I 
British Agriculture. 329 = 63 
of the rent of arable land. In 1836 the money value of the Unexpected 
tithe, as compared with the land rental, was as four millions 
sterling to thirty-three. In 1876 the tithe was still four millions, l^jfs'e ln°th<f 
but the land rental had risen to fifty. If the old principle of income of the 
participation had continued, the annual income of the Church Church, and 
11 1 1 , Ml- . .1 ivT-.i increasing that 
would now have been two millions greater than it is. J\ either of the land- 
party anticipated a result to such an extent when the Tithe owners. 
Commutation Act was passed, for not for twenty years after that 
time had the rent of land in England recovered the heavy fall it 
experienced at the close of the war in 1815. It was not until 
the vast development of industry, under a policy of Free-trade, 
had so increased the general prosperity, that the value and rent 
of land began steadily to rise. It then became plain that 
under the operation of a law intended simply to encourage 
agricultural improvement, the community, represented by the 
Church, are gradually losing a part of their natural inheritance. 
The same change is in operation in the vicinity of the great 
cities and towns, where population and wealth increase and 
accumulate. An acre of land in such situations, which yielded 
in its natural state a rent to the landowner of 3/., and to the 
tithe-owner of 10s., when converted to building may produce 
a ground rent of 300/., besides the reversion to the landowner 
at the end of a long lease of the whole of the property erected 
on it by his lessee. No doubt, since the Reformation, the 
Church has been limited by law to the agricultural increased 
produce, and was not entitled to demand a share of the building 
value. But it was not contemplated that the landowners should 
thus obtain the whole growing value of the land without leaving 
any part of it for the support of religion. The operation of this 
change has been chiefly in favour of the better class of lands, 
those which from their quality and position have risen most in 
value. On the poorest kinds of arable land — the cold clays, 
and the thinnest chalk — the increased cost of labour has, in some 
exceptional cases, brought about a lowering of rent, while the 
tithe can undergo no diminution. The landowner in such case 
has to bear the loss, just as in the other he gets the gain. 
In a country like this, in which the inevitable tendency of Parish clergy 
increasing wealth leads to the gradual diminution of small estates, equivalent 
there would be some considerable loss to the ranks of small more than one- 
resident proprietors by any change which should lead to the fourth of the 
absorption of Church property. In every parish of the kingdom ii^'dent land- 
there is a resident landowner, who, as the clergyman of the parish, 'oool^a year 
receives in residence, glebe, and tithe, about a tenth part of its 
rental, which he spends within it, and in return for which he is 
the minister of rich and poor. The number may be about 12,000 
in England alone, with an average annual value of 300/. As 
