In the House of Commons on Thursday, November 25th, the
City Churches Measure, which was presented by Lord Hugh_ Cecil for the Royal Assent, was emphati- cally rejected. Lord Hugh admitted the formidable nature of the opposition from the City Corporation and from that great body of artistic opinion which reveres the stones of London, but he thought the alarm unneces- sary. The Ecclesiastical Committee, he said, regarded the Bill as protecting rather than threatening buildings of aesthetic value. For his part he had refused consent to the demolition proposed by the Phillimore Committee, but he was the author of the present Bill which could not, in the circumstances, be very ecclesioclastic. The Bill pro- vided for that general reorganization and for that assign- ment of churches to other than parochial purposes which were at present impossible. That was why he said that the measure would save churches which would otherwise be in extreme danger. Further, the proposed protectfre Commission would have a permanent secular majority and there would be a compulsory reference of any scheme of demolition to the Fine Arts Commission.
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