Mr. Montague Crackanthorpe, the eminent barrister, sent a most interesting
and instructive letter to the Times of this day week, on the various attempts that have been made, first, to tax charities, and then, when that appeared to be quite con- trary to the disposition of the public,—though there are a good many charities which do as much harm as good,—to make them at least pay the expenses of the Charity Commission, which was never originally intended to be a gratuitous grant in aid to all sorts of charities, religious and otherwise, at the cost of a public of which a great portion seriously dis- approves of some of them. The Charity Commission now costs close upon £40,000 a year, and practically does for a great number of charities the work of legal adviser and draughtsman, and even gives legal sanction to many of their schemes, without charging them a penny for the advice or the schemes drawn up and passed into law. Yet from 1844 onwards, the Bills introduced for the purpose of establishing a State inspection of charities all contained clauses providing for the expenses incurred out of the charities. In 1863, Mr. Gladstone made a great effort to persuade the House of Com- mons to tax charities, though, in Mr. Crackanthorpe's opinion, his arguments, powerful as they were, were "overwrought to such a degree that he estranged more men than he convinced ;" and the House itself has sometimes expressed its opinion in favour of making the charities that have been aided and reformed pay their own expenses. Nevertheless, the principle has never been put in force up to the present time. Mr. Crackanthorpe holds that if Parliament does not soon legalise some measure for making the charities aided pay the expense of the Commission, we may have a formidable popular attack on the principle of taxing the public in aid of charities to which a large part of the people, do not assent, and of which they sometimes seriously disapprove.
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