MR. PICTON AS CONSERVATOR OF HANOVER CHAPEL.
IT is the attribute of genius to refer the most trifling incidents to great principles. Nothing gives so much dignity to life, nothing makes us feel so strongly that even when we are to all appearance busied with petty common- places, we are all the time close to the Infinite and the Eternal. The House of Commons was on Tuesday in- debted to Mr. Picton for thus recalling it to the great realities among which he, at all events, habitually lives and moves. The question under discussion was one of those fragments of legislation which our administrative system forces now and and again upon the attention of Par- liament. There is in Regent Street a chapel known to many as affording by means of its portico a convenient shelter in a summer shower. Perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we say that it is not known for very much else. The population of Regent Street is rather a week-day than a Sunday population. The district attached to the chapel contains both rich and poor ; but the rich go into the country from Saturday to Monday, and the poor prefer to live where rents are lower. It is obvious that if the chapel were brought nearer to them, it would be more likely to be of use, and the accidents of its situation make its removal not only possible, but expedient even on other grounds. There is no house for the clergyman, and the high rents which rule in the neighbourhood make this want specially inconvenient. In another way, however, the value of the land is a real advantage. If Hanover Chapel were removed, the site would fetch a great deal of money ; and the Duke of Westminster has made its removal easy. He has offered a site in Davies Street—just the part of the district where the church would be of most service—and the money to be derived from the sale of the Regent Street site would provide for the building and endowment of the new church and of a vicarage adjoining it. Everybody concerned is naturally anxious to have this scheme carried out. There has not, in fact, been a single instance of local opposition.
Outside the district, however, there has been a good deal. The Vestry of St. George's, Hanover Square, dis- like the removal of human remains from the vaults under- neath the chapel. The Institute of British Architects and the Council of the Royal Academy wish the chapel to be retained as an architectural feature. Whatever be the worth of these objections, they are not sufficient to justify the rejection of the Bill. The Select Committee to which the Bill will, as a matter of course, be referred, is perfectly competent to deal with them. Supposing that the bones which lie underneath the chapel are decently conveyed to another resting-place, it will hardly be contended that the upper end of Regent Street is a specially fitting receptacle for the sainted dead. Only an unusually sociable ghost could derive satisfaction from the thought that the body which was once his still reposed in the great pleasure- thoroughfare of London. As to the architectural beauty of the church, we confess ourselves a little sceptical, and even if it be the gem it is sometimes described, we fancy it might be reproduced for some secular purpose elsewhere.
It was reserved for Mr. Picton to lift the controversy to a higher level. In his hands it at once became the theme of a second-reading debate. He opposed the Bill on the broad ground that it offended his conservative instincts. It involves a change, and he is opposed to all change whatever,—unless it is proved to be necessary. This proviso -undoubtedly covers a good deal. There are not many changes the necessity of which has not been proved to Mr. Picton's satisfaction. But easily convinced as he is, his underlying conservatism occasionally peeps out. He does not think the removal of Hanover Chapel necessary. Indeed, there are, to his mind, very weighty reasons why it should not be removed. This innocent-seeming private Bill is really a fraud on the taxpayers of the country. Its authors are trying to make Hanover Chapel a sort of ark which may float unharmed over the flood of Disestablish- ment and Disendowment. Nothing can avert or long postpone this beneficent revolution ; but if this Bill passes, Hanover Chapel will have a good chance of being treated as the property of a private corporation, and of being thus protected against the hand of the spoiler. It is a little difficult to follow Mr. Picton's reasoning on this head. The Regent Street site did, it seems, originally belong to the Crown ; but if Mr. Picton maintains that pro- perty that has once belonged to the Crown can never cease to belong to it, he is committed to a very far- reaching proposition. The present owners of the site hold it on the same terms as any other holders of property derived by the same process from the same source. As any other owners might, they wish to dispose of it, and the purpose for which the ground was originally conveyed to them will directly benefit by the sale. Mr. Picton's conservatism suggests to him that because Disestablish- ment and Disendowment may come some day, the principle which underlies them should be accepted in advance, and allowed to govern the action of Parliament as absolutely as though a Disestablishment Act had already been passed. The Church must not make what is admitted to be a good use of her property while she has it, because it may here- after be taken away from her. In that case, every sale of land. ought at once to be forbidden, because land-nationalisers tell us it will by-and-by be appropriated by the community. Indeed, we hardly know why the prohibition should be restricted to land, for there are not many kinds of property which somebody or other does not propose to take possession of some day.
Mr. Labouchere took another objection to the Bill. To him it seems intended to endow not so much the Church of England as the Duke of Westminster ; and if there be a thing he loves less than the Church, it is a Duke. It unfortunately happens that you cannot build a church without making the neighbouring property more valuable ; and it necessarily follows, according to Mr. Labou- chere's theory of the syllogism, that no man can build or help to build a church on his own property with any other intention than that of making it more valuable. To this kind of church-building Mr. Labouchere will be no party. It is not enough that a church should make the people round it better; it must also be shown that it will not make the owner of the neighbouring property richer. This seems to us a little hard on the poor who happen to be thus unfortunately placed. It is no fault of the dwellers in the mews and yards about Davies Street that the ground belongs to the Duke of Westminster ; why should Mr. Labouchere be so anxious to punish them for a crime with which they have nothing to do ? We can quite understand Mr. Labou- chere's repugnance to the thought of putting money into a Duke's pocket ; but he may find some comfort in the thought that if the site on which it is proposed to build the new church is worth £20,000, the Duke of West- minster might equally put money into his pocket by selling it for some other purpose. Land is so valuable in that part of London, that even Mr. Labouchere's ingenuity cannot prevent the owner from reaping a profit from it. The aesthetic objection to the project was only supported by Mr. Norris, and even he did not assert that London would be much the loser by the removal of the chapel. His principal objection was that the site would be occupied by dressmakers and milliners, and that of both Regent Street had already enough. We cannot bring ourselves to think that two or three more milliners' shops will do as much harm as the opening of a new church in a crowded district is likely to do good. The only wonder is, that ninety-one Members should have been found ready on one or other of such grounds as these, to vote against the second reading of this useful little Bill.
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