The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-24 00:00:00

rlit Etinrpoot Bttanbattf.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 24, 1842

In addition to what may be called the leading mea-
sures of Sir Robert Peel's government—the new Corn
Law and the Tariff—the public must be gratified in
noticing the earnest desire manifested to proceed with
legislation upon a number of other questions, infinitely
important in their bearings upon society, although not
of that exciting character which attracts most the ob-
servation and comment of journalists. Among these,
not the least important and practically valuable is a
bill which went through committee in the House of
Commons on Friday, and which has for its object the
enabling of ecclesiastical corporations, by an extension
of their power of leasing, to secure a more just value
of the property vested in them than they are enabled
to do under the existing system. It is a notorious fact
that the church property throughout the kingdom is at
present producing a rental, in many cases almost no-
minal, and in all cases infinitely below its real value.
By the measure in question it is considered, and we
conceive on grounds which cannot for an instant be
denied, that whilst the advantage of a more permanent
holding will be conferred upon tenants, and a release
from the arbitrary fines, levied upon them under the
present law, be gained, a large additional revenue will
be secured to the church, and increased ability con-
ferred upon her, to provide for the spiritual. destitution
which still, unhappily, abounds in the land.

That such a measure should be met by the carpings
of Radicalism and Dissent in the House of Commons
is not surprising, when it is compared with those mea-
sures by which the late Melbourne administration pro-
posed to deal with ecclesiastical property. With them
an increase in the revenues of the church was desira-
ble, only so far as it tended to create a fund for "ap-
propriation " to other than church purposes. When,
for example, a bill almost identical in many respects to
this was introduced by Lord John Russell, it proposed
that the increase expected from it should be devoted
to the extinguishment of church rates. By the present
bill, however, the sacred security of ecclesiastical pro-
perty is to be kept intact, whilst its usefulness is to be
extended, by the progressive augmentation of small
livings throughout the country, under the direction of
the bishops. By the various ecclesiastical corporations
themselves in whom such property is vested, no addi-
tional income is to be reaped. In the case, however,
of property held by corporations sole, the additional
income, secured by this concession of the power of
granting long leases, is to remain with the incumbents
themselves; the effect of which provision, according
to the views of Sir James Graham, will be " to in-
crease the incomes of poor vicarages in large towns
to amounts more commensurate than they now are
with the duties performed."

That by this bill the usefulness of the church and
the comforts of its poorer working clergy will be in-
creased we are satisfied ; and we hail its introduction
with gratitude, not, however, on this ground alone, but
because we see in its provisions, and in the spirit in
which it is devised, satisfactory assurance that we have
now a government whose study and delight it will be,
instead of " dealing heavy blows" against our venera-
ble establishment, to cherish and to strengthen,—to
build up her walls and extend more widely the bless-
ings which she is calculated to confer upon mankind.
Another bill, of great mercantile utility, went through
committee the same evening, on the motion of Mr. W.
E. Gladstone. The bill to which we allude—" the
Merchants Act Amendment Bill"—it was stated by
Mr. Gladstone, had been " founded upon the very ear-
nest representations of all the principal mercantile men
in every branch of foreign and home trade in Liver-
pool and London, and had received the concurrence of
the mercantile community generally." Its provisions
are the same which have already been advocated in our
columns ; and we have no doubt that it will be accepted
as an' important boon by the commercial world.

A correspondent of the Morning Herald, on Satur-
day last, remarks upon the circumstance, as a singular
one, that the inspectors and excise officers in no less
than one hundred and thirty-eight towns, from which
the average prices to regulate the duty upon foreign corn
under Sir Robert Peel's bill, were to have been re-
turned, have not yet thought proper to make such re-
turn ; and adds, that " the public are thus defrauded
of all the advantages which would have accrued had
these servants duly performed their duty." The Li-
verpool Times of Tuesday alluded to the same alleged
negligence or mismanagement. We, of course, can-
not pretend to explain such a circumstance, or to deny
that blame is attributable somewhere. We may, how-
ever, suggest that the want of returns may have been
caused, in part at least, by the want of matter to re-
turn ; and that the public have not suffered, or been
" defrauded," in the slightest degree. In many of the
towns recently added to the list from which returns
were made under the old law, and especially in some of
the manufacturing towns, a sale of wheat from the
grower to the dealer or miller is, at any time, a rare
occurrence ; and at the present moment, when the
stock of wheat in the farmer's hands is so limited
throughout the kingdom, in many parts of it there is
Positively not a bushel to be brought into the market.
The returns from these places certainly ought to have
been made; but it is highly probable that, had the re-
quirement of the law been fulfilled, they would have
contained "nil," and the average thus have remained
unaltered.