Since the printing of the report, said Mr. Clear, subscriptions now totalled approximately Tls. 7,520, which reduced their balance required to meet all expenses and hal ilities to Tls. 7,364. Endeavours were made from time to time to show the whole of their liabilities and expenditure under one total, which was Tls. 14,884, including the deficit for 1922. A sub-committee Fad been appointed to go into the question of finances with a view to increasing the income of the Cathedral. He trusted that whea their recommendations. were known they would meet with the fullest support. Regular collections relieved to a large extent expenses unde the heading of assistant clergy. They were proud to maintain the reputation of the Cathedral-as a distributing centre for charitable purposes.
Before the passage of the budget, Mr. Downie spoke on the question of pew rents. Fifty annual subscribers were holding one or more scats. From that total it could not be said that. the firms themselves divided up the interest in the Cathedral's welfare. He would like te point out that it might not be o hardship to anybody if the Cathedral were open to all and the seats free. "It would do away," he continued, "with a Lot of what I should hardly like to call unpleasantness, but it sometimes does exist. Of course, I know I shall be told immediately that if you take away the pew, rents you destroy a good part of the income. On the contrary, I am inclined think that if you could persuade your present renters to call their rents subscriptions, and put it to them in a nice way, they would not cancel these sums of money." The Church being open to all would mean more subscribers, he went on. Every time they came to the Cathedral they had to ask some one at the door where they could sit. Usually if they wanted a seat they could not have it. They had to repeat this performance every Sunday.
The Dean pointed out that five minutes before the Sunday service all seats in the Cathedral became automatically free.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.