454 History of the English Landed Interest. 



introduced an impossible relationship between two dissimilar 

 payments, and which would have converted what was a charge 

 on the land's produce into a tax on the producer's capital. 



It might have been thought that the simplest process would 

 have been to have substituted for the value of the tithe in kind 

 its value in specie, but that, it was foreseen, would have rendered 

 the tithe-owner liable to serious losses on account of the depre- 

 ciation, then beginning, of the value of money. This, however, 

 did not apparently apply in the days of State protection to 

 what was termed a corn-rent. It was therefore proposed that 

 the average prices of grain should be taken during a certain 

 period, that the yearly value of the lands should be estimated 

 on this basis, and that a fifth, a sixth, or any other given 

 proportion of the free rent (after deducting all outgoings for 

 parliamentary taxes affecting the land), should be declared 

 due to the tithe-owner in lieu of tithes payable in kind. 



Pitt had a project for the total abolition of the tithe, and 

 the compensation of the clergy by making them stipendiaries 

 of the State. 1 Early in 1800 he prepared a Bill for this pur- 

 pose, and though it was strongly disapproved of by the 

 Attorney General, he persevered and submitted it to the king. 

 Happily the latter also objected, for it is possible that if the 

 commutation of the tithe for government securities had then 

 become law, the English clergy would have met with the same 

 disastrous fate that overtook their French brethren when simi- 

 larly circumstanced.- 



Another remedy was to substitute three instead of only one 

 of the great necessaries of life produced by the English hus- 

 bandman, and it was suggested that the combined prices of 

 corn, malt, and meat should be estimated out of the septennial 

 averages obtained from the market statistics. Lastly, in nearly 

 every proposal, allusion was made to some process or other of 

 redeeming the tithe-charge by means of so many years purchase. 



In 1835 Sir Robert Peel introduced a Bill embodying the 

 principles of a corn-rent, but vacated office before he had time 

 to push his measure through both Houses of Parliament. The 



* For a similar suggestion vide my })ook Laiul Af/ency, p. 231. 

 ^ Political Eegister, W. Cobbett. Price of Bread, August, 1804. 



