vii into the rental. The net rental receipts are also diminished by an increase in the rental outgoings, especially in respect to rates on the increased receipts from tithe rentcharge and the payment for the first time of the Royalties Welfare Levy. The income and expenditure of the Common Fund for the past year may be summarised as follows:-The net Rental of Estates for the year to 31st March 1927 was £1,466,400, from which must be deducted the sum credited in last year's account, viz., £50,500 leaving £1,415,900; £43,900 is brought into account in respect of the year to 31st March 1928, Dividends and Interest produced £1,201,800. The addition of the balance brought forward, viz., £270,100, makes the total available income £2,931,700. Of this amount, £2,035,100 was employed in payments to Benefices, Bishops and Chapters and in defraying other charges, including expenses of administration and income tax; £80,000 was transferred to the Minerals Depreciation Fund; £466,200 was appropriated as capital for the further endowment of Benefices, &c.; £10,000 was set aside to supplement the provision referred to in the Commissioners 73rd Report, against the liability for the Stipends, &c., falling due on the day following the close of the accounts, and £50,000 was appropriated as a first instalment towards the replacement of the £350,000 transferred to the Church of England Pensions Board under the Clergy Pensions Measure, 1926; the balance of £290,400 was carried forward to the new account. The Commissioners anticipate a surplus of income in the current year, and (after providing thereout and out of the balance brought forward a sum of £50,000 as a second instalment towards the replacement of the sum of £350,000 paid by them out of a capital account to the Clergy Pensions Board under the Clergy Pensions Measure, 1926) they propose to make an appropriation of the capital sum of £450,000, to be allocated to the following classes of grants :(1) £250,000 in meeting Benefactions offered in favour on Benefices by grants of capital for the augmentation of incomes, or towards providing or improving Parsonage Houses, and in meeting Benefactions for the provision of endowment funds for the maintenance of Assistant Curates for parishes where the population is not less than 5,000, and in other circumstances. (2) £100,000 in endowing New Districts with not more than £250 per annum in accordance with regulations shortly to be issued. (3) £100,000 in meeting Local Claims. During a period of eighty-seven years, extending from 1840 (when the Common Fund was established) to the 31st of October last the Commissioners (in addition to their augmentations of Benefices in the Welsh Dioceses, the benefit of which has in the main been retained by the Church in Wales on Disestablishment) 2 29593 B 3 have permanently augmented or endowed upwards of 8,900 Benefices in the English Dioceses by annual payments charged on the Fund; by capital sums expended in the provision of Parsonage Houses, &c., and by the annexation of lands, tithe rentcharges, &c. The value of these grants exceeds £1,505,500 per annum in perpetuity. The value of Benefactions, consisting of lands, tithe and other rentcharges, stock, cash, &c., secured to Benefices, and met for the most part by grants from the Commissioners, exceeds £360,900 per annum in perpetuity, and in addition a sum of not less than £50,000 per annum is contributed by Benefactors to meet temporary grants for Curates. The increased provision for the cure of souls in necessitous parishes in the English Dioceses thus resulting from the operations of the Commissioners exceeds in value £1,916,400 per annum. In addition the Commissioners (apart from the capital sums of £350,000 and £500,000 respectively devoted to the establishment of the Clergy Pensions Scheme, and the new Scheme for Ecclesiastical Dilapidations under the Measure of 1923) are paying £100,000 per annum in perpetuity towards the provision of Clergy Pensions. All which is reported by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England. In witness whereof the said Commissioners have hereunto set their Common Seal this fifteenth day of March in the year One thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight. L.S. SUMMARY OF RENTAL ACCOUNTS FROM RECEIVERS, &c. :-(AS REGARDS 96,709 6 5 ... 1,332 19 1 24,397 14 9 2,943 3 8 TO ANNUITIES to certain Ecclesiastical Corporations and other parties, formerly charged upon the Consolidated Fund but now payable by the Commissioners under the Act 45 & 46 Vict., c. 72, s. 23 ... TO ARCHDEACONRIES AUGMENTED AND ENDOWED in respect of augmentation ... £ 8. d. 47,900 0 0 30,667 12 10 410 10 2 78,978 3 0 ... 2,277 16 10 76,700 6 2 £ 8. d. TO PAYMENTS TO CHAPTERS AND VICARS CHORAL, &c., viz. :- TO SUNDRY PAYMENTS under the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Measure, 1926, &c. ... TO SURVEYORS' CHARGES, &c. TO ARCHITECTS' CHARGES TO INCOME TAX : Payments by the Commissioners in respect Allowances on payments made to Bishops, Less: £ 8. d. 569,456 16 3 ... ... ... 160,400 4 4 £ 8. d. 5 4 Deductions from payments made to 494,313 8 8 530,660 14 0 199,196 6 7 Carried forward - £2,935,076 11 9 |