
deaneries 4,000/., an increase which, if granted, would
be certain to entail an addition of 10,000/ a year on the
other deans, or 14,0001. in all.—(Loud trice of " Hear,
hear.") That was, however, not
.the only specimen of '
the almost inconceivable economical Inconsistency of
hard-working
these parties, who made the pf a singlerof the Church the
plea for refuting the salary D
Commissioner. It was not in that Board alone that
was exhibited. Practically the same parties bad the
management of the Church Building Fund and Queen
Anne's Bounty. There were 41 members on the Board
of the Church Building Fund. But the whole business,
as usual with the Ecclesiastical Commissions, fell
upon the secretary, who was also the treasurer.
Very few of the members attended the meetings, and
the whole business fell into the hands of the secre-
tary. Until within the last few years there was not even
an audit established.—(llear, hear.) The whole office
million and a half which
expenses amounted to about 4,0001. a year, and the whole
of the funds they had to administer
only amounted to
12,000/. out of a capital of a
had been granted at two different periods. Farther, when
some time since the Act appointing the board was about
to expire an application was made for a new Act, ex-
tending the duration of the Commission for five years
more, at an annual cost of 4,0001. to manage a principal
of 12,000/.—(Hear, hear.) These officers were paid
from the Consolidated Fund, and he was sure the House
would have been very nappy
.to accede to any proposal
from these economical Commissioners to reduce a few of
the clerks, or the surveyor, or some of the other mon-
strous expenditure for the
administration of. so smell a
sum. In the case of Queen Anne's bounty the same
pa-ties were tho administrators, and there again the
secretary was treasurer and commissioner all in one. He
,
called the meeting when he thought proper, but very few
attended. He might also have kept the money in his
own possession, for all that the Commissioners had done
in the matter ; but as an honest straightforward man
of business, he had laid down a rule for himself, that
he would have no money in
his hands, and be subject
to no suspicion in consequence. Here, again, the ex-
pense of management nearly eat up one-half of the
14,0001. intended for sho augmentation of °mall livings,

The management of these two Commissioners threw some
light upon the economy of those who, 'under pretence
of the poverty cf the Church, now objected to a Com-
missioner of 1,000/. a year. One of the great arguments
in favour of the prep end, ranee of the ecclesiastical ele-
ment in the composition of the Board was, that the in-
terests of the Church required protection. But be said
that the business was purely temporal. The people
would repudiate any interference of the Commission
with religious questions. The Right Hon. Secretary of
State for the Home Department was a member, so was
the Right Hon. Gentleman the representative of the
University of Cambridge, and he would as soon trust
them as pious clergymen. Church property had been
plundered, but not by the people. It had been plun-
dered first by the sovereign, next by the nobles, and,
in our own day, by the Ecclesiastical Commission.—
(A. laugh.) But the people had never committed
sacrilege. As to the representation, the Episcopal Bench
was represented, but what came of the parochial clergy?
Were they represented, or was there such an identity
between them that bishops, most of whom had never
been parochial clergymen, were capable of representing
them ? By another part of the Bill the episcopal influ-
ence was plainly shown. In the early days of the
Church the residence of the bishop was in the cathedral
city. His throne was erected in the cathedral, and the
bishop was the centre of the religious life around him.
But in modern times the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,
with a courage at which he wondered, had subverted
the excellent principle to which be had thus briefly
adverted, and the bishop, instead of leading the godly,
peaceable life, hallowed, as formerly, by assoc;ations
which the lapse of ages could only render more ex-
cellent, had removed from the ancient seat of his reli-
gion, and betaken himself to a modern aristocratic re-
tirement, to which his clergy could penetrate with
difficulty, and the poor not at all.—(Hear, hear.) The
retention of the bishops on the Commission on account
of the Church in respect to the interests of the clergy
was wholly unnecessary. He -objected to the bishops
being on the Commisoion, as they were wanted else-
where. Christianity had to contend against the views
and opinions of many, and to enkindle faith in an age in
which the infusion of the spirit was necessary. The
bishops of the Church were designated f ethers in God,
but they were not found visiting the sick, consoling the
dying, or enkindling the faith of Christianity in the
minds of those who required to be thus inspired.—
(Hear, hear.) The mode in which bishops discharged
their duties was such as to sink the episcopal character
in the eyes of the people. The press, the Government,
Parliament, the clergy—all bes eight these heavenly
fathers to give up their temporalit ee but they said no;
the property of the Church was theirs, for they were
the Church, and it should not be entrusted to any other
hands. The country had arrived at this point, that it
was asking what were the bishops for, and what were
their use amongst us? 'When he made his motion
of episcopal incomes, the Right Honourable Gentleman
aid be (Mr. Horaman) seemed to have a low esti-
mate of episcopal duties. Now, he did not think
the bishops were to be saved from comment, if
their conduct merited that it should be censured.
He had yet to learn that the duties of a bishop had any-
thing to do with the Ecclesiastical Commission. The
Church taught them to respect the bishops, as the de-
po;itories of the true faith, handed to them from the
apostles, and although they did not look to find the
sanctity of the apostles in the bishops of the Church,
they ought to be cast in the scriptural mould. Now, he
denied that anything like this was to be found in the
bishops of the Church at the present day, for it seemed
as if temporalities had more influence on their conduct
than the principle of charity. He would now turn to
the Bill to say what a bishop ought to be. Ho should
not be half the year an ecclesiastic and the other half
living in a palace shut up from his clergy. lie did not
think it was the duty of a bishop to be engaged in look-
ing after fines and leases for the purpose of enriching
his family to the prejudice of the Church. According
t his reading, it was not a part of the duty of a bishop
to be in the House of Peers; and, lastly, it was not
the duty of a bishop to use his influence in the House to
the detriment of the Church which he was sworn to up-
hold. It is said that a Church establishment made men
temporal. This was an argument against a Church
est tblishment. This was a deep-dyed stein cf the
Church—that its spiritual interests were sacrified to its
temporal concerns. The Hon. and Learned Gentleman
then referred to the 13th clause of the Bill, which
he said bad been introduced into it by the bishops, and
they justify it upon the ground that the cry was " More
clergy and less bishops." lie denied that this was the
fact in the way suggested. What was desired was,
that there should be a sufficient quantity of the working
clergy, with bishops to superintend. What he wanted
was, to spiritualise the bishops, and to do away as much
as possible with the secular character which was now as-
sociated with their calling. Those were his rrasons for
opposing the Bill.
Mr. GOULBURN said that, however the clauses of
the Bill might be objected to, there could be no reason
why the Bill itself should not be read a second time.
The Hon. Gentleman had pursued his usual course on
this occasion. He had come down prepared to attack
violently those who were absent.—(Hear.) He was ad •
dressing gentlemen who were living in a diocese which
was presided over by a bishop whose exertions in pro-
moting religion were generally admitted to be most
valuable. He denied that a bishop could exercise his
spiritual, without involving him in temporal
concerns; and, unless they were desirous of re-
turning back to the days of monks and nunneries—
(le laugh)—this must be the case. The utmost that
could be done, were the recommendation of the Ho-
nourable Member carried out, would be to appoint fifty-
five new incumbents at a salary of 1001. a year each.—
(Cheers) On the other hand, the appointment of the
Bishop of Manchester had led to the erection of a hundred
new churches in his diocese, the appointment of 135 ad-
ditional clergymen, and a dissemination of Christian
knowledge which had never before been the case in that
part of the kingdom. In the way of education, too, as
many as 180 new schools had been established there;
so that instead of lagging behind, education now went
before the increase cpopulation in that densely popu-
lated and important district. Upon the whole, there-
fore, he thought it would be agreed by all well-thinking
people that a much better application of the money had
been made than that proposed by the Hon. Member op-
posite. He would new approach the question which the
lion. Gentleman had also moot d, whether the bishops
were really paid more than was necessary for the im-
portant offices which they filled. He compared them for
that purpose with the emoluments of the law and of state
officers, but there was nothing common to the two pro-
fessions which could justify their comparison for the
object in view. However, he was willing to take the
comparison with the law, and the two cases might
be stated thus. There were three thousand barristers
and 21 judges, the judges having salaries atnounting to-
gether to 38,0001. On the other hand there were 16,000
clergymen and 21 bishops, the salaries of the bishops
amounting to 140,000/. Whilst, therefore, the prizes in
the law wore as 1 to 150, in the Chureh they were as 1
to GOO, and what disproportion was there in those
figures, reference being had to the duties of the two pro-
fessions? Again, the lion. Member had referred to the
probate duty paid by some of the bishops which amounted
to 1,500,0001., and had endeavoured to found upon that
circumstance an argument that they ha I led sordid and
avaricious lives. But he accused the Hon. Member of
purposely leading the House astray with a fact which
was fallacious, for the purpose he mentioned ; because
the Hon. Member having been a lord of the treasury,
must have known that the probate duty was so levied as
to afford no indication of the amount of property be-
queathed. The discrepancy in the present instance was
so great that, instead of 50,00 C/. being the average
amount of property left by the bishops to their children,
the real average was bet seen 30,0001. and 40,0001., and
that made a difference of 500,000/., by which, in
steting.it at 1,500,000/. he had exceeded the true sum.
The bishops made the most excellent use:of their salaries
fir the advancement of religion, and the increase of the
propagation of the gospel in their several dioceses, and
they would be found large contributors out of their in-
comes to the support of local societies formed for the
general advancement of religion. Ho repeated his
opinion, that to a great extent the temporal functions of
their bishops were inseparable from the proper dis-
charge of their religious duties, and he felt convinced,
that notwithstanding the censure and vituperation in
which the Hon. Member opposite had indulged on this
and on former occasions, the public would not be blind
to the advantages of a Commission modelled and con-
stituted in the manner proposed by the Bill now before
the (louse.—(Hear, hear, an 1 ironical cheers.)
Mr. E. DENISON said he thought that the recom-
mendation of the Committee had been mistaken as to
the constitution of the Commission. He had to express
his acknowledgments to the Noble Lord far bringing
this Bill forward, and as the Noble Lord had stated
that the Government intended to frame the Bill
in accordance with the recommendations of
the Committee, he did not intend to ask the House to
act in opposition to the Government, but simply to urge
upon them the necessity of revising this point. They
that were really responsible should be something more
than mere officers to report to the main body of the
Commissioners.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL said he presumed there
would be no objection to the second reading of the Bill,
and that all matters of difference would be considered in
Committee. His Hon. Friend behind him thought they
were mistaken in the recommendations of the Com-
mittee. He (Lord John Russell) could not conceive
that this Committee meant that it should have a separate
authority, but treated it as a Committee of the Board,
and implied that it was to be part of the Board.
He thought that the Bill, as it stood, would accomplish
that as effectually, for this being a small Committee,
and having these questions continually before them, hue
conceived that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundre ,
their opinion would sway the whole body.—(
He hear.)
Whether they had three Commissioners or two, and one
fuunrpt
ha ied;
tthheant wa as s
tnhoets ve i tpael
iient
st heee Bill.could
bendoiswcouussldednmotugcoh
better in Committee. He regretted the observations
made with regard to the bishops; as far as he knew.
them they were pious, learned, courteous, and hospitable
He certainly regretted that they should have opposed
the Bill which was sent to the Lords in 1840.
Mr. OSBORNE said the Noble Lord would find it
difficult to go through with this Bill to thesatisfaction of
the bishops. He regarded it as a compromise, and
might be licked into shape in the Committee. lie thought
the language used by the Right Hon. Gentleman this
Member for the University of Cambridge when he de-
signated the speech of his Hon. Friend the Member for
Cockermouth as a piece of laboured eloquence, came
with a bad grace from him, who had taken four weeks
to answer the former speech of his Honourable Friend.
The Right Honourable Gentleman's speech was laboured,
but not eloquent. • Considering that the Right Honour-
able Gentleman was an ecclesiastical Member, he was
not sparing in his vituperation—and with all his com-
mendations of the bishops, he could not show that they had
given up anything from theit own incomes, but left the
burthens on their successors. The remark which the Right
Hon. Gentleman made on his lion. Friend, that having

been a Lord of the Treasury, he was a disappointed man
—and in that feeling had brought forward this subject—
that was a vulgar taunt—(Cheers)—and did not become
the Right lion. Geetien3an, who hung like a tin kettle to
the tail of the Member for Tamworth.—(Laughter.)
Whenever the Right Hon. Baronet moved from one side
of the House to the other the movement was sure to be
noted by the tin kettle clinking behind his feels.—
(Laughter.) On the part of his constituency, he thanked
his Hon. Friend for bringing forward this motion.
Although the Right Hon. Gentleman ran through the
gamut in praise of the bishops, nothing would have been
done but for the exertions of laymen like his Honourable
Friend, either in the promotion cf education or the abo-
lition of slavery, which bad been effected by the exer-
lions of a layman, Mr. Wilberforce; and he hoped his
lion. Friend would persevere in his praiseworthy exer-
tions, uninfluenced by the taunts of the ecclesiastical
Member, the Member for the University of Cambridge.
Sir R. INGLIS said, the fundamental error of the
Member for Cockermouth was that he confounded prin-
ciples. He regarded the bishops as stipendiaries, t)
whom he might dole out what ho pleased, whereas they
held their properties by as good a title as any private
gentleman did his estates. The property of the Bishop
of London was attached to the see for twelve hundred
years.—[An Hon. Member exclaimed—Since the Refor-
mation.] That observation, no doubt, emanated from one
of those members who had sworn to defend the property
of the Church, and who would have never been per-
mitted to enter thet House but for the easy credulity
of Members of that House. He had always received the
greatest attention in that House, and could not complain
of interruption.
Sir BENJAMIN HALL then moved the adjourn-
ment of the debate.
Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT said he hoped the Hon.
Baronet would not persevere with his motion. He
thought the Bill could be better discussed in Committee,
and he was prepared to move some amendments when it
arrived at that stage, which he would to-morrow lay on
the table of the House. The purport of one of them
would be ti extend the proposal as to deans and chap-
ters, that no dean or canon should be allowe I to have
cure of souls out of the precincts cf the cathedral towns.
Sir B. HALL said that declaration was a further in-
ducement f ,r him to persevere in his motion.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL said, if the Hon. Baronet
persevered, he would have to postpone many Bills
which he was anxious to sand to the Lords for early con-
sideration, which would also have the effect of delaying
this Bill,
Mr. P. WOOD deprecatel the tone which character-
ised the debate, and thought an error had been com-
mitted in not bringing it forward at an earlier hour in
the evening.
Mr. COCK BURN strongly recommended the Hon.
Baronet to withdraw his motion, as his persevering
might endanger the Bill altogether.
Mr. HORSMAN said, if they agreed to take the fur-
ther discussion of the Bill on going into Committee, he
hsd no doubt his Hon. Friend would withdraw his me-
tion. He would now call upon the Right Hon. Gentle-
man the Member for Cambridge to state the office for
which be had been a candidate. From his experience
and standing in the House he should not make a state-
ment he had not grounds for, and in that view import-
ance would be attached to what he said. No man who
had held office, and afterwards took an independent
course, would be exposed to the same imputation. He
asked whether he would withdraw the insinuation or
state the ground upon which it was founded.
Lord J. RUSSELL said that he would fix an early
day for the discussion in Committee if the motion fur
the adjournment was withdrawn.—(!leer.) He had
heard with pain the course the debate hal taken, and
with regard to the insinuation that the Hon. Member for
Cockermouth was seeking for office, or disappointed in
not obtaining it, he thought there was not the slightest
foundation tor it. At the same time he would observe,
in reference to the Right Hon. Gentleman opposite
(Mr. Goulburn), that there was as little foundation for
any attack on his integrity and public character.
Mr. GOULBURN explained, but in a tone inaudible
in the gallery; but he was understood to withdraw the
insinuations respecting the motives to which the course
of the Hon. Member for Cockermouth (Mr. Horsman)
was attributed.
Sir B. HALL withdrew his motion.
The Bill was then read a second time.
REFORM IN THE COURT OF CHANCERY.
Mr. TURNER moved for leave to bring in a Bill to
diminish the delay and expense of proceedings in the
High Court of Chancery. The Hon. and Lc arned
Member said he would merely explain that his Bill
would not interfere with the valuable orders recently
issued by the Lord Chancellor.
Leave was given, and the Bill was brought in and
repel a first time. The Bill was ordered to be read ase -
coed time on Wednesday, May 22.
The Savings Bank Bill was brought in, read a first
time, and ordered to be read a second time on Monday
next.
The House adjourned at a Quarter past One.

THE WINDOW DUTIES.
On Friday last a numerous deputation, representing various
sanitary, philanthropical, and architectural associations in
the metropolis, waited by appointment on the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, on the subject of the window duties.
The deputation having been introduced by Lord Robert
Grosvenor,
Sir RALPH HowAnD, Bart., briefly stated the general ob-
ject for which the interview had been desired. He was
himself chairman of an association for improving the dwel-
lings of the working classes, which bad found the window
duties an insuperable barrier to its progress. The superiority
of the model lodgings the society had erected consisted in
the arrangements they had made for an adequate supply of
air, light, and water; but these arrangements had led, under
the present system, to such an increase of taxation that pri-
vate landlords could not be expected to imitate the example.
Upon the buildings of the society in the Pancras-road they
were actually paying 1621. 16s. window duty, of which the
sum of not less than 351. was for duties charged upon their
sculleries and water-closets. If the window duties were to be
maintained, offices of this description and the windows of
basement floors should at least be exempted, and every sepa-
rate suite of rooms, let as lodgings, should be put upon the
same footing as chambers in the inns of court, which were
charged only at the rate of Is. 9d. per window.
Mr. W. E. Ificicsox stated that the case of the model

lodging houses, important as it was, represented compara-
tively but a small part of a wide-spread evil. He would beg
to call attention to its magnitude by replying to an argu.
ment which had been urged by the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer in his place in the House of Commons. Sir Charles
Wood had contended that the window duties did not press
upon the poorer classes of the community, inasmuch as there
were 3,000,000 houses in Great Britain exempt from their
operation. But why were 3,000,000 houses exempt? Be-
cause in the case of certainly a third of the number they were
inadequately lighted and ventilated, and were so constructed
in order to evade the law. Cottages and farm-houses were
exempt, but the great majority of the working classes did
not live in either cottages or farm houses. They were to be
found in towns, lodging in the back rooms of the upper floors
of what are called, under the Building Act, ad and 4th-rate
Louses—houses that should have twelve or fifteen windows,
but the occupiers of which, by darkening the staircase, pas-
sages, closets, and cellars, reduced the number below the
chargeable minimum of seven. The extent of the mischief
now in operation might be shown by an extract from a re-
cent Parliamentary return—
Total number Houses liable to
of houses. window duty.
Birminghem
Bristol
Leeds ... ....... 31,626 2,479
Liverpool
Manchester
Norwich . ....... 14,043 1,871
It ought by this time to Le understood that the sanitary
objection to the window duties did not apply to the windows
opened under the existing system, but to the windows closed.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was refusing to remit the
tax in favour of those who studied the laws of health ; but a
landlord content to allow his tenants to live in dirt and
darkness, and their habitations to become a focus of conta-
gion disease, was to receive every possible encouragement.
In favour bf a man who had reduced the number of windows
in his house from twelve to seven, the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer remitted 21. 4s. 9d. per annum ; or of another who
had reduced his windows from thirty to twenty, the sum of
4/. 4s. per annum. This was practically to act the part,
not so much of a finance Minister, as that of a Minister of pes-
tilence. The remedy, if the money could not be spared, was a
house tax. Windows were, in fact, parts of houses. Why
not tax the houses as a whole? Such a tax might easily be
rendered much more equitable than the present mode of
assessment, which bore no reference to the rental. There
were houses in public thoroughfares, rated to the poor-rates
at 2001. per annum, that paid little or no window.duty, the
separate floors being occupied in shops and warehouses ;
while private houses of less than half the value in a by-street
were heavily taxed. If difficulties arose in the adjustameni
of this burden, while they were under consideration,
,let
be introduced to amend and explain Lord Althoro sAc of
1834 (4th and sth Wm. IV., c. 54), so that the pledge
which was then given might now at last be redeemed. The
pledge was, that the amount collected should not be increased,
and that after Use sth of April, 1835, every one should be
allowed to opal new windows free of duty; Lord Althorp's
words were, that the effect of the Act would be, " to prevent
anviincrease of revenue in the case of houses already existing."
The window duty collected for the year ending
,177,656.
April 5, 1835, was ...
For the year ending April.s, 1849 ... 1,813,629
A large portion of this increase had been produced by a
rigorous system of surcharges. A quibble had been raised
upon the m
weaning of the Act, and the pledge had beea
broken. It as an extraordinary instance of breach of faith.
What would be said in private life of a landlord who, after
promising his tenant a lease at a fixed rent, raised it every
year? Paragraphs sometimes appeared in the newspapers,
headed, " conscience money," from which it appeared that
individuals wishing to make their peace with God
sent large ruins of which they had defrauded the
revenue to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He
(Mr. Hickson) trusted the time would come when the con-
science of a Chancellor of the Exchequer would induce him
to restore to the public that surplus revenue which certainly,
since the passing of Lord Althorp's Act, in 1834, had been
wrongfully obtained. Perhaps in another session the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer would be prepared with a compre-
hensive plan for a general revision of taxation—abolishing
the soap duty, the paper duty, the duty on advertisements.
&c., as well as the window duties. A moderate house tax,
as a substitute for some portion of the revenue sacri-
ficed, would then be more acceptable than at
the present moment. But, in the meantime, the sanitary ob-
jection to the window duties must be met. Permission must
be at once accorded to the owners of existing houses to render
them healthful without having the fear of the tax-gatherer
before their eyes. The case of houses now building did not
press. If new houses were to remain exempt altogether t"
another session, the revenue would not lose 50,000/.,
would gain upon the timber employed in their construction.
Any delay in the abatement of the present evil would be de-
precated by public opinion, the Board of Health, and the en-
tire medical profession. A fearful epidemic had raged last
autumn ; it might break out again after the summer of the
present year; and although it might be said that there rnulod
histwol cholera if there were no window duties, the purification
f
the air by all possible methods was really
known preventive. One broad fact was —thye
basement stories of several hundred thousand houses
in Great Britain being now inadequa.sely lighted
and ventilated, became reservoirs of mephitic vapours ;
these mephitic vapours, when rarifixl by thy summer h_ eats,
The
maintained h ance 1a
system f the
ascend to the upper floors and subject the inmates
loot fevers
of a more or less typhoidal form.
e
Exchequer, therefore, so long is _
which operated as a direct premium tor the encouragement of