32 



IV.— THE RELIEF OF THE TITHEOWNER. 



Tithe rent-charges and glebe lands are assailed from uiany 

 different points. Objections may be urged against the first 

 which do not apply to the second. Yet both forma of property 

 may be attacked on the common ground of religion and of 

 agriculture. One group of assailants rallies round the banner of 

 Disestablishment and Disendowment. One division of this 

 pai'ty, waiving the question of property which is involved, urges 

 that parochial endowments are public property in the same 

 absolute sense as the produce of the taxes ; the other asserts, 

 without any violation of legal principles, that all property devoted 

 to the maintenance of religion may be, and ought to be, appro- 

 priated by the nation, because the purpose to which it is 

 dedicated is obsolete, if not mischievous. Either section of this 

 party would be content to preserve tithe rent-charges, and to 

 apply their proceeds to secular objects. With this side of the 

 attack I do not propose to deal. 



The second point of view from which glebe lands and tithe 

 rent-charges are assailed is that of the agriculturist. In the 

 interests of farming the only objection to the tithe rent-charge 

 is not its object, but its existence. It is said that the tithe 

 rent-charger is a sleeping partner, and the glebeowner a hybrid 

 landlord who is over-indulgent to bad tenants and rarely helps 

 those who are disposed to improve their holdings ; neither is, in 

 fact, in a position to do his duty by the land. This charge is 

 in the main true. On general grounds it is eminently desirable 

 that the land should be freed from all fixed charges, so that its 

 use and occupation may be absolutely free and unrestricted. 

 Similarly it is essential that owners and occupiers of land should 

 enjoy ample security for their outlay of capital, and should 

 feel the strongest inducements to develop to the utmost the 

 resources of the soil. Agriculture demands the removal, as 

 far as possible, of fixed charges secured upon land, and the 

 general substitution of full ownership for limited life-interests. 



Both the temporal and spiritual interests of the clergy seem 

 to demand that their incomes should be derived from another 

 source than land ; a revenue derived from land is at the present 

 day neither dignified nor secure. A fluctuating, uncertain income, 

 greatly diminished by the expenses of collection, subject to 

 large deductions for bad debts, extracted after long delays, and 

 often at the cost of bitter irritation, from the pockets of distressed 

 parishioners is in many respects a less desirable revenue than 

 a stipend smaller in amoi;nt but punctually paid, a stipend 



