Fishmongers' Company
The deputation withdrew.
Deputation from Fishmongers Company.
The following gentlemen attended as a deputation
from the Fishmongers' Company:—
Mr. John Hampden Fordham, Prime Warden.
Mr. Walter Charles Venning, a senior member of
the Court, three times Prime Warden.
Mr. Joseph Trarers Smith, a senior member of the
Court and past Prime Warden.
3059. (Chairman to Mr. Travers Smith.) I have
read this document, and have no desire to crossexamine you upon it, because it sufficiently speaks for
itself. I will only ask you what I have asked all the
witnesses; you say that your property is in effect
private property ?—So we believe.
3060. Except any that is held (if there is any in
the Fishmongers' Company) upon special trust?—
Upon special trust or condition. I may say that we
have rather a larger amount of strictly trust property
than some of the other companies.
3061. Perhaps not strictly trust, but you maintain it
to be your own private property ?—We maintain that
our corporate property is at our own absolute disposal.
3062. And that it would be the same if it were 10
or 20 times or 100 times as much ?—It would be the
same; at the same time I may add that we quite
recognise that there is a moral duty attaching to the
administration of that property, though not a legal
one.
3063. That is the case of every private proprietor,
is it not ?—In a measure. I think I should like to say
one word, if I may, because it is strictly apropos to
what your Lordship has just said. I have taken out
(knowing that was a subject to which the attention
of the Commissioners had been drawn, and to which
our attention was pointedly drawn in the first questions
that were put to us) a few figures which I think may
not be without interest to the Commissioners. Although we maintain that the property other than the
trust property is at our own absolute disposal, I think
the position of the matter is a little curious in this
respect. The critics of the Company say you are
bound to apply the whole of the increment upon
the property which you receive for objects similar
to those which are the objects of the direct trusts.
We say, on the other hand, that it is at our absolute
disposal; but while that is so, the Companies (at
least the Company whom I have the honour to
represent to-day) have really been spending on charitable objects and objects of beneficence and public
utility very much more than the whole of the increment upon that very property; and not only so, but
they have been spending very much more than the
increment not alone upon that property, but upon the
property which we claim to be at our own disposal as
corporate property, even including in that corporate
property such property as has been derived either
from the fees or gifts or benefactions of our own
members. I will give the Commissioners a few
figures only in reference to that subject, and then
I will not trouble them another moment. In the year
1700 the total net income of the Company was 2,078l.
and some shillings and pence; in the year 1750
it was 5,797l.; in the year 1800 it was 9,728l.,
in the year 1850 it was 17,041; and in the
year 1881 it had increased to 38,500l. Now giving a
few figures as indicative of the distribution of our funds
in the last year that I have mentioned (and that is the
last year for which our accounts have been tabulated
and made up) the 38,500l. in the year 1881 was
applied in this way. In charitable and benevolent
objects internal to the Company, that is their own
members, within a few pounds of 15,000l. during the
year; by way of increment to one of the charities
which has been confided to us (that is St. Peter's Hospital and Alms-houses) 3,400l.; in external charities
(these are votes to various public charitable and beneficent institutions) 4,000l., making 22,400l. applied to
charities and benevolent objects out of an income of
38,500l. In addition to that we gave in that year
4,000l. for technical education, and we gave to trade
objects 1,020l. The expenses of the entertainments
and hospitalities of the Company were about (not
quite but nearly) 5,500l.; so that in the year 1881, the
income of the Company having been 2,078l. at the
beginning of last century, and we having only received
trust property that would pay an income of about
1,200l. a year since the beginning of the last century,
we have spent, and that is not a greater proportion
than has been in accordance with the universal tradition
of the Company over a long series of years, 22,400l.
in direct charitable and beneficent objects, besides
4,000l. on one particular class,—educational objects;
and over 1,000l. (between 1,000l. and 2,000l.) on
trade objects, and the prosecution of offenders under
the Acts relative to the sale of fish, and assisting trade
exhibitions and other matters of that sort. Of course
there is a good deal that I might say in addition, but
if the members of the Commission have no question
to ask I will not intrude further upon them. I
hope at any rate that the very short statement I have
made will satisfy the Commissioners that we are applying not only the whole increment of any property
that could have been treated as affected by a trust
of any sort or kind, but I may say something like ten
times the amount for charitable and beneficent objects,
and that the proportion that we spend either on
hospitality or entertainment or in a merely ornamental
way is comparatively small.
3064. (Sir Richard Cross.) Do you take much
interest in the Fisheries Exhibition going on?—A
great deal. We are taking a very important part, I
think I may say, in reference to that. We are advising
constantly with the governing body of the exhibition,
we have one or two members upon it, we are taking
principal charge of the ceremonial connected with the
opening, and have been really assisting them at all
points. So, I may say, we did with regard to the
Norwich Fish Exhibition, and we gave the use of
our Hall and a very handsome subscription to the
Shipwrights' Company, who are a small company and
not a very powerful one, and with very small means.
Really we paid their expenses in a large degree for
them. That was a sufficiently important object to
have brought the King of Sweden over for the purpose
of inspecting the exhibition, and a great number of
other foreigners of distinction. And in the same way
we have done everything that has been done under
the Acts for the condemnation of fish; wherever we
hear of a breach of these Acts we immediately
prosecute. No private person could do so, because
it is exceedingly troublesome and exceedingly costly;
we do it and do it successfully, and have never failed
in any case. We have practically stopped the
breaches of tho Acts, because we have no cases of the
kind occurring now. Persons find that a powerful
body like the Fishmongers' Company are independent
of the result; they know that we have the best information; they know also that we have practically an
unlimited purse behind us; they know that we are
determined to succeed, and that we have succeeded
in every past case, and the consequence is that we
really have been the best and most effective organization that there could be for carrying out these Acts,
and, I may say, that it was intended that we should
act in that way, because the wording of the principal
Act is this, that the prosecution of the offenders may
be by any authority lawfully acting under any Act,
Charter, or Byelaw, or by any person appointed by
that authority. There is no doubt that those words
were put in to enable the Fishmongers' Company, and
their fish-meters, to prosecute in such cases, because
that Act was promoted by Mr. Frank Buckland, who
was in constant communication with our Company at
that time, as indeed he was, I may say, during his
lifetime with reference to all matters of interest connected with fish culture, and the protection of the
trade. I hope (we all hope) that the Commissioners
are perfectly satisfied not only that we have been
desirous that they should have every possible information that the Company possesses, but that it still is
and always will be absolutely at their command.
(Mr. Venning.) I should like to say that we are
desirous of removing from the mind of the Commission
any unfavourable impression that may have been made
as to the Company's management of their Irish estates
in some of the statements, especially those made by
Dr. Todd. We consider that our conduct has been
very unfairly impugned by his statements.
3065. (Chairman to Mr. Venning.) If there is
anything you wish to say in addition to the statement
already sent in perhaps you will be good enough to
say that first ?—It has been alleged and much insisted
upon that our Irish estate is held upon trust. It is
perfectly clear from the documents that no trust whatever applies to us. There were certain trusts applying
to the Irish Society, but we hold our Irish estate as
undertakers having a clear conveyance from the Irish
Society without any trust implied or stated in any
way.
3066. You say, as I understand, that the twelve
Companies and the Irish Society are separate things ?
—Quite separate things, but it was the aim of Dr.
Todd to blend them. He spoke of certain public
duties which certainly the Irish Society had to perform, and he applied them to the whole of the
companies. It is perfectly clear that His Majesty
King James I. when he proposed that the city of
London should relieve him of the trouble of defending
that part of his dominions from those whom he described as "the mere Irish," intended they should do
so for their profit. He says so in so many words in
the papers he put out.
3067. And possibly for his own profit?—Yes, for
his own, undoubtedly, and to save the public purse,
and the City Companies fully performed that duty.
About the brightest page in Irish history (the raising
of the great siege of Londonderry) was undertaken
mainly at the expense of the London Companies.
They supplied ammunition, they supplied provisions,
and in fact they supplied the men. The deeds contained
an express stipulation against alienation to the "mere
Irish " and to persons who could not take the oath of
supremacy. My friend, Mr. Fordham, reminds me
that, in the great case of the Skinners' Company
against the Irish Society, in which there were opinions
taken with which I may perhaps trouble your Lordship, there are the opinions of Mr. Serjeant Joy and
Mr. John Sylvester, a former recorder of London, that
there was no subsisting trust.
3068. I think the legal members of the Commission
are very well acquainted with that case?—Yes, no
doubt they are. Then, my Lord, I can lay before you
evidence to show that instead of having rack-rented
the tenants, in the invidious sense of that word, we
have been very indulgent landlords. We have never
raised our rents except as the result of valuations
made by Irish valuers. We have never sent a valuer
or estate agent from England, or even from Dublin;
but we went to Londonderry for our valuer, and every
field was valued on its own merits after an examination of the soil and all other particulars. It may be
an interesting fact, with regard to a large estate like
ours, that up to the present time, taking the ten years
over which your Lordship's inquiry ranges, from 1870
to 1879 (and I think it would be gratifying to many
English landlords to be in the same position that we
are)—that in those ten years our loss of rent amounted
to a sum of only 22l. 12s. 6d., that being pretty
good evidence, we imagine, that our Irish tenants
cannot be very severely rack-rented. There are a
multitude of facts of that kind if it were not that one
would be afraid of fatiguing your Lordships by givi g
them.
3069. Though it is a separate thing and independent of law the Irish Society is composed of the
twelve Companies, is it not ?—My Lord, it is a kind
of committee of the Common Council; there are four or
five aldermen and the rest are members of the Common Council, not necessarily connected with any Company whatever.
3070. But as a fact, are they not always members ?
—No, they are chosen from the Common Council:
in former times, I believe, the Common Council were
all members of Companies, but it is not so now. The
Prime Warden reminds me that we took the management of the estate on the death of George the Third
in 1820. During the years that have elapsed since,
the rise of rent on our estate has been perfectly
insignificant; it was valued and let in 1820 at 7,600l.
and it is now rented at only a few hundred pounds
more than it was in the year 1820. It was one of Dr.
Todd's assertions that we had done nothing for our
tenants. We have in the document with which we
have troubled your Lordships, shown that during the
last 60 years we have spent 189,000l. upon various
public works, upon charities, and upon schools. We
have at all times supported schools over the estate in
which the children of working men as well as of
tenants, are educated, and we have spent a considerable
sum upon buildings and roads and plantations. In
fact we have done everything which a prudent landlord
would do under the circumstances, and the expenditure
comes to that large sum of 189,000l. in the 60 years.
Then another fact which we have shown to your Lordship in detail in our statement is the enormous sums
at which our tenants sell their tenant right. Many of
the tenants having leases with about 12 years to run
have sold their tenant right from time to time (we
have rather a long list of them), at an average equal to
25½ years, purchase, which really goes very far to
negative the possibility of there being any "rack-rent"
in our case.
3071. There again you see that is your view. I
do not doubt the fact at all—Yes, it is our view;
but we are prepared to prove every fact of this kind.
Adjourned sine die.