LEGACIES FOR CHURCH WORK

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1930, Page 13

LEGACIES FOR CHURCH WORK

QUESTION OF DISTRIBUTION.

WAIKATO DIOCESE HAS CLAIM.

(By Wire —Special to News.) ■ Hamilton, ’ Last Night.

A peculiar position regarding the disbursal of legacies totalling £l5OO left by Mr. J. P. Campbell, solicitor, Auckland, who died in 1926, was nvoaled in discussion at the Waikato Diocesan Synod last evening. According to a lengthy outline of the circumstances by Mr. E. A. Swarb'rick (Te AWainutu) the late Mr. Campbell, who until 1912 was a Presbyterian, bequeathed £lOOO to the general sustentation fund and £5OO to the home mission fund of the Anglican Church of New Zealand. St. Mark’s Church, Remuera, Auckland, was also supposed "to benefit by the will. Ultimately it was found that no such funds as those mentioned in the will existed.

The will was interpreted by the Supreme Court, and in a judgment delivered last March Mr. Justice Smith ruled that there was no fund to which the legacies could be specifically applied, and that the legacies should be disbursed according to the general charitable intention of the testator. The general intention was that the legacies should not benefit any particular parish or diocese, but that they should be distributed for the benefit of the Church of New Zealand as a whole.

It was relevant, added Mr. Swarbriek, that at the time the will was made the Waikato diocese was part of the undivided Auckland diocese, and it was a question whether Waikato should get a share of the legacy. The question of how the legacy should be applied had been submitted to all the other dioceses, and the Wellington Synod had last week passed a resolution expressing the opinion that the legacies should be allocated to the central fund of the Auckland diocese. Sir. Swarbriek moved that the Waikato diocese claim a share of 'the legacies of £lOOO and £5OO and consent to the apportionment of such legacies between such dioceses as should claim shares and in such proportions as the standing committee should agree. Mr. Swarbriek pointed out that the Supreme Court had held that the legacies could not go to St. Mark's Parish, therefore they would go either to the Auckland diocese or to the Dominion. If they were to go to the Auckland diocese then that should be to the diocese constituted when the will -was made in 1923, and when Mr. Campbell died in 1926. If the legacies would go to the old undivided diocese then Waikato should get one-third in conformity with the arrangement for the distribution of the assets of the old diocese. If, on the other hand the legacies should go to the Dominion, then Waikato should get its share of one-seventh.

There was a lengthy discussion of various legal aspects of the question, after which the motion was carried by a good majority.