ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION. This is a standing commission invested with very important powers, under the operation of which extensive changes have been made in the distribution of the revenues of the Church of England. It was one of the results of the vigorous movements for the reform of public institutions which followed the Reform Act of 1832. In 1835 two commissions were appointed “to consider the state of the several dioceses of England and Wales, with reference to the amount of their revenues and the more equal distribution of episcopal duties, and - the prevention of the necessity of attaching by commendam to bishoprics certain benefices with cure of souls; and to consider also the state of the several cathedral and collegiate churches in England and Wales, with a view to the suggestion of such measures as might render them conducive to the efficiency of the established church, and to provide for the best mode of providing for the cure of souls, with special reference to the residence of the clergy on their respective benefices.” And it was enacted by 5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 30 that during the existence of the commission the profits of dignities and benefices without cure of souls becoming vacant should be paid over to the treasurer of Queen Anne’s Bounty. In consequence of the recommendation of these commissioners, a. permanent commission was appointed by 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 77, for the purpose of preparing and laying before the king in council such schemes as should appear to them to be best adapted for carrying into effect the alterations suggested in the report of the original commission and recited in the Act. The new commission was constituted a corporation with power to purchase and hold lands for the purposes of the Act, notwithstanding the statutes of ...mortmain. The first members of the commission were the two archbishops and three bishops, the lord chancellor and the principal officers of state, and three laymen named in the Act. By a later Act (3 and 4 Vict. c. 113) all the bishops, the chiefs of the three courts at Westminster, the master of the Rolls, and the judges of the Prerogative Court and Court of Admiralty, and the deans of Canterbury, St Paul’s, and Westminster were added to the commission; and power was given to the crown to appoint four, and the archbishop of Canterbury to appoint two additional lay commissioners. The lay commissioners are required to be “members of the United Church of England and Ireland, and to subscribe a declaration to that effect.” Five are a quorum; but two bishops at least must be present at any proceeding under the common seal of the commission, and if only two are present they can demand its postponement to a subsequent meeting. Paid commissioners, under the title of church estates commissioners, are also appointed—two by the crown and one by the archbishop of Canterbury. These three are the joint treasurers of the commission, and constitute, along with two members appointed by the commission, the church estates committee, charged with all business relating to the sale, purchase, exchange, letting, or management of any lands, tithes, or hereditaments. The commission has power to make inquiries and examine witnesses on oath. The schemes of the commission having, after due notice to persons affected thereby, been laid before the Queen in Council, may be ratified by orders, specifying the times when they shall take effect, and such orders when published in the London Gazette have the same force and effect as Acts of Parliament.
The recommendations cf the commission recited in 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 97 are too numerous to be given here. They include an extensive re-arrangement of the dioceses, equalization of episcopal income, providing residences, &c. By 3 and 4 Vict. c. 113 the fourth report of the original commissioners, dealing chiefly with cathedral and collegiate churches, was carried into effect, a large number of canonries being suspended, and sinecure benefices and dignities suppressed.
The emoluments of these suppressed or suspended offices, and the surplus income of the episcopal sees, constitute the fund at the disposal of the commissioners. By 23 and 24 Vict. c. 124, on the avoidance of any bishopric or archbishopric, all the land and emoluments of the see, except the patronage and lands attached to houses of residence, become, by Order in Council, vested in the commissioners, who may, however, reassign to the see so much of the land as may be sufficient to secure the net annual income named for it by statute or order. All the profits and emoluments of the suspended canonries, &c., pass over to the commissioners, as well as the separate estates of those deaneries and canonries which are not suspended. Out of this fund the expenses of the commission are to be paid, and the residue is to be devoted to increasing the efficiency of the church by the augmentation of the smaller bishoprics and of poor livings, the endowment of new churches, and employment of additional ministers.
The substitution of one central corporation for the many local and independent corporations of the church, so far at least as the management of property is concerned, was a constitutional change of great importance, and the effect of it has undoubtedly been to correct the anomalous distribution of ecclesiastical revenues by equalizing incomes and abolishing sinecures. At the same time it is regarded as having made a serious breach in the legal theory of ecclesiastical property. “The important principle,” says Cripps, “on which the inviolability of the church establishment depends, that the church generally possesses no property as a corporation, or which is applicable to general purposes, but that such particular ecclesiastical corporation, whether aggregate or sole, has its property separate, distinct, and inalienable, according to the intention of the original endowment, was given up without an effort to defend it” {Law Relating io the Church and Clergy, p. 46).
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