HEIRS OF LAND ROBBERS

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 22 June 1912, Page 9

HEIRS OF LAND ROBBERS

In the course of a debate in the •House of Commons upon the Welsh Disestablishment Bill recently, Mr Lloyd Greorge said that the strongest opponents of the disendowment proposals were the descendants of those who had been mmcheci at the time of the Heforaa uon by grants of property forcibly taken from the Church. The remark was resented by Lord Hugh Cecil, who had been foremost in championing the ?!£L serf in Wales, i hat is not true of my family at least/ he said. The Chancellor seems to have been content to let the matter rest there, but some- newspaper correspondents were less kindly, and in the succeeding days some interesting light was thrown upon the past history of the Cecil family. Professor A. F. Pollard or the London University, stated in the limes that the foundation of the Cecil fortunes had been laid by an ancestor who had held public office in the reign ot Edward VI. and had received a large share oi Church lands. A correspondent of the Daily Chronicle quoted from old records to show that Richard Cecil, a favorite of Henry VIII., had secured many blocks of land that had been taken from the Church and that succeeding generations had added to the family wealth in the same easy manner I o-day the Cecils still hold some land that was once a part of the endowments of the Church. Lord Hugh Cecil replied that he, at any rate, held none of the properties. "If they had come my way," he added, "I should have enjoyed them without scruple, for I am sure that long prescription constitutes, in morals as in law, a perfectly good title to property. The iast word was with Professor Pollard. "I agree with Lord Hugh Cecil that descent from a thief should debar no one from denouncing theft," he said. "But to my mind the inheritance and retention of stolen property should debar in such a case. No doubt there is a statute of limitations, but I doubt its application in the moral sphere." The position from the point of view of the Members of the Cecil family seem* to be a little difficult.