THE TITHE-OWNER AND TITHE-PAYER. 295 



it is to be most rapidly advanced. Entitled in most 

 countries to a certain fixed share of the produce of the 

 land, the larger that produce can be made, the greater 

 the revenue the clergy must yearly receive. And yet 

 experience seems to show that it is precisely when, as in 

 Scotland, the established clergy have the least interest in 

 the amount of produce yielded by the land, that agri- 

 cultural improvement has most progressed ; w^iIle it has 

 remained most backward, also, in those Roman Catholic 

 countries in which their interest has remained the 

 greatest. Every one, in fact, knows how the tithe 

 question has impeded rural improvement in countless 

 localities, even in England ; and how the titlie-com- 

 mutation measure has been introduced, in the hope of 

 removing the obstacles it presented, not more to rural 

 peace than to rural progress. 



It is not difficult to understand . how such obstacles 

 should actually arise out of what, at first sight, appears 

 likely to promote agricultural improvement ; how a 

 diversity of interest should exist between the cultivator 

 and the tithe-collector ; and how human nature should 

 stubbornly, though foolishly, refuse to adopt new methods 

 which would be more profitable to the farmer himself, 

 simply because they would at the same time be a source 

 of profit to another, who incurs none of the additional 

 labour, anxiety, or expense. 



There is, however, an indirect method by which 

 improvements are certain to be brought about — slowly 

 perhaps at first, but largely and generally in the end. 

 This method is the general difi'usion of knowledge 

 bearing upon the practice of agriculture. It is not by 

 prescribing new methods to old men — by staking our 

 chances of success on the hope of overcoming the pre- 

 judices of the most prejudiced class of society. It is by 

 instilling into young and unprejudiced minds the prin- 

 ciples according to w^hich all rural practice ought to be 



