improvement of the land, and its value would be increased.

Mr. Cayley entered into detailed consideration of the financial part of the scheme, in order to show how injuriously it would operate on the present lessees; and contended, in the result, that the bonus offered to them by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would cause a diminution of thirty-one per cent in their income; and of twentyeight per cent. on their capital.

Mr. Pemberton observed, that if, as their opponents contended, church-rates were of the nature of a voluntary contribution, there could exist no right to convert it into a fixed tax directly or indirectly. But he insisted, that it was not voluntary; and quoted an opinion to that effect from Dr. Lushington; given not as a member for the Tower Hamlets, but when sitting as a judge. No doubt the mode of enforcement was defective, but was that a reason for doing away with the obligation altogether? He dwelt strongly on the injustice offered by the plan to lessees. It was proposed to meddle with property of the annual value of 1,323,000l.; and which had remained undisturbed for three centuries. In the time of the Commonwealth,a somewhat similar attempt had been made, and it had nearly produced an insurrection in the north. Lands held on lease in the same families for three centuries, were scarcely distinguishable from freeholds. And for what was this done? He believed the popular feeling was against the abolition of church-rates. Ministers miscalculated the direction of public opinion, The church of England, he was persuaded, was daily gaining strength through the

increasing piety and diligence of her clergy.

Lord John Russell then rose, and entered upon an elaborate and able defence of the measure proposed by ministers. It was admitted, he said, on all hands, that some interposition of the legislature was required in the question; and all that ministers, at present, asked, was permission to lay their plan for that object before the House. The bill itself had not yet been printed, and it was premature to oppose the introduction of it before its details were before the House. With respect to the interests of lessees, it was not accurate to say, that they had the right of renewal. It is frequently refused: and he had been told, that in 1790, the value of church lands in Durham was almost equal to freehold property; but, in consequence of the difficult terms of renewal which had been enforced of late years, church land sold for fifteen or sixteen years purchase. With respect to the rights of bishops, times were changed; formerly, it was held, that parliament had no right to inquire into the income of the bishop of Durham, for instance; but, in the last session, parliament had ordered the bishop of Durham to pay 2,000l. a-year to the bishop of Ripon; and a sum of 11,000l. a-year to the church commissioners. After this, it can no longer be said, that a bishop has unlimited power over his lands; and, in fact, under this bill, his position will be considerably improved.

In conclusion, Lord John took an opportunity of avowing the high respect which, true churchman as he was, he had always entertained for the Dissenters of this country; and contended, that for their ser

vices in the cause of humanity, they were entitled to the gratitude of every man who has at heart the improvement of his kind, and of the social character of the community to which he belongs. "I rejoice, therefore," said he, "when, consistently with the maintenance of the established church on her present footing, and of all her just rights; and of the pomp and splendour of her hierarchy; I am able to accord relief to those excellent and true-hearted Dissenters, in a matter which has long been to them one of just complaint."

On the third night, the debate was opened by a lively speech in support of the ministerial plan from Mr. Gisborne. He contended that there was an end of churchrates. They had been virtually given up even by their advocates, who had all admitted the necessity of substituting some other system. The king's attorney-general had denied the legal right of vestries to levy church-rates; and challenged all the common and equity lawyers of the other side to disprove what he had said. As for the calculations of the comparative numbers of churchmen and dissenters, they were necessarily defective; there was a third and central party of which no account was taken. By these, Mr. Gisborne we presume, meant the large and influential class of persons who are of no religion at all; but he would hardly contend that indifferent as they may be on the subject, they ought not to be made to contribute to some form of public worship.

Sir Robert Peel had appealed to the noblemen and gentlemen of the country, whether they wished to relieve their own estates from this burthen? Mr. Gisborne said,

he was prepared so to relieve his own estate; and when he had done so, he would enter into a bond with the right hon. baronet to pay thirty years purchase of the existing rates to any society having for its object the increase of church accommodation. As for the late meeting of bishops on the subject, he designated it as a mere cabal, as contemptible as it was vile, for upsetting a liberal ministry, by influ encing the decision of that House.

Lord Sandon vigorously defended the bishops from the attack thus made upon them, for the mere expression of their opinion on a matter so intimately concerning their interests. Many of these prelates, far from being hostile to the ministers, were bound to them by ties of gratitude. Was it ever made a ground of reproof to dissenters or their delegates, that they took measures to express their opinions on particular bills, in which they were interested, during their passage through that House? As for the present plan, which was intended to satisfy Dissenters, what security had they that it would do so? that they would not next year demand to be relieved from the payment of tithe-or claim a share in the lands of the church as being public property?

Mr. Baines defended the proposition of ministers, and ascribed the clamour that had been raised against it altogether to misrepresentation. He read several statements of the comparative numbers of churchmen and dissenters, and gave it as his opinion, that they were pretty equally divided. In the county of Lancaster the dissenters and catholics considerably preponderated, if we were to judge by the greater number of their chapels. There was a great

distinction between church rates and tithes. The dissenters acknowledged, that they had bought their estates subject to the payment of tithes, and that, therefore, only nine-tenths of the produce belonged to them; accordingly, last year, when the tithe question was under discussion, not a single petition was presented from any body of dissenters, praying for a different appropriation of them.

Lord Stanley's position in respect of this question was rendered rather embarrassing by the recollection of the leading part he had taken in proposing and carrying the measure for extinguishing the church cess in Ireland, by the application of a portion of the church temporalities in that kingdom; a political service, of which, as might be expected, many of his former friends had been careful to remind him on this occasion. The noble lord defended himself against these taunts, particularly one from the Attorney-General, with his usual spirit and vigour. He asked, "who is he that taunts me with inconsistency? Have I ever shrunk since I have had the honour of a seat in this House, from manfully and frankly stating my opinions, whomsoever they pleased or displeased? I call upon any man to shew whenever I have blinked any question. I call upon any man to shew, if at any time I have held one language out of the House, and a different language in it. I ask, where a main question was depending which was displeasing to those with whom I held office, whether I have ever avoided expressing my opinion, or sheltered myself under neutrality, by a convenient absence. And, finally, I ask of the king's attorney-general,

and every member of this House, whether it is not in their knowledge, that when I did differ from my colleagues, I abandoned office to maintain my principles. And, Sir, whenever the attorney-general shall think fit to answer these questions with respect to himself as I have answered them, I will, and not till then, place myself on the level to discuss the question of consistency with him."

Lord Stanley then went on with equal vehemence to contend, that there was no inconsistency in his having introduced the Irish measure, and his standing up in determined opposition to this; but we cannot say, that he at all succeeded in making out this part of his case. On the contrary, it is impossible to deny, that the measure for abolishing the vestry cess in Ireland, by the confiscation of the revenues of ten bishoprics, was one of infinitely more violence to every principle of the establishment than anything contained in the present proposition of the government. We will even go further, and affirm, that, as the author of the former act, Lord Stanley had fairly made himself responsible for the present one.

There was one point well put by Lord Stanley on this occasion. He asked, to whom the surplus fund, which it was expected to realise from the improved administration of church lands, belonged? If to the church, then it was an abstraction of church property. If to the state, then the dissenters have an interest in it; and they would be as much contributing to our establishment as if the money were paid out of the consolidated fund. The Chancellor of the Exchequer endeavoured to meet this dilemma of Lord Stanley, but

could only do so by quoting against him his own words on a former occasion. In the course of his speech Mr. Rice challenged one and all the lawyers opposite to be so kind as to produce one single case since the Reformation in which a rate having been refused by a vestry, it had been made by the compulsion of a higher authority. If no such instance can be shewn, his case, he said, was complete. It was evident, from the tone in which he made the challenge, that the right hon. gentleman had no apprehension it could be taken up. Dr. Nicholl, however, rose, and referred to a case in 1799, in which a vestry having refused to make a rate, the churchwarden made one on his own authority. A parishioner refused to pay it; he was sued in the court of Peterborough, when the party was held liable to the rate; and upon appeal being made to the court of Arches, the dean of the Arches (Sir W. Wynn, a great authority upon all ecclesiastical law) affirmed the sentence, with

costs.

Mr. Rice had little to allege

against the authority of this case, except that it was the only one on the books; but it does not seem to have occurred to him, that the want of cases told equally against his side of the question; and, that if more instances of the enforcement of a rate on a parish did not appear, it was, apparently, because it had never occurred to a vestry to resort to that extremity in resistance to a reasonable proposition of charge for the repair of the church. There is no doubt but that the amount of expenditure is, in a great degree, a matter of discretion with the parish; but it is unfair to argue from thence, that it rests with them to refuse any rate at all, even where indispensable to keep the fabric from ruin.

It was with some difficulty that the House escaped another night's debate on the question. The committee divided at the end of the third, when there were found for the resolution 273; against it 250; a small majority, when it is remembered, that in point of fact the question then involved little more than the taking of the plan into consideration.