VII.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

FRIDAY, Feb. 11, 1857.

Nine P. M.

ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION BILL.

The Speaker. Mr Walpole!

(Canon counts the House; just 36 members present! can hardly refrain from saying "Count the House.”)

Mr Walpole. "I rise to move for leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Acts relating to the Ecclesiastical Commission. (Can. Hear.) As this Bill has in a great measure been before the House on a former occasion, those who take an interest in it will find it more convenient to have the Bill in their hands before I enter

fully into it. I will only now mention the main points to which I think attention should be directed. I wish to have an opportunity of explaining the Bill hereafter, because I think there has been great misunderstanding with respect to it. (Can. No such thing; we all understood it very well last year.) There are four points involved,-1st, the management and restoration of episcopal estates to those entitled to them; 2nd, the mode of requiring accounts from the different chapters, and dealing with chapter property in a similar manner to episcopal property, so as to put an end by degrees to the system of renewal of leases on lives; 3rd, the extension of the principle of local claims to other property besides tithes; and 4th, the mode in which it is proposed to put an end to all leases or renewals on fines, and the specific period when they shall cease, providing that meanwhile the lessees shall have the full right of renewal according to the recommendation of

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