Mr. Edmund Smith, in his interesting pamphlet, rightly marks the year 1850 as commencing a new era in the history of the Commission:

:

'In 1850 the Act passed modifying the constitution of the Ecclesiastical Commission (which at that time consisted of all the bishops, three deans, six judges, five members of the Government, and six lay members), by the addition of three lay Commissioners, two appointed by the Crown, and one by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and directing that these three members, with two others elected by the Board, should form the Estates Committee, and have the entire management (subject only to any directions that might be laid down by the Board) of all the estates vested in the Commission. The same Act contained provisions for preventing in future the fluctuations and uncertainty in episcopal incomes inseparable from the previous system; and the "episcopal fund" was fused with the "common fund," which thereby became liable to the provisions specifically affecting the episcopal fund. this legislation the "common fund," for the relief of spiritual destitution, also became interested in the whole of the improved value obtainable by the better management of episcopal property, as it had previously been interested in making the most of the sinecure rectories, and of the prebendal, decanal, and capitular estates.'

By

It is well, for the reader's sake, to strip this imposing array of its merely ornamental elements. The six judges and the five members of the Government are not in effect members of the Commission; their names have graced its list for many years, but, if we except a few rare visits from a member of the Government, they never attend, nor are expected to attend, its meetings. One eminent judge, having a little leisure at his disposal, and wishing to discharge every duty that the law had put on him, went to the office, and desired to know how his services could be rendered there; whereon the officer whom he addressed told him, with much candour, that his attendance at a few meetings would be quite useless; that there was no other way in which he could serve; and that, on the whole, he might as well leave the conduct of the affairs of the Commission to those who usually managed them. The judge accepted this dispensation with alacrity. It is high time that this empty form should be swept away, and that the public should know that the revenues of the Commission are not administered under the control of these eminent persons. The substantial change of 1850 lay in this, that in future all affairs connected with estates must pass before a small body, the Estates Committee, consisting of five persons, four of them laymen and one an ecclesiastic, who should consider and determine them, subject to any rules which might be laid down for its guidance by the General Board. The Church was well represented on this Committee, for the Arch

bishop of Canterbury nominates one of the lay members, and one lay and one clerical member are chosen by the Board, which contains a clear majority of ecclesiastics.

The prospects of this newly constituted body in 1851 were as gloomy as could well be.

In order to raise all benefices to a decent maintenance for the ministers, and to provide a moderate house where there was none, about £560,000 a year would be needed. To meet these necessities,' says Mr. Edmund Smith, revenues had been placed at the disposal of the Ecclesiastical Commission, calculated to produce at some future period £134,251 a year; and on the security of this revenue £80,000 a year had been granted in about 1000 grants, and £30,000 expended in aid of the erection of parsonage-houses, and £600,000 had been borrowed, on which £18,000 a year must be paid for interest until the capital should be repaid.'

With the Church this barely solvent public office was looked at with much the same cordiality as the War Office was when our Crimean disasters were at the worst.

The leaseholders, 6000 strong, with the Duke of Richmond at their head, were ready for a last onslaught, in order that their beneficial interest, long enjoyed, might be respected.

This latter difficulty was, however, now about to be disposed of. The Lords' Committee of 1851 reported that there was no legal or equitable obligation on the Ecclesiastical Corporations to renew leases; but that in practice the certainty of renewal, and the favourable terms of renewal, which arose from the peculiar tenure of the Church lessor, had been such as to create in the lessees an expectation of renewal sufficiently definite to be treated as between third parties as approaching to a certainty.' It recommended that an enabling Act should be passed for three years, that lessors might be able to treat with their lessees for enfranchisements. The result of these

voluntary transactions would give a sure basis for future calculations. It advised that the lessees' interest should be calculated at the same rate per cent. as was the fee-simple value of the estate, thus giving him (as we have explained above) his share in the improved value which enfranchisement would confer on the land. In any lease for years that was reduced below twenty-one, and in any lease for lives that was worse than a lease for twenty-one years by the tables, the lessee was to have reckoned to him, as a bonus, the right of one renewal of seven years at the usual rate of fine. Upon this an Enabling Act was passed in August 1851, called the Episcopal and Capitular Estates Management Act,' which appointed certain Church Estates Commissioners, unfettered, however, by the special

calculations just quoted, who for three years should have power to carry through voluntary enfranchisements for any Sees or Chapters that desired them.

No doubt the bonus to the lessees recommended by the Committee was very considerable. It was to represent what the Church had wastefully made over to them in former days. by an improvident system. The amount of the bonus is easy to calculate. The lessee of a property of £100 a year, whose lease of twenty-one years had run down to fourteen, would pay for a renewal fine, on the seven per cent. tables (by no means the highest rate allowed), £209, whilst his existing interest, by the same tables, would be about £874; but these tables assume the property to be worth about fifteen years' purchase. The lessee would be glad to compute his renewal on such terms, but in selling his remaining interest he would commit no such waste. When he shall have renewed, his investment of £1083 will produce £100 a year, of which he need only set aside, in order to pay £200 every seventh year, about £25 annually; so that, in round numbers, £1100 will pay him £75 a year, which in the Funds would produce him about £36. It is clear he will want some temptation to abandon so great an advantage. Now the Lords' Committee propose to treat him thus: The estate is to be valued not as it is, but as it will be at thirty years' purchase; and the lessee's interest would be about £1100. He is to be allowed one renewal on the old fine of £209; but this would give him twenty-one years' interest in the estate, worth at thirty years' purchase about £1500. The gain of both parties now stands thus:

Lessee's Gain.

He receives for his term of 21 years,

Less the fine he now pays,

£1500 0 0 209 0 0

Amount paid him,

Amount of his interest by the tables at 7 per cent.,

Less worth of reversion by the tables, at 7 per

cent,

581 0 0

Lessor's apparent gain,

£1128 0 0

To put the case in another way: the true interest of the Church, in an estate thus leased for fourteen years' outstanding, would be £1890, and that of the lessee £1110, on the principles laid down by the Land Committee; but on this arrangement it is, for the lessor, £1709, and for the lessee, £1291. To the lessor would belong in theory £65 in every £100 of value; but in practice he now takes £57 only.

We have been very minute upon this question, for in fact it is the key to all the operations of the Commission, and the key to most of the hostility which it has encountered. A settlement acceptable to both parties was indispensable for any peaceful and sound progress. It not only diminished the opposition of the lessees, but gave hope of funds for carrying on the work of augmentation. Two Acts of Parliament have since made the terms rather more favourable to the lessees, those of 1854 and 1860; but the same principle has prevailed. On the side of the Commission the power of selecting which estates they will retain for purposes of endowment, is a considerable advantage.

In a large class of cases the negotiations were not carried on by the Church corporations themselves. Several Chapters sought the aid of the Commission, on the footing that they were to surrender their estates to the Commission, and the Commission was to give them instead, as soon as might be, enfranchised estates, and to pay them in the meantime the income which they lost by giving up the estates. Let Mr. Edmund Smith describe the results:

'In no one district do the lessees, as a body, remain dissatisfied with the application of the principles laid down by the Committee of the House of Lords in 1851. The modifications subsequently pressed by the lessees into the Act of 1854 and 1860, operate in their favour, but amount in the whole to only a slight variation from the original terms. The general results are the reservation to the Episcopal and Capitular Corporations of such leasehold estates as they see fit to retain for permanent possession, or as building ground, or for additions to parsonages, and the average increase of about one-half in the revenues beyond the receipts under the previous system; such increase being transferred to the common fund of the Ecclesiastical Commission, subject to the local claim for augmentation of the living of the place where the enfranchised property was situated. The total number of the transactions effected since 1851 has been more than four thousand, of which 2417 have been agreed by the Corporations, and relate to property of the value of nearly ten millions sterling. Of these, 1998 have been fully completed, relating to property of the value of £7,357,000. The value realized by the Corporations under the system of taking fines proves to have been 32 per cent., and the increase realized by enfranchisement is 16 per cent., so that the im

proved value obtained on these 1998 cases exceeds £1,200,000, of which, according to the last Report (1863) of the Church Estates Commissioners, £1,127,546 has been actually transferred to the common fund. Assuming the value of the Episcopal and Capitular Estates at £36,000,000, and that this average improvement arises on the whole (an assumption well within the truth), an improved value of six millions sterling is the value of the difference between the system of taking fines and the present system, the Corporations continuing to receive the full incomes obtainable by them under the system of taking fines.

'But this increase by no means represents the total increase in the receipts from the Episcopal and Capitular Estates since 1835. In the interval, the rate at which fines on the renewal of leases have been calculated, has been raised in many cathedrals, so that the Capitular revenues at the present time are much larger than in 1832, in some cases the increase reaching 50 per cent. The opportunity, also, of dealing with the property has enabled arrangements to be effected relative to building land and other improvable property previously remaining mere agricultural land. Several towns were partially surrounded by ecclesiastical land injuriously restraining their extension, where now buildings have been erected to the profit of the Church, and the great advantage of the town; and there are several estates which, if judiciously retained, will supply increasing means for the relief of spiritual destitution.'

We have now a clue to the large increase of means in the hands of the Commission, which has enabled it from 1857 to the present time to effect a great improvement in the endowment of poor parishes. It arises from two sources: from the estates vested in the Commission before the suppression of prebends and reduction in some sees, and also, but in a larger degree, from the profits realized by the change from the leasing to the enfranchised system, both upon the estates that belong to the Commission and upon those that still belong to Ecclesiastical corporations. As it was no part of the duty either of the Church Estates Commissioners or of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to increase the revenues of the different corporations that applied to them for help, the profit of every transaction found its way to the Common Fund, and was available for general uses. For example, the Dean and Chapter of X. have estates which yield in gross upon the leasing system an average income of £6400 a year; but the income fluctuates, because it comes from fines. They transfer it to the Commission in order to its enfranchisement, and receive in return a fixed payment of the same annual amount; and in course of time, instead of this fixed payment, estates that may fairly be expected to yield it. But their original estates, when dealt with, yield to the Commission £9600 a year, and £3200 a year is thus set free for the Common Fund.