of the Free Congregation, over the portals | tion, to which they owed, in its growth of of which was the inscription-"There centuries, not only their power and their is no hereafter, and no meeting again." wealth, but their religion and freedom as He asked that Christians should not be a people. exposed to the indignity which they would suffer, if all persons, whether believers or unbelievers, had unrestrained freedom of access to their consecrated churchyards. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Clackmannanshire (Mr. Adam), who made a kind of political progress last summer in the Northern counties of Scotland, whilst informing his countrymen of the many enormities of the Burial Laws of England, said "Though you may be loth to believe such a very shocking thing, it is the case that in English churchyards burials are refused to those not of the same denominations as the Church of England." He was surprised that the political conductor of the Party opposite should give such inaccurate information to the highly intelligent and educated people of Scotland. He took the opportunity of writing to The Scotsman, to explain that the English burial law did nothing of the kind. The law of England enjoined Christian burial to every Christian, whatever his denomination. If any difficulty was raised on the subject it was by the friends of the deceased, for the Church, in her charity, asked no questions and withheld the Service prepared for the burial of departed Christians only where the departed had not been christened. This erroneous exposition of the Burials Law by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Adam) was accompanied by his declared adoption, in the name of the Liberal Party, of the hon. and learned Member for Denbighshire's (Mr.Osborne Morgan's) Burials Bill-a declaration the more ominous when they knew that the Bill of the hon. and learned Member was admitted to be the first step towards the acquirement of religious equality, to be evidenced in the Disestablishment of the Church of Scotland, and to be followed, when quite prepared, by the Disestablishment of the Church of England. Such was the programme, to the overture of which, in the Burials Bill, the Liberal Party were invited through the lips of the Liberal Whip. It might be useful to have some sensational rallying cry; but he trusted the great Liberal Party might find some nobler, some more patriotic and generous object for which to unite, than an attack on that Constitu MR. W. E. FORSTER said, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard) seemed to suppose that the right hon. Member for Clackmannanshire (Mr. Adam) made a most extraordinary statement when he asserted that, according to the present Burial Laws of England, a clergyman might, and sometimes did, refuse to bury persons who considered themselves and were supposed to be Christians. MR. J. G. HUBBARD said, the right hon. Member for Clackmannanshire did not speak about what an individual could do, but the law. MR. W. E. FORSTER said, it appeared to him that, according to the law, an incumbent had the right to refuse burial to persons who were unbaptized. MR. J. G. HUBBARD said, the words used by the right hon. Member for Clackmannanshire were that burial could be "refused to those who were not of the same denomination as the Church of England." MR. W. E. FORSTER said, he did not suppose the right hon. Gentleman really wished to dwell upon that mode of putting the case. What the right hon. Member for Clackmannanshire doubtless meant to say was that burial could be refused to unbaptized persons. Such a statement appeared to him to be strictly true, and, no doubt, any Scotchman would be surprised to hear that such a law existed in this country. Another statement was that if the parish graveyard was thrown open to Dissenters. it was a necessary and logical consequence that the Dissenters would acquire the same right over the churches. This was an argument which the defenders of the Church ought to be wiser than to use, for it might be used against the Church hereafter. was himself surprised at the persistency with which that argument was raised, and that it should not be admitted, after all, that there was some difference between the freedom which it was possible to exercise in regard to a place of worship and a place of sepulchre. The question had been debated as if it was not going to be settled soon, whereas everyone He knew that it must be settled very soon, and that that settlement would | however, heard the speeches of the hon. proceed on the lines of what the House Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. of Lords had already agreed to, and Richard), and those who followed him, what there was every reason to believe and I wish to say a few words on the the great dignitaries of the Church had subject under consideration. I do not also agreed to. The question would quite appreciate the humiliation of never be satisfactorily settled until a which he spoke. I do not understand clergyman was prevented from refusing that those who do not belong to the the right of burial to anyone with such Church of England feel any humiliation services as accorded with the convictions at their friends being buried in unconwhich the person had entertained during secrated parts of cemeteries; nor, therelife. Such a settlement would come, if fore, do I believe that there would not not before the next General Election, be a large majority of Dissenters who certainly immediately after it. He hoped would not to some extent feel conciliated the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. if ground were provided in which they Monk) would consider the course which could bury their dead with their own the debate had taken, and withdraw his services. For my part, however, I Bill. The hon. Member, he was sure, never pass a cemetery anywhere withhad brought forward this Bill believing out feeling the deepest possible regret at it would do some good and no harm, seeing that in this Christian country we while it would tend to remove unplea- are obliged to have three chapels in santness in some places, and that, at every public burial-ground. I am not any rate, it was not a foe to the Bill of ashamed to state that in the House, and the hon. and learned Member for Den- should not be elsewhere. At the same bighshire, which he himself supported; time, the system has worked without but he (Mr. W. E. Forster) thought much difficulty so far, and I believe what had been said on the other side of has received a certain amount of general the House would tend to show him that acceptance, and will, I presume, consuch was not the case, and that the protinue. I do not quite understand, howposal was really in direct opposition to ever, why there should not be both some of the fundamental principles of consecrated and unconsecrated ground. the measure his hon. Friend sup- It seems to be the very height of eccleported. The objections to the pre- siastical tyranny to say that, because sent law were based on both right and you do not care to have consecrated feeling. The Dissenters considered that ground for burials, those who do care they had a right to burial in the church- for it should not be allowed to have it. yards, and that that right carried with And if there is to be consecrated ground it the right to be buried with their own in the future, as well as in the past, services. As a matter of feeling, Dis- there must, of course, be a distinction besenters thought they ought to be allowed tween the burial-places of those who to rest alongside of their Church rela- take one view on this point, and those tions. To neither of these claims did who take the opposite. In that light, this Bill offer any respect; indeed, the question is in the broadest possible the hon. Member must be convinced, way one of religious freedom. A pracfrom the arguments by which his Bill tice has, I believe, been very long in had been supported from the other side, force in a very large section of the that it was opposed to the principles Christian Church-namely, that of conwhich he himself had at other times ad- secrating, not the churchyard itself, but vocated. As for the cemetery system, the graves; and I have never yet heard he regarded it as a disgrace to a people of any satisfactory reason why this who were supposed to desire Christian should not be done in the churchyards brotherhood, and altogether the situa- of other denominations. Moreover, I tion was such that he had expected some am not one of those who think that the statement would be made on behalf of presence of a Bishop is necessary to the Government, and was disappointed consecration, there being no reason that none had been given. why the ceremony should not be conducted by the parish clergyman. That is allowed in the Church of Rome. All, however, that I want to enforce in connection with this part of the question MR. ASSHETON CROSS: I must apologize for having been detained from the House by Public Business during the early part of the afternoon. I have, In is, that those who say that there is a have no effect whatever. There is an broad distinction between consecrated and unconsecrated ground must, in order to avoid being guilty of religious tyranny, allow us to have consecrated ground, the logical result being that all cannot be buried in the same piece of ground. The right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken conveyed to this House an incorrect impression of the law on the subject of burial in parish churchyards, for he stated that there were certain classes of persons who differed from the Church of England-those who are unbaptized, for instance-and who are not entitled to burial in a parish churchyard. That is not so. The law, as I take it, says that every person has a right to be buried in the churchyard of the parish in which he has died; and only when we come to the question of the clergyman of the Church of England reading the Service of the Church over the grave does the law step in. The law says that over unbaptized persons, excommunicated persons, and those who have laid violent hands on themselves, the Service of the Church shall not be read. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: There shall be no service.] No service, of course. As for the statement that those who oppose the Nonconformist demand fear that to admit it would be to make way for the Disestablishment of the Church, I have never heard that fear expressed by my hon. Friends; but what I understand them to say is, that Disestablishment is the avowed object of the Liberation Society in agitating the Burials Question. Of course, hon. Gentlemen on this side are quite entitled to use the argument in question without being bound to support Disestablishment, should any change be made in the Burial Laws. If any grievance at all arises from the present laws, it is this-and I admit that it is a substantial grievance-that there is no power of any kind or description in anybody to enforce the making of a burial-ground where one is needed. In making any change you ought not to provide simply for the present, but also for the future. There is no doubt that a very large proportion of the churchyards scattered up and down England will, in the course of perhaps the next 10 years, be closed, and in all the parishes with which they are connected the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan) would instance of this in Northampton. There, all the churchyards are closed; and when the people met, as they were bound to do, to consider this state of affairs, they decided to have no burial board, and, therefore, to have no burial ground; and the only satisfaction which remains to the people of Northampton lies in the fact that there is at that place a cemetery which belongs to persons differing from the Church of England. I think that a state of the law which produces such a result ought not to be allowed to exist. One outcome of it is that the Church of England has provided of its own free gift, from time to time, and especially during the last 100 years, burial-grounds all over the country, or at least in a great number of parishes, thus supplying a want which the law of England of itself did not supply. Hon. Members opposite have often alluded to the law of Scotland as entirely in their favour, and as a reason why we should make a change in the present case; but if the law of England were the same I should be perfectly content. But that is not the case. Scotland the burial-grounds are the property of heritors, and, oftener than not, they are away from the church instead of being near it. How do the hon. and learned Member for Denbighshire and his Friends propose to proceed? They pass over the real grievance which I have pointed out, and proceed in a totally different way. Some time ago they were bound, like everybody else, to pay church rates; but these were abolished, even as concerned churchyards. At that time they said"No, we don't want the churchyards, and we won't pay the rates for them." But the moment the latter part of their declaration is acceded to they come to this House and say that now they have got rid of the burden of paying rates they must have their rights in the churchyards again. That is, I think, proceeding on a wrong principle. I find fault equally with all the Bills which have been brought before the House on this question, for not one of them proposes to provide a burial-place in every part of England. They all, in fact, come to this-"Here is an apple. So long as there is any apple left we will eat it; but we make no provision for any other apple for the persons coming after The first principle that ought to | for Denbighshire. Then, what are we to be dealt with in this matter is that any do with the Bill of the hon. Member for law amending the law of burial should Gloucester (Mr. Monk)? It certainly does enact that there should be burial-places in not meet my view. The really important every part of England, not necessarily, provision to which I have just alluded as however, in every parish. No one of being desirable was embodied in the Gothe half-dozen Bills before the House vernment measure brought forward some touched that point, and for that reason time ago; and I cannot help thinking I deem them all unsatisfactory. The that when it is made the groundwork of Bill presented by the Government pro- legislation, as I hope it will be, there ceeded in that direction, for it provided will not be so much difficulty in making that there should be a burial-ground provision for the intermediate stageprovided convenient for every person to which will be practically the only diffibe buried in. You would find that, culty-in the work of giving a burialstarting from this point, you could make ground to every part of the country. very much better provision for the in- This Bill does not do that. It is entirely termediate stage during which the ex-permissive, and I am rather surprised isting churchyards could be used without injuring the consciences of those who are at present interested in them. See for one moment what the result of any of the Bills which we have before us would be! If one of them were passed, its effect would be to allow any religious body but the Church of England to have burial-grounds where its own religious services might be exclusively used, while the Church alone would not be allowed to provide at her own expense a burial-ground exclusively for the use of her own people. That, I think, would be a grievance, and I cannot think that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Denbighshire would press his demand to that point. Let every person, I say, be buried with the services which he or his friends like. That would not, however, be the case if the law said that the Church of England, as the Established Church of the country, were bound to provide burial-grounds, both consecrated and unconsecrated, for everybody. Surely, in altering the law we ought to consider, as far as possible, the conscientious scruples of Churchmen as well as of Dissenters; and though you may think them foolish you are not entitled to deny the fact that those conscientious scruples exist. Therefore, we ought to be as tender as possible in trying to get rid of what they consider a grievance, instead of doing it as roughly as we can. For the sake of argument, I am not denying the Nonconformist grievance; but I do not hesitate to say that the House could not inflict a greater blow at the conscientious scruples of the Laity as well as Clergy of the Church than by carrying the Bill of the hon. and learned Member that it should have been treated so seriously by hon. Members opposite. I do not myself believe that it carries the law the least bit further than it is at the present moment. I know several parishes myself, and I have a very strong impression that there are many more, which, without the assistance of this Bill, have given for Nonconformist burials considerable portions of land attached to the churchyards. If, however, the Bill did not do very much good, what harm could it do? I cannot understand the objection to that kind of permissive legislation, when not the slightest harm can be alleged against it. If asked my opinion of the Bill, there are certain things in it which I do not like. I should not like to see those little bits cut off from the churchyards; but I cannot conceive any reason why people who do like them should not be allowed to have them. I shall give my vote for the Bill, for the simple reason that it is a permissive Bill, which enables persons to do what there is not the slightest harm in doing. It will show a feeling I cannot understand, if hon. Gentlemen vote against a measure which would, at least, alleviate their grievances. I hope that when a measure is brought forward to settle the whole question it will lay down the principle that there should be burial-grounds in England where all persons should have a right to be buried with their own religious services. MR. KNATCHBULL - HUGESSEN said, he not only disliked little strips of unconsecrated ground attached to their old churchyards and permissive Bills, but also those little nibbling attempts to deal with a great question, which everybody knew must shortly be settled in after this debate, it must be evident that the Bill would not give that satisfaction he had expected. He was entirely in the hands of the House. He would ask leave to withdraw the Bill. MR. SPEAKER said, there was an Amendment before the House, and the Motion could not be withdrawn unless the Amendment were first withdrawn. MR. ERNEST NOEL said, he was quite prepared to withdraw the Amendment." ["No, no!"] Question put. The House divided:-Ayes 129; Noes 160: Majority 31.-(Div. List, No. 29.) Words added. Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to. another manner. But there was another | to afford relief in rural parishes; but thing he also disliked, and that was a strong Ministry which admitted that there was a grievance and yet would vote for a Bill which they acknowledged did not deal with it, and would not bring in a Bill to deal with it themselves. On both sides of the House there was too great a disposition to look on this matter in a Party light. The right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down devoted the greater part of his speech to attacking a measure which was not before the House; and then, with respect to the Bill they were discussing, said that he did not think it would do any good, but would vote for it because he thought it would not do any harm. To such legislation he (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) objected. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) claimed liberty for the Church of England; but the Church of England did not require liberty, for she claimed authority, and her demands for liberty were quite of another character from those of denominations which protested against and existed in spite of her authority. The true wisdom of the Church of England was not to exclude Nonconformists, but to open her arms to receive them. With Infidelity on one side, and the Church of Rome on the other, the real policy and the safety of the Church of England was to encourage, and not to check, that feeling which led Nonconformists to wish their dead to be laid in the old churchyards, and to smooth away rather than to perpetuate the points of difference between Nonconformists and Churchmen. He strongly opposed this Bill. MR. MARTEN said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sandwich (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) objected to permissive Bills; but the Act of 1867 was permissive. The right hon. Gentleman also regretted that a strong Government like Her Majesty's Government did not bring in a comprehensive measure to deal with the question. The answer to that was that Her Majesty's Government had brought forward such a measure, and if it had failed in the House of Lords, the attempt was an honest one, and the failure was through no fault of theirs. MR. MONK regretted that his hon. Friends around him had unanimously condemned the Bill. It was intended Second Reading put off for six months. MOTIONS. 1906 HALL-MARKING (GOLD AND SILVER). Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into And, on March 5, Committee nominated as MEDICAL ACT (1858) AMENDMENT (NO. 2) BILL. On Motion of Mr. ARTHUR MILLS, Bill to amend the Medical Act, 1858, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ARTHUR MILLS, Mr. CHILDERS, and Mr. GOLDNEY. Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 86.] WATCH-CASES (HALL-MARKING) BILL. Considered in Committee. (In the Committee.) Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to move the House, that leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Law relating to the HallMarking of Watch-Cases. Resolution reported: - Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir HENRY JACKSON, Mr. EATON, Sir ANDREW LUSK, and Mr. TORR. Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 87.] House adjourned at five minutes before Six o'clock. |