The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-08-04 00:00:00

A CGCST 4, 1835.

..
persons could start into existence, and lee the alteration that
was about to be made with reference to trusteeship, he would
exclaim "Non hoc in feedera veni." He would now go over
a catalogue of church 'preferments which would by this
measure be taken out of the hands of the present trustees, who
were, d priori, members of the church Of England. He first
begged to observe,- that substantially and practically the cor-
poration ought to have been protestauts of the church of England.
Certainly by connivance, or rather sufferance, dissenters were
admittedinto corporations his 'means of the annual indemnity
act, but the intention undoubtedly was that the trustees were to
be members of the church of England. But now for the cata-
logue. These new bodies, which might be of any religion or no
religion at all, were to have eleven ecclesiastical livings at Brie-
tol, and four preacherships at Oxford. Let him next take a
journey in the Leeds mail. In Leeds, the mayor and three
senior aldermen had the presentation to two livings, the one
worth £5OO, the other worth f,300 a-year. And here he might'
take occasion to observe that there was no complaint in the re-
port of the charity commissioners, than which there was no more
valuable document. Their report was one made by learned
and honourable men, not by the mere tools of a party s it was
made, too, not as a mere party job, but in the discharge of their
legal and moral duty. In that, then, there was no complaint
of malversationaganist the corporations in the management of
their charities. But to accompany the flying commissioners of
municipal reform their lordships would have to travel across the
country to Norwich; and in Justice he must remark incident-
ally, that no rider for a London shop, sent out to ascertain the
price of cotton in various places, could have been so pricked oa
to expedition as were these riding commissioners. They had
hardly time to lunch themselves, and not an hour to cure the
broken knees of their hacks. There was not time granted them
for leisure or lucubration, but they were to send up to the go-
vernment the wet sheets of their report, that they might be
forthwith put into the twopenny post for the printer, so that they
should with all imaginable speed be able to produce the draught
of a bill. Their lordships should remark, too, that these muni-
cipal corporations wished not to have anything to do with the
church or to deal with its patronage; they were for voluntary
rfiligion, annual parliaments, and universal suffrage. Yet, at
Norwich they had reaped a large clerical crope—namely, 12
advowsons, and by-the-by, one of the complaints against this
same corporation of Norwich, that was to be extruded from its
rights, was, that it was too popular. The ecclesiastical patron-
age thus to be transferred amounted to £2,150 a-year. There
was likrewise a valuable school called Edward Vl.'s school.
And if it had not happened that the gloat seal was not iu the
hands of the Lord Chancellor, whose place was vacant, as this
school was a royal foundation, some question might be raised as
to whether the visitors could be thus unceremoniously changed
under the bill. But, in addition to the benefices and the school,
there were five scholarships at Corpus Christi College, Cam-
bridge, fonnied by Archbishop Parker, who certainly never
lopked forward to their behig disposed of according to the good-
will and pleasure of a body Of annual parliament and universal
suffrage men.., Next he came, to -Coventry, and there he found
that there was a,rectirie, and another preferment which it was
proposed tp transfer to the tender care of the new body. The
corporation of Coventry too had two fellowships at St. John's
College, and a fellowship at Catherine-hall, Cambridge, and
four exhibitions of I:40 each. At Boston there were two livings
in the gift of the corporation, one of £4OO, anotherof £lOO a-
year. In Doncaster there was a rectory and a grammar school.
In Bath a living of £BOO a-year and a rectory ; be merely stated
the cases of these cities as examples. He would not run through
the cases of the other cities and boroughs, indeed he was not in
a condition to do so, but he was convinced that if a tabular view
of the ecclesiastical preferments now administered by existing
corporations were taken, the amount would prove to be more
considerable than any body perhaps imagined. After stating
the nature of these facts, he would call their lordships' attention
to legal matters, which arose out of them. He could assure
their lordships that there were many points which would arise on
which he doubted not they would see fit to take the opinion of
the judges. Many nice questions would arise with respect to
foundership, visitorship, and trusteeship. It should be recollected
that if the founder appointed no trustee, then his heir became
the trustee. This was where the foundation was in land.
Now, the trusteeship was a freehold right, whether merely as a
matter of duty or a usufruct. It was as much a freehold as
their lordships' patents, by which they hid a right to sit and
vote in that house,, What they held under their
.patents was
title, dignity, station, trust. It was Unconnected with property:
it was conferred for the public benefit; and such precisely was
fouudership, visitorship, and trusteeship. And there was no
corporation, be believed, that had hot some public trust. Most
of them had power over public schools, some over colleges at our
Universities; and now the mode in which the framers of the bill
proposed to deal with those rights was to turn out those who
were seised and possessed of them. and take not only the pi o-
posed, but also all the powers and privileges and control em-
ployed by them, and transfer them to others, on whom they pro- .
pied to confer the powers and duties of visitors and trustees-
He regretted very much, he regretted deeply and sincerely, that
there was not a Lord Chancellor present at the discussions of
that portion of the Privy Council called the Cabinet. If any
lawyer were in that situation, he would have been hound to in-
form his colleagues that the measure proposed in another place
was one to which he could' not, in the form in which it was pro-
posed, give his assent. He would have been bound to tell then*
that the charge against the corporations being abuse and neglect,
that a case had not been made out against them ; that if he had
been sitting in his court he could not upon the evidence pre-
ferred have entertained the case, or that if he did he would have
incurred universal odium and contempt—he would have been
made au outcast, despised, and at the same time hated, like Lord
Jefferies, by a tyrannized-over and insulted people. Where
proceedings of a penal nature were taken in Parliament, the
Parliament proceeded after the same manner as the courts of
law. Confiscation was never proceeded to unless a legal case
for confiscation had been made out. But this was from begin-
ning to end a bill of confiscation, and therefore their lordships
should be bound to see that there were some judicial groom's,
such as would be recognized in a court of law, whereon they
might proceed to put out the peccant and ill-conditioned cha-
racters of the corporations. He repeated, then, that he felt sin-
cere and deep regret, knowing what a Lord Chancellor could
do, and what he could not do in his court, that there was not in
this empire such an officer at that time to raise his voice against
a bill -which was= founded on princioies that must be spurned
with ridicule from any legal tribunal before which they height
happen to be brought. If there had been a lawyer to'cleclare
this to the Cabinet, a measure of such injustice and tyranny
never would have passed 'through the several stages which had
brought it before their lordships' house. He would next remark
that there were many charities of which grave questions might
arise. There was Sir Thomas Whyte's charity, which was to
be administered by aldermen. What was to become of it when
these were not longer aldermen in existence, unless they re-
sorted to some measure of violence ? lele.asserted that as to
land, and no lawyer would contradict him, if it were given to
people who could not enjoy it, then it went back to the donor.
tie contended that in many (sae°, it would be found that the
charters had fallen to thegrounih ' Having called their lord-
ships' attention to the principle of the change. and sketched out
a portion of the property which would be affected by it, he would
now proceed to a more general view of the measure, and to direct
their minds to other considerations. He knew not if. it would
be of any use for Min to say inure about the report of the com-
missioners or the two proteste. He wished,- however, to make
one remark upon the mode in which these gentlemen had availed
themselves. of every opportunity of saying everything, of record-
ing every scrap of idle tittle-tattle against the corporate bodies.
In Coventry it appeared there was a school and a library. The
commissioners, who had visited the city as lovers of literature
and great march-of-intellect men, were grieved and annoyed at
the library's being neglected by the corporation. They stated
—"From the evidence of a person who had been a pupil-of the
under master, the books epeear, at the time he was at the
school, to have been used to light the fires. An inspection
and catalogue was taken by a committee of the corporation in
January, 1831, when it was evident that not the slightest pains
had been taken for their preservation." oiow it was known
that boys at schools did not always use their bodies most re
verently; but surely there ought to have been some better-
authority than this ex-pupil of the tinder master to justify
grave commissioners in putting forward this gossiping tale.
But the history of the matter was this—that when the comrade-
sinners came round there under my Lord Brougham's bill, the
schoolmaster, who was always a very absolute character, and
who, within the purlieus of theferae, which was his sceptre, was
a very autocrat, was then at feud in seine sort with the corpora-
tion, the visitors being annoyed at the little care he took of the
books, and of which they complained to the commissioners. A
gentleman with whom he bad coranauuicated'had spoken of books
being bernt, and had some two or three years before made a
complaint to prevent this arson of books. This formed the
foundation of the story- which had been thrust into the report.
The gentlemen might have seen that the charge was not a very
sound one, when they knew, or might have -known, that the
visitors gave £2O a year to the library. It was not very proba-
ble that boys or servant maids would be permitted habitually
to light fires with the books. If, indeed, a parliamentary report
like unto one which he had in his eye were so be used to light a
fire or for waste paper in any other respect, there could be a"
great complaint of the consumption Of intellectual power, or
rather of its embedment and the loss of useful knowledge—if,
indeed, this paper, marked with such characters of peculiar
power as it was, could have furnished forth a blaze. It woulel
be another thing, indeed, if boys had flung their Horner, or the
ardentia verba of Lucan on the fire. Then in truth there woult' I.
have been some good reason for the conieleiiit. He •vonld 11°'
weary their lordships by dwelling on stele matters—time sea*
a perfectflorilegiuse of them in Sir F. Palgrave'e protest. ll°
would merely advert to une or two
.prominent ease& which he'
should not be quite justified in pasting over. First, there so,'
Ranbuvreethat was a gateiheense. The colniniesioners saide-
-4"l"be high estimation in which the present deputy recorder to
held, and his disconnexion from local party, exclude all suer
coon of judicial injustice in trial at the sessions ; but there 15 "
constant apprehension of unfairness in the previous machioerf
of the courts, and its the exercise of the summary jurisdictioc
of the magistrates. One instance of thie we have already ihety
boned in the case of the supposed alteration of the jury panels;
others of a similar kind were related to its; and thenge we were'
satisfied that the charges were without foundation in the earl
neuter instances, we consider them as so many tooth of the
existence of an inveterate suspicion and distrust on the part (1f
the inhabitants towards the local magistracy, which leads even
intelligent and well-instructed rersons to believe irnprobab,re
suggestions and accusations upon little or no evidence." '',
the silly credulity of these intelligent and well-educatedperson
was to be an argument for overturning our ancient institution''
But after all, Banbury was a close body; let us see Plymouth'
—"The constitution and character onhe corporation of P 13.-
mouth are very superior to those of the other municipal bodies
in the west of England. It affords the only instance that ee
curred to us, in the course of our inquiries, of a corporatioe
framed and acting upon popular principles. Not only are 0/
mayor andeildermen elected by the commonalty, but the ruse
nagenient of all the corporate affairs has, in fact, since the yesl
181)3, been in the hands of the freemen at large. This pow'
has been exercised by them with much prudence and discretion,
by the appointment of a committee of 21 of their number, 11
wheme- )1 the business of the corporation is conducted. Th°
heave . 'ding itself into sub-comm fl ittees, appears to out al
~,,,
excellent, and of management, and to conduct the affairs 0.
..i4e'corpera n with diligence, zeal, and integrity. The popular,
election of it eeeenbers not merely prevents the admission °'
persons adverse to the public interests, but inspires a feeliti
of good-will tavardi the municipal authorities on the pars c's
the inhabitants A large, seldom found to exist in corporation
where the goverment is- vested in a select body. The iliv.
portant question of the right to the public conduits has nr,
deed, in some degree, disturbed the harmony which subsist,
ed between the corporation and inhabitants of Plymouth..
How grand ! How Cicerenian ! But then they go on to g;
excellent conclusion—" Tbe committee of 21 have not, in the
management of the financial affairs of the corporation, acts
with that caution and discretion which might have been e,%;
petted from them. The improvident speculations entered it",
be them in the erection of the Royal Hotel, and the thest,t
adjoining, the expense of which far exceeded the sum originel'i
proposed to be laud opt, brought the corporation into cousigilere
able difficulties, from which they arci not yet extricated.
,5
from which it must be long before they can belsee. It is 95.
that the town has benefited greatly by those improvements,
the corporation have disabled themselves from eesocutiag etbet
a,
works of 'hr.:morn importance. On account of the want of fuat:ri
it is fen ed iszipeseediela to erect a new ,gaol, whirelt, ifil, been P
required, and which certainly ought to have leteetiecopetruc 4
before the funds of the corporation were devoted tr, what 04.,
be considered as a mere mercantile sprculatirn. One eietTie
quonxe r,t the thilicultle int, r.tich Ill:/ utifo,tunati esp.'n,