LEGACY TO CHURCH.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18067, 9 July 1930, Page 9

LEGACY TO CHURCH.

AN ANGLICAN ENIGMA. •« WHO SHOULD BENEFIT? * WAIKATO SYNOD’S CLAIM. A peculiar position regarding the disbursal of legacies totalling £ISOO left by Mr J. P. Campbell, solicitor, of Auckland, who died in 1926, was revealed in a discussion at the Waikato Diocesan Synod last evening. According to a lengthy outline of the circumstances given by. Mr F. A. Swarbrick (Te Awamutu) the late Mr Campbell, until 1912 a Presbyterian, bequeathed £IOOO to .the General Sustentation Fund and £SOO to the Home Mission Fund of the Anglican Church of New Zealand. St. Mark’s Church, Remuera, Auckland, was also purposed 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 Province of New Zealand as a whole. Position of Waikato. ... It was relevant, added Mr Swarbrick, that at the time the will was made 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 ex-. pressing the opinion that the legacies should be allocated to the Central Fund of the Auckland Diocese. Mr Swarbrick moved “ that this Diocese claims a share of the legacies of £IOOO and £SOO left undfer the will of the late Mr J. P. Campbell and oonsents to an apportionment of such legaoies between such dioceses as shall claim a share thereof and in such proportions as standing committee shall agree.” Continuing, Mr Swarbrick pointed out that the Supreme Court held the legacies could not go to St. Mark’s parish. Therefore they would go either to the Auckland Diocese or' to the Province. If they were to go to the Auckland Diocese then it should be the diocese as 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 Province, then Waikato should get its share of oneseventh. ” > There was a lengthy discussion on various legal aspects of the question after which the motion was carried by a good majority.