168 PKOTECTION AND TITHES 



without circumlocution, must be cut down to relieve 

 landlords and tenants. In the first place, the Act of 1836 

 was designed to fix proportions not between rent-charges 

 and the value of the land out of which they issued, but 

 between rent-charges and their purchasing power in coin, 

 to commute tithe of produce in kind for variable money 

 payments charged upon the land, and maintain existing 

 relations between values of titheable produce and prices 

 of living. So far as the Act has failed, it has failed 

 because it has not guarded the interests of tithe-owners. 

 In the second place, even if the real issue was whether 

 the tithe rent-charge is disproportionate to the value of 

 land and ought to be readjusted, the factors in the 

 question are the relations which the charge bears to the 

 rentals of 1829-35 and 1 887, not those which it bore to the 

 rentals of 1870-80. Those who bought land fifteen years 

 ago purchased unprofitable bargains, and undoubtedly 

 the tithe rent-charge has not decreased proportionately to 

 their rentals. But this fact, though it may elicit sympathy, 

 is beside the mark. The question is — does the tithe rent- 

 charge at 3^ millions bear a relation to the rental of 1887 

 disproportionate to that which it bore at four millions to 

 the rental of 1836 ? The answer can only be in the 

 negative. Assume that rentals in 1 887 have fallen to the 

 figure at which they stood in 1836, and no one can 

 pretend that they have fallen below twenty-eight millions, 

 there still remains a considerable margin in favour of 

 the tithe-owner.* 



' Sir James Caird takes 33 millions as the amount of rental in 1S36. 

 If this figure had been arrived at by Sir James himself, it would com- 

 mand acceptance upon Ms authority. But it appears that. Sir James 

 adopted it from the Encxjdopcedia Briiannica (Letter to the Times, 

 July 22, 1879), and the estimate is, for two reasons, probably extrava- 

 gant. The gross annual value of the produce of the land in 1829-35 



