132] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



made of the number of churches 

 which would be wanted to supply 

 the demand, and he concluded 

 that one in three, or one in four, 

 of the general population, would 

 be a sufficient allowance. He 

 then went through the metropolis 

 and several of the towns In which 

 a superabundant population was 

 accumulated ; and he then calcu- 

 lated the means by which this 

 additional number of churches 

 was to be provided for. Thia 

 was, in the first place, the pariia- 

 mentary grant of one million. 

 To this might be added the exer- 

 tionsof public-spirited individuals 

 who were likely to come forward 

 in aid of the general contribu- 

 tion ; and from these sources he 

 expected that from 150 to 200 

 churches might be erected. He 

 then touched upon the apparent 

 advantage which the dissenters 

 possessed by building places of 

 worship to any extent and with- 

 out limitation, in which, he said, 

 that it was the duty of their lord- 

 ships to afford the established 

 church the means of balancing 

 them. In fine, he took into con- 

 sideration the appointment of 

 commissioners for the purpose 

 above-mentioned, and he con- 

 cluded with moving the second 

 reading of the bill. 



Lo7-d Holland, who said he did 

 not rise to oppose the bill, which, 

 upon the whole, he approved, 

 attacked with some severity the 

 earl of Liverpool, who had 

 affirmed that the dissenters 

 enjoyed advantages beyond the 

 established church. " You, gen- 

 tlemen (said he) who pay for 

 yourselves, who pay for your own 

 chapels and your own clergy, in 

 addition to paying tithes for ours, 



shall al^o contribute to the erec- 

 tion of those churches in which 

 you have no interest whatever.'' 

 This, his lordship thought, was 

 most invidious in the noble earl 

 to affirm of the dissenters under 

 these circumstances. 



After some other noble lords 

 had spoke, the bill was read a 

 second time. 



On May 20th, the House 

 having resolved itself into a com- 

 mittee on thiti bill, when the first 

 clause was read. Lord Holland 

 observed, that when he had stated 

 his objections to a grant of the 

 public money under the present 

 circumstances of the country, he 

 had not been aware that in the 

 present reign a precedent for tlie 

 practice he recommended had 

 been established. In an act of 

 the 37th of George III, the emolu- 

 ments of two prebends of Lich- 

 field were sequestered for the 

 purpose of repairing the cathedral. 

 Now, though the bill to which he 

 alluded might be regarded as a 

 private bill, he saw no reason why 

 the principle should not be 

 adopted in the present measure, 

 and applied to the benefit of the 

 public. 



The Archbishop qf Canterhuru 

 said, that the measure to which 

 the noble lord had referred was 

 resorted to for the advantage of 

 the individual church from which 

 the sequestration of the prebends 

 had been made, which v/as a very 

 different case from that which had 

 in view the supplying the general 

 deficiency of churches by building 

 new ones. 



Lord Holland was aware that 

 the precedent he had quoted did 

 not exactly apply ; but when the 

 country was called upon to make 



so 



