raising money which threaten to turn the year of Jubilee into 

 a year of tribulation. 



Glebeowners have sunk a large amount of private capital in 

 the improvement of their lands, for the repayment of which 

 they have no security and on which they receive no interest. 

 Again they have charged their glebes with heavy loans raised 

 for the same purpose from Land Improvement Companies. If 

 the land is unlet the premiums fall into arrear, and the com- 

 panies or their assignees are compelled to foreclose. By 

 this process two livings have been already disendowed, and 

 the same fate hangs suspended by a hair over several 

 midland county benefices. All the possible increase on the 

 Ijresent value of the land is for ever lost to the Church. 

 Again, clergymen in more prosperous times incurred charges 

 to Queen Anne's Bounty for building houses ; these charges 

 now hang like millstones round their necks. Again, pensions 

 were granted to retiring incumbents under the Incumbents' 

 Eesignation Act, which were calculated upon the old value 

 of the living, but which have now become wholly dispro- 

 portionate. The result of the loss of private capital and of the 

 incidence of these annual fixed charges is that, as their incomes 

 fall, clergymen are compelled to sell, pledge, or drop their life 

 insurances, and thus to leave their families wholly unpro- 

 vided for. 



In the foregoing paragraph'are summed up some of the most 

 disastrous results to the Church and the clergy of the agricul- 

 tural depression. Is there any remedy? I should propose that 

 a fund be raised for the purpose of redeeming the charges 

 held by Land Improvement Companies and, in cases where the 

 charge was reasonably incurred, by Queen Anne's Bounty, and 

 extending the period over which is to be spread the repayment 

 of princiijal and interest. The relief to individuals would be 

 great and immediate ; and the Church would escajDe the danger 

 of being disendowed through foreclosure of mortgages. The 

 income or, if a sufficient sum were raised, the surplus might be 

 devoted towards the following purposes : — 1. In case of the 

 death or resignation of glebeowners, who have sunk private 

 capital on their glebes in structui-al improvements or improve- 

 ments of so permanent a nature as drainage, compensation 

 should be offered to them, or their representatives, and a 

 charge be taken upon the benefice for the repayment of the 

 amount, priuciiJal and interest. 2. An amendment of the 

 Incumbents' Eesignation Act seems imminent ; a sliding scale 



