CHURCH OF ENGLAND 309 



sibility for the work of the Church should be brought home to every member. Among 

 many instances of overlapping and lack of organisation mentioned by the Committee 

 perhaps the most striking is the fact that there are over eighty separate societies seeking 

 to provide for the needs of poor clergy. They insist that the underpayment of the 

 clergy and the lack of provision for their superannuation discourages recruits for Holy 

 Orders and that the laity have withheld support from Church funds on account of the 

 lack of business-like administration. They further point out the singular circumstance 

 that, since the Church of England has no corporate existence, it is unable to hold prop- 

 erty; there may be, and are, innumerable parochial and diocesan funds, and a vast num- 

 ber of voluntary societies all of which have a legal existence, whereas the Church itself, 

 qua Church, has none. The Committee recommended that there should be an Incor- 

 porated Board of Finance in every diocese, elected by and affiliated to the Diocesan 

 Conference, with a permanent secretariat. This Board is to arrange a system for the 

 assessment of every parish according to its means and population in such a way that 

 every individual is brought under contribution. There would be a Central Incorporated 

 Board of Finance, attached to which would be a Central Building Loan Fund, on the 

 lines of the Funds already existing in two or three dioceses; a Council of Maintenance of 

 the Clergy; a Central Pensions Council, and a Central Advisory Council of Training for 

 the Ministry (the last-named was established by both Convocations in November 1912). 

 These general provisions include arrangements for recruiting and training ordination 

 candidates who are unable in whole or in part to provide the cost of their own education; 

 for maintaining the ministry by the endowment and augmentation of benefices etc. ; for 

 the provision of clergy pensions of not less than 100 per annum, especially for those 

 invalided after twenty years' work in Great Britain; for providing for the widows and 

 children of the clergy and making grants to clergy in difficulties through misfortune; 

 for the erection of new churches and other parochial buildings, and the repair of those 

 already existing. These recommendations have been discussed by the Representative 

 Church Council, the Houses of Laymen, the Diocesan Conferences and other delibera- 

 tive assemblies, and have, on the whole, been received favourably; the least popular 

 provision is that for the assessment of parishes. In many Dioceses preliminary, and in 

 some extensive, steps have been taken towards carrying out the proposals. 



Increase of the Episcopate. During the last four years the movement for the division 

 of unwieldy dioceses has acquired increased momentum. It is proposed to divide the 

 Diocese of Oxford into three portions, roughly co-extensive with the three counties 

 Oxford, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire of which it mainly consists, with new see- 

 towns at Reading for Berkshire and at Aylesbury for Buckinghamshire. Steps are be- 

 ing taken to secure an endowment for a Diocese of Coventry, taken out of the straggling 

 See of Worcester, which has already been relieved of Birmingham and its immediate 

 district. It is hoped to create a third new Midland diocese, with its seat at Stoke-on- 

 Trent or Stafford, for the relief of Lichfield, with an ultimate further division of that 

 diocese by the erection of Shropshire into a See of Shrewsbury. Further North prepara- 

 tions for separating Sheffield and its district from York are well advanced. The division 

 of the Diocese of Winchester, rendered exceptionally difficult by the impossibility of a 

 bishop with a reduced income living at Farnham Castle, is under consideration. The 

 rearrangement of the East Anglian sees, under which Suffolk will be taken from Norwich 

 and Essex from St. Albans, is almost ready to take effect. These plans are, however, 

 hampered by the failure of Parliament to pass the Bishoprics Bill, a measure enabling 

 new dioceses to be created by Order in Council without the necessity for an application 

 to legislation in each case. Meanwhile the increasing necessity for episcopal supervision 

 is being clumsily and inadequately met by the creation of additional suffragan-bish- 

 oprics, which are now almost as numerous as substantive dioceses. Thus the three 

 dioceses of which Greater London consists London, St. Albans and Southwark have 

 among them eight suffragans. Between 1909 and 1912 five suffragan bishoprics were 

 created: Lewes (Chichester) ; Stafford (Lichfield); Taunton (Bath & Wells); Willesden 

 (London); and Whalley (Manchester). 



