become stipendiaries; and that after the death of the existing incumbents they should have right only to a stipend of £550 a year, it being then somewhat more than £600 a year. He also recommended that exemp tion in favour of the legal profession should be abolished. Notwithstanding this, nothing more was done till 1851, when there was the Report of a Select Committee of the House; and the Report pointed to the reduction of the Ministers from eighteen to fifteen, and recommended that there should be a fund created for the payment of the Ministers, of which £2.200 should consist of the Annuity Tax. The Annuity Tax was therefore adhered to. Several attempts were made to settle the matter, and in 1860 the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Moncreiff) introduced a measure for the purpose of bringing it to a termination; and he proposed that the exemption in favour of the legal classes should be abolished. The result would, of course, be that there would be a large addition to the proceeds of the tax; and he proposed further that the tax should be continued in order to accumulate a fund which should be sufficient at the end of fifteen years to put an end to the tax altogether. That was a proposition which I regret exceedingly was not carried into effect; because the result would have been that by this time we should have been more than half through the period, and we should have been able to see a prospect of the complete termination of the tax. But the Lord Provost of the day addressed a letter to the hon. and learned Member, who held the office which I have now the honour to hold, suggesting that the Bill would give no relief to the parties aggrieved, and that it would be much better to reduce the amount of the tax, so that there should be a sensible relief given to the people. My hon. and learned Friend was reluctant to adopt this course, but it was pressed upon him by the authorities; and there is no doubt that it was a principle which was not combated by one individual at that stage of the proceedings namely, that a certain portion of the Annuity Tax should be retained. Unfortunately, a discussion arose on the part of some persons who objected to the kind of security which was to be given, and to some other matters which I do not think affected the question of principle. Well, my hon. and learned Friend thought proper to proceed with the Bill, which proposed to go further than the recommenda

tions of the Select Committee and those of Sir John Lefevre, in not only proposing to abolish Collegiate charges, but to take away the ministers from two of the churches of the Old Town, which was very distasteful to the ministers of the town of Edinburgh. But, at the same time, looking upon it as a Bill which would bring about the settlement of a long-vexed question, the result was, that these ministers did not oppose the measure, and it was passed. There were certain advantages attending the measure. The condition of the payment to ministers since the passing of the Bill of 1860 was this-A bond was granted by the city of Edinburgh over their property for an annuity of £4,200 in perpetuity. That was secured on the property of the town, which was a security that, being considered in all other cases to be a very good one, was offered to the ministers. This bond constituted the security, and the town was empowered to impose a tax for the purpose of relieving itself from the payment of the bond. No doubt it was a substitution for the Annuity Tax, which was not to be levied as such; and it was thought that it would relieve the scruples of those who objected to pay it as an Annuity Tax that it should be paid in the same way as the police tax. Further, the ministers were entitled to the seat-rents, which amounted to about £3,000 a year, There were certain burdens upon this sum-namely, the repair of the churches, The people were relieved of church rates, and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners undertook to make payment for all the repairs of the churches. It was hoped that the result of passing that Bill would have been to have put an end to all further agitation upon the subject; but the arrangements proposed were not altogether agreeable to the Church in Edinburgh, because it was thought a great grievance that some of its ministers should be taken away. The result has been thisThe property of Edinburgh has for many years been increasing year by year, and if the ministers had continued to be entitled to the whole of the proceeds of the Annuity Tax, or even if they had remained stipendiaries, they would be realizing incomes of from £800 to £1,000 a year; but instead of that they consented to restrict their stipends to £600 a year, and ultimately to £550. There was also this great advantage accruing to the citizens, that the professional classes, in order to conciliate the general public, agreed to forego the exemption to which they had been up to

from it that which has been made its property by Act of Parliament. Whatever might be said of taxes, dues must be of the nature of property; and yet the hon. Member had proposed that the dues on the Leith Docks should be abandoned. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken of the services rendered by the clergymen in the Old Town of Edinburgh. There were two answers to these statements. In the first place, their industry, Christian effort and zeal had never been called in question; and in the second place, there were other ministers in Edinburgh as zealous and as industrious, having charge of congregations as poor, and labouring in as poor a locality-yet, these rev. gentlemen had no aids external to their Churches, and were dependent for support on the voluntary efforts of their congregations. The right hon. Gentleman led the House to believe that by this Bill the income of the clergy would be reduced; but it will not reduce the stipend of a single clergyman in Edinburgh. The stipends of the clergy would remain as at present; and even their successors would be in precisely the same position, barring the three churches that were abolished by the Bill. No personal interest would be affected by it, presently or prospectively. The Bill did not ask the congregations to increase their contributions towards the maintenance of their clergy, or, if any advance was expected, it was not more than £100 in £4,000; and he apprehended that the clergy of the Established Church did not labour amongst the poor more exclusively than the Dissenting ministers; but that, on the contrary, their congregations were composed of the richer classes of the Old Town. He apprehended that there was no objection to the principle of the Bill, for it conformed to principles already adopted by Parliament in the Act of 1860. It would neither diminish the provision for the religious well-being of the city of Edinburgh, nor touch the religious belief of persons it affected. Even if they had to have recourse to other churches, there were thirty-five of the Free Church, and eighteen of the United Presbyterian Church, where precisely the same form of worship was observed as in the Established Church; but there is ample room in the churches of the Establishment for all who would be withdrawn from the churches dealt with by this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had failed to show what damage will be done by the Bill. A case in its favour is made

out by the fact that there is ample provi sion for the spiritual wants of Edinburgh in the existing churches, and by the fact that by the present law an injustice is inflicted upon seven-eighths of the people of Edinburgh. He was surprised that any one should defend this tax of 3d in the £1, for it degraded the clergy to the position of a police force, the tax being collected in connection with and as a police tax. It appeared that the Bill of 1860 was not satisfactory either to the Dissenters or the members of the Established Church, and therefore he should suppport the Motion for the second reading of this Bill.

MR. MONCREIFF: As I carried through the Bill of 1860, I will say a few words on the Motion before the House. I shall vote in favour of the Amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate, not so much on the merits of the Bill, as because I think the settlement of 1860 was fair and equitable under the circumstances of the case; and it is not desirable to disturb that arrangement. But on the subject of the merits of the Bill, I will simply say that I doubt very much whether its finance will at all come up to the representations of the hon. Member. The substance of the Bill in point of finance is simply this-that the Established Church is left to its own voluntary resources, with the exception of the £2,000, about which the hon. Member for Leith has made so loud a complaint, the seatrents, and the church-door collections. So far as the £2,000 is concerned, I do not think the hon. Member for Leith need be much disturbed; because if this Bill were to pass this year, next year we may find more empty churches, and on the same principle as that on which my hon. Colleague has introduced his Bill, Leith would be relieved from the payment of the £2,000. With regard to the rest of the finance of the Bill, the £4,200 can only be made available after the seat-rents-on the assumption that the church-door collections are sufficient to maintain the fabric of the building. I doubt very much whether that will be found to be the case, even if it were desirable to apply these collections in that way. If the collections were so applied, they would soon fall off in amount; and if it is intended to keep this as an endowment for the Established Church, I believe it will turn out to be an illusive idea. The question whether we should have an Established Church in Scotland is another matter altogether; but

if you are to raise the question, it would be better to state boldly what principle of the Established Church should be given up, and should trust to the voluntary principle for providing the necessary appliances. I do not belong to the Established Church. I belong to the Free Church, and feel a pride in the great effort and sacrifice it has made, and the wonderful increase it has met with; but, on the other hand, let us not discuss this as a mere formal question-adopting the voluntary principle on the one hand, and rejecting it on the other. If the Established Church is to be maintained, it must be maintained with a reasonable endowment; but it is not on that ground that I shall vote with my right hon. and learned Friend. I wish to make an explanation about the settlement of 1860. That was a fair settlement of a question which had been long pending, but we are two parties-a good deal being surrendered on each side-and it would not be fair to take advantage of the surrender made by the Established Church as the groundwork of a second assault. It is, perhaps, unfortunate for me that I have been a kind of medium between the contending parties, without having much sympathy with the views of either. When I held the office now filled by my right hon. Friend, I was applied to by both sides to see whether the controversy could not be settled. There had previously been various attempts at a settlement. A Committee of the House of Commons in 1853 recommended a substantial reduction of the number of ministers, and that any deficiency in the funds for their support should be made up by an appropriation of municipal taxes. It was thought by the voluntary Dissenters of Edinburgh that if the ministers ceased to be the collectors of the tax, and it were left to the magistrates to impose, they would be able conscientiously to pay it, and that was the opinion of my right hon. Colleague in 1853, for in that year, he being the Chief Magistrate, asked me to introduce a Bill based on that principle. I introduced that Bill, and a great meeting of Dissenters in Edinburgh was almost unanimous in its favour, and the Town Council also supported it. But the clergy were opposed to the arrangement, and it fell through. In 1857 another attempt was made at the instance of the Town Council, who requested me to introduce a Bill not founded on the principle of a permanent municipal tax, but for continuing the existing tax

for twelve years, doing away with the exemptions which existed, and forming a sinking fund of a capital out of which the ministers would be endowed. But that also failed. We were in this position in 1860--we had had thirty years of acrimonious warfare, and there was all manner of ill-feeling on both sides, and the greatest possible discontent, and it was felt that an arrangement should be come to by giving up something on both sides. I voted for Mr. Black's Bill in 1857. It passed the second reading with a considerable majority, but the House knew it had not the slightest chance of passing into law; and, if this Bill were carried, we should have years of conflict before us. In 1860, I made a proposal to continue the tax for fifteen years, and then put an end to it altogether; but the Town Council of Edinburgh changed their minds on this matter. I will refer to what was said by my Colleague at that time-Mr. Blackfor whom this House and all who knew bim have the most unfeigned respect. He said-and insisted on it in a speech at Edinburgh-that the tax should cease at the end of fifteen years; but a meeting, subsequently held, pronounced in favour of a diminished and perpetual tax, in the hope of promoting peace; and, accordingly, a Resolution to that effect was sent to me from the Lord Provost and a committee of the Town Council. At a public meeting held about the same time similar resolutions were passed, to this effect-that they would acquiesce in the proposal of a tax on occupiers, which would enable the Corporation to provide the funds for thirteen ministers at £600 a year, taking the seat-rents, the tax to be redeemable at the option of the ratepayers and undoubted security being given for the payment of the stipends. The meeting passed resolutions, and the Magistrates approved of them. I was not present at the meeting, but they communicated with me officially, and I was therefore entitled to conclude that they were agreed upon a settlement. The details, certainly, were not agreed upon; but the principle was, and it was to be a Government measure. Accordingly, my next duty was to communicate with those who were connected with the Established Church. Well, they were willing to have the ministers reduced to thirteen. The proposition in 1853 was, that they should be reduced to fifteen; so that there was a gain to this extent. No doubt it was a hard wrench, and galling to their