Later Agrarian Legislation. 449 



lieu of tithes was, in twenty-nine counties, 989.^ In this 

 sense therefore the tithe became a tax upon labour and capital, 

 and its collection both unpopular and obnoxious. Thus we 

 find Adam Smith ^ regarding it as a great discouragement 

 both to the improvements of the landlords and to the culti- 

 vation of the farmers ; and Archdeacon Paley ^ describing it as 

 a tax not only upon industry, but upon that industry which 

 feeds mankind ; and as a burden failing entirely upon tillage, 

 and operating as a bounty upon pasture. 



We shall now show that it was, under the methods employed 

 for its collection up to the Commutation Act of 1836, almost 

 equally obnoxious to every member of the community. From 

 the mode of its imposition not only did the producer suffer 

 annoyance, but the consumer also ; not only the tithe-paj^er, 

 but the tithe-owner ; not only the farmer, but the landlord. 

 And there was scarcely an agricultural survey sent up to the 

 Board of Agriculture that did not contain unfavourable com- 

 ments on one or more of its many evils. 



The farmer regarded it both as a premium on slovenly hus- 

 bandry and as a charge not so much on the natural produce 

 of the soil as on his capital. Of whatever profit he derived 

 by means of monies paid away to his landlord or his labourers 

 in rent or wages he was mulcted of a tenth for the benefit 

 of the tithe-owner. An acre of land which but for the 

 instrumentality of his skill and labour would have been 

 wholly uuremunerative, became a source of income to an un- 

 deserving outsider. If, for example, he paid £100 in the 

 improvement and cultivation of his farm, and sold the crop for 

 £110, the profit of £10 went in tithes, so that it would have 

 been preferable for him to have laid out his capital in any 

 other manner if only he could have insured the smallest 

 rate of interest.'* It was said that at the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century there were, besides commons and wastes, 

 large areas of fertile soil which were allowed to remain under 



^ Parliamentary Return, Tithe Commutation, March 26, 1867. 



* Wealth 0/ JS'ations, ch. iii. 



^ Moral and Folitical Philosophy, ch. ii. p. 406. 



* Vide Marshall's Essay s on Rural Affairs. 



II. G a 



