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HOUSE OF LORDS,
Tuesday, 14th July, 1885.
VESTRY OF ST. MATTHEW, BETHNAL GREEN,
Appellants,
and
PERKINS AND OTHERS,
Respondents.
Budgment.
LORD BLACKBURN.—My Lords,—This is an appeal against an Order of
the Court of Appeal, affirming a Rule of the Queen's Bench Division that a
peremptory Mandamus should issue.
There are some allegations on the part of the Defendants, apparently not
disputed as to the state of facts, which immediately preceded the passing of the
8th and 9th Victoria, chapter 180. It was argued that the rule of the Queen's
Bench Division was at all events erroneous, as the Mandamus ought to have
been in such a form as to permit a return to be made ; but those facts, so far as
they are relevant, are only as to aiding the Court in construing that Statute, and
are not such as could have been made the subject of a return.
The question is one depending on the construction of several Acts. That
which it is convenient to consider first is the Compulsory Church Rate Abolition
Act, 1868, 31 and 32 Victoria, chapter 109. The Legislature thought it expedient
to put an end to the power to compel payment of Church Rates which are
defined to be rates for any of the purposes to which, by common or ecclesiastical
law, a Church Rate is applicable.
By section 2 it provides for cases "where, in pursuance of any general or
local Act, any rate may be made or levied which is applicable partly to
ecclesiastical and partly to other purposes," which I thiuk it Avas truly said
shows that it was not intended by the Legislature that the mere fact that a
Church Rate was the creature of a local statute should take it out of the
general powers of the Act.