The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-04 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1844.

A eareful perusal of the report of the " Select
Committee on Mortmain," appointed last session by
the House of Commons, although it has afforded us,
in conjunction with the Minutes of Evidence, some
entertainment, as well as instruction, has not led us
to concur in the pro-repealing views of the Corn-
na'ace. In this report we have a fair statement, we
mist allow, of the origin, objects, and operation of the
Atirtmain laws ; but we do not find an adequate case
m vie out for their abrogation. Nay, the Select
Committee conclude their report by declaring
," that" they do not feel authorised, by the
terms of reference, to report in favour of (even)
" any specific alterations of these laws." These terms
were precise, if they were not ample enough to include
the recommendation of any remedial measure which
the result of their investigations might have appeared
to them really to warrant. They were instructed " to
inquire into the operation of the laws of' Mortmain,
and of the restrictions which limit the power of
making gifts and bequests for charitable and religious
uses." But the "finding of this tribunal of inquiry
is simply that they feel bound to state, from an at-
tentive consideration of the evidence submitted to
them by witnesses whose means of information and
authority must be held to be great, that the operation
of the laws is most unsatisfactory ; tends to doubt
expense, uncertainty, and litigation ; frequently de-
,feats good and pious purposes which the present aspect
of the country would induce all men to wish fulfilled;
while, from the existing facilities for evasion they
cannot be regarded as serving the main pur-
pose for which they are supposed to be
maintained, by securing the heir from the
unexpected alienation of property to which he
might reasonably have hoped to succeed." This is
all very well—as a one-sided view of the case. But
the- " good 'and pious
purposes,"
of which, in the present ti=nes,
jutththe fre uent defeatese laws is so
bas
of q
y
pathetically deprecated weres n represented
in times gone hy, by the most exorbitanttlmtie and reckless
alienations of' property which the iut
stition, or the extravagant flotation of a gyuilt super.
science worked upon, intimidated, excited, or cajoled

by the crafty whisperings of a ghostly father—under
the fiercest access of his penitent's malady, whether
of mind or body, could extort from him in favour
of some ecclesiastical foundation or spiritual destina-
tion, and to the manifest robbery of the rightful
legal heir. For our own parts, although we
see, on the list of the Committee, the names of
such highly respectable men of all political parties, as
Lord JOHN MANNERS, Mr. FREDERICK SHAW, Mr.
CHARLES BULLER, the Hon. Mr. SMYTHE, Viscount
CLIVE, Sir GEORGE GREY, &C., we are not at all
convinced that there is anything in the altered aspect
of society and political institutions at this day, which
should induce the Legislature to throw down a bar-
rier which the " wisdom of our ancestors," so long ago
as a period even before the PLANTAGENETS existed,
and under that heroic line of Princes consolidated, to
protect the landed property of the laity against the
encroaching and grasping spirit of the churchmen.
As to the securities which the Select Committee con-
ceive to be provided by the present state of society
and of the law against similar diversions of pro-
perty from its legitimate channels of descent,
inheritance, or representation, to corporations
ecclesiastical, charitable, or municipal, their own
admission, as to the " facilities of evasion"
afforded by the law of Mortmain under its existing
form, should make them more distrustful than they
seem to be of the chances of a like evasion of the same
law in that altered form to which they would reduce
it. " The MORTMAIN LAWS had their origin in a
state of society widely different from the present ; and
nearly, if not all, the reasons" (the Committee ob-
serve) which appear to have induced the PLANTA-
GENET and TUDOR Kings and Parliaments to enact
the various laws restricting the alienation of real
property, first to religious, and, subsequently, also, to
lay corporations, from the time of MAGNA CHARTA
down to the Reformation, exist no longer."—(P. III.)
We are not so sure of that. We can imagine a case
in which, if the piety or remorse of some san-
guinary Norman Baron has remitted, on his death-bed,
part of his ill-gotten lands (the rewards of his brigand
violence, or the indications of his Sovereign's favour),
to the impoverished but illustrious house of some
despoiled Saxon Thane, it is at least possible
that such lands would have been applied at
that time, or been found at this, appropriated
to some more honourable and respectable uses
than if they had been surrendered to a spiritual
brotherhood. For example, the Almonry at West-
minster, in the hands of a succession of lay proprie-
tors, continued through the last eight hundred years,
might never have been presented at law, as the nuisance
it has been for about a century past, owing to the
character and pursuits of the tenantry who have held
that close under the ecclesiastical ownership of the
Dean and Chapter of Westminster. This reminds us
that the Bishop of LONDON, a witness examined be-
fore the Committee, gave some characteristic evidence.
His Lordship did not once allude to the Almonry and
its housekeepers, but he expressed great indignation at
the fact of the late Dean of WESTMINSTER'S bequest
of 5,0001. to the Trustees of the Metropolis
Churches' Fund having been found to be void owing
to the operation of this law of Mortmain, which law
had been successfully appealed to by the residuary
legatees under Mr. DEAN'S will. Then the Bishop
gravely tells the Committee "that there would be
no danger of the Protestant clergy using undue in-
fluence over dying persons in favour of the (Estab-
lished) Church ; but the doctrines of the Roman Ca-
tholics would lead to such influence being used."
Liberal, this : but we would not have trusted; the
Right Reverend CHARLES JAMES, himself, with the
late N. M. ROTHSCHILD, if the Bishop's darling
scheme of " more churches" had been then afoot,
and himself at the great broker's bed-side in his last
illness. We are inclined to think that WILLIAM the
CONQUEROR, though he might not have been more
disinterested than Dr. BLOMFIELD, had more of that
sagacity which is slow to deceive itself. From the
learned and interesting evidence of Mr. R. 'MAT-
THEWS, the barrister, we have marked, for the Bishop'
especial perusal, the following paragraph :
" The alienation of land in Afortmain seems to have
been practised to a very considerable extent, at a very
early period of English history. Seldon states that a
license from the Crown was necessary for that purpose
among the Saxons, at least sixty years before the Con-
quest. There is a curious passage in Speed, 441 b,
which may also be found in Tomlins's Law Dictionary,
title Alortmain---' William the Conqueror demanding
why lie conquered ;he realm by one battle, which the
Danei could not do by many, Frederick, Abbot of St.
Alban's, answered, that the reason was, because the land,
which was for the maintenance of martial men, was
given and converted to pious employers, and for the
maintenance of holy votaries; to which the Conqueror
said, that if the clergy were so strong that the realm
was enfeebled of men for war, and subject by it to
foreign invasion, he would aid it. Therefore he too
many of the revenues of the abbot, and of others also,

The Morning Post—whom no one can please, not
even " Young England," inasmuch as we have more
than once detected our cross-grained Contemporary
indirectly sneering at that promising specimen of
uvenility—the Post, we say, of this morning takes a
writer in Fraser's Magazine to task for having pre-
sumed to speak favourably of the cotton-lords of
Manchester and Leeds, and recommended the land-
)wners to follow their example, as regards the pea-
santry on their estates. We noticed the article com-
plained of, in The Sun of Friday, hut must confess
that we found nothing in it to justify our Contem-
porary's disapprobation. True, it spoke impartially
and even kindly of the conduct pursued by the manu-
facturers towards the workmen in their employ,. and
so far sacrificed prejudice to a sense of jus-
tice ; but it did not breathe a syllable in
disparagement of the landowners; indeed it
studiously refrained from all censure of the in-
lifference which they have too long manifested to.
wards the labouring classes, and contented itself with
simply recommending them "to bestir themselves,"
and to bear in mind the salutary maxim, that if pro-
perty has its rights it has also its duties. But even
this was too much for the one-sided, uncompromising
Post, whose prejudices stick to it like so many burs,
and, accordingly, it thus vents its spleen against the
unoffending scribe in Fraser :—" These professors of
Conservatism cannot get rid of a disposition that
haunts them to overlook any merits which their
friends may have, and to be ever hunting out the ex-
cellences of their opponents. They can find that in
free-traders which they cannot find elsewhere." The
real meaning of this paltry cavil is very evident. The
inveterate spirit of ultra-Toryism peeps out at every
word. Our Contemporary insists that no true
Tory or Conservative has a right to do justice
to those who are opposed to him in politics,
even though their views on some particular question
may be undeniably sound. He is bound to sacrifice
his convictions to his party, and though at heart he
may be rationally disposed towards free-trade, yet
his influence, whether within or without the walls of

Parliament, must be thrown into the scale of mono-
poly. He must not "find that in free-traders which
he cannot find elsewhere," but must make a point
of insisting that all which his friends do is right, and
all which his enemies do is wrong. This we con
ceive to be the true meaning of the passage we have
just quoted ; and if so, it is scarcely worthy of our
Contemporary—scarcely in keeping with the notions
he is constantly promulgating. He professes to be
actuated by the most enlarged and enlightened views
—to soar far above the paltry considerations of party
—and to regard nothing but the welfare of the
people in general, and the best means of securing
that welfare. It is only because he is averse
to political partizanship that he leans to the
side of "Young England," because he imagines
that he can perceive in this zealous band of Reformers
a manly spirit of independence calculated to be of the
utmost benefit to that somewhat vague and eccentric
cause—for we honestly confess that we have never
been able to understand the Post's politics—which he
professes to have so much at heart. But now we find
the cloven hoof of ultra-Toryism peeping out, and our
bigoted Contemporary quarrelling—in the true spirit
of Lord ELDON-with a brother Tory, merely be-
cause he finds that the opponents of monopoly—to
wit, the manufacturers—are not quite so bad as they
have been represented, but have certain redeeming
points in their character worthy of the imitation of
the landowners. The old adage assures us—and we
have considerable faith in the assertion—that the
Devil is not so black as he is painted, but
on the Post's principle, he must not only he quite as
black, but infinitely blacker; and it is the bounden
duty of all good Protestants to cherish this conviction as
one of the fundamental articles of their creed. We
have no patience with our Contemporary's systematic
and continuous illiberality towards the manufacturers.
Ile is exceedingly fond of expressing lofty sentiments