Allegations that the Church participated' in ground rents of houses of "dubious reputation morally" in Maida Vale, and drew income from defective property, were denied at a sitting of the Church Assembly in Westminster on Feb. 10, states the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post."
A resolution drawing attention to a report by Miss Marion Fitzgerald, prepared on the instructions of the Church Union, and demanding that the Church should cease to take income from defective properties, was moved by Mr. G. W. Currie and rejected by the Assembly.
On the motion being put, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Long, announced after a show of hands, "One for, and the Church Assembly against."
Mr. Currie quoted from Miss Fitzgerald's report a statement that a block of 520 flats was definitely bad. with dark and dirty staircases, smelling offensively, and altogether squalid.
Miss Fitzgerald's report is a most damaging, and indeed a most damning, document to be held out for the information of the public regarding the management of any ground landlord's estate," declared Mr. Currie.
Certain property, he continued, had been the source of enormous profits to the Church. The income of one estate in Paddington, which was £13,000 about 40 years ago, was now upwards of £70,000 a year, so that whatever conditions had prevailed in Paddington, they had been a source of considerable profit to the Church,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.