CHURCH TRUSTS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1833, 20 August 1913, Page 4

CHURCH TRUSTS.

A REGULATING MEASURE.

The Church of England Trusts Bill cir-c-uilated. yesterday is a private Bill in charge of Mr. 0. E. Statham (Dunedin Central), which is designed to regulate and . improve tho position of trustees of church lands in relation to the disposal and administration of such lands.

Tho Bill goes back to the early days and .recapitulates that many areas of land were granted to the Church of England for church purposes. Trustees vero'appointed for thesa lands, and powers given for effecting sales, exchanges, and mortgages. While eome trustees have been requiired to. recogniso the authority of either tho general or dioccsan ' synods, others havo not, although some of these have voluntarily dane so. 'I'liis Bill is designed to place a;ll trustees of church lands on a proper basis, and bring them under the control of either the general synod or diocesan synods, as the case may be, for the approval of sales, exchanges, or mortgage transactions. Another matter remedied in the Bill is a slip perpetrated by tlio Statutes Revision Act, 1007. Under tho law several statutes affecting church lands were repealed as being spent. Trustees of tho lands affected wero then loft high and dry so far as real power was concerned. The position was that the Acts were spent over so far as' the bishops wero concerned, but their powers had been transferred to certain trustees witho'ut being destroyed .altogether. This Bill will therefore restoro their rights as from .1907. Clauses (foaling with tho position of church mission lands in '.tho North Island will also bo incorporated in the Bill at d later stago.