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persevered in throughout prosperous seasons, is now made the 

 excuse to bring pressure to bear upon the titheowner to waive his 

 legal rights. A correspondent of a leading London daily paper 

 warns the clergy against swelling the cry that the rent-charge 

 should be levied upon the landlords, lest that class be turned 

 from friends into foes. Every one is aware that landed interests 

 have suffered heavily by agricultural depression ; and the 

 clergy, who have in countless instances received sympathy, aid, 

 and encouragement from their squires, are probably the 

 last people who would wish to add to the burdens of 

 landlords. But if landowners have all along paid the 

 tithe, if they have only used farmers as the transmitters 

 of their money, there can be no additional burden in the 

 resumption by the real paymaster of his legal obligation. 

 Many landlords have already accepted the duty, which has 

 always remained theirs, of paying the tithe themselves 

 directly. Higher interests are at stake than those of money. 

 The continuance of the present arrangement imperils the stability 

 of the Church as well as of the fundamental principles of pro- 

 perty. Compulsion is an ugly word ; but, if landowners will 

 not voluntarily accept their legal position, they must be com- 

 pelled to do so. 



It is, I think, plain that the tithe rent-charge must be paid by 

 landlords not mediately, but in the first instance. It is a fluc- 

 tuating payment dependent on septennial averages. If the 

 average was triennial, as has been proposed by the Essex Chamber 

 of Agriculture, or even if it was computed annually, the 

 aggregate payment in a series of years is necessarily the same. 

 The landowner is a permanent holder of land ; the farmer a 

 temporary occupier. It does not concern the permanent holder 

 whether the tithe rent-charge is calculated on a septennial or 

 triennial average, or even whether it is annually computed ; to 

 him it will be the same thing in the long run. But the inci- 

 dence of a septennial average may affect temporary occupiers 

 injuriously. If the payment of the tithe is resumed by the 

 landlord, nothing need be said respecting the redemption of 

 small tithes in towns ; they will be paid in a lump sum by the 

 landlord instead of being collected in driblets with great diffi- 

 culty and at considerable expense from a number of small 

 struggling occupiers. For the same reason the various sugges- 

 tions for fixing a new period for the average need scarcely be 

 considered. Many high agricultural authorities urge that the 

 charge should vary with the prices of each year. The present 

 state of foreign politics seems to render such a change detri- 

 mental to the interests both of titheowner and tithepayer. War 

 would raise prices rapidly and largely ; they would fluctuate 

 quickly. Not only would the titheowner's income be unsettled, but 



