II.— THE EFFECT UPON THE TITHEOWNER. 



In my fii-sfc letter I endeavoured to show how strong and 

 widespread an impression waa growing up that the parochial 

 clergy ai'e evading their fair share of agricultural loss, or barely 

 touch with their little fingers the heavy burden which has 

 crashed the landed interests. Because the clergy have been 

 patient, long-suffering, and silent, it is supposed that they are in 

 no distress. Under such circumstances they can no longer afford 

 to hide their losses or to conceal their self-denying struggles to 

 do their duty both by the land and their profession. The con- 

 dition of many of the country parsons, and especially of the 

 glebeowners, is disastrous, if it is not absolutely ruinous ; no 

 one who investigates the facts can continue to believe that they 

 either enjoy immunity from agricultural distress, or refuse to 

 extend a hand to sinking tenants. I hope to show that the 

 clergy as a body are bearing an equal, and sometimes an 

 excessive, share in the general calamity, and that, in the face of 

 legal impediments, by which no other class of agriculturists is 

 hampered, they are striving at the cost of heavy self-sacrifices 

 to meet the unexampled difficulties of their present jDosition. 



In this second letter I propose to deal with the clerical tithe- 

 owners, to show how their incomes have been affected by 

 agricultural depression, and to discuss the honesty of the anti- 

 tithe agitation. From the nature of the subject and the very 

 varying circumstances of different localities, only general state- 

 ments are possible. Cases must necessarily occur in which many 

 of my remarks cease to be applicable or require large modifica- 

 tions. 



It is possible that at the present moment titheowners, both 

 lay and ecclesiastical, are suffering less than ordinary owners or 

 occupiers of land. Though this seeming inequality is, in the 

 case of clerical titheowners, with which alone I am concerned, 

 more apparent than real, it is aggravated by political agitation 

 and exaggerated by the results of the almost universal arrange- 

 ment which renders occupiers liable for the tithe rent-charge. 

 A popular feeling has been created against tithe which is with 

 difficulty removed. Farmers themselves believe that they pay 

 the tithe out of their own reduced capital ; they see that the 

 present value of the charge is disproportionate to the prices 

 they themselves receive for corn ; and they naturally resent the 

 payment. In point of fact tenant farmers have as little to do 

 with tithe as they have with the land-tax ; they are merely its 

 transmitters, the conduit pipes thi-ough which landowners pay 



