The Government suffered a defeat on Tuesday in the Com-
mons in a local matter, but one involving a question of some importance to places where there exists a discretionary rate for the support of the clergy. The Rector of Bermondsey has received a rate of £200, levied on the inhabitants of his parish,
Tor the last fifty years, in lien of Easter offerings, and the object of the Vestry, in the Bill before the House, was to capitalise the sum, about the payment of which there had been frequent and growing disputes, by transferring to the Ecclesiastical Com- missioners about 1.6,600 in Consols, the dividends to be paid to the Rector of Bermondsey and his successors for ever, and thereby to close the door to all future diffi- culties on the subject, and deprive the inhabitants of their option. The measure, if carried, would have been of present benefit to the parish, as the cost of collecting the rate exceeds half the amount realised ; but in view of a possible non-payment of. the rate in the early future, by the discretion of the Vestry being employed in the opposite direction, the rejection of the Bill was in conformity with the principle that Church-rates are to be voluntary. It is obvious that the passing of the Bill would have been equivalent to the assertion that a Church-rate may be -compulsory, which is precisely what Parliament, whether rightly -or wrongly, has refused to declare.
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