Int CHARITABLE TRUSTS COMMISSION.
ONE of the laudable objects sought by the legislation of last ses- sion was to revise the Charitable Trusts of the country, in order to restore them to their original objects, or equivalent purposes, and to rescue them from the huge malversation which diverts so much trust-money to individual profit, without that litigation in Chancery which is as bad as total loss. It has been slow work to get the act passed ; the Commission under it was not finally gazetted until last week ; and even now, while we congratulate ourselves on having got thus far, the long up-hill labour before us looks more formidable than ever, like the mountain-path to the travellers who at last stand close under the Alpine mass.
No sooner are the names announced, than the Commission is attacked as too weak for its office, both in numbers and in the character of its members. The last allegation is inaccurate. The members of the Commission are known for their personal ability, and for their experience in one branch or other of the kind of work before them. Mr. Jones has worked an important Commission—that of Tithe Commutation—through long and difficult labours. Mr. Erie is master of a department of law closely allied with the sub- ject in charge of the new Commission. Sir George Grey has great administrative and official experience, and has not been without opportunity of practice in the special business of examination. The fourth Commissioner, Mr. James Hill, is also regarded as a man of unquestionable ability. In short, if there are any doubts, they are not justified by the quality of the men, but by the dimen- sions of this new machinery as compared- with the work before it. The number of the charities is estimated at upwards of thirty thoutand;* the aggregate property has been stated at 30,000,000/. sterling. From the recent example of St. Cross,-4 charity instituted for poor persons, which furnishes a large propor- tion of the means enjoyed by the Reverend the Earl of Guildford, the singular equivalent for a plurality of poor,—we may be re- minded how complicated is the case of many of these charities. To set four gentlemen in London upon the quest of inquiring into thirty thousand charities, many of them presenting the most Cora. plicated questions of law, right, possession, expediency, and equity, — is indeed to attempt a work confessedly vast and important with a machinery so slight as almost to forbid the hope of any success worth calling by the name. If the men are few, they are not endowed with any very gigantic means to magnify thenj. selves by disregarding time, trouble, or expense. Their aggregate salaries—one' Sir George Grey, rendering his service gratuitously
— are limited to 45001.; a paltry allowance for the exploration of property so vast, so complicated, and so elaborately diverted, no doubt to the amount of millions upon millions, from its proper purposes. Certainly the rescue of so much property seems worth a larger salvage than that allotted to the chief rescuers.
In a letter to Lord Denman on Law Reform Prospects, published in the last Law Review, Lord Brougham, noticing the passing of the Charitable Trusts Bill as one of the most gratifying events of the session, adds—" Our satisfaction is doubtless not a little damped by the reflection, that this important measure ought to have been in full operation at least seven years ago." And the satisfaction is yet further damped when we put to ourselves the question, how long the four Commissioners are likely to be—how many times seven years, in getting over the ground of the thirty thousand charities ? The task almost looks like one of those proposed to unlucky mortals by some malevolent fairy, and only to be accom- plished by the aid of some Prince Permnet. Perhaps, however, this doubt would be relieved if we knew more as to the method by which the Commissioners propose to set out on their immortal task.
It has been in part explained, that the business of the Commis. sioners is not altogether inquiry, unless they be invited to it; but that they constitute in fact a sort of off-lying department of Chan- cery, to investigate on cause shown. But in that case, either the Commissioners will suffer numberless abuses to lie dormant, and will be so far useless, or they will be a little Chancery, overwhelmed with gigantic and innumerable causes.
We can indeed conjecture that the whole of the machinery for the purpose of inquiry is not before the public and that it is not proposed either to let any large proportion of abuses lie undis- turbed, or to extend the examination, by four Commissioners, into all and each one of the thirty thousand cases. The Commissioners might be aided by Assistant-Commissioners, as in the case of the Poor-law Inquiry. The examination into the broad and varied field of Charitable Trusts might be carried on simultaneously at different points ; and instead of attempting the absolute overhaul- ing of each and all of the thirty thousand, it might be possible to collect data for reformatory legislation from specimens only of the different classes. Indeed, more than that could scarcely be neces- sary. It would hardly be within the contemplation of any states- man to frame a statute especially applicable to each one of the thirty thousand. The thing wanted is, to extract from known data the principles of a correct rule for directing how to rescue charities from malversation, how to place them under proper con- trol for the future, and how suitably to appropriate such funds as were originally formed for purposes now obsolete. The prin- ciples of such a law, or of such rules and regulations once con- ceived and laid down, their application to each particular charity would be an administrative subject, properly left to existing tri- bunals, and to be worked as time and opportunity should offer. Explanations on these points are still wanting ; but we must sup- pose that if they were-furnished, they would correct the idea that half-a-dozen gentlemen are to work their way through the thirty thousand cases, before we can arrive at any practical results of the long-desired and much-welcomed reform.
• Law Review for November, page 220.
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