176 PROTECTION AND TITHES 



increase, the surplus production which now floods our 

 markets were consumed in the land of its growth, the tithe 

 rent-charge would once more approach par value. Even its 

 present value is unduly depreciated by the alleged insecurity 

 of the tithe-owner's tenure ; it is worth far more if not only 

 the life tenant but the reversioner guarantee the title. Even 

 to those who hold no optimistic views of the immediate 

 future of farming, the sale of property of the nature of the 

 tithe rent-charge, even though a purchaser is found by 

 compulsion, appears little short of financial suicide. If 

 these improvements in the value of the charge appear too 

 distant or too problematical, it cannot be disputed that the 

 readjustment of local burdens is a measure of the imme- 

 diate future. Local taxation is the weight which really 

 crushes English farming ; relief has been long promised 

 and long deferred ; it cannot now be long postponed. 

 But the immediate result of any readjustment of the load 

 will be to enhance the net value of the rent-charge. If 

 the State holds the charge, the benefit of this certain rise 

 will be secured ; the national fund, and not any private 

 individual, will benefit ; and, until religion is voted to be 

 noxious or obsolete, the increased money will continue as 

 now to be sacred to religious trusts. At the same time, 

 so long as the State collects the fund, it can afibrd to be 

 generous with the additional value its own action creates. 

 The larger the reduction of local rates, the greater the gain 

 upon the tithe rent-charge, and the larger the sum which 

 might be devoted to such objects as the establishment of a 

 system of land transfer by registration, the equipment of 

 an efficient State department of agriculture, or scientific 

 and technical education in farming. 



