26 



the land, thoagh possibly a third of the amount has not been 

 realised. Finally, the figures do not in other respects appear 

 to be absolutely reliable. I visited five of the parishes included 

 in the return, and took down from the lips of the incumbents, 

 or have since received in their handwriting, independent 

 accounts of the very heavy losses which they had sustained and 

 were still sustaining in the period covered by the official return. 

 In two out of the five parishes the ofiBcial return did not 

 disclose the facts which had been made known to me. 

 Probably the incumbents, weary of making returns, repeated 

 as the net value in 1886 the net value of six years before. 

 I also compared a lai-ge number of returns which I had obtained 

 personally with those made to CrochforcV s Directory for 1885. 

 In seventeen cases the printed returns gave no hint of losses 

 which, as compared with the income of 1874, ranged from 30 to 

 70 per cent. Probably some of the printed returns may have 

 been corrected in the Directory for 1886. But they were equally 

 misleading when they were made in 1885. Doubtless to furnish 

 returns is not the most important duty of clergymen, even in 

 the case of publications which are recognised as semi-official 

 statements of the endowments of the Church. Yet reticence 

 seems here to be carried beyond the limits of prudence. Even 

 land-hunger might be sated by a feast upon facts. The other 

 day I read in a pamphlet published by the Liberation Society 

 that it was notorious that the returns made hy the clergy of the 

 value of their benefices were 25 per cent, heloiu their real value. 

 It is impossible to rebut the charge by appealing to the accuracy 

 of Crochford's Directory ; and practical men might say that the 

 accusation served the clergy right. 



Many of the examples which I now proceed to give are 

 extre7ne instances of the effects of agricultural depression. I 

 do not wish it to be supposed that the condition of the glebe- 

 owners is universally so disastrous. Some of the cases show a 

 reduction in rental of from 80 to 90 per cent. ; others show a 

 loss, not only of the entire rental, but of private capital besides. 

 The cases cited of losses sustained from inability to find tenants 

 fairly represent general results. But the effect of agricultural 

 depression is less uniform where tenants have been obtained. 

 So far as I have been able to judge the actual depreciation in 

 the average rental of glebe livings between 1874 and 1886 

 varies from 33 per cent, to 50 per cent., or between one-third 

 and a half. Taking the glebes which are thrown on the hands 

 of their owners with those which have been let at reduced 

 rentals, the depreciation may be estimated at between a half 

 and two-thirds iipon the previous rentals. But, as I have 

 before said, the mere reduction of the rental does not at all 

 x-epi'esent the actual loss sustained. 



