Late7' Agi'arian Legislation. 455 



following year Lord Melbourne's Government took in hand 

 the same Bill, and Lord John Russell successfully piloted it 

 through the various readings until it became law. It was to be 

 an arrangement, voluntary up to 1838, and compulsory after 

 that date, whereby the parties interested agreed to commute 

 the tithe into a corn rent payable in money. It was to be 

 permanent in quantity, but variable in value. The productive 

 powers of each farm were ascertained, once for all, by fixing 

 their tithe value in three equal portions converted into wheat, 

 barley, and oats. The average prices of these three corns were 

 obtained from the seven years' statistics, ending 1835, of one 

 hundred and eighty-ssven markets, and were found to be 

 7,s. O^tZ. per bushel for wheat, 3*. \\\d. for barley, and Is. 9dl. 

 for oats. That charge has, as Mr. J. Gr. Hubbard pointed out 

 recently, never since been altered " save in sympathy with 

 the general barometer of prices " adjusted annually according 

 to the septennial averages of corn sales in the scheduled 

 markets. 



The chief objects held in view by the legislature were to 

 remove as far as possible causes of friction between payer 

 and payee, to insure the latter against loss by depreciation in 

 the currency, and, by making the charge independent of the 

 letting value of land and the quality and quantity of produc- 

 tion, to put a stop to its deteriorating effects on the agricul- 

 tural enterprise of the farmer. 



There have been many complaints over this new departure 

 in tithe history, some of which it is well worth our while to 

 consider. 



The clergy themselves resented any interference with what 

 they have always regarded as private property, and have never 

 forgiven Lord John Russell for his justification of this step on 

 the plea that he was dealing with a national possession. They 

 also objected on religious principles to a remedy which, by 

 severing the connection of tithe with produce, cut away the 

 ground on which the Church had always based her claim ; for, 

 after 1836, the Mosaic Law, demanding of the producer one- 

 tenth of the earth's increase, no longer afforded the ecclesias- 

 tical tithe-owner a divine right to this possession. The clergy 



