Another part of the bill provided for the suppression of such canonries or prebends as might fairly be considered superfluous. Four were considered sufficient for the proper performance of the duties of each cathedral; and the extinction (after the lives of the present holders) of the rest was designed to form a large fund, to be at the disposal of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,[[243]] and to be applied by them chiefly to meet the wants of the more populous parishes in different large towns, for which it had hitherto been difficult to make any provision,[[244]] by contributing to the erection of additional churches, by increasing the incomes of the incumbents in cases where it was insufficient, or in any other way which the practical experience of the members of the commission might suggest. One very important reform of a different kind was also provided for in the abolition of pluralities, the bill prohibiting the holding of two livings by the same person except they were within ten miles of each other. The measure was objected to by Sir Robert Inglis, who had represented Oxford as the peculiar champion of Protestant and Church principles ever since 1829, and by a party which shared his views, as one calculated to be "fatal to the best interests of the Church." They looked on the property of the Church and everything connected with it as invested with so peculiar a character, that they not only contested the right of Parliament to take any step to diminish its revenues or to change the employment of them, but they even "disputed its right to deprive one class of the clergy of any portion of their revenues for the purpose of distributing it among another." But the distinction thus made between Church property and that of any other public body seems one which can hardly be supported. The purposes for which ecclesiastical chapters or officials have been endowed with possessions and revenues are undoubtedly of a more sacred character than the duties imposed on lay corporations; but that consideration cannot be regarded as affecting the tenure of those possessions, or as inconsistent with the doctrine that they are national property, bestowed by the nation on the Church for the service and advantage of the people; deeply interested not only in the maintenance of an Established Church, but in that Church being in the highest possible degree efficient for its holy objects. Being so bestowed and appropriated, that property must, on every principle of the constitution, be subject to the control of the national Parliament. And surely that control could never be more legitimately exerted than in carrying out the recommendations of a commission which numbered among its members several of the prelates of the Church, whose profession and position were a guarantee for their anxiety to preserve all the rights of the Church which contributed to its credit or efficiency; while their matured experience enabled them better than any other men to judge how to reconcile the maintenance of its dignity with the extension of its usefulness.
Notes:
[ [!-- Note Anchor 226 --][Footnote 226: The second resolution affirmed that "this House looks forward to a progressive improvement in the character of the slave population, such as may prepare them for a participation in those civil rights and privileges which are enjoyed by other classes of his Majesty's subjects." (Stapleton's "Life of Canning," iii., 98, where also large extracts from the minister's speech are given.)]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 227 --][Footnote 227: Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Demerara were the only British islands which had not separate Legislatures.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 228 --][Footnote 228: Miss Martineau. "History of the Thirty Years' Peace," book iv., c. viii.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 229 --][Footnote 229: Alison, "History of Europe," 2d series, c. xxxi., sec. 74.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 230 --][Footnote 230: In the debate on the Registration Bill, in 1836, Lord John Russell stated that two hundred and twenty eight unions had already been formed in England and Wales, and that it might be calculated that when the whole country was divided into unions the entire number would amount to something more than eight hundred.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 231 --][Footnote 231: See Lord Althorp's speech, of parts of which an abstract is given in the text.—Parliamentary Debates, xxii., April 17.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 232 --][Footnote 232: Lord Althorp made the following frightful statement of the crimes committed in the province of Leinster alone in the last three months of 1832 and the first three of 1833: 207 murders, 271 cases of arson. The assaults attended with grievous personal injury were above 1000; burglaries and robberies, above 3000.]
[ [!-- Note Anchor 233 --][Footnote 233: It was often asserted that fourteen-fifteenths of the land in Ireland belonged to Protestants, but this estimate was, probably, an exaggeration.]